How to shoot for "Glossy" music video look?

[Brian Broz]

I'm hoping for some tips and insight from experienced DPs out there into how I can achieve the "glossy" music video look found in higher budget videos...especially in skintones.
For example in the performance section of the following:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUtFEKhtB30

Basically I have worked shooting video for years with Chimeras and Kinos in the past in interview and corporate situations but want to "step it up" and progress as a shooter/lighting cameraman.
I realize most higher budget or "glossy" videos aren't obviously going for realism. As I understand these music videos are a combination of lighting, makeup and post processing. Am I correct that the lighting is usually flat, large sources (12k or whatever) right behind/above the camera, with a strong backlight. What about exposure...are these shot flat normally or just barely overexposed to aid post processing that silky look without losing sharpness? Or is this all done in "power windows" to smooth out the face.
These videos also tend to have deep glossy blacks (wet down pavement etc) but is this mostly done in post?
Hoping for some insight, as I'm not naive enough to think slapping on Magic Bullet filter to 3-light kit HDV footage is going to cut the mustard :-) But hopefully with tools like Red, Apple Color, and additional lighting these looks are more possible to achieve now than ever?!
Thanks for any time and input. Appreciate it!

BB

[Mike Prevette]

A whole lot of the contrast you see in this clip was done in the transfer/post. I can tell they even had to garbage matte out a lamp for the backlight in the night shots. A lot of these "candy" shots are cleaned up and made to sing in post, but it helps to shoot it as close as possible.


Strong backlight, not over lighting the things you want go dark. Soft key. Probably a 6x6 muslin bounce or half grid projected. Can't see with enough quality what they really did. Start looking at videos and pausing on a frame of a close up, and look at the eyes. You can learn a lot about what instruments they are using by studying the reflections in their eyes. I used to buy $100 of fashion mags a month and study the reflections and shadows to figure out what people where doing.

[I Bloom]

I'm hoping for some tips and insight from experienced DPs out there into how I can achieve the "glossy" music video look found in higher budget videos...especially in skintones.
For example in the performance section of the following:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUtFEKhtB30

Basically I have worked shooting video for years with Chimeras and Kinos in the past in interview and corporate situations but want to "step it up" and progress as a shooter/lighting cameraman.
I realize most higher budget or "glossy" videos aren't obviously going for realism. As I understand these music videos are a combination of lighting, makeup and post processing. Am I correct that the lighting is usually flat, large sources (12k or whatever) right behind/above the camera, with a strong backlight. What about exposure...are these shot flat normally or just barely overexposed to aid post processing that silky look without losing sharpness? Or is this all done in "power windows" to smooth out the face.
These videos also tend to have deep glossy blacks (wet down pavement etc) but is this mostly done in post?
Hoping for some insight, as I'm not naive enough to think slapping on Magic Bullet filter to 3-light kit HDV footage is going to cut the mustard :-) But hopefully with tools like Red, Apple Color, and additional lighting these looks are more possible to achieve now than ever?!
Thanks for any time and input. Appreciate it!

BB

I have provided the cinematograhy component to a lot of Fashion guys that need someone to come in with hot lights and movie cameras. That look can be hard to match in cinematography because stills guys have the advantage of strobes. From what I've seen they always use a large bright soft source right behind and taller than camera and another slightly hard and above (and umbrella lots of times) on the "Broad side of the face." to get that cover girl look. That's how you get that glow in the skin. Ring lights are also a popular way of achieving that, I've even used a ring light made from a wooden ring of incandescent bulbs, heavily diffused. If you use a smaller but extremely diffuse source very close to her face you will get more falloff. A diffused kino above and below the lense, is also something you might try.

Also good to use longer lenses.

IBloom

[Fredrik Callinggard]

I've shot numerous music videos in my DP life and can tell you that a soft light is usually the best case. But not always, sometimes faces respond better with harder light. A general rule is a 45 degree angle above camera onto artist. This is of course not always the case but works most of the time. Of course artists get "painted" in post production to make their skin smooth. If you don't have that luxury fx filters come in handy. I generally use Black Promist up to 1/2 but be careful you don't want to use it if you have blown out background. Black promist will soften high lights in the shot. So if you have an over exposed face it will get softer. Another one is Soft FX filter. Now when you filter I'd say that you should do it with moderation, but it's of course to your liking. Another thing that's used very often is ring light. I personally hate it because I think it's cheap. It's to easy with a ring light, but if you want to go that way I'd recommend LED ones, you'll find them at www.cineled.com for example. Personally I recommend the briese lights. They're great as beauty lights and the 8" version in diameter is so soft that you can stand in front of it without shadowing. Another trick is to take Kino's and create a wall around the camera - the hip hop wall hahahaha. Widely used for hip hop videos. If the artists skin is good I recommend sheen to bring out high lights from the soft light.

