Wow!
Just did the preliminary shoot of my first music video since 1963 when I worked for Gene Weed of "The Film Factory" when they were known as "Song Films".
Paul Hoyle, an Emmy award winner for musical production, asked me to do the video on music video he was directing. He, his wife Nancy and our Rabbi Rebecca Lillian of Temple Beth Or, wrote the lyrics and Paul the music. A young performer, Liza Berse sang.
It is a social concsiousnous song and the lyrics strongly influenced the images.
Liza's mom, Jennifer, picked up all of the rest of the production: keeping the talent happy (no problems for we all thought it was fun), lunch, playback, makeup, stylist, wordrobe, driver, well you get the idea. We had a great crew of four, Paul, Jennifer, Liza and of course me.
Paul and I have some pickup shots to do and then comes the editing session.
We shot blue screen in my studio and then moved to the location on the grounds of Temple Beth Or, using their gardens and landscaping.
So far one hour 20 mintues on tape done on my GL-2. We will edit on my laptop with Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5.
No glitches. None.
Playback was so good my wife wanted to know if it was real or playback. That was the first postive breakthrough for if she could not tell then we had 99% of tech accomplished. All that succes goes to our star, Liza, for we were able to get "five camera" takes with my one GL-2.
Blue screen will be replaced with B&W images to get across the lyrics.
I will update, as permitted for I am only the DP and editor.
Yours,
Tom Elliott

Congratulations!...It's always nice when you don't run into any major problems with a shoot....
I'm currently editing my first attempt at "concert" video....Unfortunately, I also have to play in the band so I can't be doing the actual shooting....We put on our own event and I used 3 camcorders....1. my old TRV510 D8 getting the sound from the board and with a wide shot of the whole stage, 2. a Pannasonic "somethingorothermodel" 3 chip on mainly the main vocalist with a med. shot....also with an audiotechnics mic for ambient crowd sound, and 3 a mobile operator with my GL2 for closeups and crown reaction shots...
The Gl2's footage looks fantastic....the D8 is a bit overexposed and I'll only use any footage from it if I have nothing else....and the other stationary of the singer was OK....Next time I'd have a mobile operator and hire another guy to man one of the stationary cams....I think I'll be able to edit something reasonably good though out of the 6hrs. of footage I've got...Not bad considering our $0 budget
Len

Nice one Tom! - The XM2 is a superb piece of kit for the price. Every time I use it I get stunned by what it can capture and present.

Would REALLY like to see some footage of your work? - Yeah?

Grazie

Yeah, when you've got something you can show . . . please do . . .

Many thanks for the commentary and request so see some footage.
1st. Some corrections: Paul won a Latin Grammy and Liza's correct name is Eliza.
2nd. Given the style of music videos I probably should have shot in a wider aspect ratio.
3rd. And yes I will post some footage, however two things we still have to get some cutaways for further telling of the lyrics and also I do have to get permission from Paul, and last but not least, learn how to convert the files to be able to post some footage on the internet. As I said we are editing with Premiere Pro 1.5. I am hoping that I can do everything Paul wants and not have to purchase more software.
All in all was a great experience. Paul was happy with the coverage to date and we have another artist who wants a music video. However we are waiting untill this one is finallized.
Meanwhile I have to get the footage on the hard drive so Paul can view it.
I did some photos for him for his web site. This a page they appear on:
http://homepage.mac.com/paulhoyle/orchestralarrang.html
What is interesting is that he is Mac based I am PC based.
All for now, and I promise you all will see some footage as soon as I get clearances and better yet when the project is finished and in the can.
Yours,
Tom Elliott

Minor up date:
Paul Hoyle e-mailed me an MP3 of the song. I burned a CD copy of the song and then loaded it into the project. Lined up the the video with the MP3. So far so good PERFECT sync. The talent made it happed. This Sunday Paul and I going out to do the gehtto/rich backgrounds. He will drive and I will shoot with the GL2. Because of both of our other professional commitements we pland on a two hour shoot, not neccesarily two hours of video, but just the two hours to get what we think we might need.
Tom

Out late last night to get some more "b" camera cutaways. Rained like crazy on Lincoln Road Mall here in "Sunny" Miami.
Still need more.
However I showed the first rough cut to my client, Paul Hoyle the music producer. He loved it and coached me on the general techniques of cutting musicals.
This project has been nothing short of a "silver box" assignment = perfect assignement in all ways and a great way to learn Premiere Pro 1.5 and my GL2.
Also learning how to work "with" others. I know now why making films is a team effort. I like it. Of course this team is only four: me, Paul (person who hired me and the producer/director), Eliza (the performer), Jennifer (Eliza's mom/makeup/costume/general gaffer best "boy".
After showing the rough cut, rumour has it there is more money to come. YES!!!
Yours,
Tom

Tom, Go 4 It!

Graze

Whew!
Final cut done yesterday in an intense 5 hour session.
Well, intense for me anyway, a walk in the park for Paul Hoyle. He was VERY patient for he know all the keyboard short cuts. I am now on a mission to
1: Get a training DVD on Premeire
2: Get a keyboard just for Premeire
3: Learn the keyboard shortcuts
4: Practice, practice, and....practice
5: DREAM HARDWARE (aside from a faster box) DUAL MONITORS like maybe 36inchers!?!?!?
Friends have told me that when Paul is in his editing suite for music, it is like watching a concert pianist playing the "Flight of the Bumble Bee".
Paul was VERY VERY patient with me.
The session probably could have been much shorter had I been more familiar with Premiere and knew the keyboard strokes.
Also a minor glitch: Make sure all, and I mean ALL cables are FIRMLY connected. My firewire was not thus we only had the the laptop monitor to veiw our work on.
I went to the Photoshop Convention that was held here in Miami and got trial versions??? (two cds) of the newest Production Suite. I am presently looking for a way to load it without disterbing my current installation of Premiere Pro 1.5 for it works. Would loading it on an external HD be the way to go??
Anyway the experience was great and Paul and I agreed that it was fun and a growing experience.
I am looking for more clients like Paul. Not only for music videos, but just clinets in general with his patience and coaching skills.
Thanks Paul.
All for now. Now working on archiving the master cut and learning how to repurpose the video for different kinds of presentations.
For now,
Tom

Meeting with Paul Hoyle today to resolve sync problem of half of a frame off.
I think I solved it about three am this moring using the slip tool on the master sound track. Since it was not LOCKED to picture the Slip Tool works on the sound track the same as it does on the picture tracks, at least I hope it did.
I frankly need his eye and ears to make sure.
Other than that I am ready to burned the DVDs (did already but the synce problem showed up) and prepare the video for you guys and gals to see.
Tom

DID SOLVE THE half frame sync problem.
Since he has a Mac I now have to figure out on how to send him a edited music video file so he can add credits and repurpose the file for the internet.
Tom

I know I have said this before, however just made a quicktime and sent it to Paul for approval.
There is to be a small concert to kick off Eliza's cd and the video will be shown at that time AND I am also to video the event.
Because of a head bobbling out of frame at the top, did a last minute "Letterbox" croping so one can see the her head. Not shot with letterbox in mind, but at least random overscans won't do more damage. Waiting for approval. I might have to do a little less that the offical letterbox so that compositions aren't completely ruined. Maybe make it cropped to safe titlel areas.
We shall see.
Yours,
Tom

Tom,

I am looking forward to seeing your music video as soon as you can get it up and running.
I will be doing my first comercial music video this summer. One muscian playing all the instruments to the song. Wants to have three of himself on stage. That may be a challange.

