when shooting music videos have you ever wondered what's better handheld shots or gimbal shots both
styles of shots have their place for when and where you should use them what led to me talking
about this topic was because i had no choice my ronin started doing the spin the spin of that
shooting two music videos 100 handheld no gimbal no stabilizer
Cracka Lack on the track
so first off my name is Cracka Lack i'm a music entrepreneur
i've been shooting music videos for about 10 years i've shot over 400
music videos and i would say the first 200 maybe 250 i had no gimbal at all
well as you can see we're on the move again for the next two days i'm gonna be with a rapper
chucky workclothes shooting two music videos bringing you guys along for behind the scenes
we just wrapped up a scene downtown in the background i want chucky to feel the shoulder burn
from holding the running if you don't know what a gimbal is it's a stabilizer any type of weight
balancing mechanism that keeps the camera straight when you're walking it's not bumpy and going all
over the place it's smooth so back to the story i said i had shot about 200 to 250 music videos all
with no gimbal and no problem for the most part now i say this to let you know that if you're
just getting started and you do not have a gimbal don't worry about it just use the resources that
you have and in some cases it's a phone if you want to see what you can do with a phone i have
a how to shoot a music video with a phone tutorial i'll link that on screen and in the description
so i'm here at the hotel room you ever go to dinner by yourself and get like look that
weird i'm sitting there and i wrote down all these notes right here for this youtube video
i was getting some weird looks just wrapped up a youtube video gotta rig the lamp right
there to shine on my beautiful face set the camera there on the tripod with the mic i use
my screen that i put on my gimbal right there you see the time 10 23 i gotta wake up at 3 15.
so i've had a gimbal now for about three years and towards the end of me shooting music videos
with no gimbal there were certain shots that i wanted to get there was certain videographers
that i looked up to and i seen that gimbals was where it was at so i knew i need to get a gimbal
i got to try one out so i rented the gimbal before i bought one and this is about three years ago i
used it for a weekend down in florida i shot about three music videos with it gonna try it
out for the first time ever right now shout out to borrowlenses.com and when i looked at the footage
i thought damn man this looks crazy it looks so professional it took my videos to the next level
the gimbal that i got was a dji ronin-m i have a video on my channel where i show you side-by-side
comparisons where i got some shots handheld and i was trying to be as steady as i could
and i also got some shots with the gimbal i also put a link to that in the description
for you guys to check out so i'm looking at the footage i'm thinking man this is some next level
[ __ ] i got to get one of these so i got one you know how as a kid when you get a new toy
and you have other toys you start playing with that new toy non-stop so once i got a gimbal going
back to shooting music videos i was trying to use the gimbal for like every shot and it was like
handheld i'm not going backwards i'm going to only move forward and use my gimbal so i
was over using it and around this time i seen a lot of filmmakers that let's say they were like
the first ones to get some sort of gimbal or glidecam steady shots and once everyone else
started doing it it was like they wanted to be the rebels and so they switched and was like oh
people that use gimbals are amateurs like do everything handheld so what i've been doing
for a very long time now is a combination of the two where it seems like every single music video
there's a bunch of shots that i get handheld and there's a bunch of shots that i get with my gimbal
we're flying to salt lake city utah
all right you guys so we got to utah seeing this gym
on the side of the highway pulled over about to start filming show you guys what we do
you don't run into like this back at home do we find a spot i'll stand right here
you gotta come here in the country to get this yeah all right says [ __ ] gobbler
so my favorite shot to get with a gimbal i like to include it in every music video as long as
it fits the vibe of the song i have a wide 16 millimeter lens i use the sony a7s ii so it's
a full-frame camera and i get a really far away shot where you can see a lot of the scenery see
a lot of what's going on and i like to film it in 60 frames per second where i do my speed ramps if
you don't know how to do speed ramps i have a tutorial on that i'll put a link to that also
in the description but it's my thing man i really like to do it i try to do it in every single music
video to pull that specific shot off i can't do that without a gun all right you guys well today
is day three it's a bad shape happened on day two my i call it my pocket rocket it's the sony rx100
mark v that's what i was using to get some sort of behind the scenes it just stopped working i don't
know what's wrong with it i watch youtube videos i'm gonna end up having to send it back when we
left off yesterday where i found the dope ass location my ronin started doing the spin spin of
death so i started looking up some videos online i'm about to try it again but today's a big day
yesterday we did lots of driving honestly over like six hours of driving i put together a list
of all the shots that we have to do today and tomorrow before we head back i might end up
