Lighting breakdown of a music video I shot last year

[Maxbrand]

Hello! 

I had some time to pass over the summer so I made a breakdown of a music video I shot last year. I tried to write it so that anybody could copy exactly what I did.

If you have any questions about anything, feel free to post here or comment on the blog! 

Link to the blog in question

[IronFilm]

It is a pity there are no replies here. I'd much rather talk about lighting than cameras! Although I know I am very guilty of always being "dragged" into camera discussions..... #hypocrite 

(in a way I liked that you never mentioned in the blog what camera you used! But I did get a peek at it by zooming into some of your BTS pics)

 

18 hours ago, Maxbrand said:

As we had a low budget I and great gaffer Kamil Janowski figured using Tungsten as the main lighting would be a good idea. 

Indeed, Tungsten prices secondhand are falling with the popularity of LEDs instead. 
And they're much cheaper to rent too.

Had a director/producer ask me on a shoot in December when we arrived at the lighting rental house why we were not getting LEDs instead? (we were picking up a couple of Blondes and a pair of Dedos, plus various other supporting gear)
 
Wellllll..... because if we got LEDs instead then we'd basically be able to afford nothing, or maybe one good LED light! ha

 

18 hours ago, Maxbrand said:

We planned to use the hard light from par cans to be our main source and to haze up the rooms for added atmosphere and depth. Unfortunately we were forbidden by the landlord from any hazing at all. We instead opted for Tiffen Smoque 2, a filter that is supposed to mimic the effect of haze without actually using any.

Interesting. I should play around with various filters more often. 

Had last month a similar shoot in which I wanted to use a haze machine, but person whose office we were using was freaked out about that as a fire engine call out is VERY EXPENSIVE! But I got ladders and taped over all the fire detector sensors (using Styrofoam cups taped over, so it was fully sealed up) then the shoot went smoothly without a hitch.

[kye]

How many people here use natural or practical lighting vs dedicated lighting setups?

Personally I shoot natural / practicals the whole way, because my work doesn't have a 'set'.  

[Mark Romero 2]

1 hour ago, kye said:

How many people here use natural or practical lighting vs dedicated lighting setups?

Personally I shoot natural / practicals the whole way, because my work doesn't have a 'set'.  

Since I shoot mostly real estate videos, it is all practical / ambient light. No time / budget for setting up lights.

20 hours ago, Maxbrand said:

Hello! 

I had some time to pass over the summer so I made a breakdown of a music video I shot last year. I tried to write it so that anybody could copy exactly what I did.

If you have any questions about anything, feel free to post here or comment on the blog! 

Link to the blog in question

Good work, thanks for posting.

I do have to ask how a "low budget" production ends up being shot on a Red Epic 6K... I guess your definition of "low budget" is a bit different than mine

[Maxbrand]

32 minutes ago, Mark Romero 2 said:

I do have to ask how a "low budget" production ends up being shot on a Red Epic 6K... I guess your definition of "low budget" is a bit different than mine

I don't know if I wrote it in the blog, I think I did. But it's all about what favours you can pull out. I was employed at a production company where we had two REDs, so I could borrow one over the weekend without paying for it. And I used my own lenses, so the only rental cost for the camera deparment was a follow focus, ND-filters and  a mattebox, which must have been under 100$. 

 

1 hour ago, kye said:

How many people here use natural or practical lighting vs dedicated lighting setups?

Personally I shoot natural / practicals the whole way, because my work doesn't have a 'set'.  

It depends on the shoot. Like you say, sometimes there is no "set" and you have to make do with what you've got.

 

3 hours ago, IronFilm said:

It is a pity there are no replies here. I'd much rather talk about lighting than cameras! Although I know I am very guilty of always being "dragged" into camera discussions..... #hypocrite 

(in a way I liked that you never mentioned in the blog what camera you used! But I did get a peek at it by zooming into some of your BTS pics)

 

Indeed, Tungsten prices secondhand are falling with the popularity of LEDs instead. 
And they're much cheaper to rent too.

