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[Jordy]: So, that was fun, wasn't it, guys?
Are you ready for the most epic episode of Copy Cat Friday?
Well, sure I am!
[Ellen]: Oh, shut up, you're losing your chin!
[Cinecom's intro music]
It's Jordy here for cinecom.net and welcome to Copy Cat Friday,
the weekly series where we recreate an amazing filmmaking technique.
Now, we got an email from one of you guys, asking how the music video...
..."Emperor's New Clothes" from Panic! At The Disco was shot.
The videoclip has a very hard and strong look...
...and It even seems like a stop-motion technique,
but we'll dive into those details a little bit later.
Now, we wanted to do this one good and try to have most of the details right,
so we took care of everything.
And that starts with building the set.
[Energetic rhythmic music]
-So, while Ellen here is doing the body painting on me...
...I wanna thank not only her but also Videoblocks...
...who are supporting us today.
Videoblocks is a huge library where you can find visual effects, motion templates,
stock footage and so much more.
We've actually been using their service for more than a year...
...and they have helped us on so many projects.
So, make sure to check it out, guys. You can actually start a 7-day trial...
...by following the first link in the description below.
The set design itself was a simple plastic on the floor,
on which we distributed a layer of sand.
The background had to be dark, so we hang up some black sheets.
You can also find yourself a nice location in the woods, but...
...if you can do this is a studio or a garage you have an easier option to setup the lights.
Because this is going to be pretty important as well.
And here's why.
[Music level increases]
There we have it! The most sketchy setup that we've ever done. But it works,
So, that is important.
What we have right here are two LED panels from Aputure, the LS 1s,
they are on top of a 2x2 frame.
And this frame is going to make sure that the light from those LED panels...
...are being softened.
Now, because we couldn't attach all the lightings up there...
...because we don't have enough clamps, light stands, etc.,
I actually placed a 120d, also from Aputure, here on the side,
and that is bouncing its light into the frame, here...
...and then bouncing back on me.
That is because I also needed some light here a little bit...
...on my face, on the front.
Now, in the second part of the videoclip...
...we'll actually move that Aputure 120d to my back.
And that way I have a strong backlight, which you also see...
...in the Panic! At The Disco videoclip.
But that will also make sure that I have more of a darker front.
So what we'll do for that is add a reflector in front of me,
And that way the backlight is being reflected into that...
...reflector bouncing back at me.
So, that's it for the general lighting setup.
Finally, we have some special effects lights.
Which are these two Stella lights up there,
we're just going to make sure that we have some thunder!
And the cool thing about the Stella lights is that we can control them through a remote,
so that way I can just fastly press this button right here,
kind of mimicking lightning effects, which is pretty cool.
And we also have attached a CTB filter in front of these lights,
so that we have more of a color contrast between the general lighting...
...and the backlighting or that thunder.
Also a thunder is more blueish.
So, that's it!
Now during the entire music video, there is this fog.
So we used a simple smoke machine for that.
On a certain moment we needed to have a layer of smoke close to the ground,
and here we cooled down the smoke with some ice through a tube.
And by the way, if you wanna see some more creative tips with a smoke machine,
then make sure to follow a link in the description below.
In the second shot you have a backlight standing behind the demon.
In between you have a thick pack of smoke.
To create this effect you have to blow the smoke from the same position as the backlight.
Then, film right away so you maintain that thick heavy smoke.
Everything is setup and now we're ready to shoot!
And we actually hired Ellen, who's going to do the make-up for me.
Brendon, the artist that you see in the official music video, changes...
...from a normal person to a devil.
So you wanna start with a little make-up,
make a few shots, then add some horns, again...
...make a few shots, perhaps make the horns bigger, etc.
And that way it seems like you're changing more and more into another character.
I'm feeling horny today!
Now let’s have a look at the camerawork.
Stop-motion is a technique where you take a picture of a still object,
then you move that object, take another picture of it and so on.
And that way it seems like that still object is moving.
But you will still notice a weird artificial look to the movement.
And it's that same kind of look that you see in that clip as well.
But it wasn't shot the same way.
They probably went for a very fast shutter speed.
So we set our camera to 1/500 of a second,
which decreases motion blur and thus creates that hard look.
Since such a fast shutter speed makes your scene pretty dark,
it was important that we got strong lights.
So, the shutter speed is one element to get that specific look,
the other one is the actual speed.
And you can get that fast speed by just dancing and moving the camera fast,
but it's going to be pretty hard to get everything in focus or...
...just have the correct framing at all time.
So what we did was played back the song at half the speed...
...and thus we could do the dancing and the lip-syncing also at half the speed.
But make sure that your dance movements are still kind of looking robotic.
We had planned the dance and camera movements upfront,
so that way we knew exactly what we had to do...
...and Yannick was able to pull his focus right on spot.
Now, in postproduction, we then sped up the clip to bring it back to that fast moving look.
And then the final ingredient to get that hard look is the color grading.
We're using Premiere Pro's Lumetri and what you can basically do...
...is start with lowering your white balance, if you haven't already done that in camera.
Next, we wanna create deeper blacks,
so that the background is not going to be visible anymore.
The brighter parts should stand out, which again helps to get that hard look.
So I'm increasing the whites, which are the absolute brightest areas,
and, to have it in contrast with the rest, I'm actually going to lower the highlights.
And as you're doing this, you might also wanna decrease the exposure.
And finally: the colors.
You can already start with decreasing the saturation a bunch.
And then we're going to head off to the color wheels.
Here we're going to add some blue or teal into the shadows to make them appear deeper.
The skin-tones lay in the mid-tones, and...
...what we'll do here is introduce a little bit of green.
That way, the skin-tones look very pale and dead,
which is exactly what we want.
And because we are pushing green into the shot,
it might affect also the highlights.
So to fix that, we'll compensate by adding a little bit of the opposite, magenta.
And again, another exciting Copy Cat project is finished.
Now, lean back and enjoy the results.
[Music fades in]
-Guys, I hope you liked the effects.
I'm going home now, Jordy's in the shower,
but most of all, I wanna thank everybody who helped on this project.
Specially Ellen!
-Hey!
She did an awesome job on the make-up,
but guys, you know what I'm going to say...
...stay creative!
-So, this one is going to be funny: the first time I'm going to wear lenses.
Here we go!
[Ellen speaking in Dutch]
[Ellen cursing in Dutch]