Hey everyone, welcome back to the channel.
My name is Victor Melchor, and today
I'm going to break down how I made this cinematic montage.
So I recently had the honor of shooting a mini doc for my talented friend
Mike Gray.
Before you watch this video,
you should definitely check out the full video linked in the description.
When Chapter three, I got to shoot a fun montage of just the process
that goes into making a platinum palladium print
and that specifically the scene that I'm going to be breaking down today.
I don't think there's a specific way to create a montage scene,
but hopefully the way I shot it can give you some tips
on how to shoot your next cinematic montage.
Also, keep watching until the end to see the final product.
All right, so first, let's look at shooting style.
So there's handheld shooting, which does feel pretty intimate, and I do enjoy it
just because you can kind of move around and it feels a bit more free.
And there's also locked off tripod shots, which are really cool if you want to
specifically create a nice frame almost like a moving picture.
And you can also shoot on a gimbal or Steadicam,
which creates really nice dynamic shots.
And they're very smooth,
and that's actually the way I chose to shoot majority of this montage.
So I specifically chose to shoot and again,
because I wanted to create these nice dynamic movements.
But I also wanted to keep it smooth enough that you can really see what he's doing
and you can really see the process.
And I wanted it to feel immersive because if I were to do a lot of
locked off shots, I feel like it maybe would have looked boring.
And if I had done handheld, I think the camera shake might have
just been a little too distracting to focus on the actual process.
And with that smooth movement, I almost kind of wanted it to feel like
dancing, and I wanted you to be able to kind of like, you know, just feel.
Feel the music. Feel the vibe.
So that leads directly into Song Choice, and I think it's really important
because the song you're picking for your montage can really make
or break your edit.
If you pick the wrong one, it can easily feel out of place,
and I recommend having an idea of what genre of music you want to try
before you even shoot early on into shooting,
I was thinking something jazzy would be really cool
just as I was filming because I was doing like
these smooth movements and and also especially on YouTube.
It's so easy to go with a lofi
song just because lo fi, it feels universal.
It kind of goes with everything,
but I strongly recommend trying to break out of that and just find a song
that really fits with the vibe or the look that you really want to go with.
It can even be out of your comfort zone.
I don't typically listen to jazz, but I knew for this scene
it needed to be jazz.
And for the sake of me praising jazz, we're going to use jazz and the rest of
this video.
Also, one key
thing that is related to music is the sound design.
I got lucky and I was able to use a shotgun mike
and just use the sound that we were getting from the process.
But don't be afraid to go on YouTube or music subscription
sites that have sound effects like machinery or epidemic sound.
You can add so many different sound effects that will just kind of
increase the depth and make that montage more interesting.
And lastly, let's talk about editing style.
On YouTube you'll see that a lot of videos right now
that will have the term cinematic attached to it.
They have really cool transitions
and tons of crazy like whoosh effects and stuff like that.
While it can be cool for certain edits.
It's not always necessary for every edit.
I think it's important to find your own style and just be able to edit
the scene how you want to do it, and not how everybody else is necessarily editing.
Because I think editing styles, especially like trends like those whoosh effects,
they're going to come and go.
But what I feel like will stand
the test of time is just simple cuts that complement the pacing of the scene.
And the really cool thing was that after we shot that, me
and Mike actually went back to the hotel and cut that whole scene together,
and it was so cool and so collaborative, we would bounce ideas off of each other.
And in turn, I feel like we made this the best sequence we possibly could.
And also, another tip is sometimes letting go of your babies.
What I mean by that you might have some shots that you love.
You're so attached to. You love the framing.
You love the lighting.
Something about it is speaking to you, but
you got to know when to cut it or even cut it out.
So, for example, we had an overhead shot set up, and this was
as Matt was soaking the print and I wanted to keep it.
I really wanted to keep it for longer because in the final edit,
it was only there for like one second or less.
The reason I was attached to this shot specifically was just because
I've never done like an overhead shot with a see stand before, and
I always used to wonder when I would see overhead shots, like how did they do that?
What, what gear do they use?
And now it's like I was able to do that.
So it just made me feel really happy and proud of how far I've come in the past
few years. And that shot is great.
But realistically, we only needed .5 of those seconds, and I even tried
to extend the cut after we had to edit it, and it just did not flow well.
So I kept it to the original piece and let it flow.
And also with letting it flow, while I just talked about keeping certain shots
concise and keeping them to a minimum and even cutting them out if you have to.
There's also moments where you can let a scene ride if it goes well.
So, for example, towards the end of the sequence,
I was able to shoot this really fun one shot of Matt taking the print
all the way to the last and final soaking process.
Everything before this was so quick, you know?
And then we got to this shot and we just get to really let it ride.
That's one thing that you can do if you have a slot
for that that fits with the song and just the pacing of the edit
and also a key inspiration, I think, for just shooting this.
one thing that really made me want to do it
jazzy style edit was Birdman, and Birdman is all one shots.
So getting to do this just felt right.
It felt complete.
Ever since the very beginning of me getting into filmmaking,
I've always been intrigued by one shots and I've always loved them.
So just getting to implement this into such a fast set, it was really cool.
And the final shot of this,
you get to see Mike really take it all in and enjoy his creation
and also the process and Matt's creation to see, yeah,
that's how we shot this cinematic montage sequence from start to finish.
I hope this helps out some beginner filmmakers out there.
And without further ado, here's the final scene.