Professional Music Video with a Smartphone - A Guide To Independent Film-making

 

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Professional Music Video with a Smartphone

 

“The ‘Quality of Art’ lies in the heart that creates it, not the money that may or may not be there to support it.”

 

Far from the debate surrounding the AI takeover of art, especially music and film making, I am sitting here writing this for those who still believe real art lies in their hearts, ready to be discovered. Besides, as I have previously said in one of my social media posts; AI is based on intelligence, which is governed by neural networks, be they organic or artificial, whereas art is a product of emotions, that are governed by hormones. There will never be a match! Or perhaps a true match. In any case, I am here to help those independent artists, who are really short on funds, but want an amazing music video to complement their musical flair piece. In this article, albeit very lengthy one, I will cover every aspect about the art of film making, including videos, shorts, and features, that one may need to know, enough to cover Ninety Five percent of modern commercial scene. The five percent video types that won’t be covered, are speciality items, and where possible I will give you a quick idea of what you would need to brush up on to take on those five percent works. Once you read through my seemingly unrelated lengthy paragraphs, you will realize how everything ties up with the briefs on lighting, scene composition, camera movements, and editing discussed below in the last quarter or so of this piece, and they will help you create an awesome complete video, even if it’s shot with a smartphone camera.

 

First of all, lets’ address the main issue; what is the disadvantage of the most advanced Smartphone camera, that one might be hoping to shoot a music video with? Once you understand this, you would know what you are sacrificing in terms of quality if you shoot your project with a Smartphone, or even an action camera. And just so you know; there is always the option to rent a proper camera for a day or two of shoot, and still not break any bank bigger than your piggy.

 

The Game of Senor Size

The single biggest difference between professional filming cameras and smartphone, or other cameras, is the size of their digital sensors. It doesn’t matter how many Megapixels define the strength of the camera, or even the size of pixels making up the sensor to some extent. The most important aspect of capturing a scene lies in the size of the actual sensor estate. It doesn’t matter whether the camera is 200MP, 48MP, or 12MP. It further doesn’t matter whether the camera can record 4K, 6K, or 8K, or even 1080p video clips. What matters is if the actual sensor is a Full Frame, APS-C, Micro-Four-Thirds, One Inch or some part there-off in size. To understand all these different aspects, imagine a scene in front of you that you wish to capture. Let’s say you want to capture it in a 4K video format. Now let’s see how all the above information fits in that scenario.

 

Imagine the scene in front of you is made up of 4K squares (since we are talking 4K video capture here). Now that entire scene is going to be recorded in sequential pictures, 24 pictures in one second if you are shooting at 24 fps. Imagine that entire scene getting squeezed down to the size of the sensor of your camera, for that is what happens when you record images on a digital sensor. Back in the day, it would have been a film strip in place of that sensor. Now what has happened here is that the details of the scene in front of you, that you had divided in 4K squares, have all been squished (or compressed) into a tiny size of the sensor. Now smaller the sensor in size, the more the scene would need to be squished. And in that squishing, the fine details of the scene, like say veins of the leaves of the trees, or rather all the leaves on the branches of the trees, those details start getting squashed together. Colours that are closer to each other, for example the different rate of blackness of the shadows, or the whiteness of the highlights, they start mixing up. The more image is squished, because of the decreasing sensor size, the more detail is lost in mixing. So, a 4k video recorded with a smartphone camera with a smaller sensor size, even though made up of 4k squares, when enlarged on a bigger screen, will not have enough finer details when compared to the image recorded by the bigger sensor of a professional camera. You could have recorded the detail in 8K video too, but the information recorded, or rather the detail, would have still been squished to the same extent by the same sensor.

 

What about the megapixels; I hear you ask! Let’s understand what that is about. The picture you have recorded in 4K, needs to be saved, or perhaps later printed. This is where those megapixels come in. The 4K squares of information that you have recorded, when they are to be displayed on a screen, or printed, the number of megapixels determine the number of dots that the system would use to recreate the recorded scene on the screen, or display material. A 200MP camera would use 200 mega pixels (or dots) to create that picture, while a 12MP camera would use 12 mega pixels (or dots), and depending upon that number, you would either have a life size poster, or an extra-large sized poster. But the scene visible in that poster would still be the 4K squares recorded by the sensor, in whatever squished detail it was captured in.

 

The last details about the senor, that is the size of the actual photosensitive pixels that make up the digital sensor; that is similar to the size of the film grain. Films that were coated with very fine compounds, recorded details better than those coated with coarser compounds. In our case, the image that has been squished to 4K squares, needs to be recorded by the photosensitive pixels making up the sensor. The finer those pixels are, more pixels will get allocated to each of the 4K squares being recorded, which means more individualized information would be recorded as it is received, rather than the sensor squishing it further to record with smaller number of pixels. Think of this like pasting a poster on a 100 nail heads, or 50 nail heads. Depending upon the number of nail heads, each head would receive a corresponding amount of the picture. A bigger sensor however still has more details to record, and thereby negates much of the impact of the size and number of photosensitive pixels making up the sensor. In the above example, it doesn’t matter if there are 100 nail heads, or 50 nail heads, a picture of 100 numbers would still have more information than a picture of 99 numbers. So, your smartphone will give you a 4K, or even an 8K video, and you would be able to see it on a large screen TV too, it’s images will not have as much fine detail clarity, and you will notice the difference visibly. But that doesn’t mean you can’t record a mean music video, and even put it on commercial television, if you can spare the money to do so. It just means that your art would need to be ‘spot on’ to earn that ‘spot on’ the telly.

 

Now that you know what your smartphone will record compared to a professional camera, let us get on with the main item on agenda for this article; shooting a professional music video with it. And before we go any further, one very strong piece of advice; for every dollar that you are planning to spend on your video, make sure you have two dollars to advertise it, be it on YouTube, some TV, or radio. And that is just the starting point. A breathable scenario would be twenty dollars advertisement for every dollar spent on video production. Anyway, let’s get on with film making part of this article!

 

The Three Types of Music Videos

Now I am not a film school graduate. I have four university degrees going as high as a Masters, and three bachelors, but not even a diploma in film making, or music making. Music and Film making; I am self-taught. What I am presenting here is what I have understood about music video and film making in my own way, but I hope it would help you all in your journey.

 

There are three types of music videos that an artist releases, and those releases are governed by both simple targets, and complex targets. You need to understand the concept of these targets, and the video types, so you know what video you need to shoot for yourself.

 

‘Simple Targets’ include vanity targets; like everyone wants to appear on a big screen so people could idolize them and love them, and the part of audience that like the artist, they want to see them on the screen so they could actually idolize them. For the rest of the audience, it’s about getting their entertainment’s worth if they have bothered spending money, time, or bandwidth on your product. Simple targets also include marketing the product for sale.

 

‘Complex Targets’ start from the need to stay current and relevant in the market, and go as deep as the kind of image you want to create for yourself, or build upon the image that you have already created. Each music video that you release, starting from the very first one, need to work towards that ultimate image goal. There is no right or wrong choice for the image you want; be it of a Sex-Symbol, a Diva, a Star, or a Legend. Great artists all have their own style of image. Not everyone is a sex-symbol, an image hard to maintain, and not everyone would be a Legend, for most won’t have the versatility or talent. Pick the image that you want for yourself, and then work towards that image with each music video you release. Marketing your portfolio to newer audience, and deepening your bond with your existing audience, are all part of the complex target plans.