No matter what all this is usless without a good make-up artist.


Hope I was of some help.

fred

[LEON]

Why don't you just try Tiffen digital filters and shoot relax ?
A enormous time saving for you to know you can do your effects
in post production.

[Brent J. Craig]

As weirdcrew said, good makeup is the key. Sheen, gloss, etc is 50% good makeup skillfully applied and 50% the lighting techniques mentioned above.

[Fredrik Callinggard]

Why don't you just try Tiffen digital filters and shoot relax ?
A enormous time saving for you to know you can do your effects
in post production.

All artists want to look good and if you can make them look good at playback you're a winner. All directors wants their material to look good immediately so if you can make it look good before telecine you're winner. All producers wants to spend as little as possible so if you save them post you're winner. In saying that it's also important to think within moderation. If you start already at camera stage with a small touch and then "add on" gradually in the different stages it will be less visible that it's been manipulated. I shot what you could call a super star and first we filtered her in camera with soft fx (very subtly). We then continued with doing so also in telecine (I'd say that here we did it fairly subtle). The job then went to 2 weeks of "flame" work with just touching her up, making her look young and beautiful without actually seem as if we've done anything to her. If we hadn't done it in stages it would have looked fake.

fred

[Mike Prevette]

Check out this Obie/softbox set up. Something this close and big really makes people glow.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnbrawley/1842135946/in/set-72157602879328823/

[NateWeaver]

Everybody else has said good words about about lighting, so I'll talk a little about color correction and the rest.

A pretty standard trick with good colorists is to put a secondary on skintones, and bend them all yet more towards the skintone "vector", all the while reducing saturation. This has the effect of flattening out ruddy undertones that are sometimes there. Makeup dept has first whack at that problem, then the colorist, so to speak.

Another thing that is done is to put a matte on skintones, and then do a blur to get the poreless look. It's really easy to overdo that, so watch out, or your diva will look like an android.

[Shawn Nelson]

Check out this Obie/softbox set up. Something this close and big really makes people glow.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnbrawley/1842135946/in/set-72157602879328823/

Nice! Could a cheaper version of this be a 150w Arri with an xs chimera bolted on top of the Red?

[Shawn Nelson]

I used to buy $100 of fashion mags a month and study the reflections and shadows to figure out what people where doing.

I've heard this before...and have nearly done it several times. I should just do it. Which ones are the best in your opinion?

[Mike Prevette]

Nice! Could a cheaper version of this be a 150w Arri with an xs chimera bolted on top of the Red?

Yep, or cheaper still A china ball and a photoflood bulb/ceramic socket. http://asianideas.com/globelanterns.html

No real preference on magazine. Just leaf through some of the high end ones and find one you like. Flaunt, and Blackbook, Dazed and Confused were some faves.

[Fredrik Callinggard]

Check out this Obie/softbox set up. Something this close and big really makes people glow.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnbrawley/1842135946/in/set-72157602879328823/

I would suggest you guys use a chinese lantern instead. Cheapest version is a one of these round IKEA rice balls with a 275W lightbulb in it. You can rent 2K versions of that from rental houses, but if you can be close - the lightbulb version is always better, since it falls off so quickly. A chinese lantern over exposing skin tones with 1.5 stops a softsilver to bounce it back up from underneath and a 1/2 black promist in the camera. That's a good set up for beautiful CU sync.

[Hans von Sonntag]

I've heard this before...and have nearly done it several times. I should just do it. Which ones are the best in your opinion?

Vogue.

Hans

[Hans von Sonntag]

On R&B videos ringlights are still on vogue, even on a close-up. People love that ring shaped reflection in the eyes of the talent. I personally find it kind of cheesy and out-dated, well...

Ringlights are usually mounted around the lens, thus a non angled front light. A classic beauty light is often postitioned straight behing the camera and softened, seen in many classic B&W films (Marlene Dietrich for instance...). Key are shiny eyes, that is something a ringlights accomplishes very well (or too much...). You can also use only the upper und lower bulbs of the ring light to create a snake-like reflection...

On a male talent a rimlight enhances the masculinity by giving the cheek a distinct shape. To make the rimlight obvious it does make sense to create some shadow on this side of the face. Therefor it is reasonable to position the front light 20-3O degree off the camera axis on the opposit side of the rim light. This creates a much more contrasty look. Softly lit with a well positioned nose shadow you are still in beauty-land.