Wow, three of the star in one shot! Back in the late 60's that was an incredible feat of special EFX. I think ABC-TV did it first with one of their shows.
Now I am sure it is much easier, however can it be done with the Adobe Suite? Since reading your e-mail I have been trying to figure it out. Wouldn't one take have to have your star against a blue/green screen? Or do you intend to roto all the takes with After EFXs?
All the best to you,
Yours,
Tom

I was going over it with the performer this afternoon. The plan is to shoot with a country background, probablly hilly not overly to much detail. I will place the original footage with the musician to one side of the wide screen and back a bit. I will then croma key in the musician playing the other instruments setting up to place one center and one to the other side. At least that is the plan.
I have preimere pro and after effects so i will get it done one way or the other.
I also do not plan to run all three together for the full length of the video but rather short segments scattered through the video using close ups between the various shots.

I have a freind that is a pro photogapher and I will borrow his studio to do the chroma shoots.

I am looking forward to the challange of it all, definitely the most complex project i have undertaken. Onoy hope I can pull it off.

I am open to any suggestions, that is for certain!!

Dale,
What a great challenge/opportunity!
I assume that you will really learn a lot, especially keyboard shortcuts ;-).
I know that in doing "What About Now?" (title of the video I just finshed) that was a major skill and wall to over come. Paul Hoyle, my client, is mac based and he knew MY pc keyboard short cuts, so I was embarrasingly forced to learn. I am glad I did for the final cut (shown last night, Friday, Miami, Florida local time) went very fast. Also in learning those key board strokes, the current five hours of a wedding I did about three weeks ago has gone much smoother and quicker. The five hours was reduced to 90 minutes with a minimum of effort.
Oh, the best of all, when the music video was shown to the congregation of Temple Beth Or, it was .... well, let's say now I have a just a little idea about how it must feel to get the Oscar!! Right now if music videos is all I ever do, I will be a most happy camper.
The process of making the video was ... just great. I am basically a photojournalist and am accustomed to being a loan wolf, answering only to my own instincts. This video has shown me that being a part of a team, going for the same target, is one of the many aspects of being human all about.
Ok, ok, didn't mean to get all preachy or wet eyed ;-)
It was fun and I am looking forward to the next one.
I am getting up a list of people/venues that I want to show the video to.
Since it is NOT my video I do have to get permissions to show it off. Paul is doing the final credits and that will be the version that I will show. I am hoping that it will only be a few more days untill I can show it off.
The singer, Eliza, sold about 25 or 30 of the CD last night. Of course it was friends and so forth but I like to feel that the video had something to do with it. She is a talent. The six takes were in perfect sync and easy to sync up in post.
OH!! Yea!! Best news is that my CFO (my wife) has given the go ahead to upgrade my copies of PhotShop and Premeiere Pro 1.5. I have the 30 day trial of the latest Adobe suite. It will be put on the laptop this week end and guess where I'll be at two in the mornings those 30 days.
So, Dale, we all will be waiting and watching this thread, at least I will.
Yours,
Tom

Ok.
Here is a link to the music video.
http://www.tom-elliott-photography.com/Eliza_Video
I would like lots of input from all of you out there. The mainthing is I would like to have better quality for internet viewing.

Tom,

I am very impressed. I liked the contrast between the black and white sceenes and the color. I am not a great judge of music videos to be honest.

I noticed a couple times something covered over the top right corner of the screen.


Was the performer wearing the green top for a reason?? kind of blends in with all the green shrubery and such.

there was a shot I liked, did you move forward while you were zooming back or what??

Curiously, did you record the song independently or line up multiple tracks?

Hope I can do something as nice.

Dale,
Thanks for taking the time to view and notice things.
I get so close that I miss stuff. I will look again for the upperright corner "thingy"
I probably did move and zoom at the same time, though not intentional like Hitchcock.
I was given a master audio by Paul Hoyle. Then Eliza would sing in sync to each take (six - three studio blue screen three location woods). I had the actual take sound track to line up with the seperate good track, deleted the video track and then finetuned the seperate good sound to her lips. One of the "secrets" is to have the star actually sing so that you see the muscles in the face and throat work. If you just mouth it no stress shows in the face and even if in perfec sync it does not "feel" "look" in sync. Still experimenting with different web codecs to get the best playback on the net.
Paul knows his keyboard editing shortcuts, thus the pressure was on me to come up to his level. Glad I put in the effort for IT VASTLY FASTER using the keyboard.
Thanks again for taking the time.
Yours,
Tom

Tom,

thanks for the tip on having them sing, After watching your video I am also wondering if i can actually blue screen two other images into the amount of space.
any thoughts?