 

Now there are three types of videos to pick from:

1. Main & Supplementary:

As the name implies, main video is the one that is supposed to carry an EP or an LP, and grab audience attention to promote sales. These have well developed scripts, that can be shot on sky-burning budget, or even at the price of peanuts. It’s not about the budget, but what the video is going to show. Sometimes when the main video fails to pick up audience, or even flatters to deceive, artists release supplementary videos from the album to prop up the sales. These videos, and their respective audios, can sometimes outclass the main video, and are always shot like one.

 

2.   Additional Videos:

These are the videos that are often released to support an already successful work, and generally serve the purpose to keep the album in conversation for longer, and build further bridges with the audience. Videos connect audience to audios that they may or may not have bothered to hear otherwise, and enhance sales. These don’t need to be as pristine and immaculate as the main or supplementary videos, and are generally done on the cheap.

 

3.   Placeholder Videos:

These are the videos that are done very cheap, and their purpose is to provide visual content for audios, so the audios could be consumed via visual media. The lyrical videos, the acoustic videos, band performances, etc., all those simple videos fall in this category. The line between additional and placeholder videos might even blur a little bit once you start scripting a video with an artist lip syncing, and doing random stuff in the video; the ‘Visualizer’ video, if you may! But as long as there is no other character in the video, and no decipherable storyline, it is still a placeholder video. Having a storyline however is not necessary for even additional, or for that matter, main videos. Consider countless hits played over the years by commercial TV; be it Michael’s ‘Beat It’, or Calvin’s ‘Feel so Close’. Audience minds generally generate a story to logically identify the concept in the video that they just watched, as long as the video is done properly. The quality difference in visual content is what truly separates them all. After all, no one watches Placeholder videos more than once, and then they only play them as a part of the visual media they are enjoying as audio feed, without feeling the need to look at what’s happening on the screen. This is a far cry from main videos, that people actually enjoy watching, or additional videos that people don’t mind watching every now and then.

 

The question for you now is; what type of video do you want to shoot? If you have figured that out now, then let’s talk about how to shoot it, with whatever camera you have.

 

Shooting a Video Project

It doesn’t matter whether you are shooting a feature, a short, or a music video, the main creative process generally involves five major steps; planning the project, planning the shoot, principal and supplementary shoots, editing the recorded files into a final product, and delivery. There are finer steps in-between like location scouting, talent casting, crew hiring, sound recording, etc., and most of them could be clubbed under one of the above main headings. Now it’s generally the Producer, or Executive Producer, who oversees all these steps, with the help of specialists, but budget limited works may not have the luxury of dedicated man power, and one person might end up doing all or much of that leg work; the artist themselves. For this article’s purposes, that artist is you who is about to undertake a ‘Professional Video Shoot’ with a Smartphone, or whatever camera they have.

 

A) Planning the Project

Feature, short films, and music videos of all three types need a script, or in music video’s case, at least a rough idea that needs to be shot, and a rough list of the cast, crew, locations, and post production team needed for it.

 

For music videos, consider the lyrics and try to structure them into a basic story, with one component of the story for each part or verse of the song; generally, one scene should tell it all for one part, even though it might be shot as ten small clips. Consider a simple story; two people in love fight and break up, one later finds their ex with another lover and feels regret or victory (depending upon the fate of the ex), or the lovers reunite in the end via a twist. This story could also be arranged as; one sees their ex with another lover, remembers the time when they were together but broke up, and finally conclusion, broken or victorious or reunion, whatever. It’s the same story but organised differently, and all it needs is three people, and three spaces. The same spaces could be used for both story elements and lip sync parts, as if the spaces were being occupied in different space and time for each part. You could ask a couple of friends to be your muses in the video, or hire a talented artist on a hunt for some creative work to do. Then you could shoot some scenes at your place, or a friend’s place, and perhaps a few shots at a City Council location, that doesn’t charge money for Ultra-low-impact projects (permits would be needed for them). Plan for rain and public disruptions at outdoor locations, chose locations that are easily accessible and with ample parking options, and shoot at times of low foot traffic. And just like that you a video shoot planned, including an idea of how much money and time would be needed for the shoot (generally a 3–5-minute worth of edited content could be shot in one longish day, if travel is minimal).

 

You can build simple storylines like the above based on the lyrics for most of the songs, and the only trick is to simplify the story in the lyrics to the most basic of forms, to both cut costs, and make it fit in the tiny time-frame of a music video. For example; a song about social change does not need large crowds protesting in mass, or clashing with cops. It could also be a personal struggle against a single administrator over a single issue. It’s all about simplifying the story that needs to be told! Once you have your story, you know the characters and spaces that the story would need. Once you have organised those two things, and then the crew that would assist you in the shoot, and editing team to create the final deliverable product, you are ready to head out on your planned principal photography. Now before you head out to shoot you do need to know what places are you going to deliver your final product to; just online, or broadcast as well. That would determine the main formats you would need to render your video in, and the best formats to shoot the project in the first place. For example, your camera might be able to shoot in 8K, but since 4K is the max that you need to deliver to any platform, you could get away with shooting in 6K or even 5.3K, which would help reduce the file size, and therefore storage needs of the media that you record.

 

Once you have settled all of the above issues, you will have a good idea about how much it will all cost in the end, and the planning phase of the project is done. Now it is time to plan the actual shoot. Limited budget productions need to put extra care in planning the actual shoot for you need to make sure you get everything done in Principal photography, as Supplementary videography would add needless expense, and might not even be an option.

 

B) Planning the Photography

When you are ready to actually shoot the project, it becomes imperative that you know beforehand each and every shot (and its associated look) that you would want in the final product, and the equipment you would need to film them, like gimbal, dolly, jib etc. And then, you need to have a rough idea of what you might shoot as filler shots, or B-roll, just to cover instances where you failed to capture a shot, or capture a usable shot, and there is a gap in the timeline that needs to be filled. Unless you fail to capture an absolutely essential shot that simply cannot be omitted from the final release version, which should be considered a failure of epic proportions vis a vis your shoot-plan (what we are covering now), you shouldn’t need any additional or supplementary photography done. For shoots requiring multiple days of filming at multiple locations, all shots are first roughly noted down on the shooting-script itself before the teams even arrive at the first location, and then each upcoming day’s shots are rechecked, and shot lists for the upcoming day tallied the night before, by the creative team. Each scene that needs to be shot at a particular location is listed, and all the shots that would be needed to complete that scene are listed alongside.

 

For an artist shooting a music video, all this means is that you know all the shots that you would absolutely need to tell a story, if the script has one. Then you carefully plan the shots for the lip sync parts that you are absolutely going to use in the final video. These are going to be your main shots that you would list, and then cross each one of them out as you record them to your satisfaction on the shooting day. You can then lip sync the entire rest of the song as part of the B-roll, in addition to other B-roll shots that you might record, like walking, hand gestures, feet movements, jewellery, head shots and head moves, eye moves, random actions, or random dance steps, or general location shots, or objects at location shots, sky shots, treeline, buildings, trains, etc.