using my phone for some of the behind the scenes you guys know it's not about the gear i'm very
team insomniac today so shout out to chucky this whole movement is team insomniac i got
the hoodie the hat and i even have the mask shout out to check word club shout out to team insomniac
hey you guys big shout out to center packs they sent me three pack of these bad boys what they
are let's see basically these right here and you can hold them in front of the glass and do some
cool [ __ ] with them like this so i was just using those for a couple of scenes that we did
right here we're in crescent valley nevada and we're headed to salt lake city utah got airbnb
for the night it's going down i was able to use my phone too for some behind the scenes footage so i
hope you guys appreciate it hope you appreciate it also i am going to be doing a full-length
youtube tutorial vlog showing you guys how to use these i felt me getting them too i was excited
it's cool shout out to tyler casey i actually met him through having him as a guest on my podcast
free game with crack i'll put a link to that in the description tyler casey is one of the owners
or the owner of center packs they put out a lot of dope stuff and uh i'm gonna set up a collab with
them for you guys in the near future so the best tip that i can give you guys with shooting music
videos is make sure your camera movement fits the vibe of the song so if the song is a really slow
smooth laid back maybe a r b song or a sad song usually songs like that they're slow and they're
smooth so your camera movement should match that it should be slow and smooth and steady so if you
do have some sort of gimbal or a stabilizer that's when those shots would look a lot better if you
did have a gimbal or a stabilizer that is not to say that you can't pull that off doing handheld
now one of my favorite style of camera movement shots is anytime i have like a really hype rap
hip-hop song where it has a lot of energy to it again match the vibe of the song so with both of
these music videos that i'm out here to shoot for chucky they're both like some trap rap hype bouncy
type of songs and you guys see that with a lot of my shots i was kind of moving with the music
and even moving the camera with it as well i just told chucky to let me out the car we're on this
so we got a benz as the rental car i was picturing man uh mountains
middle of nowhere sun going down dirt road car come flying past the camera then also like some
drone shots so i got my camera right here on the tripod and yeah he's basically just gonna drive
past the camera then i'm gonna get in the car with him and fly this drone
this is my first time ever in utah we drove all over through
nevada the scenery out here was truly beautiful this airbnb is nice as hell that we got tonight i
know tomorrow we got to finish filming the last music video last day of filming here in utah
last day oh hello a tip for handheld shots is put the camera kind of behind something in the frame
so what i just did was we're filming by an island and it was some bar stool so what i did was i got
low with the camera and i let the bar stool kind of get in front of one of the edges of the frame
and so what that does is it gives more depth to the shot another thing was i backed up into
one of the rooms where the doorway was in front of one of the edges on the screen to get more
depth as well i think most girls would say deeper is better so if you can add depth do it as far
as what's better handheld or gimbal they're both great both have their own look and style i'm going
to show some examples on the screen of shots that i did that were all handheld and i'm also going to
show some examples on the screen of shots that i use the gimbal with all of the handheld shots you
cannot duplicate with a gimbal or a stabilizer all of the gimbal shots or stabilizer shots you cannot
duplicate handheld there's a time and place for both so in a perfect world i would rather have a
gimbal or stabilizer so when i needed to get that type of shot i have the equipment to be able to do
it views you guys good morning if you've ever been to salt lake city utah let me know in the comments
i think when it comes to b-roll most of the time i do
use handheld maybe unless i'm trying to get like an opening establishing shot like really far away
and i'm like walking up to the location and i want that real smooth steady shot i'd use
a gimbal but a lot of like close-up shots all this stuff up here these poles graffiti
there's trash everywhere a lot of that i would just do hannah plus if you like to do
the transitions with your b-roll i always do that handheld so handheld is good for doing transitions
when you film it like this and bring it back in go down start the next one doing stuff like that
it's a wrap a wrap a [ __ ] rap all right you guys already know i probably left out a lot of
things so whatever questions you have drop them in the comments i'll do my best to get back to
each and every one of you guys to check out the final product of both music videos that
you guys see me shoot in this vlog here i'm going to link to those in the description
shout out to chucky work clothes the one for him i wouldn't be here right now shout out to dji for
having my ronin break because if it didn't break i want to make this video right here
and shout out to each and every one of you for watching these videos because if you
didn't i don't know if i would be making these videos that helps the motivation and
encouragement to keep making them i'll see you guys next video Cracka Lack tv we out