Hi my name is Tom Antos and you're watching Adorama TV
So this is part 2 of a 3 part series about the making of a music video that I produced with
the help of Adorama TV
If you guys havent seen part 1, make sure you check that out, that's where I show you how I prepared and how
I end up testing out different camera gear for this production this video will show you
how to end up shooting the video. So this video production like many others do not
go all that smoothly and the first problem we had was with scheduling
we oringinally were planning to shoot this video at the end of August so we could get
a sort of a "fun in the sun" summer feel instead of that we end up shooting at the
end of October. Another thing was that the temperatures end up dipping really low
of just a few days before we started filming which got me worried just about
how we're going to pull off those scenes on the beach and then the final surprise
was the really bad weather we got on the morning of the first day of the shoot.
Now we're very limited with the time. We only had two days to film this because
the lead singer Anna Saison she was only going to be in town for just two
days and then she had to fly back to Canada so because of that you know
despite of the bad weather I knew that we had to end up just shooting something
and instead of changing the treatment a little bit changing the scenes and just
kind of go with what we were able to get. Now being an optimist I end up telling
myself and my crew not to worry you know I was thinking we will probably end up
getting just a little bit of drizzle in the morning and by by the afternoon it's
all going to clear up and we will have the sun out and we will be able to continue as scheduled.
Well that turned out to not be the case instead as the day progressed I think
we the weather got progressively much worse. The wind was picking up and just
it seemed like more and more water was coming down. The rain what was getting
more intense and then the wind along with that got so strong especially towards
the end of the day that it was really hard to film and the umbrellas
basically did nothing, because the wind by the end of the day just ended up coming
sideways at us. Fortunately the crew that I had working with me on this video was
really great from the guys that came out to help out
to the makeup artist; Mia, to even the lead singer; Anna Saison, everybody was in
a very positive, very good mood and nobody complained even once, even though
we're all getting equally soaked and cold from the wind but rather,
as the day progressed, as I said the weather was getting worse, we end up just
sort of going with it and and just getting really cool shots and shots that are
really sort of portrayed New York in a different kind of light and to my
surprise New York actually looks really beautiful in the rain, especially when
you end up getting all those wet streets with the lights reflecting in them.
Now even though we're OK getting wet I was still worried about the camera gear because
you know electronics and water usually don't mix very well. Now because I got the
camera sort of last minute before the shoot I did not have time to check all
the specs and all the information about the camera so I did not know whether
it's weather sealed all I can tell you guys that regardless of whether the
camera is officially weather sealed or not it actually performs amazingly well
in the water and I say water because even though we just had a sort of a rain
at the beginning of the day by the end of it, it was pouring buckets literally
and the camera was completely soaked just as we were and I never had any
problems with that with the camera even with the lens now the lens for
sure was not weather sealed because by the end of the day it had so much water, moisture built up
in it that I actually end up using my hair dryer just just to kind of
get most of the moisture out of there and it still performed amazingly well on
the following day and now the 3-axis gimbal that I used isn't weather sealed
but regardless I had to take it out in the rain to get those shots and I can
honestly tell you guys that after a whole day of using this gimble in the
rain it worked amazingly well
never once did it stop and I was able to continue using it the following day.
Now on the second day or bad luck actually end up turning into really good luck
and that's because of the weather and the second day the weather actually sort
of did a complete 180 flip and went from this horrible stormy weather to almost
summer like weather. I mean even though it was the end of October it did not feel like
it and so we started out actually you know going to the original beach
location that we were planning to shoot on so I just ended up getting my underwear
and together with Anna we ran straight into the ocean, you know despite the
fact that there were people walking on the beach wearing winter jackets it
actually wasn't that bad. I know, the water was a little cold but I think the
sun and the nice weather made up for it and we were able to get all the shots that
we were originally planning to get for the beach scene. So one sort of big piece of
advice that I guess I can give you guys is to always stay positive.
It doesn't matter what happens in production just when you think you know
it's the most horrible thing happened it's going to ruin the whole film or
project that are you working on.
