How to shoot for "Glossy" music video look?

[Brian Broz]

I'm hoping for some tips and insight from experienced DPs out there into how I can achieve the "glossy" music video look found in higher budget videos...especially in skintones.
For example in the performance section of the following:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUtFEKhtB30

Basically I have worked shooting video for years with Chimeras and Kinos in the past in interview and corporate situations but want to "step it up" and progress as a shooter/lighting cameraman.
I realize most higher budget or "glossy" videos aren't obviously going for realism. As I understand these music videos are a combination of lighting, makeup and post processing. Am I correct that the lighting is usually flat, large sources (12k or whatever) right behind/above the camera, with a strong backlight. What about exposure...are these shot flat normally or just barely overexposed to aid post processing that silky look without losing sharpness? Or is this all done in "power windows" to smooth out the face.
These videos also tend to have deep glossy blacks (wet down pavement etc) but is this mostly done in post?
Hoping for some insight, as I'm not naive enough to think slapping on Magic Bullet filter to 3-light kit HDV footage is going to cut the mustard :-) But hopefully with tools like Red, Apple Color, and additional lighting these looks are more possible to achieve now than ever?!
Thanks for any time and input. Appreciate it!

BB

[Mike Prevette]

A whole lot of the contrast you see in this clip was done in the transfer/post. I can tell they even had to garbage matte out a lamp for the backlight in the night shots. A lot of these "candy" shots are cleaned up and made to sing in post, but it helps to shoot it as close as possible.


Strong backlight, not over lighting the things you want go dark. Soft key. Probably a 6x6 muslin bounce or half grid projected. Can't see with enough quality what they really did. Start looking at videos and pausing on a frame of a close up, and look at the eyes. You can learn a lot about what instruments they are using by studying the reflections in their eyes. I used to buy $100 of fashion mags a month and study the reflections and shadows to figure out what people where doing.

[I Bloom]

I'm hoping for some tips and insight from experienced DPs out there into how I can achieve the "glossy" music video look found in higher budget videos...especially in skintones.
For example in the performance section of the following:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUtFEKhtB30

Basically I have worked shooting video for years with Chimeras and Kinos in the past in interview and corporate situations but want to "step it up" and progress as a shooter/lighting cameraman.
I realize most higher budget or "glossy" videos aren't obviously going for realism. As I understand these music videos are a combination of lighting, makeup and post processing. Am I correct that the lighting is usually flat, large sources (12k or whatever) right behind/above the camera, with a strong backlight. What about exposure...are these shot flat normally or just barely overexposed to aid post processing that silky look without losing sharpness? Or is this all done in "power windows" to smooth out the face.
These videos also tend to have deep glossy blacks (wet down pavement etc) but is this mostly done in post?
Hoping for some insight, as I'm not naive enough to think slapping on Magic Bullet filter to 3-light kit HDV footage is going to cut the mustard :-) But hopefully with tools like Red, Apple Color, and additional lighting these looks are more possible to achieve now than ever?!
Thanks for any time and input. Appreciate it!

BB

I have provided the cinematograhy component to a lot of Fashion guys that need someone to come in with hot lights and movie cameras. That look can be hard to match in cinematography because stills guys have the advantage of strobes. From what I've seen they always use a large bright soft source right behind and taller than camera and another slightly hard and above (and umbrella lots of times) on the "Broad side of the face." to get that cover girl look. That's how you get that glow in the skin. Ring lights are also a popular way of achieving that, I've even used a ring light made from a wooden ring of incandescent bulbs, heavily diffused. If you use a smaller but extremely diffuse source very close to her face you will get more falloff. A diffused kino above and below the lense, is also something you might try.

Also good to use longer lenses.

IBloom

[Fredrik Callinggard]

I've shot numerous music videos in my DP life and can tell you that a soft light is usually the best case. But not always, sometimes faces respond better with harder light. A general rule is a 45 degree angle above camera onto artist. This is of course not always the case but works most of the time. Of course artists get "painted" in post production to make their skin smooth. If you don't have that luxury fx filters come in handy. I generally use Black Promist up to 1/2 but be careful you don't want to use it if you have blown out background. Black promist will soften high lights in the shot. So if you have an over exposed face it will get softer. Another one is Soft FX filter. Now when you filter I'd say that you should do it with moderation, but it's of course to your liking. Another thing that's used very often is ring light. I personally hate it because I think it's cheap. It's to easy with a ring light, but if you want to go that way I'd recommend LED ones, you'll find them at www.cineled.com for example. Personally I recommend the briese lights. They're great as beauty lights and the 8" version in diameter is so soft that you can stand in front of it without shadowing. Another trick is to take Kino's and create a wall around the camera - the hip hop wall hahahaha. Widely used for hip hop videos. If the artists skin is good I recommend sheen to bring out high lights from the soft light.

No matter what all this is usless without a good make-up artist.


Hope I was of some help.

fred

[LEON]

Why don't you just try Tiffen digital filters and shoot relax ?
A enormous time saving for you to know you can do your effects
in post production.

[Brent J. Craig]

As weirdcrew said, good makeup is the key. Sheen, gloss, etc is 50% good makeup skillfully applied and 50% the lighting techniques mentioned above.

[Fredrik Callinggard]

Why don't you just try Tiffen digital filters and shoot relax ?
A enormous time saving for you to know you can do your effects
in post production.

All artists want to look good and if you can make them look good at playback you're a winner. All directors wants their material to look good immediately so if you can make it look good before telecine you're winner. All producers wants to spend as little as possible so if you save them post you're winner. In saying that it's also important to think within moderation. If you start already at camera stage with a small touch and then "add on" gradually in the different stages it will be less visible that it's been manipulated. I shot what you could call a super star and first we filtered her in camera with soft fx (very subtly). We then continued with doing so also in telecine (I'd say that here we did it fairly subtle). The job then went to 2 weeks of "flame" work with just touching her up, making her look young and beautiful without actually seem as if we've done anything to her. If we hadn't done it in stages it would have looked fake.

fred

[Mike Prevette]

Check out this Obie/softbox set up. Something this close and big really makes people glow.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnbra...7602879328823/

[NateWeaver]

Everybody else has said good words about about lighting, so I'll talk a little about color correction and the rest.

A pretty standard trick with good colorists is to put a secondary on skintones, and bend them all yet more towards the skintone "vector", all the while reducing saturation. This has the effect of flattening out ruddy undertones that are sometimes there. Makeup dept has first whack at that problem, then the colorist, so to speak.

Another thing that is done is to put a matte on skintones, and then do a blur to get the poreless look. It's really easy to overdo that, so watch out, or your diva will look like an android.

[Shawn Nelson]

Check out this Obie/softbox set up. Something this close and big really makes people glow.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnbra...7602879328823/

Nice! Could a cheaper version of this be a 150w Arri with an xs chimera bolted on top of the Red?