Equipment Breakdown

For the production of our music video, we have a wide range of equipment at our disposal to help produce the best possible final outcome. In this post I will break down each piece of kit used and explain it's uses.

*In the event of the images uploaded below becoming unavailable for whatever reason, the majority of them are available on my personal Instagram.

NIKON D5100 - Main camera as it is my own. I have access to it 24/7. I know it inside-out and feel confident pushing it to it's limits to get the best possible end result. I will be mainly using the 18-55 kit lens in the production. The Sigma 70-200 Telephoto lens and a YN-560-II Speedlight are pictured in the image.

Canon 600D - Secondary camera, used for 60fps recording capability. Useful for multi-cam shots to save time during recording. I am new to this camera but it is essentially the Canon clone to the D5100. I feel confident that I will have no issues using it. One potential worry is syncing the 60FPS data with the 24FPS data of my camera in POST.

Manfrotto Tripod - High end, professional tripod for most cameras. This tripod is one of the most useful tools we have available. It allows us to set up in essentially any location in any orientation thanks to it's free floating legs and vari-angle head design. I use it in conjunction with the 804-RC2 tripod head which has a good level of resistance, allowing for beautifully smooth tilts and pans.

Hama Tripod - We have a cheaper, lighter and more portable tripod that will aid us with getting steady shots during our multicam scenes. This tripod is also useful for holding lights or microphones.

Rotolight™ - This extremely useful tool provides us with a strong, portable lighting solution. It is extremely strong and bright for it's size and grants us enough light to film at ISO 400 anywhere, anytime. Absolutely essential.

iPhone 4S - We use our iPhones to record video blog footage to help us document things on location. It greatly aids with communication and is equipped with a very high resolution camera capable of recording 1080p video. We will be using these to give brief tours on location or to show equipment set-ups.

ATH-M50 - Studio monitor headphones, ideal for audio level monitoring. My DSLR is not sophisticated enough to feature an integrated visual audio level indicator while recording, but it does allow monitoring. This is useful for recording spot effects, allowing us to cut down on audio spikes but monitoring levels closely. It is also important for accurate audio mastering in POST.

Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 - Premiere Pro will be our main workhorse for the production of our video. I personally prefer it to using any other editing software as it is what I have been taught to use, and because it works seamlessly alongside After Effects, Lightroom, SpeedGrade, and Photoshop. This is something that 90% of other video editing programs cannot do without the user jumping through a bunch of hoops, slowing their workflow considerably.

Adobe Photoshop CS6 - Photoshop is an essential piece of software when it comes to dealing with destructive editing of images. Creating our digipak, poster and other artwork will require Photoshop  It grants the user access to all sorts of image manipulation techniques and processes, making it possible to produce still image adverts and promotional items.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 - Lightroom is in a way, a watered down Photoshop. Lightroom is a non-destructive editor, meaning that the changes you make are not directly applied to the image itself, they are stored in a catalogue index ready to be applied to the image upon export. Kind of like a mask that is applied when you export, it isn't permanent unless you make it so.

Twixtor 5 - Twixtor is a slow motion plugin for Adobe After Effects. I believe that it works by 'stretching' frames in order to increase the duration of each one. Longer durations of each frame means the footage will playback at half speed, effectively doubling the playback time of the section stretched. I don't know the literal process that Twixtor carries out, but it's something along those lines. I will learn it soon and create a test video. The embedded video from an unrelated YouTube user demonstrates exactly how powerful Twixtor is, even without 60FPS footage! (Disclaimer: This video is NOT my content.)

Initial Footage & Thoughts

We have completed our initial shoot and have begun editing it in Adobe Premiere Pro CS6. This will be a very skeletal edit, with only a few barebone clips added in at this point in time. our video will acquire somewhat of a structure when we complete the main body of filming in the coming days and weeks.

Here is a screen capture of me previewing our initial clips and naming them. Clips I find unusable for whatever reason are red labelled and not deleted. It is essential that we keep all footage recorded in case we either forget an idea, need clips to fall back on, or want to assess what we did wrong and possibly re-soot the clip.

It is was essential that we completed an initial pre-shoot before tackling the main body of filming. Upon reflection, we have decided that my costume is not suitable for our video as the print is distracting. In future videos I will wear more discreet clothing, and I will also revise Billy's outfit before our next shoot.

I feel that overall, the shoot was very successful, with a small percentage of unusable clips. I feel that for the majority of shots, the camera work was top tier, with a little revision for shooting order and composition needed. I think it will be beneficial for us to construct a detailed storyboard before our next shoot so we can quickly and effectively record our shots in the correct sequence in good time. We used a 'scattergun' approach to filming our initial clips and need to be more organised next time.