Had a director/producer ask me on a shoot in December when we arrived at the lighting rental house why we were not getting LEDs instead? (we were picking up a couple of Blondes and a pair of Dedos, plus various other supporting gear)
 
Wellllll..... because if we got LEDs instead then we'd basically be able to afford nothing, or maybe one good LED light! ha

 

Interesting. I should play around with various filters more often. 

Had last month a similar shoot in which I wanted to use a haze machine, but person whose office we were using was freaked out about that as a fire engine call out is VERY EXPENSIVE! But I got ladders and taped over all the fire detector sensors (using Styrofoam cups taped over, so it was fully sealed up) then the shoot went smoothly without a hitch.

Thank you for getting the discussion going! I agree, very much talk about cameras, pixels, motion cadence, colour sciences and so on. I think that mostly pales in comparison to lighting and camera placement/movement. But it is also easier to discuss than the more interesting matters. 

Yeah tungsten is cheap as hell and good colour rendition as well. Too bad it's so crazy hot and energy consuming.

We did bring trash bags to tape over the fire detectors but we ended up not going with the haze since we didn't want a sour relationship with the owner of the house. Nice solution with styrofoam cups!

I did actually mention what camera we shot on in the gear list, but I didn't want to focus on it since I don't really think it matters that much for this particular post.

[IronFilm]

44 minutes ago, Mark Romero 2 said:

I do have to ask how a "low budget" production ends up being shot on a Red Epic 6K... I guess your definition of "low budget" is a bit different than mine

I was last weekend working on a short film with a RED Dragon.
And done a feature film this year shot with an ARRI AMIRA, and also worked on a feature film shot with 2x REDs earlier this year. 
You'd be surprised how cheaply some DoPs might work on narrative, and what deals can be found for gear. 

4 minutes ago, Maxbrand said:

I did actually mention what camera we shot on in the gear list,

Whoops!

 

5 minutes ago, Maxbrand said:

but I didn't want to focus on it since I don't really think it matters that much for this particular post.

I agree.

6 minutes ago, Maxbrand said:

And I used my own lenses, so the only rental cost for the camera deparment was a follow focus, ND-filters and  a mattebox, which must have been under 100$. 

Damn, wireless follow focus + set of NDs + mattebox for under a hundred bucks? Impressed. Then again that is USD, but still. 

[Maxbrand]

6 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

Damn, wireless follow focus + set of NDs + mattebox for under a hundred bucks? Impressed. Then again that is USD, but still. 

Well, the DJI Follow Focus and it was rented from a friend of the director. So I think we got it for 500 for 2 days, and we rented over the weekend which means we only pay for one day at the rental house. I forgot about the Smoque-filter. So maybe it ended up around 100$ rather than under 100$. But yeah, the budget was definitely not high! And I'm in Sweden, I don't know how the rental prices are in your countries ?.

[kye]

I think we need to distinguish between "cash budget" and "total budget".  You might have shot that film for $100, but if my neighbours kid wants to shoot a film for $100, they're going to run out of money after they buy a Chinese tripod and smartphone mount, a Lav from eBay and couple of halogen floodlights from the hardware store.  And they started with their own camera and you didn't!

[IronFilm]

But that is how it is done on every indie low budget production I have ever been on. 
This Is Not Unusual. 

So it is a bit unfair to say "but Maxbrand's real true budget is $xxx,xxx,xxx" or whatever, as no, rather that is just how life and the world works.
People beg/borrow/steal/etc what they can to get it made. And if you're a nice person, and are active and busy in the scene, it isn't at all hard to get it done. (ok, I might not be able to borrow a RED Dragon! But I could for instance borrow a second Sony PMW-F3 for free on a shoot I did last month, and I organized that in mere hours beforehand. I was holding out hope I might be able to source a F5/FS700/FS7 instead! And if I'd had more time to hunt around I might have made it happen. As I've certainly been on shoots which have had an F5/FS700 for free. Although yes money was spent, but it was spent on lights rental and on other stuff, not on renting the 2nd F3)

[kye]

I know that's how it works @IronFilm but it just seemed a little too far from <common sense / normal humans / the real world> to leave hanging...  the film industry is a very strange place where Low Budget can mean $400,000 and No Budget can mean $2,200 (link link).

That puts a $100 film in the "I Haven't Eaten In A Week Budget" category, and yet it still got a $15,000 camera!

