Performance Planning

By Matt Dickinson












Click on the image to view my Prezi on the planning for our performance part of the music video. I made this shortcut for the presentation - the interactivity of the presentation is a lot more interesting to watch and more engaging than perhaps text and images on the blog.




From Matt Dickinson's Blog





The performance is due to be the base bulk of a our music video, it is what

we can fall back on if other parts of the narrative goes wrong.


Therefore it was key that we tried to film as much as we can from every angle so


we were never short of footage when it came to post production especially as we


only have narrative shots edited into the timeline at the moment making up a few


minutes of the video. From looking at previous reports of people filming music


videos our teacher told us that the most important part is to make sure we have a


variety of different angles and distance shots (close up to long shots) to ensure a


consistency and fluidity of the video.






















The first thing i did to look into making music videos online on youtube and there were a handful of videos which could give us tips and tricks on what too do. One video in particular was a lot of help, by Film riot. This is a channel dedicated to amateur cinematographers and how to improve so it was perfect.


It helped reinforce the importance of aspects like lighting, perspective and how shots can be manipulated in such ways to appear differently to the viewers on screen. Which could help us make our zero budget music video look a lot higher quality. The video is below.















So first thing first we focused on lighting, as this was primary going to make or break our music video. We looked around and found that FIlm riot had produced another video on how to light your scene which was very helpful however it brought our confidence down as it showed the reality in the amount of lights needed and the quality/colour of the light needed to get a professional and "fitting" look.


Also what we need to look at is what lights are going to be out of and in the shot. For Example in the picture to the side in side the shot is the light of the lamp. However that is not powerful enough to produce enough light so the camera can record on a low ISO and have a low amount of noise therefore they have included to external lights. One spotlight which will direct light in the same path of lamp making the viewer assume the lamp is stronger than it is and a background light to increase light of the overall scene.


Contrast can always be increased in post production to darken the background again but the difference will be that the shot will have no noise in the image which is something we may struggle with.


Back to colouring the image it is essential that even that colour correction can be applied in post production after, natural coloured light originally shot will improve the quality of the image and reduce extra work in post. This can be achieved a number of ways. For example Halogen lights are primary orange so if you want a cold blue sort of atmosphere then you are going to have to look for another bulb or filter to produce this tone and wont be seen as a safety hazard. I created a small comparison photo below showing the impact of tones below.











Planning this would be essential then to try and prevent us having to go back and re-film certain parts. Therefore i decided to make the scene of the performance entirely from scratch in a program called Cinema 4D (Modelling Software). This would allow me to play around with the lighting of the characters and to look at the layout of the band.






Finally finishing the model i came up with the following to mimic the band. Two Guitar players, Drummer, Keyboard and Main singer. However only one guitarist is actually needed i did this just to be safe.


Looking at lighting i knew i wanted a warm feeling to the performance as the song was connoting enjoyment of youth. Therefore i wanted a weak orange light to be included from the front not too bright to complete light the characters but enought to distish there features and create a glow about them. I then produced a three single a lot stronger neutral lights from behind to create the silhouette feeling we wanted to create as shown perviously on the pitch.


From the video you can see me playing around with lighting to get a fair distribution across all actors so individuals weren't singled out and parts aren't missed.









We then produced a list of what lights we were going to use in this process then. The first lights we were going to use were my high powered lamps which produce a bright orange tinted light which could be pushed as some of the lights in the background to give the spotlight effect effect we wanted. However i don't think these will be bright enough to produce the backlight. These will be placed more in the corners at the back to give the actors some contrast light on their sides and hopefully produce a sort of halo effect.









Then we also had two flood lights which are primary used during construction and are perfect for lighting up big areas. We are going to put this right in the centre at the back of the hall to produce the main beam to light up the backs of the actors also producing this halo, silhouette look. However these are extremely hot so care will have to take care to how long we can leave these on.







Finally we have a Long Panel LED light which is no where near as bright as the other lights. However it produces a crisp white colour which reacts very well when on skin. We are going to use this as our front light to gently increase the tone and exposure on the singer and front men in the actors. The light isnt bright enough to have a serious effect on the actors making them squint etc hindering the performance however will just create a small contrast making features more distinct.










We also are going to make sure we have extension leads so that all the lights at the back and other things can be correctly positioned without having to worry about a plugs.









Next on the list to plan was the equipment actually we would use to actually film. We had two cameras that were available to shoot HD 1080 at 30fps which were the Cannon 550D (below left) and the Nikon D3100 (Below Right). We have a number of lenses available to use each can there own affect from an fish eye to zoom and prime lenses. For more Information on the lenses and their uses check out our lenses post. Each camera had 8 Gb card so we will bring our laptops with us and charges as there were multiple plugs available to clear the cards when full so we wont have to worry about the amount we can film.








I also am going to bring my speakers to the hall to make sure we have a secure and loud base to play the music across. This will allow the drummer to play properly and in time with the beat making it easier for us to edit and the others to still here the song with the drummer behind them. Also the louder the music hopefully the more the likely they are going to be able to get into the song as if it was there own making their movements and actions seem more natural on camera.









Finally our secret weapon to the video will be a smoke machine that we were able to get a hold of through a friend. This produces no toxic smoke a press of a button that we are planning on using towards the end of the video just to add some movement to the background of the filming making the clips even more dynamic and interesting.








Posted by Matt media No comments: