How to shoot night time music videos. 3 tips comin right up.
In the McDonald's parking lot baby. Stay tuned until the end of the video cuz I have a
few bonus tips.
What's up everyone my name is Cracka Lack. Welcome back to Cracka Lack TV. In today's
video I'm going to be going over some tips on how to shoot night time music videos. I got 3 tips
for you. If you're new to the channel make sure you subscribe and hit the bell to be notified
for future uploads. Lots of good content on the way. 3 tips coming
right up, let's get it. Alright so today I got B-Lils with me. We're going to be
doing a music video for "Cold Streets".
Got Malik he's going to be making me look good. I'll be making B-Lils look good. Alright tips 1, first and foremost
shoot that mother f***er inside. Right here we're in my garage
ugh someone's basement. If you got a budget and you can actually rent out a nice location.
But if not like if someone has a unfinished basement that can give a decent
pretty cool look to it. You can also get creative and build like a backdrop get some
cool lights and stuff. So yeah, tip 1 it seems obvious but don't
over complicate s***. Inside. So that's what I'm gonna do first is I'm gonna do a
scene for B-Lils music video. N we're gonna get some footage right here, inside.
In my garage.
Alright so we just wrapped up a performance shot. B-Lils sitting on the TV. This is a old a** box TV.
where it's just we got a plain blue screen right there. We even did a second scene we had Malik flicking the lights on and off
Now I'm just getting some more B-Roll here and we're gonna move on to tip number 2.
Tip 2 is gonna be camera settings. For your camera settings make sure you drop your aperture as low as
possible. The lower your aperture the more light you let in. When it's night time
you wanna let in as much light as you possibly can. Right now with this lens that's on my camera
the aperture only goes down to a f/4. Which isn't
good for low light. You would want to get a lens that can go down to like a f/1.8 or f/1.4
and drop the aperture all the way down to film your shots. PS Malik almost dropped his lens.
Wide Receiver hands baby.
Let's talk about iso. With iso the higher you go the more likely you are to have
noise which is all like the flickery s*** in the background. So don't have your iso too high.
Fortunately for me I have a Sony a7s ii and it's known as like the king of low light so.
Right now my iso is at like 51,000 and ugh I don't think it's very
grainy. But just a general tip keep your as low as you can.
Ready? Yep. Alright tip 3 is utilize free lighting sources. Right now we're standing under a street
light. This is pretty damn bright. This tip I'm gonna show you a lot of different
scenario's that you can use. 1 being street lights. You can use business lighting
like if they have a lot of lights on the outside of the business. You can use car head lights.
You can use flashlights on your phone. You can get cheap small LED lights. I plan on
utilizing everything I just mentioned there. So first we're gonna use this street light.
Also keep in mind that angle you are to the light. So if you have the light like
right here where it's directly above me, it's gonna give you a different shadow a different look. Again,
it's just simple s***. Don't over complicate it. Be creative.
Another just general tip is whenever you get a performance shot at a
certain scene, always get some B-Roll there as well. So I had him do a performance shot doing the song. N Then I
also got some B-Roll of him not rapping any of the words. I always tell the artist "Don't say any of
the f***in words" just vibe with it, move around, do the whole head nod movin.
Slow mo that s*** looks dope as hell in music videos. So we did that and then
the street light. I dropped my aperture right. This lens is a 55mm
and it can go down to a f/1.8 so that's good this is a great low light lens.
When you film at a low aperture n you have lights that's when you get that dope a** bokeh where
the lights are all out of focus and big and crazy looking. So I got some of that with the street light right here.
Now we're gonna do the ole car head light trick. Put your
brights on. Got B-Lils right there. Yeah I'll show you guys how this looks too.
Next we're gonna use the cell phone flashlight.
N what I'm gonna do is while I'm filming i'm gonna have Malik do this with the flashlight like
like kinda I want his face to get pitch black and then be
lit up but yeah with the light kinda goin crazy on him. That's what's next.
Stay tuned until the end of the video because I have a few bonus tips. But right now
we're walkin down the block to a McDonald's. Remember I said utilize
if there's any local businesses by you that they have good lighting outside, use that s***. Now as far as
McDonald's I can't guarantee how long you have there you will get kicked out.
But we are going to walk up to the McDonald's parking lot and film a scene. Get in
get out get your shot. N then you know, get out of there. It's recording? yeah. Alright so we're here
at McDonald's parking lot. We're gonna get a quick scene in before we get kicked out. You don't have to
go to like an actual restaurant like drive thru type place. A better option would be
to go like downtown. We live like 10 minutes from downtown BUT I wanted to show you guys
no excuses at all we're doing everything like within walking distance of
my own house so no excuses.
in the McDonald's parking lot baby. Good s***. I'm happy with that.
It's time for them bonus tips. You're probably wondering why this looks like s***. Here's the bonus tip
right. Crack your iso all the way to the max have some bad camera movement. N then actually go
back in time and make it look like the hand held that your mom used to film you with. It's like
the VCR effect. And you can even look up some plug ins and effects.
What you're doing is pretty much downgrading your footage to give it that vintage
retro look. I've seen it in a lot of other videos lately. And that's what I'm gonna do right here.
So that's the bonus tip.
Alright everyone I'm gonna put a link in the description to the music video that
I was shooting through out this tutorial. It is B-Lils "Cold Streets". I want to encourage you guys
to go out there and use some of these tips come back to this video and leave a comment and let me know
which tip was the most helpful. Again, we filmed this entire music video and
tutorial pretty much in my backyard, in my garage, my driveway,
right infront of my house with the street light, n then 1 block down the street in McDonald's parking lot
and then the last scene was just in the middle of the road. No excuses. If you enjoyed
this video, please give it a thumbs up. Drop a comment let me know which tip was the most
helpful for you. Share this video with a friend. Hit subscribe and the bell to be notified
for future uploads. Cracka Lack TV. We out.