 

Then you need to know what sort of covered space you have available at an outdoor location, were it to start pouring cats and dogs on the day. You need to know what type of lighting you would have available on location, be it Sunlight, street lights, shop lights, building lights etc., and then need to have a plan about whether to use reflectors to use that light, or carry your own lights, be they as simple as tall standing LED work lights from a hardware store, or even a handheld battery powered LED work light. These lights may not have the high CRI (colour rendering index) number of mid 90s and above, and barely touch 80 CRI, but they are all you need. By saturating colours in post, and enhancing contrast, you can make even an 80 percent coverage of the colour gamut look like a HDR Video, simply by planning the colours you capture, be them as vibrantly coloured clothes, or very colourful backgrounds. Then you need to know if you would need a portable power station to power your lights, if you are shooting at night in a location without power supply. If you use lights in a public space, you need to know how busy it would be, and if you would be able to isolate your set, or if you would need to gaffer tape the light cords, each and every time you might need to move them. During daytime, you might get away simply by using two portable reflectors, and using Sun as a backlight, as well as background light, and then reflecting it as talent light (or rather shadow filling light). More on this lighting below in relevant section.

 

Planning the shoot also involves accounting for any travel time between locations, the rough start and end times for the shooting days, factoring in coffee and food requirements, carrying and safeguarding equipment, and making sure someone is keeping a tab on what has been shot, and also the time. Talent needs to be contacted prior to the shoot to confirm their attendance, and replacement options should be lined up were something to go wrong on the day. These options may not always be in the form of replacement talent, but in a low budget shoot, could also mean a change of style of the video. A story-based video could be turned into a highly stylized lip sync video, with lots of suggestive artsy shots of random things, places, or people added to complete the video. It might not be an ideal result, but it could be the only option if you have money riding on locations, and other cast and crew already there at the location. This might not be an option for a feature, or a short film project, but music videos can get away with a lot. This paragraph has assumed that you are the one handling the video production, as a director, cameraman, editor, and all. Should there be someone else handling one of those roles, you would need a replacement ready for them too, for life happens, all the time! And if you fall sick yourself; toughen up!

 

C) Capturing the Shots

This is where you create magic; with script ready, shots planned, you arrive at the location with the cast and crew, ready to say ‘Camer Rolling! Action!’. Hey, ‘Cut’, for we are not there yet. We first need to set up the scene, design the action, and define the camera moves, before we start taking shots, with our camera of course. The glass ones will have to wait until the release!

 

Now you must be wondering; why so much effort when all we need to do is click a record button? The reason is, in Megamind’s words, ‘Presentation’! What we see in real world is three dimensional, but what a camera records, is in two dimensions. Not only does it strain the appearance of the recorded people, objects, or action, but the scene may end up looking completely flat and devoid of life, if we do not make it look three dimensional in a two-dimensional format. And we have tools to do that; the light and shadows, the movement, both of the object (or subject) of recording, and the recording object (or subject), and also the field of view (or action) as seen split into three sections, the background, the middle ground (where action generally happens), and the foreground.

 

Consider three people standing somewhere and talking to each other. When you look at them as you walk past them, you would notice that the people closer to you, and furthermore, their body parts closer to you, they appear bigger than the people and body parts further away from you. And as you walk from one end to the other, you start seeing newer angles of their bodies, while older angles slowly move out of your sight. How you see ‘what you see’ is called ‘Perspective’, and how that view changes, is called ‘Change of Perspective’. If you record this scene in plain diffuse light, with everything in focus, and a still camera, it would appear like they all have been stapled to the background, and look like everything was lying flat on a table in front of you, just like it does in home videos. This happens as there is no or very little Perspective difference to create the feeling of three-dimensional space, and above all, a Change of Perspective is missing in the recording. This is what two-dimensional representation does to three-dimensional world.

 

In order to make people, objects, and action come to life in a three-dimensional look on a flat two-dimensional screen, we need to create a sense of differentiation between what is closer towards the camera, and what is further away, along with a differentiation from the things in the background, and the foreground. When you can spot the subtle differentiation between the three sections of the field of view, that’s when the scene starts to appear life-like on a screen. It’s ironic that the actual flat life-like look of home videos is not what we consider life-like in cinematic world. In fact, we have to make it all look dramatic, so it doesn’t look real, and then call it ‘Life-like, but bigger than Life’. But I guess the hint lies in the word ‘Life-like’, as opposed to ‘Live’.

 

We start our creative sorcery by first angling the light to create shadows; complimentary for beauty shots, and something else for dramatic effects like comedy or horror. You start creating differentiation between body contours of the people, between people, and between objects in the scene. By lighting background separately, or managing the way your talent lighting interacts with it, and further, by defocusing it by using wider apertures (increasing bokeh in very loose layman terms, as bokeh is less about blurring the background, but in general blurring everything except the subject), and by focusing out foreground elements, you separate the action from the rest. How much do you blur the background and defocus the foreground, depends upon how much do you want the people to see of either. Of course, there may be instances where the action in your shots moves between the three sections of the view, and in those instances, your focus too moves between them; when foreground is relevant the focus is there, when middle ground is relevant the focus is there, and when the background is relevant the focus is there. But while focus moves, the lighting generally stays still, unless the lighting is shown as sourced from something moving in the storyline.

 

The camera movement too adds layers of perspective change, by showing different angles of the scene as the camera moves. It further separates the action from the surroundings. It changes what appears bigger on the screen, and what appears smaller, what can be seen clearly, and what is blurred. It adds a dramatic three-dimensional reality to the otherwise two-dimensional recording. When people or objects move in the scene, that movement too adds to the perspective change, aided of course by the light and shadow play on the moving things, and lighting doesn’t even need to move.

 

The field of view is as much a part of the story, as much the main action, for it situates the action in context with the rest of the world. You show people where the action is happening, how the action is moving in that space, and sometimes, how that space is being manipulated by the action. This means, you are always mixing wide shots of the space, with the close-ups, or mid shots of the action and talent. This is true for all forms of video, be it feature, short, or music video. This is why it becomes important to understand how you would differentiate the three sections of the field of view, and how the action would happen in that confined space.

 

Now all these above things do not happen, or are not planned and executed at random. Rather, each of these aspects are planned to create the ultimate look and feel of the video project, and we are going to study in some detail below as to how these aspects are controlled and manipulated by the creative team. We will use lighting for the scene, direction of movement of the action and actors’ locations, camera movement and angles, to capture the story with a clear idea about what is going to make the final cut. Then of course, we will execute failsafe protocols too. Depending upon your project’s length and type, the creative direction of the project, and your personal style, there might be a slight pre-ponderance of some specific subtypes (or styles) of these four aspects of recording the shots, but the general principles will still stay the same for all formats and projects. So let us look at the aforementioned aspects one at a time now.

