Impressive One Shot Music Video

[David Barnett]

This video's come up a couple times in my viewing, I think after I get my Marshmello fix or something. Anyway, the mixture of steadicam, dancing, and timing, makes it a pretty impressive work of video. (I haven't even watched for lip synching timing). I searched and she claims she did it in only 2 takes, which, when factoring in the dancing & all is pretty hard to do, one would expect a blooper by someone at some point, especially her.

Kiesza - Hideaway (Official Music Video) - YouTube

Its a bit old, 2014, not sure if this was posted before.

[Josh Bass]

Pretty cool. I admit I spent the whole time trying to figure out how much of the location they had control of. I think you can kinda tell at the end when you see morons in the background goggling and filming with their phones.

[Paul R Johnson]

I think the planning for people appearing and disappearing was the thing - getting the people and the camera at the right place. I liked it because the camera just 'watched' and didn't do any clever stuff, just moving and staying centred and steady - that's what I like.

[David Barnett]

Originally Posted by Josh Bass

Pretty cool. I admit I spent the whole time trying to figure out how much of the location they had control of. I think you can kinda tell at the end when you see morons in the background goggling and filming with their phones.

Yeah, its definitely layered in that, with each viewing, you can focus on something different. There's some guys in the beginning when she starts walking down the street who watch & pull out their phones.

The taxi at the end perplexes me. That looks like a busy street so I doubt they had that shut down, on the flip side, that's a pretty risky move for a production to just go rogue and ad lib that. In the US, that's a bit of an insurance risk. A car or two seems to drive by the smaller streets she's on, so I'd guess it was all done without closing any streets.

[John Nantz]

I liked the skateboard guy who slipped through between the camera and the gal

Didn't see a lavaliere on the gal so was this synced from a studio audio take?
The audio seemed really clean for something that was recorded during the take.

[Josh Bass]

I would assume it's the studio track...I mean that's typically how it's done. Maybe someone walking behind camera guy with a boombox etc, playing track, she lip syncs

[John Nantz]

Thanks for the explanation, Josh,

Originally Posted by Josh Bass

I would assume it's the studio track...I mean that's typically how it's done. Maybe someone walking behind camera guy with a boombox etc, playing track, she lip syncs

This is a real Ah-Ha! moment. Sure, that really makes sense.

In order to get a really clean sound track, then, I would assume the "studio version" would be synced with the, ahem, boom box cam track. That would be much easier to do, provided the actor does a good job with lip syncing with the boom box.

Since it was stated that there were two takes then this almost has to be the way it was done because otherwise there would most likely be a small and visible jump between the two take connections. This technique will be really useful once this COVID-19 thing is over with provided my talent-artist gals don't grow out of their ideas of doing a music video.

Thanks again for the feedback.

[Josh Bass]

I mean I’m not CERTAIN, but I don’t think it purports to be a live musical recording, simply a music video, and since their inception, artists have simply lip synced to playback tracks.

These days even a boombox is possibly unnecessary...just play it out of your phone (if talent is close enough to hear)! Bluetooth battery powered speaker, earpiece that might not show up if shots are wide enough, etc.

I assume by two takes they meant they had to do it twice to get a good one. Doubt its two takes spliced together, rather, second was probably the keeper.

[Oren Arieli]

From what I've experienced, dancing plus singing in music videos is 99.9% overdubbed. You would hear a warble in the voice any time a person jumps...and getting short of breath is not conducive to a good vocal track. If it's done 'live' then you'll know it, especially if you play it alongside the studio version.
In regards to the taxi, all they had to do was tell the driver that in "4 minutes, 20 seconds...we need you to stop at this corner". They have a fixed length track, so there isn't much complication in closing roads to accomplish that last shot.