[IronFilm]

It is no different from if someone tells me they went on a weekend camping trip and it "cost them nothing", then someone complains "but you drove to the bush in a $40K car, then used a $1K tent, and used $50 of petrol, and and and etc..."

It is nitpicking, and I feel is an attitude which is also disconnected from reality. 

It is good for people to realize that you can make "low budget" films with nice gear (such as REDs or whatever), but it takes networking and effort/compromise.  And you can't do it by going at it alone, and sticking to online forums. 

Although of course there are also people in the film industry who take this too far, and basically exploit people and their good will. 

But there is a happy middle ground there in which both parties feel they benefit from the experience in a production. 

 

23 hours ago, kye said:

 the film industry is a very strange place where Low Budget can mean $400,000 and No Budget can mean $2,200 (link link).

That is because making a feature film is very very expensive. 

It is no more unreasonable than calling a $200,000 house a "low budget house", or calling a $10,000 house a "no budget house"!

 

[kye]

I totally get your point.  It'll be a hangover from the days when burning film was a fixed lower limit on making a film - you couldn't shoot a 90 minute film without exposing, processing and developing at least 90 minutes of negatives.  In that sense, "No Budget" would have made sense if it was below that minimum cost.

In todays world when digital cameras are being thrown away, old computers capable of editing video are being thrown away, and editing software is available for free, you can literally make a film for nothing.  In this sense, $2200 is a large amount of money because it doesn't have to be spent on equipment.

It's yet another culture clash caused by technology letting all the riff-raff in!

Anyway, enough tangents from me

[IronFilm]

Just got a phone call about a self funded short film I'll be doing sound for a few days next month, this is a clue on the budget I gleaned:
NZ$100/day for each person (that is only around US$67/day, so in other words... nearly nothing) in the cast and crew. (which is the same for me, but getting another $200/day for my gear rental)
However they're getting a set of Cooke anamorphic primes for free from a production house and an Arri Alexa Mini for free from another different rental house. 

For many on forums who live outside this industry  this might seem surprising, however to me this doesn't seem strange at all to get calls like this. (although the whole we're "paying everyone the same X amount" does annoy me, as I don't feel that say a 1st AC / Gaffer / SFX MUA / Sound Mixer / etc should get the same amount per day as perhaps a LX Assist / Runner / 3rd AC / PA / etc might get. Not even on "no budget" shoots. *Especially* if someone such as the Gaffer or Sound Mixer is bringing along tens of thousands of dollars worth of their own gear, or like the SFX MUA HoD are using up hundreds of dollars worth of products as expendables per day. And very often I've been on such shoots which "everyone is paid the same", yet you discover that is not the case and it just is the spin the director or producer uses)

But I'm sure these people did back in the day at film school do many "no budget" shoot with a Canon T3i or whatever, it can take a few years or working up and building your network to get people you can call upon to borrow their Cooke anamorphics or Arri from people who you know. (and who'd be ok with that, because they know you have and/or will be giving them a lot of work in the future from full rate commercial productions)

[webrunner5]

18 hours ago, IronFilm said:

J

For many on forums who live outside this industry  this might seem surprising, however to me this doesn't seem strange at all to get calls like this. (although the whole we're "paying everyone the same X amount" does annoy me, as I don't feel that say a 1st AC / Gaffer / SFX MUA / Sound Mixer / etc should get the same amount per day as perhaps a LX Assist / Runner / 3rd AC / PA / etc might get. Not even on "no budget" shoots. *Especially* if someone such as the Gaffer or Sound Mixer is bringing along tens of thousands of dollars worth of their own gear, or like the SFX MUA HoD are using up hundreds of dollars worth of products as expendables per day. And very often I've been on such shoots which "everyone is paid the same", yet you discover that is not the case and it just is the spin the director or producer uses)

 

Well that is the same gripe I had with buying keyboards, synthesizers for bands! Hell the guy that has a 20 year old Fender P Bass gets the same money someone that has 5 grand every other year or more tied up in keyboards that go out of style by the time You buy it! Lesson learned, be the Singer in the Band, or a Coffee Runner in Star Wars. ?