 

1)  Lighting the Scene

You must have heard, read, and seen videos of the basic three-point lighting system; the key light that lights up the subject (or action), the fill light that fills in the shadows to reduce the harshness of the scene black, and backlight to give a hair light (or an edge light) to your subject, so they appear separate from the background. Then you would have heard a lot about altering the height of these lights, if possible, and to tilt them to use them at different angles, so as to change the appearance of the way light hits your subject’s face; like in Paramount, Rembrandt, Dramatic or Split lighting styles, or the under-chin torch blowup for specific scene lights (like in moments of horrifying exposition) etc. Then you would have heard about lighting the background with a separate light, or set of lights, or just dropping a shadow on the background using one of the three-point-system lights, generally the backlight. That is all good and fine, when you have extensive light system at your disposal, and lighting grips to work them for you. However, if you are reading this article, then probably you don’t have those, or it could be that your project really doesn’t need them. So here are a few tricks that would give you decent to great results, depending upon your execution of the same.

 

First thing you need to determine about lighting is, as to how you want the video to look to the audience. This statement has something to do with whether you are going to broad-light your scenes (the bright side of your actors faces appearing bigger on the screen than the shadowy parts, generally for action-adventure styles), or short-light your scenes (the shadowy parts of your actors faces appear bigger on the screen than the well-lit sides, generally for dark stories), or show them lit up in split lighting (half bright, half dark; generally used in fight scenes, very dramatic sequences with high drama and intensity, or just for stylistic reasons in music videos where you are showing the inner contrasts of your character), or if you are going to show your talents as balanced lit on both sides (like in romantic films and comedies, or scenes which are light on heavy emotions, or beauty shots of your leading ladies). Depending upon what style you pick up for your video project, you would need to work with the lights accessible to you at the shoot locations.

 

If you are shooting outdoors, and the sun is out and about, that could be the only light you need. Since the sunlight would brightly light up everything including the background, your best bet is to show the talents darker lit. You achieve this by pushing sun towards the back of your characters, not directly, but to a side. This is all about where you are putting your camera with regards to the movement of your actors that you are going to capture. The sunlight will give a nice backlight to your actors, and also a bright key light coming from a rear angle. You would aim to shoot in ‘Short-light’ style, and bounce the sunlight with a reflector or white-board to fill up the shadow side of their faces. Sunlight should light up some space behind your actors, while distant objects should be looking shadowy in a similar style as your talent. Here the bright lit space between the talent and distant objects is what would create the differentiation between background and middle ground. Sunlight would generally create a similar effect between the actors and foreground too.

 

Should your scene be under a shady space, the background still being lit by sun, then you might want to use a diffused handheld light in addition to, or instead of just a reflector, depending upon the strength of the diffused ambient light in the shade. This should brighten up your talent slightly, with the ambient light in the shady space acting as a diffused fill light. You should reflect some light on to the talent from an angle behind them too, to give them a backlight that appears to be reflected light from the surroundings and background. In these examples with the sunlit locations, you are still working around the basic three-point lighting principle, but only using one light source, the Sun. There is no reason why you can’t use this idea in areas lit by a large area light at night, or a scene lit by street or venue lights. However, you would want to add at least one light, even a hardware store LED light, to use as a key light. The rest would be all about broad, short, split, or other style of recording the scene.

 

With the field of view, generally speaking you want some type of light, or shadows, to separate the background from your actors, even if it means lighting the space between the two zones, and some part of your actors to receive some form of bright light. Even the darkest scenes in movies have some part of the actors’ faces catching some light. The last two chapters in Harry Porter series earned a fair bit of notoriety for their meagrely lit scenes, but those scenes still gave a hint of something alive and moving, and lo, it was the actors. In addition to the above examples of daylight scenes with bright lit background, or bright lit space between background and action, there are other examples of how background can be treated with regards to the actors in indoor spaces; for example, checkered lighting, where the background behind the short side of the actor is bright, while the part of the background behind the broad side of the actor is dark. You could light the background in a different coloured light, or a flashing strobe light etc.; this could be a creative style in case of music videos. There may be instances where the wall behind the actors is too close for a proper separation, in which case you could put an object like a vase on a small table behind the talent, to create a separation. So on and so forth, once you know the basic principles, you can device your own methods for separating the background and middle ground, depending upon your shoot requirements.

 

Also, just because we haven’t touched the foreground much in this discussion so far, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be separated from the action, by being darker (back of a wall, or a furniture item etc.), or brighter (for example, hanging festive lights, or reflective objects). The only thing is, foreground is generally shown in a non-obstructive and fleeting ways, as explained below, so gets a lot of latitude in what you want to do with it.

 

Long story of lighting short; you can get away with your shoot mostly with one or two reflectors that could be as simple as Styrofoam sheets (both to reflect light, or to cast shadows by obstructing light), and one or two lights that could be just work-lights from your favourite hardware store. Key is in the look you record (broad, short, balanced, split), and the style you use (Paramount, Rembrandt, Dramatic).

 

2)  Shot Composition

You must have read about composition grids, and composition lines. These define the ways characters and action are situated in space as seen on the screen. These have evolved over decades of cinematic experimentation and implementation, and they work because they utilize the magic wand called ‘Perspective’. There are rules like the ‘180 Degree Rule’ that helps maintain the continuity of action, and there is continuity of motion and camera movement across the scenes (which we would look into segments below). Once you understand the basic principles behind these structural elements of shot composition, you would be recording cinematic masterpieces in no time. Let’s have a look at the most prominent of these.

 

The first grid that you should be aware of is the composition grid that you see in your camera’s digital screen as an assist feature. This is the intersecting pair of two parallel line groups; one pair horizontal and the other vertical, that split the screen into nine equal sized rectangles. The main points of interest here are the four points of intersection, and the lines themselves. When you are shooting two people in conversation, one person would generally be placed around the left vertical line, and the other would be placed around the right vertical line. For full body shots, or close ups, the eye level generally sits at the top horizontal line. In case of extreme closeups, the lips generally sit on the lower line, and it is okay to either cut out both the forehead and the chin, or only the forehead in the edited shot, but never only the chin (unless the story is focusing on the head part as an ‘Insert’), or else the shot looks weird. When there is a single person walking from one direction to the other, they are positioned at the short corner, and recorded walking towards the long corner (that is; empty space is in front of them, and not behind). The only time you put someone or something smack in the middle is, when you expressly want the sole attention of the viewer to be locked on to the character who is of lone importance in that moment; this placement yells ‘Hey you! Look at me!’. Otherwise even in lone character shots, the characters are generally positioned around one of the two vertical lines; in other words, to a side. This is because, in most basic terms, the perspective distortion of a convex lens makes it more visually appealing when a person is to a side, than when they are in the middle. Music videos however are a different beast, in that, more shots are taken with the singer smack in the middle of the frame than to the side, but only when we are talking lip syncing parts featuring close-ups or mid shots. In most other shots, when the character is to a side and the camera moves, the perspective shift gives a far more exaggerated feel of the three-dimensional space the scene is set in.

