It is becoming more and more apparent that a problem is developing concerning the music used in my films. More and more often I am struggling with the edit, not because of the footage or the story but because I am trying to change the natural feel of the edit to suit a certain piece of music. This is nearly always because that particular piece of music has been picked by the couple.
For music video style pieces this is fine. The music goes down first and the edit is fit to it and doesn’t have to make a lot of sense as far as a story is concerned. But for all other editing styles such as movie trailer, or movie or vintage film feel the music is secondary. That’s not to say it isn’t as important, it is actually more important. It has to fit around the story, the feel of the visuals, the pace of the cutting and the dialogue.
In the past I have made do with making the best of how the film and the clients music choice fits together, after all it is their wedding movie. But now it’s time for a change. The story comes first. I’m starting to use more movie scores and more original pieces. Music choice is starting to take it’s rightful place right at the top of the creative process.
I get asked form time to time why my movies look a little bit more cinematic than the average wedding video. It is mainly the editing. But the image has some important aspects that I’d like to talk about. The HUGE sensor on the 5d mark II along with EOS L series glass produces mind blowing colour rendition and dramatic depth of field control but another aspect is colour correction and grading in post production.
Firstly each clip (there’s up to 120 in a four minute piece) is painstakingly colour corrected to match the rest of the edit in a coherent way. Then I start a secondary process called colour grading. This is adding a ‘look’ to the image in a creative way. As a story teller you can use this tool to manipulate the viewers mood.
Here are some frame grabs from Cat + Jez’s wedding short before and after colour correction and grading:-
Vows shot before:-
After:-
Notice how a lot of the blues and greens were lost under the tungsten lights. The original image looks washed out, orange and video like. This was corrected and then the greens and blues in the shadows were exaggerated just a little to achieve a certain look (or grade).
Umbrella shot Before:-
After:-
This shot looked slightly under exposed so this was corrected and then the highlights and exaggerated and the shadows made a little greener to match the context of the rest of the movie.
There are more extreme examples of colour grading in my past pieces but this is just my latest.
In order to push my production quality up to the next level, I enlisted the help of the most famous and arguably the best wedding cinematographers in the world, Still Motion.
They are revered as the masters and the whole of this industry strives to match their level of excellence. Personally I admire their work and believe some of their pieces to be ground breaking and utterly amazing. But there are other wedding cinematographers out there who can convey equally powerful work through different production styles. I take inspiration from quite a number of different artists.
That said, I was very interested to hear Still Motions take on my work so I took advantage of their ‘clip review’ service and sent them this clip:-
While they spoke quite highly of the composition, saying it was ‘very solid’ and that I had ‘a very good visual sense and all round high production value’ they had a lot of constructive criticism which I am very pleased to receive. Mostly my friends and clients have only nice things to say (thank God) but to have my work slated by a very accomplished professional is just what I needed.
I feel I have learned a lot about screen direction and colour grading and need to get into the habit of using slide shots and colour effects in a more creative and cohesive way instead of just making stuff look cool.
I found there clip review service to be very worth while and worth the money but while I will definitely take all of their advice on board and it will certainly improve my work, everyone has his own particular style and to follow their advice to the letter would turn me into a ’still motion’ wanna be instead of just myself.
Cinematographer James Hurlbut ASC has embraced this technology and it is really exiting to see the 5d Mark II actually being chosen over 35mm film for some productions. It seems that what you lose in dynamic range is offset by what you gain in portblity, and depth of field control. These cameras really are exiting to work with and the attributes that James talks about really make it perfect for wedding cinematography. Here is a behind the scenes movie of his latest feature ‘The Last Three Minutes’
Rick McCallum, Star Wars producer, says some amazing things about the Canon DSLR’s. Rather than quote him, I’ll just let you watch the video. Note that the Sony F35, which Rick mentions, costs several hundred thousand dollars last time I checked.
OK, first there was the rumour of 5d mark IIs being used on the set of Iron Man II. Then the confirmed news that they were being used in the US series 24. Then Robert Rodriguez was spotted shooting a music video with two 7ds. Now the final episode of this season of House has been shot exclusively on 5ds. This is big, until now House has been shot on 35mm film! The idea that a director actually chooses to shoot with DSLRs over film is a strange one. Director Greg Yaitanes explained that it is the small form factor and ‘rich depth of field’ that attracted him.
It airs on 17th May, will be really interesting to see how it looks. For more information from cinema5d.com see here and Philip Blooms resent blog here
Kevin Morris, the head of sport at Altrincham Grammar School for boys has commissioned me to make another movie. It’s a cinematic take on a rugby match with local rivals Sale. It is to be displayed on the schools website as a motivational piece to boost moral and exitment for the future.
They actually lost which made for an interesting job of getting a motivational feel with the film.
This is the first edit. Not quite sure about the colour grading and rythm edits yet. I’ll need to spend a bit of time away from it and come back with fresh eyes.
Work has resumed on Helen Farley-Jones’ music video and here are some frame grabs from day two of the shoot:-
Here is a little rough cut of the middle section (no colour grading):-
If Helen is happy with how things are shaping up then there should be just one more day of shooting and then we can move onto the next song- Miles away- my favourite. Really looking forward to this.
These test prints were kindly done by Richard Forrest, a past client. The larger of the two is actually 30″ x 20″ and are printed from an HD frame grab from the 5d Mark II, my main camera of choice for wedding videos.
The resolution holds up very well, even for the largest print and I am more than happy to offer this service to my clients.
Details will be on my website soon.
Robert Rodriguez was spotted using two Canon 7ds to shoot his latest music video. These cameras have now been used by a plethora of influential cinematographers and producers on all kinds of productions from feature films to television drama.
See Philip Bloom’s blog about the Rodriguez shoot here.
The DSLR revolution is firmly underway. When the new 5d firmware is released mid March enabling live RGB histogram and 24p/25p these amazing cameras will be even more powerful!