Production Diary: Music Video

Just got our premiere for the video booked. We're showing it at a local bar/restaurant on 12/21. The music promoter has booked a couple of complementary bands (with our help). The band in the video will not be playing because of a couple of reasons:

A) The drummer just broke his arm while on tour with another of his bands (he's in three other bands).
B) The band in the video is actually fake. :D :cool:

That's right, the band in the video has never actually played together before. The bass, drums, vocals, and rhythm guitar (which may or may not be in the final master of the song, I can't remember now) are all done by my co-producer (who's playing bass and singing in the video), while the lead guitar parts are the guy playing the guitar in the video. The drummer is a friend who is actually insanely talented, and agreed to fake it in the video. These guys are planning on forming a real band, but as of right now, they've never really all played together other than a little jamming on the day of the shoot. In fact, the drummer had never even played the song (and had only listened to it a handful of times) before arriving at the base that day (and yes, that did make the editing process a bit difficult, to say the least).

So, I guess the big secret is out. :P

I may see about live-streaming the premiere, and will update here if that happens so that anyone interested can tune in!
 
Well that's cool. So they got together for you and your shoot? And then they thought, hey, we could really play together? So you're a filmmaker and a matchmaker, if the band thing pans out. Cool beans, really.
 
richy said:
Well that's cool. So they got together for you and your shoot? And then they thought, hey, we could really play together? So you're a filmmaker and a matchmaker, if the band thing pans out. Cool beans, really.
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Not quite. They'd been talking about recording together and playing together, and then my co-producer pulled everyone together once we decided to do a video. There were two other guitarists who were going to be a part of it, but scheduling conflicts prevented them from being there. The guys are actually going to form a band (the drummer is currently dealing with a broken arm...), just not this particular band, if that makes sense.
 
good for a first video.. but that aside my feelings are:

1. samey locations are a bit of a bore, there was hardly any cutaways of the band which was a shame.
2. I don't get the fat guy bit just seems to fill in the space to make up the time.
3. camera work was good, but no shots seem to be great apart from the spinning band then letting the light in, which was cool but you let the clip run too long IMO.
4. the homing target thing.. dunno what that was and what its purpose was?
5. good shots of the drummer.
6. the frame positioning of the fat guy eating was a little weird for me, I felt it didn't work too well, I was instantly thinking of nutty professor but this wasn't pulled off in the same effect, maybe its just me.
7. for a song that's quite rough (tempo and attitude) I think you didn't capture the singer too well, when he was really hitting the notes he looked flaccid and the camera work didn't complement that either, it was just pan pan pan..

but a good job just thought id put my feelings on it.

cant wait to see your next one.
 
8salacious9 said:
good for a first video.. but that aside my feelings are:

1. samey locations are a bit of a bore, there was hardly any cutaways of the band which was a shame.
2. I don't get the fat guy bit just seems to fill in the space to make up the time.
3. camera work was good, but no shots seem to be great apart from the spinning band then letting the light in, which was cool but you let the clip run too long IMO.
4. the homing target thing.. dunno what that was and what its purpose was?
5. good shots of the drummer.
6. the frame positioning of the fat guy eating was a little weird for me, I felt it didn't work too well, I was instantly thinking of nutty professor but this wasn't pulled off in the same effect, maybe its just me.
7. for a song that's quite rough (tempo and attitude) I think you didn't capture the singer too well, when he was really hitting the notes he looked flaccid and the camera work didn't complement that either, it was just pan pan pan..

but a good job just thought id put my feelings on it.

cant wait to see your next one.
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Thanks for the feedback! This kind of stuff is super helpful.

The chicken-eating guy will make more sense once it's all tied together into a narrative (I think there will be 5 more videos in this project, though there could be even more). The framing on those shots were really limited due to the lens I had to use and the space we had available. I didn't do any lighting tests before the night of the shoot, and the lens I planned on using wasn't fast enough, so I had to switch to my 50mm Helios to get enough light. Poor planning on my part, but we made it work as best we could.

On the next video we definitely want to get more coverage and work with some more angles and different kinds of shots. This ended up being more of a proof-of-concept type thing, where my co-producer and I worked together from pre-production through post-production for the first time and created something we're proud to show people. :)
 
cameronchapman said:
Thanks for the feedback! This kind of stuff is super helpful.

The chicken-eating guy will make more sense once it's all tied together into a narrative (I think there will be 5 more videos in this project, though there could be even more). The framing on those shots were really limited due to the lens I had to use and the space we had available. I didn't do any lighting tests before the night of the shoot, and the lens I planned on using wasn't fast enough, so I had to switch to my 50mm Helios to get enough light. Poor planning on my part, but we made it work as best we could.

On the next video we definitely want to get more coverage and work with some more angles and different kinds of shots. This ended up being more of a proof-of-concept type thing, where my co-producer and I worked together from pre-production through post-production for the first time and created something we're proud to show people. :)
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by all means it was a good job, better than most peoples videos iv seen, but you don't really want people kissing your behind at this stage, you want people to push you on and make you work harder.. that's me :)

location was a great choice, I like the camera handling and your homemade stuff.

for the next one plan like 4 different locations do a run through of the song in each one, then get the band to do random stuff something cool, something stupid, something weird, trust me editors love that kind of shizzle it makes for great cutaways if you watch a lot of videos youl see they have some random cutaways maybe of someone eating, someone walking, someone looking in a direction etc etc..
 
8salacious9 said:
by all means it was a good job, better than most peoples videos iv seen, but you don't really want people kissing your behind at this stage, you want people to push you on and make you work harder.. that's me :)
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Thanks. :) I definitely do want people to push me at this stage! I want to make this a significant portion of my filmmaking career, and the only way I'm going to do that is if I continually improve and keep pushing myself to be better.
 
We screened the video last night at our local bar. We ended up with a massive ice storm, so rather than the 80 or 90 people we were expecting, probably 20 showed up. The other band that played did a fantastic job and is now interested in a video. Our video was really well-received. And here it is on YouTube finally, all public:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdW6dyc8e4A

Just wanted to let everyone know how it went. Next step is waiting to hear back from SXSW and submitting to two other festivals.
 
Thanks! I wish I'd gotten more pics from the premiere, but unfortunately I was too busy running around talking to people and keeping track of the band members to take many.
 
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