 

The next set of lines you should be aware of are the lines starting from the corners of the frame, and merging into the corners of a smaller rectangle in the centre of the frame; I’ll call them the connecting lines. This smaller rectangle could be considered as representing the background, or even the action part of the field of the view, and represents a distance away from the camera, like a deep hallway, or an alleyway. This is one of the many line systems that you use to plan the talent placement in a scene, and to plan dance clips where you want to show wide shots with main character in the centre of the frame. In a two-actor shot, if one actor is at one of the vertical arms of the smaller rectangle, or even in the middle, then the other actor needs to be closer towards the camera somewhere along the connecting line joining the lower corner of the frame with the corresponding lower corner of the inner rectangle on the opposite side. Two people shots are generally shot in this way as the perspective change of the body contours of the character closer towards the camera, interact with the body contours of the character further away from the camera, creating a three-dimensional space between the two. Over-the-shoulder shots are an example of this kind of placement. If you want to show the two characters sitting side by side, you would generally use a foreground element to create the same three-dimensional depth in the scene. That foreground element could be as simple as ground between the camera and action, or an object, that may then be cut out of the frame as the camera moves closer. When that is done, you still need to shift to an angle where one person is closer towards the camera, and the other further. When you are planning a group dance shot, then the central (or main) character in the formation is at the central smaller rectangle, while the rest of the group is positioned either leading towards them using the lower two connecting lines, or falling behind them using the upper two connecting lines of this grid, and the camera either dollies in, or follows the group. The other way to arrange a group dance sequence is to use the lines described below. Recording a person walking down the middle of a train track or a street, and towards the camera, the rails or the sidewalks lead along the lower connecting lines, and appear converging at a distant point behind the character.

 

Another set of lines are the lines connecting left edge of the frame with the right edge. These are generally positioned higher towards one side, and lower towards the other. When you record characters moving from one side of the frame to the other, they generally walk along a line either going gradually upwards (if the difficulties in their path are multiplying, or they are slowing down), or going gradually downwards (signifying the easing of situation, or things speeding up). Now the angle of the slope depends upon how intense the implied effect is. Sometimes even when a character is walking away, or towards a camera, irrespective of the storyline, they still walk along a similarly inclined or reclined line, except that the angle is steep. This is about how the perspective shifts as the character walks closer or further away from the camera, and is a cinematic device. It doesn’t matter whether the camera is at a low angle, or a high angle, or even above the scene. The movement from one side of the frame to another generally follows this pattern. Even when the movement is directly towards the camera, it would still be diagonally across the centre of the frame, to enhance the perspective changes, like someone walking past the camera in an alleyway or a hallway. Only on rare occasions, you might have a character, or a crowd walking straight down from the top end to the bottom, or upwards in reverse, and these are shots captured from above, to either represent a force ready to take on a mountain of a task, or come crashing down hard upon a substratum, depending upon the story. Group dance shots can be arranged along these inclined lines too, and the camera generally keeps up with the group movement.

 

The important takeaway of using these different line styles is ‘maximising the impact of Perspective Change’; things growing bigger, or becoming smaller with the movement as the scene progresses, or people appearing at different distances in three-dimensional space as projected in two-dimensional images. We will talk about the 180-degree rule below under Camera movement.

 

3)  Camera Movement and Angles

There is a reason why a camera would be still while capturing a shot, or move in a particular way. A still camera represents an inescapable situation, where the characters are caught, and unable to do a thing about it. That situation could be of physical, psychological, emotional, or time-trap nature; everything is at a standstill. When a camera moves around a person or a group in a circular fashion, it is doing so to draw all the attention of the audience into the story and action happening at that point in time, for it could be a make-or-break moment; this is how everything will happen, or everything we know. When a camera dollies in, it is enhancing intensity of the scene, as the audience is drawn in thicker towards the action; a build-up. And when a camera dollies out, it signifies a release of emotions, energy, or entrapment; a culmination. When a camera moves in an arch, it is designed to expose the impact of the situation or words on the other side, the one originally with their back towards the camera; the impact, or expose. ‘Follow Camera’ is used to either enhance the suspense (following character into unknown), emphasize the action (dramatizing it more, be it the impact of a reveal, urgency of the situation, or haste to do something), for stylistic reasons (especially in music videos), or drawing attention to a particular part of the action (for example, a hand picking up a tea cup and lifting it to the character’s mouth, or a hand cocking a gun, etc.). ‘Inserts’ are used to draw viewer attention to very specific and important details, like the time on the clock, the hidden object, etc. Erratic camera movements are used to enhance the action in movement intense scenes like the fight scenes, or scenes involving fast actions like characters running.

 

In music videos, camera movement also signifies the energy and tempo of the song; more the energy in music, more fluidity, and also turbulence in the camera movement. Then of course, in music videos the perspective change introduced by the camera movement makes the videos come alive with the energy and vibe of the track. Generally, the camera movement in arches and circles generates the best perspective shift for music videos, but dolly ins and dolly outs too add to scenes where dance is being captured. Extreme close-ups and inserts of hands and feet movement enhance the effect of dance steps. Since you have much less time to mix long and wide shots with mid and closeups, the dolly ins and outs become all the more important to add foreground information into shots. Best videos will have some foreground objects, even though focused out, in at least half of the shots that make up a particular bar of music; that is, for one bar of music, you would have one long shot with foreground, one wide shot to provide context, and a couple of close up or mid-shots with something hanging in the foreground or laying in the foreground space in one of those shots. If you are using a zoom lens, then zooming in or out in the middle of a shot not only helps change the perspective, but also adds another layer to your music video’s flow of action. And this advantage of zoom lens is in addition to the ‘Vertigo Effect’ that you could create in your video. In fact, both Vertigo and Reverse-Vertigo effects have their own role in storytelling. When the background collapses behind the character, it signifies a mighty enlightenment of the character about some aspect of the story, that they have come to realize what they didn’t comprehend previously. When the background stretches out, it signifies the character realizing they have been sucked in by the events.

 

Then there are two more important things that help in progressing the action; the flow of shots (the 180-Degrees rule) in a scene, and the flow of movement across the scenes (connecting two separate scenes). When shooting a two people scene, imagine a straight line connecting the two. As per the 180-Degree rule, to maintain continuity of the shots making up the scene, the camera can only record the action from one side of the line. The line thus acts as the wall that the camera cannot cross when switching between characters. This is to ensure that when camera switches from one person to the other, from one angle to the other, people can still easily make out if the camera is looking at the person on the left, or the person on the right. If you shoot the first person from one side of the line, and the other person from the other, to people it would appear that the two people are somehow standing in the same spot and looking in the same direction, rather than standing opposite to each other. The only way to break this rule is to actually cross this line without cutting the shot, so people can understand that we have moved around the subjects, towards their other side. This would be done where a scene shows one character walking in from one direction, who then stops to interact with the other person coming from the opposite direction, and then something else coming from the second direction needs to be shown as entering the scene. This is how the shots making up one scene flow from one to another, without breaking audience’s continued understanding of how the characters are standing with regards to each other, or with regards to other buildings, objects, or people.

 

Then there is the flow of movement across the scenes, where action seamlessly transfers from one scene to another, say for example, from a truck speeding down on a road, to a frantic clerk rushing towards their manager. The camera moves in the two shots are planned such that the action of one scene appears to have continued into the other scene. In the example given, the truck rushing from one side of the frame towards the other, and the door to managers office opening in the second scene, and the clerk rushing in. In this example, the action and camera movement (say from left to right in the first shot, and from centre-left towards the camera, but going diagonally right, in the second). In music videos, where action in the scenes do not have to be so interconnected, the effect can be achieved by complimentary, supplementary, or contradictory camera movement in consecutive shots. Say for example, a circle shot leading to a circle shot, or a dolly-in leading to a zoom-in (zoom-out in case of a dolly-out), or left to right move in one and a right to left move in the second shot. Camera could tilt one way in one shot, and the other way in the next shot, and so on so forth.

