A friend of mine (Dir. Ryan Spencer) posted a music video on my facebook page and he said in the caption:
"Just when you think you are getting good at directing, this comes out"..
The video that he was reffering to was the new music video by Dr. Dre, which is called "Kush" ft. Snoop Dogg & Akon.
This is a link to that music video:
youtube.com/kush
AGrip has the Grip, Lighting & Camera Support equipment to make a video for you that captures a lot of the great elements of this video.
For the purpose of this Blog, please open this video in another browser window so that you can go back and forth between watching the video and reading what I am saying about it. I recommend watching the entire video all the way through right now.....
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You may have to watch this video a few times to pick up on the clues of how it was made. There are some visual effects in this video and while I am not a visual effects expert, I have done quite a bit of work with Green Screen and compositing and so I can offer theories as to what is going on. Mostly I want to address the look of this music video. Getting the look that you want in your music video is really what AGrip is about.
BTW, I love the song for this music video; it is difficult to do a great music video without a great song and this beat is as hard as they come.
I will start the video and immediately pause it at :03 to take a look at this frame. I see Dr. Dre holding the lighter. I know that he is sitting inside of the Lamborghini. I would estimate that this was shot with a pretty fast lens with a longer focal length that was wide open. There is a key light hitting Dre from camera left. I think that this is a Tungsten source, obviously with a Gel on it. I am not exactly sure which Gel this is but it looks like it may be a Lee Mallard Green 325:
cinemagadgets.com/mallardgreen325
Whatever Gel this is, it looks like it has a low transmission percent, which basically means that you will need a pretty powerful light in order to punch through it. They were probably using about a 2000W Light. As I let the video play for a few more seconds, I see the camera dolly back and the door opens. I see that there is a light in the car shining onto the interior passenger door. I think that this is artistically a cool look because Dre is a certain color in the forground and the inside of the same car is a different color. I really like this seperation, but what kind of light are they using for that? I think that this light is a kino flo bulb, 2 footer, with a gel tube sleeve on it; if it is a kino flo bulb then they probably took the bulb out of the fixture and have a harness and ballast cable running from a ballast splitter to just this bulb. AGrip can do this kind of lighting because I have the Kino Flos and I have the ballast splitters, etc.
Here is a link to the Kino Ballast Break-Out Kit:
cinemagadgets.com/breakoutkit
Also, at around :06 seconds into this video, I do see some kind of a light specifically hitting Dre on his hand. this is a red light comming from somewhere in the background... I honestly do not know what this light is... Whatever it is it is extremely focused and tight. I think that this light might be a lazer... It seems like it is not very bright for a Lazer but they may have controlled the intensity of the light by going really far away with it. As the camera dollies back, and I am still at :06 seconds, I see that the Lamborghini seems to be very dull, the paint on the Lamborghini is not glossy and reflective. I am not sure if that is the paint job of the Lamborghini, but I think that what most likely happened is, they used dulling spray on the Lambo. It looks really cool. Also at :06 I see a tubular looking reflection in the passenger window that could be a clue that the light in the back seat of the car is infact a kino flo tube. Lets watch some more..
Now that I am at :08 seconds, I pause it. My theory of the dulling spray is more apparent now I think, because I have never seen a Lamborghini that had a Matte finish on a few of the body panels but not all of them. I see that the fender on the passenger side of the Lamborghini has a glossy finish. When they applied the dulling spray, it looks like they were careful not to put any on that fender; to me it looks cool that they didn't put it on that fender because it gives the car a more dynamic look for this shot. Another thing that I notice at this point is that there is a kino flo bulb underneath the car. I think that this is probably a 4' bulb, and I think that it is probably straight tungsten, no gels.
Pressing play again, if you look really closely, just after :08 seconds, in the driver side floor of the Lamborghini underneath Dre's feet, you can see a tubular light.. that is a 2' Kino Flo bulb with a gel tube on it. Also the light beside the passenger seat that is lighting up the door looks like a 2' kino flo.
When we cut away from Dr. Dre in the Lambo, we get our first look at a visual effect that is the main effect in this video. What we are looking at, at about :11 of the video, is a mini cooper car, people standing around, a girl smoking, etc. The lighting, first of all, is mostly motivated by 4' Kino Flo tubes on the foor, which are causing cool and unusual shadows. The visual effect that we are seeing is something called "Bullet Time"... Bullet Time is the effect that was developed for the movie "The Matrix".. the name, Bullet Time, is actually trademarked by a company that specializes in doing this effect. The effect is achieved by placing lots of identical cameras on a path, ussually a rail (in this video it is probably a curved rail a lot of the time), the cameras are hooked up to controller software that synchronizes the their photography. This is what you have to do in order to pause the motion and bring a camera view around because it would be impossible to realistically move a camera that fast. Also, it is impossible to put that many cameras on the path... so the companies that specialize in "Bullet Time" use software that helps them blend frames from one camera to the next. This is high end cinematography.
