"Pretty Reckless" music video, shot on 1DMKIV and 5D
 

I've shot two videos for this band fronted by former Gossip Girl Taylor Momsen--the first has been tied up for months but should be released soon (I did some wild low-light shooting in the 2500-3200 ISO range on that one). In the meantime, I also shot their second release, "Miss Nothing", again for veteran director Mieirt Avis and Interscope Records.

Mieirt asked me for a crisp high-key fashion look to complement the visual inspiration of the Last Supper. We shot in a fantastic mansion perched above the ocean in Pacific Palisades (also used as the location for Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi" video); the great room was probably 60 feet long with a distinctive checkerboard of wood paneling. I had to devise a lighting scheme that would allow us to shoot ultra-wide with the camera all the way at one end of the room, and still come in close on the scene staged at the other end without causing shadows or requiring relight. I had four Image 80's mounted side-by-side on a speedrail goalpost which delivered an approximately 20'x4' band of soft light. This provided plenty of wrap even at the distance to subject, while allowing us to shoot the maximum amount of the room and still allowing for the source to be raised/lowered/adjusted in and out. Ultimately I never brought the source closer, but I did adjust the height for the sections where Taylor crawled under the table or walked across it. I had a teaser on an additional goalpost that darkened the top half of the back wall, plus a Source 4 that highlit the archway and a floor unit that gave the ceiling some presence.

Camera-wise, I had one 1DMKIV on a 15 foot Technocrane and another on Steadicam, manned by Cedric Martin. The Steadicam had a Litepanel Mini ring light onboard. We focused solely on Taylor, while Gary Hatfield ran around handheld with a 5D grabbing the great inserts on objects on the table and the band members and other observers. I shot at 1250 ASA, mostly around a 2.8/4. There were some 60 fps shots such as the pouring of water and the bottle breaking. I used the Zeiss ZE primes, from 21 to 100mm, while Gary was generally on the Canon 70-200.

I wasn't involved in the color correction but the final look was fairly close to camera original, just pushed a bit in contrast to slightly blow out Taylor's face.

well, that's the broad strokes...

As usual a top class video you have there, it must have been a pain putting all that stuff back on the table for more takes. Iv shot a music video myself once for urbnri............i bet you had that song stuck in your head for days! i know i did.

well done

Andy.

Ah, Charles, I love it when you talk lighting... :)

It turned out beautifully. Thanks, as always, for giving away your methods so the rest of us can try to apply them as best we can.

A behind-the-scenes clip on the making of this video has been posted:

Miss Nothing - The Pretty Reckless | Music Video | VEVO

Not a ton of "camera porn"--a few shots of the Technocrane, a few of the Steadicam, and a nice time-lapse that shows my big ol' light source under construction.

You can't see them outside the US unfortunately, by the way charles i saw you on the steadicam edition of science of the movies, i noticed they didn't put the big rig on Nar, I don't think he has the frame for it!.

Andy

thanks Andy--when it migrates to Youtube I'll post the link.

Here is the behind-the-scenes clip.

And here is the latest Pretty Reckless video, as I referenced in the first post. We shot this six months ago, it was a long battle to be released as it is even more racy/controversial. As a result there are quite a few frame blowups and effects laid on top.

The performance with the band was shot on green screen with HVX200's and the street and cemetery scenes were shot on the 1DMKIV with Ringlite on Steadicam.

Just one month later, ANOTHER Pretty Reckless clip! Just Tonight This came together very quickly a few weeks ago at an old armory in the Bronx. The concept changed a few times before the shoot so it was still gelling in the director's mind as we started shooting. Color palette (red and green with some yellow) was picked that morning...!

I put my poor electrics through hell on this, swinging lights around their heads and whipping gobos in and out. The shimmering effect with the frontal light during the non-performance bits was simply moving fingers around in front of a Leko (one hand in front of the other otherwise you can make out the fingers).

The rooftop shot was a last-gasp affair at the 17th hour--a couple of Litepanel Minis lit young Taylor (I held one in my outstretched hand while operating--awkward) while the LED Ringlite pulled off one of the cameras lit the tower behind her. 5000 ASA, with a Zeiss 50mm wide open at 1.4. It looks like dawn was breaking but it was still full night. Bizarre and interesting look!

Thanks for posting, Charles.

If you can spare a minute, I have a couple questions.

Speaking as an Autofocus Addict working events where I have nearly zero control--

-how does one pull focus from the Steadicam or boom?

-in Miss Nothing(Behind The Scenes), the band members mentioned a treatment...how much of the concept is known and spec'd out in advance, via a shot list or storyboard or other, vs how much is pick-up shots and running through the song over and over and grabbing what catches the eye?

-what motivated choosing the 1DMkIV?

thanks

Hi Scott.

I use a Preston Cinema Systems FIZ for remote focus on all my DSLR shoots, as well as on Steadicam and crane. It's the industry standard. Other comparable systems are the C-motion and Arri has their own. The best lower-cost system is the Bartech.

