My twin brother Matt and I finally have a link to a music video we produced and directed for our brothers band The Upstarts, our brother is the lead singer. Anyway, I'll be sending it in to S.F. but I wanted to add the link to get some feedback and what not. Thanks for your time.

Nate Fackrell

Please be patient for it to download, it's kind of slow, I apologize:

www.arborridgemedia.com/salvationday.mov

That looks amazing! What did you guys shoot it on? P2?

Quick question...would you guys be interested in providing me with 4 or so performance takes from your dailies so I can do an Avid tutorial on multicam editing for Studentfilms.com?

Thanks for the good word Chris, it really means a lot! We shot it on a 35mm panavision camera and used about 7,000 feet of film. I'd totally be down with getting you some dailies. We ran into a lot of problems with this shoot however, there is no timecode sync, we didn't have a smart slate either. I had to take the song and match all the footage with the music the best I could.

We also shot it with 35mm short ends, so we'd only have about 2 or 3 minutes of film per roll and the song is 4 1/2 minutes long. Plus with the limited amount of film we (my twin and I) had to figure what were the most important images to shoot. So we'd shoot only 30 seconds of the horns and do a couple takes, then about a minute of the different instruments and do a couple takes, then pray it would all edit together in the end. The lead singer, we'd shoot as much as we could. Lol, sorry, it's a long story.

Anyway, it's all pretty messy, I think it would still work though. We also produced and directed another music video that I would really like you to check out. I'll leave a link up for a little bit, the band is still trying to get the video out. It was fun to edit, and we had a lot more film this time when we shot it. Here is the link:

http://www.tridentity.net/Video/SL_Infectious_Final_Cut.mov

The compression is jacked, there is a lot of annoying interlacing, my fault. Let me know what you think.

Anyway, I'm totally cool with getting you the dailies from the Upstarts video. How could I get it to you?


nate fackrell

This message has been edited. Last edited by: suspectx,

Truly awesome guys! It is so refreshing to see a music video that is simple yet keeps the audience entertained for the entire duration of the song (It definitely did not feel like 4.5m)

I loved the look that you guys achieved as well, simply stunning! It is such a positive sign when film makers talk about the problems that occurred on set and then showcase such a polished piece!

If you don't mind me asking, how old are you two and what (if any) education have you had in film?

I'm downloading the second video now, can't wait to see it and am also very interested in the multicam tutorial Chris.

Thanks a bunch CJK, my twin and I just turned 30 and we just barely graduated the Art Center Center College of Design graduate film program. We've been working in film long before that though, time well spent I do have to say.

Yeah, this video...actually both videos were hard as hell to make, especially when my twin and I are doing 10 different jobs at once on the set. I had a teacher at school tell the students that being in prison is easier than being a filmmaker, and it's a completely true statement.

Let me know what you thought of the other video, you might hate it but that's ok.

Nate

Hey Nate, just finished watching the second clip, and I was just as impressed. There were two edits that didn't sit right with me (personal preference most probably) but I thought I'd mention it as some sort of feed back. They actually happen one after the other, the wipe followed by the jump cut. Don't hate me, lol.

Yeah I think your teacher hit the nail on the head with that comment. What did you film the second clip on? I know there is a post about that specific clip on the forums but I'm to lazy to do a search and its relevant here! Lol. Did either one of you guys shoot the clips or did you get in a DOP/Camera Op to take care of that? Also, how does it go on set with a twin brother and the directing position? Do you take it in turns, do you direct at the same time, or is one giving the role? Just curious. Great work!

Chris

Did you cut on Avid or FCP?

If you cut on Avid, just burn the media files to a disk that are in the OMFI media files folder for a couple takes. (make sure the takes overlap sync wise)

To find the media files for a particular clip in the Avid, select the file in the bin and go to the file menu and choose reveal file.

I'd also need the audio track that you sunc everything up to.

If you cut on FCP - select the clips you want to send and export them using the QT export that is NOT the QT with conversion method. I'll need the audio track too.

If you could send 4-8 takes that overlap sync wise that would be great. So perhaps 2 takes of the singer (different shot sizes so a CU and a MS for ex) and a shots of the other musicians in the band. At least 4.

Thanks a bunch for offering to donate for the tutorial!

I might need written permission from the band to use the footage - but I'll promote them and thank them in the tutorial and even direct people to their website if they have one.

Here are some screen grabs of some takes that I wouldn't mind getting. I pulled them from the middle of the music video where he's singing - that's where I'd need the majority of the clips to come from so I can show sync.

Actually the fact that there is no smart slate or anything is actually great for this tutorial because I can show a really fast and easy way to sync it up on the Avid.









I just watched the video again I just want to say that the cinematography is really good. I love the shot of him coming out of the door at the end.

It's hard to keep an audience interested in a low budget music video with only one performance set up but you guys did a good job with the "story" section to keep people interested.

It did drag a little bit in the beginning but that might be because the song has a long intro. One editorial suggestion would be to have some much longer shots of the "story" at the very beginning of the video right after he first opens his eyes. Maybe a wider reveal of him finding out where he is - or something more so that the audience knows that this is a story section of the video. I don't know what other footage you have though. A wide probably won't work - but just something more than just the CU of his eyes.

Not showing the wide shot of the band until the drums is a good call too on your part.

Also - those filmic effects and rollouts? They're in the dailies right and not plugins? If they're plugins I'd say lose them. Only use them if they're "legit" and from the dailies...but that's my personal take.

I think fake film plugins would ruin the real film look that you have going and cheapen the video. But if they're really rollouts use them - and heck - use more of them if you got them - at the right parts of the video though.

Yeah, our footage was very slim. We didn't have much to use for the narrative portion of the video cause we ran out of time and had to cut out a lot of the shots we had planned. I totally agree with Chris Wright though about the opening. With the film effects, they are real rollouts, while editing the video I thought they looked pretty cool so I kept some of them in.

As for the second video we shot that on 35mm as well. We didn't shoot it ourselves we got a DOP to do it for us, which is great because we can tell him exactly what we want and it gets done. My twin and I work really well on set, we do work at the same time and it's really nice because it really takes a lot of the stress off our backs, plus we both build off each others idea's so in the end the product is a lot better.

Oh yeah Chris, how would you want me to send these clips? I could mail them if that works the best. Thanks a bunch!!!

Nate Fackrell

Mailing works fine. Did you cut on Avid or FCP? Make sure to send the whole take and the audio track you sunc everything up to.

Thanks again btw!

I cut it on FCP, and I have to warn you that the short ends only allowed us to shoot 2 minutes at a time. Some of the clips you want range from 30 seconds to 2 minutes. Ideally, we would have loved to have shot one full pass on each different take. So what I'd have to send you really is a portion of the music video so most of the shots can match. I don't know if that would change your mind, let me know what you think.

Oh and just so you know as well, how I was able to sync the video to the audio is because I just ran my home video camera each take while filming and then watched it while I edited. We really had our hands full on this video, lol.

nate

Can you send those shots that I listed right around the first verse and chorus?

No problem, I'll get them to you for sure. The video files are 8-bit uncompressed, do you want them any differently? If so no problem and I'll get this stuff right out to you. Oh yeah, off topic but if you have any editing jobs that come around that you can't do, or don't want to do, keep me in mind, lol. Just a thought.

Nate

Uncompressed? That should take up alot of space? You can make them DV if is a problem.