"Cinnamon Rolls"
Let's go behind the scenes into my
Cinnamon B-Roll sequence. I'm gonna start out with a wide shot
because I like to establish what's going on. To get stable handheld footage,
the best position is usually to lock your elbows by your side,
because your body is more stable than your arms. But in this case, I needed a higher angle.
So to get less shake, I kept my arms straight so that my body and my arm were moving together
and the shot was more stable. You might look like a robot,
but you'll get smoother b-roll. Okay so the tripod is getting in the way,
so I'm sort of bending it so that it can rest against my arm and have that extra point of
contact so I can keep it stable and not bang into the fridge when I'm coming down.
I'm going to be flipping the cookbook pages to the recipe.
And I have it on manual focus set to where I want it to be at the end.
I just need to make sure I end up at that distance.
While I was filming, I also recorded some sound effects to use in the video.
It's helpful to think ahead about sound design and editing while you're filming a video.
I used the Zoom H1n to record sound effects and the behind the scenes audio.
To learn more about the H1n and get a crash course in audio recording, check out my review
video on that, and it also has a free sound effect pack that I made.
I'm going to be filming this one at 60 frames per second so that I can slow it down.
Now I'm going to be scooping the sugar out of this container. I'm going to go into the
container and then come out. Apparently I can't scoop out sugar...
My goal with these 3 quick shots with the sugar is to show you exactly what's going on
in a very short time. And so I have to be careful that there's still enough time
to see what the focal point is. While filming the fast cuts, I had to make sure
there was something clear to look at in each shot.
I also tried to blend the shots together by having a sequence of events, from scooping out
the sugar to pouring it out. Having a flow between shots helps make your b-roll
more interesting. When filming b-roll, it's important to capture something
that's interesting to the person watching.
While thinking about what to film, I focused on having action in each shot.
But you can create interesting b-roll with a combination of things, like action, composition,
color, sound, and more. Now to mix the wet ingredients together.
In most of this footage I'm looking for contrast, which is why I'm lighting things from behind
and a little bit up. Especially in this shot with the flour because
sprinkling the white flour against a dark background I think will look really good.
Now the dough has risen, and I'm going to be rolling it out.
Now I'm going to chop the dough into rolls on the beat.
Now it's time to bake the cinnamon rolls. I have an idea to do a time lapse of the baking
process by having 2 cinnamon rolls that I'm going to take out every 2 minutes and just
take a picture of. To do that I'm going to mark with red tape
exactly the orientation of the pan, so that I can get the cinnamon rolls lined up
hopefully exactly right in each picture.
Now that the cinnamon rolls are done, I want
to get some epic b-roll of them. I've actually brought in another light, which
is my do-it-yourself cake pan light which is inspired by YCImaging.
I've got that shining orange light onto the shadowy side of the cinnamon rolls.
That's usually called a kick light in studio terms.
If you want to learn more about lighting check out my video on that.
Time for the glaze. I've changed the light to purple because
I want a cooler vibe for the icing. I don't think I've ever done anything with
powdered sugar and not gotten it everywhere so I really need to be careful with my camera
and everything not... Ugh...
Gotta go charge that up.
Okay, so the icing. I'm going to put the ingredients
together and have it mixing together. The shot before this was rotating around and
so I'm going to match that motion in this one to create a continuous flow between the shots.
Thinking about your shots as connected helps
make your b-roll and your transitions more smooth.
For the last shot, I wanted to have an epic camera motion and then I pick up the cinnamon
roll and eat it. The shot turned out pretty shaky so I had
to do a lot of stabilization in Adobe After Effects.
Then I added the sound effects and color graded.
Mmmmmm. So good...