Shooting my first music promo on XL1S......

[Mark Rimmer]

Hi

I am shooting a music video on my XL1S, it is mostly set in a nightclub. I really dont want the place to be overlit, but i dont want it to be too grainy. the producer has said i can have the lights i need, but it's a low budget, so i dont want to rent lights then find i don't need them. obviously the artist (solo female) needs to be well lit, but will i get lots of grain if the rest of the club falls off into darkness?

i was planning to use a couple of kinos for lighting the singer. the location has plenty of aimable little tungsten spots that can be arranged to pick up the background detail. its quite a small club. maybe 8 x 20m.

i wish there was a budget for testing. its my first gig and i need to get it right......

any comments or tips would be great!

Mark

[Tim J Durham]

Hi

I am shooting a music video on my XL1S, it is mostly set in a nightclub. I really dont want the place to be overlit, but i dont want it to be too grainy. the producer has said i can have the lights i need, but it's a low budget, so i dont want to rent lights then find i don't need them. obviously the artist (solo female) needs to be well lit, but will i get lots of grain if the rest of the club falls off into darkness?

i was planning to use a couple of kinos for lighting the singer. the location has plenty of aimable little tungsten spots that can be arranged to pick up the background detail. its quite a small club. maybe 8 x 20m.

i wish there was a budget for testing. its my first gig and i need to get it right......

any comments or tips would be great!

Mark

Check out some other music vids and if you see something you like, post a screen grab and people can advise you from there. Here are some cool ones from a board regular. Hopefully Adam doesn't mind:

 

http://www.adamfrisch.com/music/index.html

 

and another:

 

http://www.rwmediaonline.com/directors.html

 

and:

 

http://www.claudiomiranda.com/videos.html

 

Have at it. Then when you find something, there is a good chance you can ask the actual guy who shot it what, exactly, he did to make it look like that.

[Mark Rimmer]

Check out some other music vids and if you see something you like, post a screen grab and people can advise you from there. Here are some cool ones from a board regular. Hopefully Adam doesn't mind:

 

 

well, kind of like Kylie Minogue's 'Spinning Around' video. we even have a lit up dancefloor for her to roll around on.....

[Mark Rimmer]

Check out some other music vids and if you see something you like, post a screen grab and people can advise you from there. Here are some cool ones from a board regular. Hopefully Adam doesn't mind:

 

 

well, kind of like Kylie Minogue's 'Spinning Around' video. we even have a lit up dancefloor for her to roll around on.....

Picture_8.pdf

[Tim J Durham]

Two things I can tell from that tiny picture are:

 

1) They've smoked the set in the background.

 

2) The lighting is somewhat unflattering. Very steep, soft key on her and an orange-gelled, diffused edge light, also at a too-high angle for my taste. They are most likely hung from a grid.

 

What sort of light is present in the club? Can you just supplement with a big, soft key or will your talent be dancing around?

 

When you say a "lit-up dancefloor" do you mean lit from above or a "Saturday Night Fever" lit-from-below dancefloor?

 

Is there a Quicktime of the video anywhere?

[Mark Rimmer]

Two things I can tell from that tiny picture are:

 

1) They've smoked the set in the background.

 

2) The lighting is somewhat unflattering. Very steep, soft key on her and an orange-gelled, diffused edge light, also at a too-high angle for my taste. They are most likely hung from a grid.

 

What sort of light is present in the club? Can you just supplement with a big, soft key or will your talent be dancing around?

 

When you say a "lit-up dancefloor" do you mean lit from above or a "Saturday Night Fever" lit-from-below dancefloor?

 

Is there a Quicktime of the video anywhere?

 

i will be using smoke.

the club has two rows of moveable spotlights above the dancefloor, i can use for an edge/back light. the walls and floor have flourescent lit panels that change colour.

so i was going to fill from camera with kinoflos. i might even mount them on the dolly, so if i follow her through the crowd it will ligght her and those around her. not very realistic, i know, but........

not sure where a legal video copy is available. i noticed some on limewire, but by law this should not be dowloaded without the correct licence...

mark

 

sorry the pictures so small, i did a screen capture on my mac and it was 64kb, and the forum has a max size of 100kb.

[Wendell_Greene]

Is there a Quicktime of the video anywhere?

 

 

You can watch a 30 second excerpt from the video on the Ultimate Kylie website

 

 

Bawed on what I saw they seemed to have lit two areas:-the dance floor and the bar area, and allowed the rest to fall off into darkness, as would be appropriate for a club. The less you see, the better, IMO. For the main dance area, they did as Tim mentioned incorporate part of the lighting into slightly raised panels on the dance floor ala "Saturday Night Fever" and you can tell they had some smoke or haze in the room. There's also a chandelier above the dance floor which is in the frame and providing light. My guess is it is was on a dimmer also supplemented by an soft box angled above and out of frame. In the wide shot, it looks right because we see everyone in silhoutte, including a brief shot of Kylie that way, as we follow her to the dance floor. But then as the camera catches her on the turnaround, they bring in a large soft source to key her for the tighter shots of her dancing. You can see in the background, the opaque paneled frames on the walls in the background and behind the bar. The one at the bar is lit from behind with kinos placed in two horizontal rows behind faux bottles of liquor. There are Pars on the walls in the background aimed toward the camera, which in the shots looking out from the dance area toward the walls, helps provides a sense of depth. The shot of Kylie on the bar counter you can also see the additional lights placed under the opaque bar top up lighting her as well the bartenders and patrons. Once again they bring in a large soft source to key her.

 

The overhead shots of rolling around on the swirl of moving gold and blue lights was worth the price of admission. :)

[Tim J Durham]

You can watch a 30 second excerpt from the video on the Ultimate Kylie website

 

The overhead shots of rolling around on the swirl of moving gold and blue lights was worth the price of admission. :)

I'll take two, please! She's a saucy little ta... Um... Ya gotta love Aussie girls. Anyway, yeah. There's a lot going on in there. I don't know how big your crew is gonna be but you might want to consider something a little more... contained. All those extras are getting paid, I'd suspect and just coordinating the dancing and having to shoot it several times in succession. Ouch. Big crew, choreographer, professional dancers, etc.

 

Still, if that's what you wanna do. I'd definitely make every attempt to work WITH the lighting that's already there and supplement it where need be. Doing a video the way they did this one is a perfect example of why most music videos have just the band members in them, alone somewhere.

 

So I guess I'd look for spots in the club that are lighting "dead zones" and have my talent operate in these places, which I could light the way I wanted while everything is going on around her lit by house lights. You might have to work on a few of the hot spots as club lighting is generally not lit to any particular stop, just for visual effect so you'll somehow have to bring what is in-frame down to an acceptable exposure by dimming/diffusing.

 

Or that's what I'd do. When you finish, be sure to post some stills!

[Mark Rimmer]

the setting isnt my choice, it's the director. but we wont be having any big dance routines like sweet cheeks. i'll definitely post some stills once it's done. but i'll be back before then, cos there's a 2nd promo to shoot for the same artist. director hassn't even finalised the location yet.

thanks for all your help.

more advice still welcome!