The Preston allows for full remote wireless control of up to three channels (focus, iris, zoom) with high speed and accuracy and under most conditions, no interference. For the assistant, as soon as they turn the knob in their hands, the lens responds accurately and repeatedly. The latest version of the handset has lens mapping, which when used in conjunction with lenses that offer hard stops (i.e. the Zeiss ZE's/ZF's but not Canon lenses) will not only expand the range, giving a full rotation of the knob to turn the minimal throw of the lens, but also map the focus marks so that a detailed breakdown of distances is provided (i.e. the knob will show 5', 5'3, 5'6 etc).

"Old school" focus pullers use a combination of measured reference distances, marks, triangulation, estimation and instinct to pull focus. There are sonar and laser devices that can assist with the process as additional references. All new focus pullers and many of the old ones now work partially or primarily from monitors; the good ones use it as yet another reference rather than rely on it to pull 100%, to avoid the "hunting" appearance of turning the knob past the focus point and then back again.

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Regarding the treatment for these videos. The director submits a treatment for approval by the label and artist that will describe the overall feeling of the video; it can be as detailed as telling the story of the video with individual shots described, or more general. It is rarely more specific than a breakdown--I've never seen one that resembles a script or shot list or storyboard. There will often be picture references included that can be anything from art photography to paintings to still frames from a movie--anything that gets everyone on the same page visually.

The last video, Just Tonight, was a last-minute affair where the treatment was completely revamped just days before shooting. Up to the morning of the shoot, the director and I were forming the look and the color palette; he would show me some of his previous videos (from his 30 year career!) to illustrate what he did and didn't want, which was very helpful. We had scouted the armory the day before the shoot and figured out where to place the band for the performance, as well as picked out five or six areas in the basement to shoot scenarios. Many were as loose as "we'll put her in there" and it wasn't until we were actually shooting that we solidified what was to actual transpire in the shot! For me this was a definite challenge to build the lighting and place cameras by taking my best guess of what the director might like and then modifying from there--all while under fantastic time restraints. This may have been the most improvisatory video I've shot yet in some ways, as detailed in the previous post.

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The 1DMKIV's were helpful as we shot in pretty low light levels--as the daylight died outside the large windows seen early in the video, I kept knocking down the overall lighting with scrims and opening up the ISO's (keeping similar apertures) on all cameras to allows us to shoot with visual continuity for several extra takes. I feel that I can shoot the 1D at ISO 1250 no problem; this one may have been 2500 a few times and as noted, one shot at 5000. I don't feel comfortable working the 7D anywhere near that, and I am wary of the tendency of that camera to overheat; I also am not crazy about the uber-shallow DOF of the 5D, forcing me to stop down to be able to give the AC's a chance to pull focus which renders the camera effectively slow. I find the size of the 1D's sensor to be a nice sweet spot inbetween the others and I love the extra speed (aka noise floor).

The first music video I ever produced just made it to Vimeo a couple days ago. It's ok, not great, I have to admit that I do not understand them. But I enjoy making them, or at least the one that I did so far. And it looks like I have the opportunity to do a couple more, including one that's over seven minutes long.

I'm watching your video for Miss Nothing, and while it does appear to tell a story in a linear sense, I like it.

How do you script a music video like this? I know you didn't just walk in there, roll a bunch of tape and then hope you can put it together in the editing room. It has to be some relationship between the image and the sound but it also has to be some nuts and bolts of knowing what leads to the next.

I'm somewhat surprised to think that you consider "Miss Nothing" a linear story video, Ivan. There's not exactly a progression of events there in my mind.

As I may have alluded to elsewhere, Meiert, the director, has a vision in mind for his videos and while he always leave room for exploration and spontaneity on set, he still has a good sense for the overall thing he is trying to achieve. With this one, he knew that he wanted Taylor to start in the chair, and eventually go on top of and under the table. As she played with the physicality of both, we figured out various specialty shots that would best show her and her actions. Having a Technocrane makes it a lot easier to be able to do this as you can get the lens anywhere you need in space that much quicker than with a fixed length jib, as well as be able to follow the action that much further through space.

While we don't have a script or shot list per se, I think the closest analogy is that while we are shooting, both Meiert and I are mentally cataloguing the good moments in a given take. You get a feel for how many solid bits you have, and if a particular setup could bear more fruit, we do another take. It's always a fight against the clock, so if we can move on, we do. Variety is of course important, you don't want to keep reusing setups so it's a tradeoff between making changes and getting more and possibly better shots within the same setup.

It's a touchy-feely thing. It's very different than most of my background which is scripted, so it does offer some interesting freedom here and there. Certainly from a visual perspective, where I don't have to worry about continuity or "correctness". Often the more f'd up, the better.

So much for proof reading, I did leave the all important "n't" off of does, as I was unable to detect a linear story in the video.

Thanks, I'll look up some of your other posts.

And I had never heard the song before but it's now been added to my rotation.

Ivan

Haha, well that makes more sense now!

The only video I've done of late that carries a narrative was this one, for the band Halestorm. And the storyline progresses in a somewhat non-linear fashion. Coming from a narrative background I enjoy doing this sort of thing. The director and I collaborated on a film noir feature 5 years ago so this was an easy fit! We know all about shooting men in fedoras...

At 1:23 when she is walking backward did she trip over something?