Stay positive! Try to solve the problems right there on location as much as you
can otherwise just sort of move forward keep on shooting as much as you can
because in the end you never know what hand you're going to be dealt.
Also end up getting a performance shot with Anna in a sort of a cool funky hip-hop outfit
in front of some really nice street art. This was graffiti we found in
Brooklyn and then to finish off the day we end up going sort of all over New York City
getting some shots on the subway and also around Times Square and for
this whole shoot I end up using the 16 - 35mm f4
zoom lens from Sony and the reason was because I relied very heavily on the
auto-focus system in the camera. In order for that to work you have to have a
native lens or at least for it to work really well and I got to say that this
was the first professional project that I worked on where I've actually relied on
auto-focus and I cant believe I'm saying that myself because for years you know
people would ask me what kind of out of focus system on using or how I'm getting
the focus of my shots and I always always swore I told them always you got to do
it manually there's no other way of doing it. Well like I said in this case
because I needed to have the small camera and the small gimble could I wasn't able to
install a wireless follow focal system
or have somebody even helping me pull the focus. So after shooting this video I can
honestly say that auto-focus on this camera works about 90% of the
time you know as long as the camera can recognize the face.
There is a setting in the camera where you have to enable the face recognition once you do
that and once you have your person or subject more or less
facing the camera,or you know it can be a little bit sideways, but just as long
as the camera can see the face will lock onto the face and it does a really
amazing job at keeping focus even one you know the camera or the person is
moving in or out really fast.
Now as far as the actual settings for the camera
most of the settings still work in manual so really all I end up doing was
setting myself exposure before each shot, adjusting my shutter and aperture.
Now for a lot of the shots where I didn't need a dramatic in a shallow depth of
field I kept the aperature really, really high at like around f11 of f16
because this way it also meant that I had a really, really big depth of field
and it just also made it easier for the auto-focus to work. So even at 10% the auto-focus
didn't do a good job, a lot of the times I was still able to get a usable shot
and now only when I was shooting at night at The Times Square
did I actually end up putting the ISO on automatic and the reason was for that
because we're running around it was a lot of people and many times we would kind
of run into you know under some thing under construction or you know between
people, it would get really dark and then suddenly we are out all the lights
advertising around Times Square would change and the intensity of the light really drastically
change from second to second and there was just no way that I was able to
do a perfect setting and then run around with the gimble and make sure that I get
decent exposure so I kind of have to rely on the camera in that sense but
again the camera is low light monster performs amazingly in low light
situations and Time Square is a really low light situations but it can get
dark especially when you when you going to do this kind of darker corners
so it was a good set of tests again for the camera and and again I was really
happy with the end results because as I said most of the time the camera
adjusted the ISO just perfectly to make sure that the shots were nicely balanced.
One tip I'm going to give you guys is to not always rely end up shooting in the S-Lock
profiles whether it's S - lock 2 or S-lock 3. They are a great flat profile and they give you a
lot of dynamic range and they're great when using them especially outside in
the daylight because that's when usually you have really really wide dynamic range
but when you're shooting at night even though like I said for example in these
shots at Time Square, where it's not necessarily very dark, but still, there is
a lot of dark corners in the shots and that's where I would recommend switching
into another camera profile like the Rec 709 or the Cine Profiles.
The reason is because S-lock profiles do not perform very well and in dark
situations. Basically; the more shadows you have in your shot, the more grain and noise
is going to be visible. It is still workable because this camera perform so well in
low light and that the noise isn't overly noticeable but still you want to
just get a cleaner, better quality image S-lock is actually not
a good choice when you're shooting basically in that kind of a low key
setting so I would reserve s-lock 2 or 3 for again for outside during the
daylight exterior shots. Overall I was able to get all the shots that I was
originally planning to get into the video and a few extra cool shots in the rain
that I didn't even think of originally so really all that's left to do now is to edit the video
together if you're interested in finding out how I put together this wholel music video;
how I do the color correction and some cool in camera tricks then make sure you
check out part 3 of the series also while you're at it don't forget to subscribe
to our YouTube channel and check out the Adorama Learning Center for tips and
reviews of the latest camera gear I'm Tom Antos and I'll see you guys next time.
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