My new Music Video
 

Hey, I shot this video with my sony trv900. I have the pana DVX now but didnt get it in time for this video. If any of u guys live in NYC than youll be happy to find it in your next taxi cab ride (taxi tv) Anyway tell me what u guys think.

New Link

All compositing was done in AE 5.5 Pro Bundle and editing was done in Avid XDV 3.5.

-Emery

Wow, that's visually great work!

Please provide more details on the production, I'd love to hear.

Yeah, just great work, visually. :D (i'm saying I don't like the song, for the people who can't catch a joke, heh)...

Anyway, WOW!!!! Dude, please give me some more details, what did you do in post, and what did you do overall to make it look that good? Especially the parts with her closeup and the wide bars, that looked great.....how the.....?

My new Music Video
 

Beautiful, Emery, as is your star attraction. Also the first streaming piece encoded with that high a bit rate that has played flawlessly on my old PC! Thanks for the experience.

David Hurdon

Really impressive work Emery. Congrats.

Hey thanx for all the compliments guys. So here are some more production details...

First off our budget was only $300. Not really enough to call it a budget at all. So I worked by my self along with one make-up artist. Lighting was scarce as u might be able to tell from some of the scenes. I was using a cheap smith vector 500W quartz lamp X 3 for lighting.

I used a glidecam 2000 pro for the shots that are waving all around.

Probably the biggest factor for the whole "film look" would be that I first sped up the music to the song and then played the sped up version for her to lip sing to while we shot. Than I slowed everything down in post to match the original speed of the song. It was slowed down 15%. I simply hate the temporal quality of video so that was a must.

One mistake I made was shooting at a slow shutter speed. At the time I was unaware that it is best to shoot at a high shutter speed when your going to do slow mo. I dont think I would have had enough light to shoot at the higher shutter speed anyway so I guess it all worked out.

For the crowning glory of the video "the butterfly" scene, I shot her against a black backround and pulled a luma matte. Knowing the horrible colorspace in DV I felt the luma matte was appropriate. I wound up having to garbage matte certain areas on her face/body that were getting pulled from the matte (specifically her eyes.) But it wasnt too difficult and I think I was better off going luma than green screen.

The backround in the scene is %100 CG. I basically used Particle Illusin right out of the box for the backround stuff. The sky was created using tinderbox sky.

Well thats enough for now, i have to get back to work. Again thanx for allt he great comments.

-Emery

Oh well, too bad I can't view the video.

WMP on a Mac plays ONLY AUDIO no video :(

Got a QuickTime version I can watch?

I'm having problems seeing the video on my PC as well.

-Nori

I am pretty sure it's windows media 9...get the newest windows media player...

I encode my stuff in WM9 for the web also, well I used to, but I stopped when I found out not everyone had WM9, and just ended up getting audio and not video. I'll stick with WM8 for now, until everyone gets around to installing WM9.

hmm well, the latest version of WMP is is 7.1 for MacOS

I'll wait 'till I get home and try it on MacOSX maybe it'll work.

Still, you should have it on both formats WMP and QT :)

woah, shes pretty hot. lol...oh yeah, and nice work! it looks great:)

ok so I encoded a quicktime for u guys. Its actually an mpeg4 so u need quicktime 6.0. And the Win media version is WMV9 so if u dont have 9 it wont work. The quicktime doesnt seem to be DLing progressivly so it takes a while to load. Ill work on that, but in the meantime its there for those of you who wanna see it.

quicktime
http://www.stormwaveent.com/tests

WMV9
http://www.stormwaveent.com/movies/...FULL_medium.wmv

-Emery

Looks great Emery, really beautiful work, especially in light of the budget. Nice, fluid, production. How much time was involved in filming? Tom

This thing looked great! I've seen music videos shot on film that weren't up to broadcast standards. This thing is really impressive for the resources that were used to create it.

Thanks Emery for uploading a QT version of your music video.

Your work is impressive!! Congratulations!!!

As stated before. Maybe you would like to share a few tips on how you were able to accomplish this..... I know you already gave some basic information... but what I would really like to see maybe a "How To Shoot a Music Video" tutorial and of course using your music video and just explaining the details on how you were able to do it with such small budget and limited resources.
Maybe the tutorial could be posted on this website for all to learn from....

I hope you consider this request seriously since it looks like I'm not the only person interested on learning your techniques.

I do have a few constructive comments about the video that I thought could make the video flow better on telling the story of the song but right now i'm in the middle of final exams and don't have the time to type. But I will as soon as I'm done with them.

I concur. This thing really looked great, and the fact that you were able to make it on such a shoestring budget, makes me drool for more info.

Hey guys, thats cool that u like it so much. I dont know about writing a tutotial. Im not sure there is really a formula. But Id be more than happy to share more details. Give me a few days, im in the middle of editing and have deadlines approaching.

