Yesterday I filmed a music video for my friends wife, she is releasing her new album soon and needed a video. It was a very simple shoot and we got some amazing shots however, this project is extremely unique and I’ll explain why. Before I go any further I do not recommend going about projects in this way and neither do I want clients approaching me with planning it this way.
Every Project Is Different
My good friend Fred text me last Friday asking me if I can film some behind the scenes of his wife’s photoshoot. I said sure! Especially its slow for me in the summer I can use the extra cash, why not? It’s the day of the shoot and just as I’m getting my gear ready he mentions to me if we can film her singing also. I asked him if this is a music video and what exactly do they need?
He tells me that it was a last minute idea that his wife figured maybe to shoot a little music video. She was hoping that Fred and I wouldn’t be too mad because he has mentioned to her in the past that it takes planning and its not ideal to just slap something together on a shoot. I agreed to the project and also because they are really good friends of mine so I didn’t have a problem at all.
Now knowing that I’m walking into a music video I brought a slider, two LED lights and two cameras with some tripods. Anything can happen so I figured let me come prepared but I couldn’t bring all of my gear either just in case it would be overkill.
During the photoshoot I got some BTS but we also went location scouting because we were at an old factory that now books events such as weddings and art shows. After the photoshoot we started working on some shots. We stayed in the same room and took advantage of the big windows that let a lot of soft lighting to come through. Especially there were some lights that were already setup so I got my creative juices flowing.
Time To Get Creative
Behind Rebecca was an alter for a wedding and we wanted to stay away from it looking like one so we placed her behind it towards the window. We got natural soft light from outside and I lowered the T-stops to get a super blurred background. The lightbulbs hanging were amazing because it gave it a nice bokeh effect and you couldn’t tell where she was.
Later on we found a big mirror in the bathroom that was against the wall, so we removed it and placed it in the main room. I lit her with an LED and some orange gel to keep the warm look. We also used the slider and it was a nice moving shot as she’s approaching the mirror while performing.
These were just some of the things we came up with on the spot without any planning and minimum gear and crew. We managed to finish in about two and a half hours also racing against the sun. But if we lost light we didn’t care so much because we had nice lighting from indoors anyway. We also got some nice shots in slow-motion at 60fps and 120fps. I did not shoot 4K because my computer isn’t able to handle it as well and even though I can edit in proxy I still didn’t feel like shooting in 4k. OMG I know right!? Not shooting in 4K and following the crowd shame on me. I’m just very confident in my work that it doesn’t matter what resolution I shoot it will come out good regardless. People can’t tell anyway and higher res doesn’t make your craft look that much better. I’ve seen people shoot 6K on a Red and it looks like it was done on a Canon T3i at best. No offense Canon but I think I’ve made my point here.
The Right Way Of Doing Things
Now ideally when I do music videos this is not my approach at all. However it was a challenge because I’m at an unfamiliar location, two man crew, no preproduction, and we have about two hours. It was still fun though because I love what I do and that’s the most important part about any field. I always listen to the song and get a feel for it and I bounce ideas back with the artist to see if they already had something in mind before I’m given the green light to take full creative control.
Next, I get into locations, scheduling, storyboarding depending if we are telling a story or not and I’ll make arrangements for crew. I’ll determine what gear I will be using and if its a certain look that I will be going for as far as lighting goes then I will make lighting plots.
And finally I’ll go over everything with the artist before the shoot date and also the day of. As you can see this was not the case for me but we still achieved an amazing looking video and I can’t wait to start editing it. Again I highly recommend to avoiding a last minute unplanned approach because I won’t always be this lucky and neither will you. Plan accordingly to execute with excellence.