Music Video Critique

Matt Cikovic · August 22, 2012

Hudson K's

is my latest video.

Also, for comparison, this is last year's music video made for the same client:

Thanks!

Edited August 22, 2012 by Matt Cikovic

Lisa Talley · August 29, 2012

"The Knife" was very cool. Concept, shot composition, color, pacing, lighting... awesome execution. Speaking of lighting, how did you handle the campfire scenes? I've wanted to do scenes centered around a campfire, but have yet to have the opportunity and I wonder what it would take to compete with heavy shadows, as well as little to no power.

Video Production

Edited August 29, 2012 by Lisa Talley

Matt Cikovic · August 31, 2012

"The Knife" was very cool. Concept, shot composition, color, pacing, lighting... awesome execution. Speaking of lighting, how did you handle the campfire scenes? I've wanted to do scenes centered around a campfire, but have yet to have the opportunity and I wonder what it would take to compete with heavy shadows, as well as little to no power.

Video Production

Thanks for the nice comments, I'm glad you liked it!

The first time you see the heroine at 1:39 I've got a single 650 watt head with some CTB on a c-stand up in the air shooting down for some blue/moonlight kick. In front of her are two Lowel Pro lights at around 250 watts each. One head has a red gel, the other an orange. I then had my assistant simply wave a piece of plastic ND filter infront of the heads (In kind of a grandfather clock back and forth motion) to simulate a little bit of fire flickering. This is the only shot without any "real" fire.

Every other shot at night has a camp fire going with those same three heads. The 650 for the blue kick and the other two which are more fill up against the fire. I have seen some people talking about "Flicker" boxes you can either make or buy that allow you to plug lights into and it dims and strikes the heads to mimic fire, but I couldn't find one in time. Concerning power we just ran a lot of cords. This was shot in the musicians back yard, so I had to be careful with my angles to not pick up anything errant in the background.