country music video on Sony PMW350K

[Chris Tangey]

This is our latest for Country gospel singer Steve Grace. As we're 1000miles from the nearest city in any direction I need to do just about everything here, so I am on camera, jib, dolly and get to edit it too, though I'd rather somebody else did! Hope you like it.

Music video- Western desert sun Steve Grace on Vimeo

[Tom Bostick]

Great Video Chris! you really made the 350 shine in this :)

Those helicopter shots were breathtaking

I assume this was shot in Australia?

A few Constructive criticisms I had.

The flow of the video was really good until you got to the pictures.

If you went back and added short 7-15 second cross dissolves, from the pictures back into the videos it would really smooth it out.

Also if you do that, extend the zoom and rotation to the very end of it so that its seamless.

A few of the crane shots had some wobble.

The pictures needed a little bit of saturation and contrast added to them to match the video.

Are you shooting with the basic 350k setup? (body and 16x fuji lens)

Great video! I look forward to seeing more from you :)

[Chris Tangey]

Tom, yes it's all a standard PMW350k rig and all shot in Central Australia. The helicopter shots were smoothed out with the fabulous little FCP lock and load plug in, not cheap but turns shooting out the door shots into what look like they are on nose mounts. It's also fabulous for wind bumps.

Thanks for the very constructive criticism, all of which I will look at. Sometimes I'm afraid I get too close in the edit and become a "can't see the woods for the trees" Editor.

[Bob Thompson]

Chris, Nice job, the locations were well thought out. I have the same feeling of the stills as Tom, but I wouldn't make the dissolves as long as he suggests.

The music recording was well done.

I loved the "Red Earth", made me homesick for that part of OZ

Bob

[Chris Tangey]

Thanks Bob, strangely enough the recording was done in a guy's garage in Alice with Steve doing the harmonies as well. He was a very experienced Recording engineer though, just temp. in Alice.
I think it works in its simplicity.

Yes, I'm thinking now the dissolves won't be approaching that length but I'll have a play. I wish I had known you'd drop in Bob, as a couple of mates from Alice are in Hongkers right now, they could have brought you a jar of red sand! Thanks again.

[Chris Tangey]

Ok have made some changes, hope you like them:

Music video- Western desert sun Steve Grace on Vimeo

[Bryan Gilchrist]

Love the colors...very vivid! Did you do any color correction on it other than shot matching?

Other than that, very good video!

[Chris Tangey]

Bryan, I just used the plain old 3 way color corrector, usually slightly dropping the whites and mids which tends to give it a more saturated look anyway and sometimes sightly lifting saturation as well. A little tip if you are ever shooting in "red" country, always shoot with the light, if you shoot against it sand etc, turns into creamy pink instead of red. Was going to use "Color" but didn't get around to it.

[Chris Tangey]

Forgot to mention, too, that the dramatic sky in the second shot with Steve walking across the sand dune was achieved by one of my favorite tricks.

Duplicating the shot and placing it above the original in the timeline, then cropping out the lower half of the top one feathering the edge and individually color correcting just the sky. Simple but effective.

[Trent Watts]

Originally Posted by Chris Tangey

Bryan, I just used the plain old 3 way color corrector, usually slightly dropping the whites and mids which tends to give it a more saturated look anyway and sometimes sightly lifting saturation as well. A little tip if you are ever shooting in "red" country, always shoot with the light, if you shoot against it sand etc, turns into creamy pink instead of red. Was going to use "Color" but didn't get around to it.

When I'm trying to make my colors pop in FCP, I usually do the opposite: raise the highlights a tad, crush the blacks a tad, and boost saturation just a lil.

Good video overall, especially considering you were a one man band, but being the type of guy I am, I have to give you some criticisms which I hope you'll take as being only constructive.

1 - The pictures were a bit jarring any way you use them. I'd get rid of them and spend an extra day getting candid shoulder mounted video of the artist with the people or not use the pics at all.

2 - Being that your subject is a good distance from a lot of his backgrounds, I think a lot of the closer singing shots could really benefit from camera movement that rotates slowly around the singer, adding movement to the static shots. You can achieve this with a 3 foot glidetrack.

3 - I felt that overall, your shots lacked intimacy and I always felt there was too much distance to connect with the singer. Closer, handheld shots may have solved this. Sillhouting shots would look great out in that desert too.

4 - Why didn't you use the helicopter shots more??? They look fantastic!

Though for your next video, I'd forget about all that rigging equipment and just focus on adding more texture and style to your compositions.

[Chris Tangey]

Thanks for your comments Trent