Hey yall! This is Clay from STEEZY and you know what we do a lot here? Film Dance Videos! We have
created over 400 plus online dance classes for www.steezy.co and for each of
these classes we're required to film and edit promotional assets, ads, and of
course dance videos! So whether you're usually in front of the
camera or behind it, these awesome tips will bring your dance videos from level
one to five six seven eight but not ten. That's crazy
We're gonna be going through these tips in the order of the production so from
pre-production, to actually filming, to editing. Also we'll be throwing in some
extremely helpful technical tips at the end. Let's get it! Tip number one: make the
most of your location. Let's face it, the majority of dancers aren't rolling in
piles of money or even more so aren't saving enough to afford the videos that
they want to make. And that means we cant always afford to book that three
thousand dollars an hour 5 hour minimum location on peerspace or
splacer. And that's okay! Part of the fun of creating videos is the problem
solving process. So let's pretend you have to go the low-budget route what do
you do? Say for instance you know you're filming in a dance studio and the
background is plain and black being that there are only three dancers, we don't
want them to look lonely in their environment. We need to give it life
energy movement! This could have been done by adding extras, moving lights, or
just using what's around the area. I knew there were some big fans in the corner of
the room so I threw some small lights behind them, used my party city fog
machine that I bought three years ago and that was my new set for Trevor Takemoto's
video to crush. Or look for depth in your environment
fog whether artificial or natural diffuses and spreads light and can
provide a rich background for your dancers and dancers love to wear black
so we have to make sure that they don't disappear into the background. If you
learn how to make the best use of your zero budget environments, imagine
what you can do when you have the opportunity to use a big budget
location! In the meantime, focus more on accent lighting, environmental textures,
colors, and just more creative ways to use your environments that you have in
mind! Just remember that filming in front of a cool wall does not make your dance
video good, but how you use your environment to honor the dance is what
makes it good! Tip number two: learn the choreo your self and communicate with
the dancers.
I could not stress this enough, be a
proactive videographer! You should almost never show up to set and film a dance
that you've never seen before. If you're able to, get a video of the choreography
before the day of the shoot or show up to a rehearsal of theirs.
You should also schedule time to run through the dance and the shots with
your dancers on the day of the shoot taking time to analyze their movements
helps you pick out key moments that you want to highlight in the video. Watch the
shot that I filmed for Lyle Beniga's eastcoast remix.
I learned choreography from watching rehearsal videos and that allowed me to actually
move completely in sync with the dancers in the original choreography the dancers
jog in place. I felt it would be much more effective to have it travel and to
time the extras in the background to do the exact same motion to make it a super
cool moment these adjustments were only possible because I spent a good amount
of time in pre-production communicating with Lyle ,and of course learning the
choreography. Tip number three: it never hurts to get a clean full covered shot.
When you're filming, get a full-body safety shot whether it's wide-angle or
super compressed. Get a shot that doesn't cut off any arms legs tentacles heads
whatever it is yayadeya trust me! You'll thank yourself later for getting that
shot whether you use it in the final edit or just as a reference for
musicality. Tip number four: high angle shots show
formations. Low angle shots show power or double chins. This is a generally well
known idea. Psychologically, low angle shots make the subject seem more
powerful and prominent. This is a really effective angle to use for accentuating
moments in a dance. High angle shots could have the opposite effect and make
the subject seem inferior or less powerful but in dance we often use
blocking and formations to guide and please the viewers eyes from all angles.
The high angle allows us to see these formations and patterns in their
entirety which is an essential part of a
choreography. You'll notice that freestyle videos are rarely filmed from
a high angle because there aren't really any formations to show. Tip number five:
when editing, cut on actions especially big motions. When making dance videos I
always say honor the dance but how do you dishonor the dance? Doing something like this
Why why did you cut it like that? If you cut too much during extremely quick and
small movements, you'll often leave the viewers confused and honestly pissed off
that you took a big old dump on that beautiful piece of art that you're
supposed to edit! So do your best to cut on big motions like this!
This is a really common technique used in cinema because it takes about two to three
frames for the human eye to process any information following a cut. And now it's
time for some technical quick tips! High shutter speed. If you are shooting around
24 frames per second using a shutter speed that's around 1/100
or 1/120 of a second will make your dancers movements look faster
cleaner and more powerful. This is because there's less motion work I like
I like to call this "good choppy" Be careful to not abuse this! This can be really
disorienting to a viewers eyes especially if the shot is not stabilized.
The final tip: maintain consistent distance from the dancers to keep them
in focus. Unless you have a follow focus or extremely steady hand, you don't
really have a way to refocus the lens when the dancers are moving forward and
back so if you can shoot at a more narrow aperture and maintain a
consistent distance from the dancers so that they don't go out of focus. And
that is it y'all thank you so much for watching this video I hope these tips
helped you become a more thoughtful dance video creator who can honor the
dances with purposeful production choices! And every video needs a purpose,
our purpose for filming these videos is to show you what you can learn on STEEZY
Studio! So make sure you sign up to www.steezy.co to learn these awesome dances!
Film well, Tinkerbell!