I don't really know, really know any exact steps to take so you can do it. I have a fictional story about the various ages of my star which would involved carefull casting.
Some possible obvious things to look out for:
1: Match quality and direction of the light in all the shots, blue screen or location.
2: Movement of the star in relation to the background/other takes I would assume one would have to be "Monk" like in tracking movements in all superimposed tracks: IE: panning right to left in the woods (if I were to redo my video) to match the movement of my stare same speed, same lighting, same general picture quality. If all is soft then each track equally visually soft.
BOY! My brain is hurting just getting the above down on paper ;-)
I can see why movies sets are closed to all except those involved and why it takes so long to get somposite shots done. Easier now with the computers but way back you had to wait for the labs to do their magic.
Now you can play with out busting the bank except for the time it is going to take to get all the pieces you need for the composites. In this case I don't think there would be possible to have too much preproduction planning.
As to enough space, I would rehearse with the star and other actors playing his other selves to get the composition down so you can leave room for the composite to work. You can resize the frames but I do not know how that will effect matching the quality and feeling of theshots.

Have fun by all means.
Yours,
Tom

Tom,

I thought of the lighting issues already. size issues have been a concern for me to be sure. But, your idea of working it out with sub actors for position and practice is a great idea I had not actually thought of yet!! I Had also thought of having him do walk ins to the sceene with a new instrument while he plays the background accordian or such. I am going to diagram it all out first. You are right that you can't plan enough for this one.
I have a bible camp promotional video I will start on in mid July and I will do some practicing on that. my day job seems to be getting in the way of my having fun!!
I have been working on presets, what a mind bender in itself. the learning curve has turned into a treacherous cliff climb, with an overhang at that!!

Dale,
It is not that I am an early riser ... I just go to bed late!! ! !
I have one heck of a "debriefing" for my first music video.
Once I knew what the words were and more or less the theme, the photography part was a snap. . . no pun intended.
Post, for me, was hell.
First the sync.
Then matching from scene to scene, not too bad, and it can always be better.
Getting a high to good cross platform resolution so my client can add his own credits.
He showed me, what he wants to be presented and I can do my copies myself.
An uncompressed AVI file of three minutes was 800MB!
I never did get a dvd of just a data file he could work with.
What we ended up doing was I printed to tape on my GL-2 and he then recaptured on his G4 Apple.
It does look goooood! And he really liked the DVD that played on his set top player for his family.
Just a straight 3 minute bit, no chapters, titles or credits.
The music CD is out and doing well.
Here is a link to the CD: http://cdbaby.com/cd/elizarose
Go there or be square. Go to the photos section and you will see yours truly, with the clap board and the young singer, Eliza. Yes that is my studio all of 22x20 feet plus a 7x14 working color/B&W darkroom. I have only used the darkroom three times since Hurrican Andrew and that was to teach my grandson how to make B&W prints.
Great group of people to work with. Now going the last quarter inch to get it out in the market ... well, that is VERY INTERESTING! Let me tell you, agents and buisness managers are worth their weight in gold. Let them suffer the slings and arrows of mankind, I just want to make film stories.
Here is the link on my site to see the video, and you might have better luck by just downloading the video and then playing it back:
http://www.tom-elliott-photography.com/Eliza_Video
Well, now to bed kiddies, for from tomorrow on through till next wednesday the inlaws are coming and going to be present when my grandson, Max, is Barmitz Vahed.
I of course am the unoffical still and video guy for the event.
Yours,
Tom