Critical Understanding - Camera Settings & Lenses

It is crucial that as directors, we must ensure we know our equipment inside-out to use it to the best of it's potential and achieve the best possible final outcome in our productions.

In this post, I will break down the camera settings used, explain why I am using them, and explain my choice of lenses, and what each lens is suitable for.

To begin with, we have two main cameras we will be using for the production. A Nikon D5100 and a Canon 600D (KISS x5) Both cameras have full 1080p and 720p recording capability at 24 or 30FPS. The 600D is capable of recording at 60FPS in 720p mode, making it ideal for slow motion shots as mentioned in my planning. We are going to use the 60FPS footage in conjunction with After Effects CS6 and Twixtor 5 in order to create extremely smooth extreme slow motion shots when played back at 24FPS (film standard). Our choice of using DSLR's over our college's camcorders allows us great flexibility in filming, as we can use a wide range of telephoto and landscape lenses opposed to the standard 17-55mm camcorder zoom. Both cameras feature flip out screens making them ideal for film work.

Our video will be shot in NTSC format at 720p, as there is no need to shoot in full 1080p HD and we would loose slow motion capability. 720p files are smaller and render faster, improving our workflow under the tight schedule imposed, as well as saving storage space on our SDHC cards, allowing for longer shoots and extended battery life while recording. The end footage will be exported at 24FPS as that is the film standard.

We will use polarising filters when filming in the day. This is extremely important as it will help maintain a low shutter speed in brightly lit areas. It is important that we keep our camera set to 1/60 shutter speed and a relatively low ISO below ISO 800 in order to maximise our video quality. The shutter speed must be double that of the frame rate in order to maintain smooth frame blending in the video. This is why polarisers are used as they help improve the colour depth and temperature as well as stopping down the exposure.

 

I find that it is necessary to keep the camera in M (manual) mode. This means that the camera will not try to automatically adjust it's settings to correct the exposure. This is especially important for us, as our project involves a lot of low level light work, so things like auto ISO and auto metering MUST be switched off in order for us to obtain good footage. nine times out of ten the camera will completely mess up your end result if it is left in any kind of automatic mode. I even use manual focus during video recording, to ensure the camera's AF motor does not activate mid-shoot and completely ruin the continuity of our film. I also always take out a white sheet of A4 paper and perform a manual white balance before each shot, just to ensure that our colours are correct so we have to spend less time grading in POST.

Lens Breakdown

I have a range of lenses available, all of them are good for different things. The 18-55mm is the only wide angle I have, so that will be used for about 80% of shots as it has good stabilizers and is very compact and light.The is primarily for the photography and will be used for the cover of our poster, images for the digipak and other photographic tasks. The 55-200 will probably not be used. its only benefit is that it is a compact zoom with the same range as the huge Sigma. The sigma is a f/2.8 lens at 200mm so it is extremely well suited to low light situations and would be suitable for very tight video shots such as extreme close ups or segments that needed to be filmed from a distance. See image below for reference.

Criticial Understanding – Image Downsampling

It is important to downsample images before using them for my blog, or any other website. This is because most websites will compress the images using very lossy compression, so on top of uploading images that are 8MB each, the images look worse, and take longer.

DSLR cameras capture images at extremely high resolution, in my case 4928x3264. I am going to downsample these images before uploading them to the blog. They will also make managing the PowerPoint presentation much easier as there is less wasted image data.

Here is the export dialogue and settings. notice how I have set the resizing to use the long edge of the image, and limited that to 1024 px. Sometimes 2048 px is neccesary but for most web purposes 1024 is the most suitable size. There is absolutely no reason to be uploading full size, uncompressed images to the web as it is badly optimized and some users will struggle to load the website.

The end result? my images have been compressed from 9MB to around 800KB. this is approx 9x smaller in file size, costing mobile users less data and helping users with slow internet speeds to access the content faster. This is good practice in all cases, especially in my visual storyboard. There is negligible loss of image quality if images are downsized correctly. If anything, the images look better. This is because the pixel density is being increased and the pixels are getting smaller, meaning less noise is visible in the image as a result of it's compression. Blurry areas are less apparent and the image appears sharper.

Social Networking

We intend to promote our video using social networks such as Facebook and twitter. Many artists use social networking paltforms such as these in order to help them accelerate their sales and initiate a viral spead to promote their new productions. Information can spread incredibly fast accross these platformsbecause the content is being shared amongst other peole who likes the artist's music. The average Facebook user has 120 friends. This means that every single share would have potential to be viewed by 120 people for every one who likes the artist's page. This statistic is not cocrete however. for exaple, Billy and I have around 500 friends each, so the scale of the affect changes from person to person.

We advertised our artist on twitter and used it to initiate our viral advertising campaign.

