My directorial debut

[samhs]

Thought I'd share something I've been working on with a local creative group up here in the sticks of Scotland. We got a group of five artists, five directors and five bands together to create five music videos. I shot and directed one of them on my 7D with only a tripod and a Glidetrack. We had zero budget, so no fancy lighting, studios or the such - the white room is in the local college art studio, and the paper is 12+ Argos catalogues cut up into tiny pieces by hand (not my hand - the artist involved in our video). Anyway, it was great fun to work on, and I've learnt a lot in the process - many things I'll do differently next time.

There are also a few dodgy bits which I would have spent more time on had I been able to (deadline was a launch party last night).

I can't work out how to embed Vimeo here, so a link instead:

http://vimeo.com/29523289

Cheers

[Steve Lampkins]

Great job!

What lenses did you use? Were you manually focusing, or just using small apertures?

[samhs]

I mainly used a kit lens. I did try to do a couple of pull-focus shots, but without a follow-focus it was pretty tricky - the example that springs to mind is the shot in the second "story" where focus begins on the box files and pushes out to the office chair. Mostly I had the lens wide open to get a reasonably short depth of field, except in the very bright outdoors shots where it was a little impractical to do so (I should have taken my ND filters with me).

Lots of learning still to do, but for a first effort I'm pretty happy with the result

[Tony]

and as if by magic, you embedded a vimeo video!

Good stuff Sam, feels a bit playful with the drummer being out of beat with his beat. Did you use any presets to grade it or all manual?

[samhs]

and as if by magic, you embedded a vimeo video!

How'd you do that?!

feels a bit playful with the drummer being out of beat with his beat.

We started off wanting to vocal and beat match everything, but nothing quite tied up, and I didn't have enough material to do it properly, so we've got something that doesn't feel horrible (but I would have preferred to do it perfectly - lesson very definitely learnt for next time )

Did you use any presets to grade it or all manual?

The filmic scenes are graded with Magic Bullet Looks and straight RGB curves. The white room is just RGB curves and a tiny bit of Cosmo in two shots.

[Tony]

How'd you do that?!

Installed a mod on the forum, so you only have to post the url for lots of sites now and it should show up.

We started off wanting to vocal and beat match everything, but nothing quite tied up, and I didn't have enough material to do it properly, so we've got something that doesn't feel horrible (but I would have preferred to do it perfectly - lesson very definitely learnt for next time )

best get them run through the whole song several times in the different configs you had, that way you can pick and choose from anywhere

The filmic scenes are graded with Magic Bullet Looks and straight RGB curves. The white room is just RGB curves and a tiny bit of Cosmo in two shots.

I only have quick looks limited which was a freebie from the master collection upgrade, I'd like the looks but can't justify it for home and don't need it for the work videos. Really like the video though, looking forward to the next ones

[samhs]

best get them run through the whole song several times in the different configs you had, that way you can pick and choose from anywhere

Yeah - already got that on my list. I thought we'd got enough, but the cut ended up working differently to how I'd originally planned, making the stuff I had not work quite right. Ho hum!

I only have quick looks limited which was a freebie from the master collection upgrade, I'd like the looks but can't justify it for home and don't need it for the work videos.

Yeah - I got that too during my last upgrade. I bought a MB suite not so long back when it was on super-cheapo offer. Thought it would come in handy for some of the AE tutorials I write.

Really like the video though, looking forward to the next ones

Cheers - that's very generous of you to say so

[Tony]

not generous mate - is that your glidecam?

[samhs]

It is indeed! 1m long. I wrote a review for photoradar a while back - not sure when it'll go live

[samhs]

Very pleased with it too - bit of technique needed, but some great shots to be got! :-)

[Tony]

I dream of poo like that - used a table on wheels once which worked out ok with an IS lens, they've since hidden the table from me.

[samhs]

Yeah - they don't come cheap, but the production value it adds (without the need for much in the way of technical know-how) is great. Plus, I bought mine hoping to offset some of the cost against a review - which, as I say, I managed to do recently - every little helps

[robwhizz]

Brilliant work Sam. Quality is fantastic and it looks quite polished to me. Quite like the song too.

[samhs]

Cheers Rob

[orydian]

Top stuff. Looks like a proper music video.

Like the Zooey Deschanel-a-like too.

[samhs]

Cheers

[yawner]

Sorry Sam, just spotted this thread 

What can I say, I really enjoyed that! Ory put it best for me - that looked like a "proper" music video. Well done indeed 

[samhs]

Cheers Mr Y - very nice of you to say so