Over the last few days, I've been shooting a music video, I got a call about it on the 3rd of January, where I was given the song and spoke for about an hour about the ideas the client had for the video and from there we each gave it some thought and had some more correspondence over the next week knowing that we would have to wait about a week before shooting until myself, the client and the actor were free to get to work.
The first day we made it out to our location and after some set up we were able to get shooting, we had everything we needed in one place. The idea was to have an Alice in wonderland looking picnic table set up in the woods, which we managed to get. Sadly I didn't take any pictures of it, as I was busy helping with prep and setting up to shoot.
I did however get some time to capture the camera and set up for our second sequence, which was to be the actor across the river from us. They aren't in the photo. I was just taking some pictures on my phone after setting up the shot, as the director and client were going through some of their actions for the scene.
Yesterday we were out in a different woods as the client knew of a location not far from his house where there was a hut built. I brought two of my newer LED lights because I thought it would be cool having them inside it and shining some light out from within. As it would work well with the surreal kind of look the client wanted for the shoot.
Because of the daylight though it didn't really have the desired effect, but, with a little bit of tweaking to the camera settings, I was able to get it looking good. I was happy with the results in the end and think it'll work well with everything else we have.
While at another location we were getting some similar shots and as we had finished with the sequence we decided to get some more shots beside a much larger river. Because we were running out of daylight I decided not to pack up my equipment and put the tripod under my arm and carry it with the camera still attached.
I didn't consider how slippery the ground was and skidded and fell. Luckily I was able to land on the side not holding the tripod. But, it got to me thinking that I'll have to start charging more for these videos. If I had broken the camera, lens or tripod it wouldn't have been the client's fault and without insurance, I don't have any come back. The only thing I can do is put aside a contingency specifically as an emergency fund. Without the equipment, it would stop me from working on any future projects and is a lot of money to spend if anything was to break.
I learned a lesson from it, even if you're only walking a few feet to your next setup, tear down everything and bag it up. To save yourself any unnecessary damage to your gear.
After the trip, we were loading up the car when we noticed the moon and we did want a shot with the moon in it for the film so I ran over to set up the gear while the others finished loading up the props. The shot was simple enough, just the client and actor on either side of the frame with the moon and reflection on the water in the centre. With the colour of the sky, it looks great and they are kind of silhouetted which has a nice contrast to the background.
While we were there we decided to get a performance shot of the client singing the lyrics and in the shot, his mouth is in line with the moon which looks pretty cool.
I'll share some stills of the video once I get started on the edit and finish the colour grade. I think the footage in all locations turned out well and it will complement the song.
All the footage for the video was taken on a Canon M50, using mainly a 10-18mm wide lens and a 50mm prime lens for some close-ups and some nice shallow depth of field shots as it can go down to an F1.8. The pictures in this post were captured on my Samsung phones camera.