I also adopted my facebook to accomodate the persona of woodkid (like woodkid, I use my real name as opposed tot he stage one where applicable) And I can use this platform to share content and promote a healthy viral advertising campaign.

Digipak Planning

What do we need to include in our Digipak?

Our Digipak needs to include the CD with our single, a small info book and printed covers. It could include other goodies such as a lyric book or photos. Since it is a single and not an album, it will be fairly easy to produce an effective Digipak.

Billy and I are going to work together to produce the images for the covers and inserts. A small amount of editing in Photoshop should allow us to create an interesting and original design. We want our design to fit in well with the gothic/electro style see in Woodkid’s videos and web design. As a photographer, is task should be fairly straightforward and easy to accomplish to a high standard.

It is important that our Digipak is not a carbon copy of our artist’s work. We want to impose our own images inspired by or artist so that our wok is original yet fitting ad suitable.

What Is Our Video About?

Our song is a remix of WOODKID's Iron. This remix is a fusion of electro/house and melancholic alternative. Therefore, our intention is to represent that fusion through our video. We have sourced information form a range of videos across each of the genres in order to immerse ourselves in the styles of each, allowing us to psychologically piece together a 'hybrid' of the three, and align or mindset to produce a striking and original video inspired form all three genres and styles. The electro/house style segments of the track will be represented through dark, lively rave scenes shot in slow motion to avoid it being too lively, as that would clash with the melancholic lyrics.

The narrative segments would be performed by me, heavily influenced by the style of WOODKID's Iron music video which features extremely well lit and directed shots from a wide range of angles and shot types. It is important that our narrative scenes are carefully thought out and planned. Due to the absence of stand out instruments, our performance and narrative scenes will be blended into the same thing. This may seem confusing at first as it is hard to describe on paper, and is better communicated using a more visual approach.

We like the idee of me narrating the story and Billy acting out the narrative shots. In a way, he will shoot the 'main' narrative shots and I will perform the 'secondary' narrative and main performance shots. In a way, we will both be telling our own story through actions and body language in the video.

We found that Deadmau5's video for 'I Remember' very strongly relates to the main body of our ideas and we feel it is the closest to our desired outcome that we have found. We will obviously be bringing in our own hybrid elements to make our video unique such as the use of slow motion, multi-cam and black and white processing. I will break down each video individually in later blog posts to give a more detailed breakdown on an individual basis to explain exactly what information and inspiration we get from each video.

How Have My Skills Improved Since AS?

RESEARCH AND PRE-PRODUCTION

I feel that during the creation of my previous video, I gained and developed my technical skills extensively. I employed a wide range of technical equipment and techniques to make my film successful. My knowledge of shot types and editing style proved instrumental in producing my video to the high quality required to achieve a good grade in the course, and feel that during the creation of the video, I feel that I enhanced each skill significantly.

At GCSE, I produced a B grade music video. Now, at AS, I have improved enormously and Achieved 96% overall, and 60/60 for the film opening itself. In order to continue at this quality of work, it is important that I manage my time more efficiently and increase my work output.

I feel that my time management is my greatest weakness, as I tend to leave things until the last minute. By improving this, I hope to achieve an A or A* grade at A2. I also feel that my teamwork needs some improvement, however my partner and I knew each other before the course, so naturally we had a winning synergy that allowed us to work fluidly and produce a successful end product.

I believe that I do not provide enough individual analysis' of existing products, leaving my research section weaker than others. Hopefully by improving my time management, I will allow myself more time to complete a higher quantity of research pieces from which I may draw inspiration for my next production.

My planning sections are a bit of a mixed bag, really. I like to keep a lot of my plans in my head, and choose not to communicate them on paper a lot of the time. I feel that if I tried to put all of my ideas on paper rather than just a few ones I like, I would improve my planning and communicate my ideas better. Since the narrative is one of the most essential, core elements of film-making, I regard this as an extremely important area that needs some significant improvement in order to perform at A2.

In my last production, I didn't conduct a range of location shoots for filming. My partner and I discussed possible areas for about 10 minutes and then decided on one, and just one. We did visit the location and conduct a location shoot, and made a visual storyboard giving a rough idea of how the film would play out. There was some discussion as to other possible areas we could use, but none of it was really recorded. In my view it was a bit of a missed opportunity for research marks, since upon reflection I feel that it was a little forced and not fully explored. In my A2, I aim to carry out a range of location shoots in order to maximise my location choices, and to also show I have been open minded in my approach to filming.

One of the things I feel I did well was drawing inspiration from existing media products (films). I spent a few hours watching similar film openings and trailers from the horror/thriller/gangster genres and drew a lot of my inspiration from these sources. By doing that, it allowed me to get a feel for how those kind of films were typically shot, allowing me to more accurately shape my own production by using similar angles and filming techniques.