 

Further intricacy can be added by using various camera angles and camera heights; low, mid, eye-level, high, top, or floor. Each one of these angles and height levels captures the talent or objects with a different perspective distortion. For example, looking upwards from belt level of the talent, a low angle, the talent’s body would be tapered by the convex lens, with their midriff appearing larger than it is by virtue of it being closer towards the camera, while their face and head will squeeze a bit, giving the character a towering, or larger than life look. This is used where the talent needs to be shown as brave, someone to look up to, or larger than life in a given scene. Conversely, if you shoot from the high angle, the head appears larger as it is closer to the camera, while their lower body starts squeezing down as it gets further away from the camera. This is the look of a person cut down to size by the situation, and is used to convey similar notions. Mid shots from chest level to up to about eye level look more natural and less dramatic as this is how we see other people. The perspective distortion is similar to our natural eyesight. In music videos, if you are trying to show the talent as a confident go getter, you generally use lower angles, making them look larger than life. However, it is always good to experiment with camera height, to determine what level gives your talent the most flattering appearance on the screen. The angle could also change from scene to scene, or even shot to shot.

 

4)  Failsafe Protocols

It is important to shoot for a situation where you inadvertently missed a shot during Principal Photography, and as a result there is now a glaring gap in the timeline of your edit, but a supplementary shoot (re-shoot, secondary shoot, etc.) is a budget blackhole you cannot afford. There could even be instances where the shots were recorded, but are found to be useless in post due to any reason, like being out of focus, or having a glaring production error, etc. Then you also need to shoot for a situation where B-Roll, or Filler shots, would actually add value to the project, by providing context to the subject being talked about. For example, a shot of unknown people handling guns, ammo, and drugs, while a Police Commissioner is busy giving a rousing speech to their department, about why their work is so important in keeping the streets safe. In case of music videos, the B-roll shots could be ‘Follow Camera’ shots of talent walking around, handling things, or ‘Inserts’ of the best features of the talent, like a girl’s jewellery laden hands, coloured lips, flipping hair, etc. The possibilities are endless!

 

In major projects, the most important failsafe is ‘Master Shot’. This is where a scene is recorded in its entirety using a wide angled still camera, that includes all the characters and action in the scene. When any other shot of the scene fails, like a closeup of a talent or action, cuts from this ‘Master Shot’ can be used to fill that gap. In multi-cam projects, this shot could even be recorded using cameras positioned to cover different viewing angles, to give more options for the editor, or even be shot as a combination of ‘Master Shot’, and ‘Close Framed Shots’ (using long lenses, while keeping the cameras out of the view of the main Wide Camera), to cover more work in less time on time-sensitive or extra-long projects. For music videos, you should record a Master Shot of each scene with a roving camera, for not only would it cover the normal instances of where such shots might be needed, but it would provide interesting camera angles and movements to add to the edit. Once this shot is done, then you can start breaking down the scene into individual shots, and stylize them according to your taste or need. In fact, it is possible to shoot entire music videos that would normally take a week of shooting, in a day or day-and-half, by banking heavily on these roving Master Shots. When budget is highly restrictive, creativity needs to get creative!

 

5)  Some Other Important Aspects to Note:

Most often people looking to shoot a music video, are looking to shoot it like a movie; that is, with a film look. And that look can only be achieved if a specific set of camera protocols are employed. We are talking about the FPS number, the Lens Aperture, the Camera Shutter Angle, and then there are important considerations like the Colour Temperature, the ISO settings etc. Each of these can individually have a great impact on the final look of the project, and one should be acutely aware of all of these when shooting. So let us first understand what a ‘Film Look’ is, and why our eyes see that look in a particular way.

 

It's ancient movie history now that 24 frames per second was the lowest number of FPS that allowed the movies to depict a flowing, un-choppy motion to the audience at a time when film stock cost a pretty penny. Further, when the camera used to be cranked, or ‘rolled’, manually or automatically, to both roll the film strip behind the lens, and spin a shutter disk between the two of them, so the strip could be first lit and then cut from the light, it was found that the best way to capture decently clear images was to set a shutter angle of 180-degrees. Now what does that mean, and how it impacts the image quality? Consider a rotating disk made of one solid half, and one hollow half. When this disk would spin, it’s hollow half would expose the film to the light from the lens, while the solid half would cut that light out. When the camera’s rolling gears would move the next frame into place, the event would be repeated. Since the disk is half solid and half hollow, the angle is 180 Degrees (half a circle). If the disk only has one quarter hollow and the rest solid, then the angle would become 90 Degrees, and if it has three quarters hollow and one quarter solid, the angle would be 270 Degrees. Each of these hollow cuts would expose the film strip to a different duration of light exposure from the lens, and therefore, either make the images more blurred, or crispier than the 180 Degrees angle. You could also consider this 180 Degree shutter angle as an equal amount of Exposure and Non-Exposure, that is, shutter speed of 48 for a 24 FPS recording (24 exposures, and 24 non-exposures). Now why is all this important for our current discussion?

 

When our eyes see the world, we see things according to the speed of motion. Still things appear solid, while moving things, depending upon the speed of movement, appear blurred to different levels. When a camera captures a scene with a setting that records 24 pictures in a second, each frame having been exposed equally half the time (180 Degrees shutter, or 48 shutter speed), a finite amount of time gets recorded in the frame. Now even though speed of moving objects determines how blurred they appear, yet even slow-moving objects get recorded at a particular level of blur when their motion evolving over 0.04167 milliseconds is all posted into a single frame worth that time. This is unlike human eyes that could differentiate, and human brains that could decipher a lot more data from those milliseconds. So even slow-moving objects, or stationary objects captured by a moving camera at 24 FPS, have a different (or more aggressive) blur level than what the human eye would have seen in person, the resulting images have a dreamy (or blurry) quality that is soothing in nature, as it appears to slow time even when the time is flowing in normal fashion. Over the decades we have come to identify this as ‘The Film Look’, as captured at 24 FPS by camera set at 180 Degree shutter angle (or 48 Shutter Speed). Even if we change the FPS by a mere ‘1’, that is, make it 25 FPS, the look changes dramatically, for our eyes can differentiate, and our brains decipher, the extra image clarity. So, if you want your video to look like a movie, your first step is to ensure you are recording it at 24 FPS with a 180 Degree Shutter angle (or 48 shutter speed).

 

Next thing of importance is how the colours appear on the screen, and this is where the Camera’s K (or Kelvin Scale Temperature) setting comes into play. Our eyes see the subtle changes in how the colours appear under different set of lights. Things are more bluish under daylight than under a candle light, and reddish in daylight than under a far cooler, or far more bluish light. When we are recording the videos, we need to tell the camera what the colour of the light is at the scene, so when the videos are being edited, the editor knows what the true colours of the scene would have looked like to audience if they were physically present at the scene. So, you either dial the correct K number in the Camera settings for each location and time of shoot, or you take a control picture or video of the scene every time there is a change in lighting. There are different devices to help you take those pictures; the grey cards, orange cards, colour palettes, and so on. It’s good to remember the K scale values for some typical lighting scenarios, and then dial those in at the location; like early morning light (about 1200K) candle light (1500-2000K), incandescent light (2700K), tube-light (3500K), daylight (5000-5600K), shade (about 6500-7000K), cloudy day (anything between 7000K to 9000K for extremely cloudy days), or nearly 10000K for the dusk time. These are all rough figures that I am happy to work with, but you can actually follow some technically correct logs for the exact figures. What is important however is, to acknowledge there may be situations where you are actually using colourful lights for effect. If you were to colour correct that scene, it would turn your beautifully coloured set into a normal white light set, defeating the entire purpose. This is where you intentionally choose to tell the camera, to record everything as it were recording at daylight; between 5000K to 5500K. This would ensure that the scene is recorded just the way you have lit it, and this creative decision information would need to be relayed to the Editor by the Producer/Director, or Creative Team.