A lot of backlight is also appreciated. Be aware of "nose-light". This is a reflection of the backlight that hits the nose. Happens quite often when backlight becomes a rim light due to camera/talent movements. I personally find it destracting.

Hairstyle, make-up and costumes are vital, also shallow DOF. Skintones are generally desaturated and tweaked in post to a "porcellain" look. Shooting 35mm helps a lot but RED will do it as well.

The background should be in contrast to the talent, featuring the talents "assets" (shiny curly hair, etc...).

Hans

[Fredrik Callinggard]

I used to buy $100 of fashion mags a month and study the reflections and shadows to figure out what people where doing.

Vogue Italia and POP are the best options to find nice fashion. We all steal or as we so nicely put it, get inspired. Mark Romanek got inspired by Vogue Italia editorial for the Janet Jackson video "got til it's gone" as an example. There was an incident were, can't remember who it was but the director got sued by the stills photographer Nick Knight. He had completely copied a The Face editorial by Nick Knight for an En Vogue video (the one with them doing plastic surgery etc).

[Mike Prevette]

Vogue is a little mainstream for learning about contemporary styles. I much prefer some of the more underground mags. They tend to have much better / interesting photography.

[Shawn Nelson]

I would suggest you guys use a chinese lantern instead. Cheapest version is a one of these round IKEA rice balls with a 275W lightbulb in it. You can rent 2K versions of that from rental houses, but if you can be close - the lightbulb version is always better, since it falls off so quickly. A chinese lantern over exposing skin tones with 1.5 stops a softsilver to bounce it back up from underneath and a 1/2 black promist in the camera. That's a good set up for beautiful CU sync.

I already have a 20" Chimera lantern, but this wouldn't give me the small, directional softlight source like the picture shows. It seems a 150w or 300w fresnel with a softbox would be ideal.

[Fredrik Callinggard]

I already have a 20" Chimera lantern, but this wouldn't give me the small, directional softlight source like the picture shows. It seems a 150w or 300w fresnel with a softbox would be ideal.

That's fine it's just not as soft as I like it to be. I prefer to use a soft source that falls of quickly in order for it to be contrast. If you look at her throat you'll see the shadow. Now there's nothing wrong with this but it's harder than what we've been discussing in this thread (Kino's, chinese lanterns and briese lights). There's never a right or wrong it's all to your liking or to what the situation demands.

You should check out briese lights their made as an option for still photographers instead of umbrella flashlights but work nicely for motion picture as well (http://www.briese-studios.de/eng/licht/start.html). They can be extremely intense and I've used them as moon lighting to light whole night scenes. A 2.5K HMI = a 12K par with chimera so they're powerful. The smaller versions can be "spotted" and is still very soft. Check out focus 77'.

fred

[Hans von Sonntag]

Vogue is a little mainstream for learning about contemporary styles. I much prefer some of the more underground mags. They tend to have much better / interesting photography.

We have been talking about glossy music videos which is mainstream.

Hans

[Hans von Sonntag]

I already have a 20" Chimera lantern, but this wouldn't give me the small, directional softlight source like the picture shows. It seems a 150w or 300w fresnel with a softbox would be ideal.

150w or 300w is nothing outsinde IMHO, in dusk it's different.

Hans

[Shawn Nelson]

150w or 300w is nothing outsinde IMHO, in dusk it's different.

Hans

But we aren't talking about outside.

[Mike Prevette]

Shawn, You can make a China ball more directional by flaggin it off with duvetine. In the end it becomes very similar to the softbox, just cheaper and more versatile. Having both is also great.

One thing I always do is imagine myself in the place of the subject. Then imagine every light hitting me like a 2d cutout. So it is only represented by it's surface area not it's depth. Then I compare the surface area and illumination of the lights. It helps picture the effect a soft surface will have on a subject.

[Petr Dvorak]

And you need tons of skin smoothing - sometimes its so heavily overdone.
But I can hear client - more, more, ... even more
It really make me :sick:

[Wes Printz]

Check out this Obie/softbox set up. Something this close and big really makes people glow.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnbrawley/1842135946/in/set-72157602879328823/


Nice to see the Anamorphic Lenses in action.

[C.H.Haskell]

Just wrapped a hip hop music video in Omaha and a Nikon 50mm prime was all I had in my bag, combo with a HVX and the detail popped. Yes working that tight had its hang ups but everything came clean and milky, I was seduced with being in close ...(bring lots of diffusion and a follow focus!)

passing out now, flight back to NYC tomorrow. My 2 cents...

Good Luck!