PRODUCTION

During the production of my film, I was able to shoot using a wide range of techniques and shot types such as the unique black & white crane shot in the kitchen scene. This was an advanced technique that I was extremely happy with as it turned out to be my favorite shot in the whole film. I managed to achieve a very fluid motion throughout the entirety of the shot and I feel it directly contributed to the grade awarded.

I feel that including advanced and complicated shots in videos make them instantly more credible and professional. Shots such as panning cranes, track shots filmed with a camera slide, or long dramatic chase scenes are both technically and visually impressive. I hope to include such shots in my A2 Production.

When it came to the actual filming stage, we spent a total of two whole days filming. One day for each location. The easiest way to describe it is that we filmed everything that was outside on day one, and everything indoors on day two. We had planned to spread the filming over 4 days, but good time management allowed us to complete the shoots ahead of schedule. A lot of our shots were perfect within the first three takes with the exception of one or two shots.

I feel that I need to push time management harder and do my best to remain ahead of schedule to prevent last minute cramming. This will allow 'breathing room' throughout the production and will make it much easier and stress free to complete the production.

POST-PRODUCTION

During post production, we spent a lot of time throwing ideas around and discussing orderings and transitions, as well as the amount of grading needed to correct the image to it's best potential. We split the editing equally and worked on the piece for around two weeks on/off. We spent considerable time ensuring we were both happy with the outcome and feel it was very well executed with overwhelming results. We used Premiere Pro CS5, After Effects CS5, Photoshop CS5, Audition CS5, and Lightroom 3. I feel confident in all areas of the software and I am looking forward to making another successful video at A2.

Post Production was the most interesting part of the project for me as it allowed me to experiment in editing and structure of a video timeline. The audio mixing was surprisingly sample and I had fun mastering the audio (equalising sound levels) and changing the structure of our video. Some clips were not used in the same order we shot them, which was surprising as we deviated from our storyboard greatly, but I feel it was for the better as the final outcome could not have been better.

Going forward into A2 I feel confident and prepared that I will be able to produce a video of equal or greater quality than this. I am aiming for at least 90% overall for the coursework after how successful this project was. I want to push the boundaries that little bit further and experiment with techniques I am not already familiar with in order to learn and create something new and interesting. I want to experiment with slow motion and low level lighting to try and creates something as visually gripping and entertaining as my AS video.

Inspirations & Intentions

What do we want to produce?

We want to shoot a music video for the Electro genre. We were immediately inspired by the artist Woodkid, after spenging some tome browsing through songs we both liked.

We found YouTube and Spotify extremely useful in finding our song of choice. Youtube's suggested videos provided us with relevant artists and songs based on the ones we already searched. We got redirected to videos liek Lykke Li's 'get some', Deadmau5's 'Ghosts n' stuff' and Linkin Park's 'Castle of Glass.'

We both enjoyed these songs as we hadn't heard most of them before. We used Spotify Radio to get song suggestions also, returning more varied, but still relevant results. A lto of the same suggestions turned up from using radio. The unique thing about this was that based on your original song to base your radio search from, your radio resutls are tailored to what other people listened to, songs with the same tags, and similar & related artists.


After a few days of searching and debate over which song was more suitable, we finally arrived at Woodkid's Iron. Initially, we wanted to work to the original song, which was used as the soundtrack for Assassin's Creed Revelations, but we decided it would be too difficult to suitably work with as a song due to it's duration and difficult to pin genre that we couldn't really find any relevant, related artists to. We also felt tat the vocals were too 'cramped' and prominetn within the song to provide us with any room for narrative shots. We finally decided to choose a remix of the song for our video, which has a much more electro feel to it. The extended instrumental bridges provide plenty of room for narrative shots, while Woodkid's vocal sections make perfect performance shots. We drew a lot of inspiration from woodkid's original video for the production of our own, (and I will cover this in detail in a seperate post) but the main elements are:

• Black & white video processing
• Low level lighting
• High contrast
• Slow motion
• Wide variety of shot types
• A mixture of high speed and low speed cutting
• Controlled artificial lighting

We are going to create a production journal video in which we are going to film ourselves each day of productin in order to summarise our entire project in around 3 minutes at the ned of our project. We will present the video just before the final piece in order to give a final impression on the work we put in to making the video.

We are going to conduct a range of location shoots and produce short video draughts that will serve as part of our visual storyboard presentation. We are going to frequently make what I refer to as 'video brainstorms' where we will literally just shoot what's in our head to comuncate our idea in a mroe fun way than writing 500 words and showing a few pictures. By acting immediately and qickly filming something short, it will greatly aid or communication and allow us to freely express our ideas in a new and innovative way.

My Partner's Blog

I will be working on my A2 project alongside Billy Christensen. Here is a link to his blog.

http://billychristensena2.blogspot.co.uk