 

Next you need to know what aperture settings you are going to use for recording the scene. Different aperture settings mean that the lens face is open to different amount of light coming from the scene. Consider the aperture like our eyes’ iris, that constricts when we are in bright settings, and opens up in darker places. The larger the aperture, the brighter the scene would appear to the camera, as more light would reach the sensor (or film), and more information (or blurring) would get recorded per frame. Generally, the blurring would be less for things that are at sharp focus distances, and it would increase for things that are before, or beyond that distance. This is what creates the ‘Bokeh’ effect in case of a normal camera, where the foreground and background elements are deliberately blurred out, so the attention of audience is solely tied to the action in the scene. But as you would have guessed, it’s not just the action in the scene, but everything else in the scene that is there around the sharp focus point, that would appear clear on the screen. With fake bokeh effect of the Smartphone softwares, generally the entire rest of the frame other than the action is blurred out. But it works nevertheless for most intents and purposes, as far as focusing the audience attention on to the action in the scene is concerned. With a camera, if it is a Full Frame camera, generally wide apertures from 2 to 1.8 and below would give you a creamy looking background, while apertures from 2.8 upwards would start bringing in more background into focus. How much of blur do you want for the background, and as a consequence what aperture size should you choose, would depend upon how important elements in the background are, or how much do you want the audience to notice the background; like is it a picturesque landscape, or brightly coloured dancers, or something that needs to be noticed but should not be distracting. These are creative decisions that you need to make during the planning phase, and revisit at the shoot.

 

Another important feature of the cameras that needs to be considered is the ISO values; as to how sensitive you want the sensor to be to the light. Back in film days ISO values referred to the size of the grain of the chemicals layered on the film strip that were photosensitive, and captured the light information of the scene. The concept remains the same today, and determine how much detail the sensor records about the light hitting it. Higher sensor values add more noise to the recorded pictures and videos as more light information records more information about those milliseconds that we discussed earlier. If you expose a shot for too long, or if your ISO setting is too high, the picture recorded would become populated with more white grain as more and more light would overwhelm the colour information being recorded. Your aim should be to get away with as low an ISO setting as you can for a given scene lighting scenario. Generally, settings of 400-800 ISO work during daytime, and 1000-3200 work at dark scenes. Anything less than those settings will not capture enough light data, and anything more would overwhelm the recordings. Luckily, all cameras and smartphones today can show you instant results with a test shot, and these settings are an easy fix.

 

There are other settings regarding your recording device, like whether you want to use HVEC or H264 codec for recording (or even Pro-Ress, or NRAW if you have those luxuries), and whether it would be an MP4 file or an MOV file, or how those files are going to be numbered and labelled, and so on so forth. I’d leave those to your taste if your hardware provides you those options. In general, MOV files are better as their compression algorithm retains a lot more information for editing work.

 

D) Editing The Project

For editing, the free version of Da Vinci Resolve is a great option, with their handful of online tutorials on Blackmagic Website being good enough to help you edit most of the video projects. Blender 3D is another alternative, but it’s video editing capabilities are severely limited, and some simple one-click tasks in Da Vinci Resolve take complex one day work with Blender. However, there was a time when Da Vinci Resolve free version did not allow 4K video rendering, while with Blender you could render 8K too, or perhaps even more. Know this though; there is nothing glorious about 8K rendered videos, and for the amount of disc space they consume, they are outright a crime on the business of video production. Not to mention, 8K videos can often look too life like that the project loses the dreamy world an entertainment product is supposed to take the viewers to.

 

Now, if you intend to continue your career in music and entertainment, the paid version of Da Vinci Resolve is rather inexpensive, and the added features make it a priceless investment. Other open-source software like GIMP, Audacity etc. may help fill some voids in the editing process, and royalty free sound effect libraries are a cheap alternative to find some background sounds on the go should you need them.

 

What is of utmost importance is that the Editor and the Producer/Director (unless the two are same), are completely on-board with regards to the creative direction of the edit. A good edit can turn a below average footage into an all-time classic tale. Needless to say, this is the most important part of the production. It is where you cover for any and all mistakes of the production, and yet deliver a handsome product. For music videos, remember; you do not need to tell a complete story in absolute detail, for audience brains would fill in the blanks, and even add details to the story, so that what they saw on the screen makes sense to them. Now with editing, there are a few things that you need to sort out for a professional product; namely, the shot mixing, colour correction, and where needed, special effects.

 

As I mentioned above, you need to mix long shots, or wide shots, with mid-shots, and close-ups, so the audience gets a thorough idea of where the action is taking place, and also get an intimate view of the action. There is an establishing shot to show where a scene is taking place, and somewhere down the line, a long or wide shot to show how the space has changed with the progression of action. This keeps audience embedded inside the story. Then you show mid-shots to focus on the action, and close-ups to focus on words, emotions, and reactions. In music videos, while you are generally mixing clips either to the beat, or to a dropping or evolving sound, unless you are shooting a video for a slow vibe number, you generally mix one shot per two words said. Of course, it is not a hard and fast rule, and you could use elaborate shots captured with cinematic camera movement and angles, to give it a lingering style. The story elements would generally progress alongside the various parts of the song. You don’t need to elaborate too much on story elements, but just show enough to make general sense of the storyline.

 

Let us consider the example that I mentioned way above in this article; that of broken up lover catching their ex with another, and then feeling relieved or dejected, or the video ending in a happy twist. All you need to show this story in a music video is; the two lovers quarrelling and one walking away leaving the other broken (no need to show them meeting, hooking up, or loved up), then one lover catching a glimpse of their ex having a moment (happy, or calm, or whatever) with someone else (no need to show the pair doing their own thing, the lover doing their own thing, and then the lover finally catching a glimpse), and lastly, the lover remembering the mistreatment one of them meted out to the other and then feeling either relieved or dejected, depending upon who was the errant partner. A twist could be shown with the supposed new lover actually turning out to be a friend trying to bring the two lovers back together. Four short scenes that could be summed up in a handful of shots is all the story in this video needs. Lip sync shots, filler shots, and inserts would bulk out the remainder of this video.

 

Now there are two ways to proceed with your edit; either you line up your shots into a timeline first and then start colour correcting and colouring, or you do the edit and colour correction at the same time but colouring as the final step. Irrespective of which method you prefer, it is imperative that you know exactly what you are doing with colour correction, and colouring.