The Bullet Time shots that are in this video are composited together with footage that has been very carefully shot and lit in order to maintain continuity. Also, some of the "Bullet Time" shots, I think are immitation bullet time, which is basically, where everybody just stands still! Some of these, you think you are looking at Dre in Bullet Time, but then he starts moving! It can be hard to tell but watch the video closely and try to detect if you are seeing real Bullet Time or immitation Bullet Time.
Watch closely to see the differenet layers of video plates that are seemlessly composited together.
Having explained "Bullet Time" a bit, as I press play and watch more of this video I see the overwhelming amount of compositing and bullet time that was artfuly done. This video has a high degree of awesomeness.
As we see Snoop Dogg get out of the car, we see his foot step in water and in extreme slow motion there is a splash; this was filmed with a Phantom High Speed Camera. We also see things like, Fog that is backlit to make it pop (AGrip can bring Fog machines to your shoot, and backlight them too). We may be looking at 3 plates for a second when Snoop gets out of his car, I think that 3 plates are: the building in the background on 1 plate, the car and smoke with snoop dog and the kino flo bulbs on the ground that you can see in the reflection of the car as another plate; and the girl spilling the martini (This plate has had the "Bullet Time" effect done to it). I am not sure if the building in the background and Snoop Dogg are on different plates though...
At about :24 we see Dr. Dre Performing at a party on the streets downtown, with lots of pretty girls around and exotic cars. I am not sure if Dre was really there for the filming of any of this footage, but I can tell he was composited in, in certain parts. I do believe that the director of this shoot did a good job putting this party together. He brought out a couple of grip trucks, with generators. I think that there are some big, soft sources overhead; this is one thing that makes me think that Dre was not really there because it doesn't look like he has a soft source over his head. Dr. Dre may have been standing amidst a bunch of 4'x4' Floppies to keep all that light off of him though, but I doubt it. The soft source overhead at this part (:24)could be a Lighting Balloon that they flew up there. AGrip has the "poor man's" version of this, that I have built and can bring to your shoots.
My current version of this overhead soft source, is 2 big 15' long Pipe Boom Kits that are wired with China Balls, 6 of them, all hooked up to Dimmers to give you some control of their brightness. These can set up quickly and be placed in a few locations to help provide a little fill light for your night time outdoor party scenes.
Of course.... The lighting trick that really sets this party off, as well as the whole video is OF COURSE, the 4' Gelled Kino Flo Bulbs that are placed around on the ground! It looks really nice. Dre is being hit by a Gelled Hair Light, maybe a 1000W Fresnel that is boomed out on a Telescoping Baby Boom. Dre is also getting some uplight from Camera Left, maybe from a Gelled Kino Bulb.
At :27 we see a dolly shot moving past cars with girls leaning on them. We can clearly see the Kino Tubes in the shot. Dre walks through an alley of cars. This is a great shot that the director came up with to mix in with the Performance footage. It looks like Dre has been composited into this plate becuase the people seem to be in "Bullet Time" while Dre is moving normally. The Director of this video was careful to get the same dolley movement on both the Plate, AND Dre who was probably walking in a green screen studio.
As we get towards the Middle of this video, again we see a major theme in the cinematography of this video, which is, Kino Flo bulbs taped and mounted in creative places, and often times low to the ground sending light from their unusual shape onto the pretty girls and artists. One of the things about this lighting is that, the shape of a Kino Flo bulb and the quality of light that it puts off, is something that you will never see in nature and in the wild. That gives this lighting style a very dream like, otherworldly tone. The way that it is uplighting people is really cool and is something that I have done a lot of experimenting with and love to do. As you watch this video, try to notice all of the Kino Flo tubes that are placed around in different spots; so cool.
At 1:40, we see Snoop Dogs performance scene. The lighting is cool in this room of the Club. 1 of the things that stands out here, is the table infront of Snoop with the drinks on it.. This is a glass table, lights are placed underneath the table and gelled an orangy color which really gives the table an eary and cool look. As the Camera moves on a dolly movement, we can see the dynamic element that these objects being placed in the forground of the shot, provide. Of course Snoop is not in Bullet Time, and most of the people around him are. That is cool. This club section of the video is just a collage of Bullet Time shots and it looks like they had a lot of fun doing this.
The coolness in this video starts to become startling and overwhelming, Especially as Dre is driving in the Lamborghini. I do recognize him driving over the 6th st. Bridge which I have shot cars on before and it looked amazing when I did it. Also I see him in Tunnels in LA that I have shot in. There is a compositing trick at play here to make the Lamborghini be mobbin through the city the way it is. We also have Aeiral Helicopter shots.. super cool.... Indie Aerials is a good contact for those types of shots. They charge about $525/hour. Not a bad price I think. You could probably get some effective footage in the LA area for about $2,000.
Anyways... What a great video and song. Hopefully after having read this Blog entry, you will have learned some valuable things; and know that you can hire AGrip to achieve the look in this video, or you can rent the equipment that you will need in order to get this look and many other awesome lighting schemes from AGrip.net