-Emery

we will be waiting. that was excellent work

Very nice. I like the compositing work but especially like the editing, and it shows that you either have done a few music videos or just have a natural eye for it.

With those results on that budget, its a wonder you have time to post since you must have people knocking your door down now.

T.

I was quite impressed with the overall quality of the video. There were parts that I didn't like- too quick and choppy, and too wavy in parts. I was impressed by her beauty as well, which is why I didn't like the wavy/foggy stuff, and the choppiness detracted from the flow.

The effects and the shooting were fantastic. I would like to see more of your work in the future.

Coming from a Newbie's perspective, it looks like a Professional Product! Very nicely done! Great effect, but they weren't so flashing that it distracted to much from the video itself. There was enough movement to keep the audience interested and tuned into the vocalist.

~KUDO'S~

^^^I agree. This is definately professional looking stuff to me.

Good craft, Emory.

I thought there was a bit *too much* waving about with the camera.

The mascara running I did not like. It made the girl look very scary.

The AfterEffects stuff was top notch.

Yeah, that is probably the only thing that I would of done less of -- the camera going "nuts" (waving)...

Otherwise, it's great...

Emery

What plugin did you use for the film reel effect?

Thanks

Hey everyone... thanx for all the great constructive criticism. I have to say that i agree with pretty much everything you guys have been saying.

The whole video was a one man show. My "PA's" aka (friends) punked out on the night of the shoot. So it was basically just me, a make-up girl and three actors including the artist. I was able to secure a location at a restaurant that a friend of mine owns. The place had two floors and the top floor was closed on sundays. So I had from dusk till closing (about 1AM) to shoot all the interior scenes in the upper dining room. A good 20 tables and 70 chairs all had to be moved out. So basically I was strapped for time. I didnt get to shoot almost 70% of what i had laid out in the story boards, which is why the camera is so static (except of course for the nausiating wavy scenes:-) ) I knew that if i atleast got my locked down shots first... Id have a video. There was originally a much more elaborate story line, but due to time we werent able to get any of it... i was very dissapointed.

All the chopyness you guys may be seeing is due to compression. It is chopped up in a lot of places but the scenes that just look like they have little "glitches" are actually where the screen is supposed to warp and turn a "surveillance greenish" (like video distortion) color. In any event... yeah it is a little too choppy. :-)

The bedroom set was built from a couple benches pushed together, some sheets, and pillows. Not the most elaborate set but it was supposed to feel very "empty" which hit the sweet spot for our budget.

The film reel effect was not a plug-in. I made it the old fashioned way.... takin a film reel and adding a luma key. Pretty simple actually.

Exterior stuff was shot outside under full natural light with no diffusion or bounce cards. I cant tell u how many times we kept gettin the boot by park security:-) For those of you who dont live in NY... its very hard to shoot anywhere in public without a permit.

The crowning glory of the video... what i like to call "the butterfly scene." Was shot in my bedroom against my black window curtains. Knowing that i would be pulling a luma key i made sure there was nothing black or too dark on her. I did wind up having to garbage matte her eyes and parts of her hat.

As far as some kind of "tutorial" all I can say is this...

Work on projects you believe in... if you dont like the song then you probably shouldnt do it. Atleast thats the way i think. Secondly, when your working with video, learn how to be a good digital artist. Video simply looks crappy to me and I put alot of time into making it look more filmic. Lastly, be technical. If you dont know the technical side of things then get some1 who does or learn it yourself. When your running the one man show you need to know all sides of the game. Once you have all that down your free to let your creative spirit run wild.

ok so that wasnt a tutorial at all.

I never went to film school and I cant begin to tell you the immense amount of information and knowledge ive gathered at this and other forums. Im glad to be part of this one and ill post some more stuff when its done. Ive got a few REALLY great videos in post right now. Ill post when they are complete.

-Emery

I can imagine that you were dissapointed that you weren't
able to shoot everything (I know the feeling). But in the end
you made a fine product and thats what counts!

very good stuff.

As you will see from shooting, most projects rarely get exactly what they set out to get originally. events always seem to conspire against you, and locations become hard to secure.

That's why some people perfer to shoot certain things on soundstages where they have the time to shoot and reshoot as long as they need it for. Shooting on location adds a great level for certain stories, but the added logistical nightmare can put pressure on getting all your shots.

But as long as you have the basics down, and get enough to cut with, something can always be salvaged, sometimes better than what you thought it would be.

I think I see your shadow on behind the singer when she is sitting on the bench and your are moving the camera around. At about 3:31.

Chris -- Good eye. I would of never caught that if you didn't point it out. No big deal though, not many people will be able to see that. It's not a very harsh shadow either.

hey just wanted to let every know that i had to change the URL for the video. It can now be found at

http://www.stormwaveent.com/movies/Kali Hawk-Pintak.wmv

If an adminstrator could change the link in my first post that might help. Thanx guys.

-Emery

It has been changed....

-Nori

Very nice Nori! had to watch it several times over....keep up the good work!