Planning – Shooting

We had three locations – a cosy apartment, a rooftop and a club – and hence three days of shooting. We had not visited the locations with a camera before the shooting day and had not taken any test shots, so our approach could be called kind of a freestyling. We had a rough shooting script for the apartment and rooftop, but it contained only information about WHAT we will be shooting and not HOW (e.g., “singer at the piano” or “guys playing football”). Decisions like what lens we will be using or what will be in the background were made on the fly. This approach is nice for shoots where you have unlimited time, because you have to think a lot on the set, it takes quite a while to find the perfect shot and in the end you have a lot of footage – more than you actually need. That is not necessarily a bad thing, as the chances of shooting something worthy therefore only increases.  However, in many situations you have a limited time frame and every second counts – such was the situation in the club location.

In the club we had less than 4 hours due to the place being an actual concert hall and having a busy schedule. A serious preparation work needed to be done beforehand. The shoot in the club had the most thorough shooting script with every shot written down, described in detail with notes about what lens to use and how the shot will be performed e.g. handheld, tripod or dolly. The shots were also arranged by priority. We managed to shoot everything we needed but that was the tightest filming we’ve ever had and it wouldn’t have hurt to get some more takes. It would have helped more if we had visited the place before the actual shoot and had done some tests shots without actors and extras, so that on the actual day less time would be spent figuring out where to put the camera or how to light the scene.

Total duration of footage was 2h 19 min, so our shooting ratio was about 1:40 (40 minutes of footage for 1 minute of final cut). If we would be shooting on film we would be bankrupt! However, the shooting ratio varies for different shooting days.  We got about 50 minutes of footage in the apartment and in the video the apartment is seen only for 35 seconds (shooting ratio 1:85!), while footage of the club was only 30 minutes in total but the time in final cut is approximately 1 minute. So – doing a proper preparation can lead to a more efficient work! However, you should never underestimate the magic of the moment – sometimes an unexpected turn of events leads to a much better outcome. For example, in this video the singer Māra did not have much time on the roof when it was very sunny so we shot the most important takes and then she had to leave, but she agreed to return when she will be free again that day. Māra returned in the evening when the sun was setting and it played out very well in the video where we used the evening shots in the second chorus.

Lighting

At the apartment we had 2 set-ups. For both we used 2-3x 500W fill lights which were directed towards the ceiling. Their role was just to increase the amount of diffused light in the room. We used one more 500W lamp that was moved in every shot where it was necessary to have more light.

On the rooftop there was no need for an artificial lighting. Actually it was so light that we ran into a problem! We could not use the f/stop we wanted (we had to close the aperture too much) and hence the background was too much in focus – not the look we wanted at all! Thanks to modern mobile technology and a bit of luck – we found the only photo store that got ND filters and it happened to be very near our location. So we shot the rooftop using two ND4 filters. One more thing that is quite essential in outdoor locations if you want full control is a reflector – the singer at the piano had her back on the sun and only with the reflector we could light her face properly.

At the club we used mostly the lights that were present there – it was an actual stage and it had a pretty sophisticated set of lights. From our own stock we used only 2x 500W lamps to light the tables with extras.

Camera

We filmed this video with Panasonic GH1 using Canon FD 50mm and 28mm prime lenses.  We also used a tripod, a Gini rig and a DIY dolly track. Gini rig lets you to take shoulder-cam shots with a DSLR sized camera. The greatest thing about it is the follow focus – a system of gears – which allows very smooth focusing without the risk of jerking the camera and ruining the shot. The power of dolly can also be seen in the video – it creates an additional dynamic that makes everything just look cooler. The DIY dolly actually deserves its own blog post.

Post-production (Color Correction)

This time the only post-production process other than editing was color correction. After editing in Sony Vegas the video is rendered as one uncompressed file and imported in After Effects. We went for a filmic, realistic feeling – a subtle tone that would not call attention to itself. We combined Magic Bullet Looks and Colorista plug-ins. Looks work really well when applied on an Adjustment layer and its opacity then can be tweaked. I would also recommend using Magnum – The Edit Detector script which “automagically detects edits in the footage” and saves you time – and you can name your own price! Here are some before/after comparisons (move mouse over the picture to see the original):

These were the most interesting technical points of the music video. If you have any questions about the production of a music video or this video in particular, don’t hesitate to ask them in the comment section (in English or Latvian)!

The first change you might notice is that everything looks moderately awesome. Another change is that we are now mostly in English and that’s for various reasons – one being that now we are broadening our potential audience from 2 million to approximately… a lot of people – sounds like a good business decision to us! But don’t fret – you can still access the most important information like our works and crew description in Latvian (look for the !). By the way, the photos on the Crew page kicks some serious arse.

Additionally, we present…

All our last year’s projects have been summarized in this smashing video accompanied by an incredible tune from Glitch Mob. After watching the video you are more than welcome to check all our best productions in detail at the Works section!

We hope that the year 2012 will not be the last one and in approximately 360 days we will be able to release an even greater showreel. Without a doubt this year we will be having lots of new projects and adventures that will be more challenging than the ones so far. Galjafilms always tries to step it up and explore new territories. So… YEAH!