This video is brought to you by Storyblocks Video
Hey guys, it’s Jordy here for cinecom.net and welcome to…
…Copy Cat Friday.
In this weekly series we recreate effects from famous films and music videos.
And today we're taking a look at 3 effects from ‘Burry a Friend’, by Billy Eilish.
[Music]
[Cinecom's intro music]
Hey folks, after we got two million hits on the video
where we recreated the black tears from ‘When the Party is Over’,
we just had to do another Billy Elish video.
Oh yeah, Billy Eilish.
Thanks for the correction!
Alright, today we're taking a look at 3 effects from ‘Burry a Friend’,
we've analyzed the music video,
search every corner of the frame to reveal its cinematic secrets today.
And there's also a BTS video.
Anyways, I'm gonna start off with a quick shoutout to our sponsor Storyblocks Video.
It's an online library packed with professional 4K stock clips,
there are video effects, transitions, templates
and hundreds of thousands more video assets.
The great thing is that you can download unlimited items
with a single year subscription,
meaning that you can download the entire library and keep it all for yourself!
For more information, make sure to click the first link in the description below!
Now let's start building a movie-set!
[Music]
So, we’re building these walls for our short film which is in April,
but for the Billy Eilish video we can also use these walls.
That’s why we are putting some tempo to it,
and try to finish these walls as soon as possible for Friday.
[Music]
So now that we have our hallway, without doors though,
we can start with the first effect which is gonna be a full camera and talent rotation.
In the music video they used a professional rig,
we don't have that, so starting off on Monday
we've been trying to crack the case on how to simplify this rig.
After a lot of brainstorms and testing, this is what we came up with.
This right here is the beast machine, I’m not an engineer,
but I do think that this is the cheapest possible way to make yourself rotate.
What you’re gonna need is a table that is high enough.
On this table I’ve attached this tube, it’s an aluminum tube,
but it is super thick, and that way it won’t bend when I’m going to hang over here.
What is better even is using a steel tube.
This tube has been attached with this brackets
on this pallet right here which sits on the table,
and also these brackets also that attach it to the entire table.
Long story short: it’s sturdy as hell.
Now, to make it extra-sturdy, I’m just gonna collect as much weight as I possibly can.
We got paint buckets here, lots of waters, extra weights, cables and everything.
And this I’m going to place on top of that tube as well,
and that way I’m definitely sure that tube won’t fly over.
that’s how engineering works.
Yannick, can you help me?
Thank you, Yannick!
Now this is super sturdy, and I can just go ahead and lean onto it.
The idea is that I’m going to seat on this tube
and just kinda rotate around like that.
That is going to end bad, so that’s why we’ve created this second masterpiece,
which is this plank over here.
This right here is just a simple plank,
but what we’ve done is adding these handlebars to it
so that I can hold myself sturdy,
we’ve also made some kind of rigging here so that we can attach a camera right here.
It doesn’t matter how you rig it, as long as you can get a camera up here
so that is focused on you.
Then, on the bottom we’ve made these extra holes
so I can stick my feet to it.
And that way I’m definitely super sturdy against this plank,
and finally, you can also wrap a rope around yourself and the plank
and that way you can rotate in safety.
Or you can also just let your friends hang there
and just go away for a couple of hours and pull off a great prank.
We’ve got this hole here in this plank and that is used to put it on this tube.
There you go!
And now I can sit on the aluminum bar like so,
but for extra safety and comfort we’re using this little foam here
we can just wrap around it, there we go!
And now I can sit very safely on this thing, like so.
I’m just gonna show some footage of during the shoot right here.
The center of gravity actually sits somewhere right here
above your stomach,
but our rotating point sits underneath your crotch.
So, that’s why you’re going to need some counterweight.
On the bottom as you can see right here.
And these counterweights are going to make sure
that you can just hang anywhere at any point in the rotation,
it kinda works the same as a gimbal, where you also wanna make sure
that the camera stays at its point, wherever you point it to.
And that’s it!
Super-duper simple!
The lighting you're seeing in the background
is gonna be the second effect.
It's actually quite easy.
We hang three LED lights to the ceiling of our hallway,
these are all from Aputure.
There're two LS-1 panels and one 120-D.
Important is that you aim the light down, there can be some light cast on the walls,
but you wanna minimize that.
So we used black wrap or cinefoil,
which is aluminum foil painted black.
Wrap that around your lights to make the light point down.
Now since all of the these lights came from one brand,
we could control them with a single remote.
Just turn them on and off randomly,
but try to always have at least one light on.
Now if you don't have a light kit that comes with such a remote,
then here's a very interesting alternative.
These are smart power plugs.
You can find them in any brand and they usually cost between $10 and $30.
I've got a set of 3 plugs, which simply goes into the wall
and in there you connect any light that you want!
A simple light bulb, a work light, a desk light, whatever.
Through the remote we can then turn these smart plugs on and off,
creating a beautiful light show.
And that brings us to the last effect from the music video,
and that is where Billie is floating in that hallway.
For this to work, you are gonna need to hang yourself…
…the safe way, of course!
So, that means around your hip.
Ideally, you wanna wear a climbing belt,
but we've also done it without in the past,
which also works, but it just hurts a little bit more.
So, throw a rope around anything from the ceiling,
you can also do this outdoor and throw a rope over a branch of a three
or use a swing from a playground.
And then just hang, that's it!
Filming this from a tripod, is gonna give you
an easier way to remove the rope in post production.
If you do so, make sure to also take an empty shot.
Where you kinda just move away from the shot.
There're two ways to remove the rope now,
the first technique is within Adobe Premiere Pro.
Place that empty shot on the bottom of your timeline
and the other shot on top.
With the top one selected, head over to the Opacity property
from which you take the pen tool to draw a mask around the rope.
When you're done, hit Invert.
You then wanna enable the animation for the mask path
and change it over time so that it keeps covering up the rope
as you might wiggle a little bit.
And that's it!
The second technique is more advanced and happens inside After Effects.
For this technique, you could have gone handheld
and you don't need that empty shot.
We're gonna use an effect called Wire Removal.
Drag that to your clip
and now set the point A and point B to the beginning and ending of the rope.
Usually ‘Displace’ is gonna work best for the removal style,
but you can try a different method if it doesn't give you the right results.
Finally change the Thickness, Slope and Mirror Blend
to remove the rope according to your shot.
When you're done, you're gonna have to start the animation for both point A and B.
Overtime, you wanna change their position
so that it keeps following the rope, and that's again it!
And those where 3 effects from Billie Eilish, ‘Burry a friend’.
I hope that you've learned some new things today.
Thank you so much for watching, thank you Storyblocks for the support
and like always:
Stay Creative!
[Jordy whistling]
-Hello!