The One Man Blues Trio - Memphis Stomp

[Michal Obuchowski]

Hi all,

 

I wanted to share my first serious project, which I worked on with my director-friend Andreas from Immediate Art Ltd. It's a music video featuring our friend Johan playing his version of Memphis Stomp, a jazzy composition by Dave Grusin.

 

I was the DP and the colourist on this project, while Andreas was directing and editing. A quick outline of our workflow below, for those interested:

 

• Shot on my Canon KissX5 (600D/T3i), using the EF 50mm f/1.4 UMS and EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS II lenses with Magic Lantern, Technicolor CineStyle picture profile and a battery grip
  
• Takes were supported by a Velbon VideoMate II tripod and a DIY table-top PVC dolly, inspired by the Frugal Filmmaker
  
• Edited on a Mac in FCPX and exported to an Uncompressed 422 10-bit file (~37GB)
  
• Imported to Premiere CS6 on Win7 and CineStyle LUT applied using RedGiant's free plugin LUT Buddy
  
• Color correction and grading applied using RedGiant Magic Bullet Looks II
  
• Exported to uncompressed AVI (~55GB) - not sure why FCPX uncompressed was smaller earlier!
  
• Imported back to FCPX for final titles and media export (FCPX only offers 16mbit h264 1080p, but that is more than enough for YouTube)

Things we learnt:

• MacDrive is extremely useful when working in cross-platform workflow (allows read/write to OSX formatted HDDs)
  
• FCPX on its own is not good enough to release beyond YouTube: no control over bitrate without external application called Compressor and no ability to import uncompressed AVI easily (MPEG StreamClip software to the rescue!)
  
• take, re-take - rinse repeat - until you have much more footage than you think you need
  
• shot-list planned to the second is a blessing (thanks Andreas)

 

Enjoy the video and please do offer any feedback that comes to mind - we would appreciate it greatly! :)

 

You can watch it here (please select HD 1080p if able):