Music Video Created in Vegas 8

[Sean Seah]

Originally Posted by James Binder

Brian –

Edit:

Vegas 8
Some Digital Juice ‘swipes’ used in post
All footage shot with audio playback 125%
All footage slowed to 75% in post
Each shot manually synced in post to pre recorded audio track

Thanks guys – your comments are much appreciated

Nice job James!

MAy I understand what u meant regarding the audio playback playback to 125% during the shoot? Does it mean u were playing the song at 125% speed during the shoot while she lip sync to that?

In Post, you slow down the video+audio to 75% but how do u match the 100% speed audio? I think I saw a tutorial on this at digital juice but u need something like an EX1 to achieve the slow mo.. would appreciate yr inputs!

[Sean Seah]

Found it.. I think I understand wat u r saying now. I'm wondering for the folks that have under cranking cameras like the EX1, how should it be done then? I m refering to the aduio syncing.. wun it be tough to sync?

http://www.digitaljuice.com/djtv/seg...searchid=50577

[James Binder]

John – Thanks for the positive feedback.

Sean –

Thank you as well.

Yes, the Digital Juice tutorial is exactly right. However, I found that speeding the music up to 200% (or 100% faster than normal) was not only unintelligible ultimately, but nearly impossible to sing along with. Because of that, I chose 75% (of normal speed) slow-motion which meant having the singer sing to the audio sped up to 125% -- a much easier task -- and the slow-motion look very good.

During shooing, the singers lips singing at 125% will ultimately match the audio (normal speed recording) when pulled back to 75% of normal speed in post.

I ‘overcranked’ as best I could with my A1. Since I don’t have the option of 60 progressive frames recording, I recorded 60i with a 1/120 frame rate. When slowed down in post, it looks very fluid and smooth to my eye. I then rendered out to a 24p project to achieve a more filmic look.

[Sean Seah]

thanks for sharing James! I got to try it out! Must be fun!

[George David]

Great job, James. I especially like the dramatic lighting while she's singing in the studio. Great color, good job on the smooth shooter shots and terrific production overall.

[James Binder]

Originally Posted by George David

Great job, James. I especially like the dramatic lighting while she's singing in the studio. Great color, good job on the smooth shooter shots and terrific production overall.

George --

Thanks for the nice words and feedback. The lighting on the studio shots was surprisingly sparse. I used a 150k fresnel as a back light and a flex fill to bounce the light (from the 150) on her face. 1 instrument!

[David W Williamson]

I agree with everyone else, great work! You mentioned applying Magic Bullet Looks in post; where/how did you do that? It doesn't support Vegas yet, right? Did you export to some other format and do it in After Effects or something? I'm quite curious, because I'm about to jump into MBL, and I'd like to get a workflow down.

You also mentioned that you exported to 24p for the 'film look'. Is that all it took, or would you say that MBL was a big part of it as well? How would you export your final piece if the destination was DVD?

[James Binder]

Sorry -- posted to wrong forum!

[Duane Adam]

Wow, great song, band, vocals and video. Her voice sounds super sweet, perfect EQ, doubling and harmonies in just the right places. Have you had any airplay yet?

[James Binder]

Thanks Duane --

Actually this video was for a competition two years ago! I recently color graded the video in MBL (didn't have it earlier, just the other version that came with Vegas) as well as remixed the tune. No airplay as it was for a competition with first prize getting to sing on stage with Rascal Flats. Though she didn't win, she placed about 20th out of several hundred. We had a great time making the vid. Even though it's about two years old, I thought it deserved another color correction/grading pass...

Thanks for the great comments --

[Mike Hammond]

Hi James,

Very nice work. I have a couple questions I was hoping you could answer.

1. How did you get the different colorings in the beginning shot where she is walking down the tracks away from the camera? Compositing or layering?

2. Same answer for the shot at 1:04? I notice the color on the right side of the screen is darker than the left and I think it has more to do than shadow vs. sunlight.

BTW, I'm not a fan of country music, but it's clear to me that your wife is a great singer. I thought the singing and the video were both great.


Thanks!

[James Binder]

Hi Mike --

The opening shot uses several different filters in MBL. Since the light wasn't exactly right when we shot, I recreated (in post) the time of day I wanted (late afternoon, golden-ish) -- or as close to it as I could get. Here's before and after:

Before:

http://j.b5z.net/i/u/2128321/f/Image2.jpg

After:

http://j.b5z.net/i/u/2128321/f/Image1.jpg

no compositing or layering -- all done in MBL - basically a combination of diffusion, vignette, spot exposure, grad exposure, saturation, three strip process and curves...

The other shot to which you are referring is actually my least favorite. The shot was pretty much all in shadow except for when she gets blasted by sunlight half way through. Not the ideal lighting situation, so again, I 're-lit' the other side of the frame (singer side) and tried as best I could to light her face as she walks from shady to sunny. I wouldn't have used that shot at all, but my choices were limited unfortunately.

Thanks for the questions and comments --

For the heck of it...

Heres another fun/dramatic before/after: (This is the instrumental part between verses -- I wanted something surreal/dramatic that looked like hyper 'magic hour')

http://j.b5z.net/i/u/2128321/f/Image3.jpg

http://j.b5z.net/i/u/2128321/f/Image4.jpg


...and one of the end shots:

http://j.b5z.net/i/u/2128321/f/Image7.jpg

http://j.b5z.net/i/u/2128321/f/Image8.jpg

[Mike Hammond]

Hi James,

Thanks very much for the before and after. Very, very interesting. It's nice to see that other people make great looking scenes from otherwise "average" footage. No offense intended, I only mean footage that is straight from the camera and without any effects on it.

It keeps me aware that there's almost unlimited possibilites to what I can do with my own "stock" footage when I get it into my editing software.

[James Binder]

You're welcome -- yes, lots of possibilities. MBL has some limitations, but is nevertheless a great tool to use within Vegas.

And Yes, you're correct in that the the original footage is very neutral. I purposely shot it that way in order to allow myself as much latitude during color correction as possible. I personally never like locking myself into a specific camera setting or 'look' while shooting. It's particularly dangerous when working with in-cam curves -- once those blacks or highlights are gone (with HDV) they're gone for good.

[Martin Wiosna]

all i have to say is that one day i hope to acquire such editing skills!

awesome job.