 

The original starting point of colour correction in the industry was to try and reproduce the natural colours, but what we got on the screen was what the relevant technology of the time could deliver. Today, the starting point of colour correction for every project is still the same; you get the colours balanced correctly and true to life, but then you add another layer of a stylish look. And even though this might sound counterintuitive, but colour balancing a project to then turn it into a Black & White result too is a form of stylizing. So basically, when you are determining the look of the project, the last thing you finalize is whether your project would be in B&W, Sepia, Greyscale, Eastman Colours, or some new fancy shade, like the preoccupation of industry with bluish shadows and pinkish or pale skin tones for the last decade or so. But as I said; this decision is made once the original colour correction is done.

 

For colour correction, your first step in general is to make sure the white balance is correct for your footage. Normally, when the project is being shot, the cinematographer ensures the camera is properly calibrated to the light colour at the time of the shooting, by properly adjusting the K value. Sample pictures or videos for colour calibration could have been recorded, or colour cards could have been used. Sometimes however, things might not be as simple as I explained above in the case of creative lighting. In any case, when you are sitting at the table as an Editor, you need to make sure that is the case, or that any deviation is because of a styling reason. All leading video editing softwares provide an option to fix the colour temperature with one single click. You use a colour picker to tell the software as to what point in any frame of a given shot should be treated as pure-white, and not off-white because of some colour overlay due to lighting and camera settings mismatch. Something in every frame is supposed to be white, unless it is all pitch black or the shot only features non-white colours without any highlights. In a worst-case scenario, you could treat a bright highlight point as what should be white, and pick a pixel around the edges of that highlight zone, as a sample of white. The software would do the rest of the work.

 

Next you would look at the Luma Waveform of the shot, and would use the sliders provided under the heading ‘Lift’ in the ‘Colour Wheels’ section, and bring them down so that most shadows sit closer to the ‘0’ line in the waveform. Then you would raise the ‘Gain’ slider to make sure the highlights sit closer to the ‘100’ line in the waveform. The only time either of those cross their respective boundaries is when you intentionally want to blow something out of the frame for stylistic reasons. Otherwise over crushed shadow spots could look like black holes in the frame, while overblown highlights could look like canvas wipe-outs. Then you alter the ‘Gamma’ sliders to make sure that the midtone shades sit between 500-700 range on the Waveform, depending upon how bright you want the scene to look like. These two steps; the clip white correction, and the clip luma correction, should generally bring your scene closer to the balanced natural look, the original mainstay of the industry. The look can be tested for balance by checking the skin tones, with the help of Chroma Vectroscope, and see if the clip colour is balanced along the red-yellow border. If your computer display is set to sRGB or Rec.709, and you are editing in the same colour space in your software, you should be able to tell it by sight as well. The other way is to check that all three channels (Red, Green, and Blue) appear balanced on the ‘RGB Parade’. On rare occasions you might need to drag the colour wheels to alter the colour levels of one or all of the three zones (highlights, midtones, shadows), and this would balance the three channels on the RGB Parade. You may further tinker with Contrast, and Saturation sliders, to alter the look further to your taste.

 

Once the clips are all colour balanced, the easiest way to stylize the project is to add an adjustment layer on top of all the clips, and work on the colour properties of that layer. This would ensure that the entire project would receive the same colouring style. Using this layer, and colour correction tools in the colouring section of your software, you can change any and all colour, shadow, highlight, or midtone values for the project, thus giving it any stylistic look. For example, by increasing the blue in shadows and highlights, red in midtones, and reducing the overall colour saturation, you would get the bluish shadow and pinkish look that had been the mainstay of films and videos for a few years now. You could turn your project B&W, or make it Sepia, Eastman, or whatever you want it to be!

 

Once the shots are edited and arranged, colour corrected and coloured, any special effects added, it is time to add any sound-effects that you want to add to the project in addition to the already present dialogue and music (which is how you edited the shots into their places). With special effects; you should research the specific special effects that you want to add to the project, prior to the shoot, and plan your shots according to them (for example; Green Screen Footage). Simple post-production effects generally involve adding text, lighting effects, 3D effects etc, and softwares like Blender, GIMP, Photoshop, Maya etc. can help you develop them as per your needs. Discussing those is beyond the scope of this article. There are low-cost online libraries where developers often sell readymade 3D Objects, and Special effects, that you could purchase and add to your project. So, it is worth researching those avenues as well.

 

E) Delivery and Advertisement

When the project is ready to be rendered, you may need to render it in more than one format, depending upon where you intend to release it. While 4K video is good for online uploads to sites like YouTube, you may need HD content for sending it to most TV stations. Then you need to know what level of loudness your video should peak at, depending upon where you are sending it, unless you want your audio to get distorted by the compression that would be applied by the online site, or TV station, before it makes to the audience. All the specs information is generally available online, and only or rare instances you might need to contact a TV channel office, to know their specifications. It is however important to make sure your content leaves your offices ready for release on whatever media you are putting it on.

 

As I have said earlier, it is important to support your video release with an advertisement campaign if you want to see it getting any kind of worthwhile traction with audiences. Even best-known artists can struggle to get their ill-advertised projects in front of a substantial audience, and as a result endure a failed release. Your starting point should be spending at least two dollars on advertisement for every dollar that you spent on producing the video. Thus, it is important while budgeting for the project, that you determine exactly how elaborate your video is going to look on screen, so you have enough left for advertising it once it has been shot. There is no use shooting an extravagant masterpiece if no one is going to notice it. In a day and age where every city in the world is producing tens of music videos everyday (if not hundreds), your video is bound to get heaped on by far inferior videos without the advertising stilts to stand up on.

 

What This All Means:

A camera is just a device to capture what you see. What makes it art is the way you capture what you see, and then the style you present it in. Of course, the camera you have with you would present itself with a range of capabilities, that would determine how much detail you would be able to first capture, and then reproduce in your final presentation. That limitation however does not limit the art that you see in the stories that you have to bring to life. As long as you know how things are worked in front of the camera, you could still create masterpieces with what you get out of it. Besides, in today’s day and age, the technological advancements mean that even Smartphone cameras can give the yesteryears 35mm film a run for its money. Then when you add the advent of advanced AI assisted editing tools, the gap shrinks even more.

 

Of course, it is debatable, and would depend upon the project at hand, if you would like the quality, style, and placement of AI enhancements in the field of view, or if you would prefer the product without it. Consider the case of 3D Cinema, where things pop out of the screen; at the end of the day, those effects actually distract the viewer from the main component of the content; the action. Most amazing films in 2D would feel a bit lacking when viewed in 3D for this very reason; the audience isn’t able to properly connect with the story being told. Now if you are waiting with baited breath, holographic cinematic presentations to arrive, then consider this; how would you connect with the story being told, when you might actually miss important scenic elements should they appear in the presentation in spaces where you aren’t looking at, and how would you even focus on what you are looking at with so many things around you. And if you are going to watch holographic presentation from a distance, then what would be the purpose of such an elaborate presentation in the first place, and how would it still overcome the distraction conundrum?

 

In any case, our interest today is just to make normal 2D videos and films with a poor man’s Arri; the smartphone. All I would say is; if you manage to grasp the wide and scattered information that I have provided above, I have no doubt you would be able to create mean professional videos even with your smartphones. The only thing holding you back is you!

 

Take care,

Fatal Urge Carefree Kiss

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