[gb] Studio

Earlier this year, my friend Andrew Hyde and I worked on a video for the band, The Autumn Film. Before going further, check out the video. In this post, I’ll go over some of the behind the scenes: a making of, of sorts.

The Concept

The band is in the habit of giving music away to their fans. We had talked about their next giveaway and they knew they wanted it to be simple. They settled on some new songs by Tifah, the lead singer, in her living room, recorded live, at her piano, a single take for each track of audio.

It’s a dramatic song. Starting quietly, somberly, crescendoing into a belting cry and finishing, quietly again, with an unresolved question. It’s perfect for video – builds and holds you to the end.

It was an intimate concept. Those of us that are friends with the band get to experience impromptu new-song sessions with Tifah once-in-a-while and we thought adding a video would be a great way to bring the living room experience to their fans.

Out of the 3 songs they were prepping for the giveaway, the band chose the song Joy to be filmed. It’s a dramatic song. Starting quietly, somberly, crescendoing into a belting cry and finishing, quietly again, with an unresolved question. It’s perfect for video – holds you to the end.

We were also inspired by Thom Yorke’s Videotape video. If you haven’t seen it, it’s simple: 3 cameras, him in his practice studio at an upright piano.

The Setup

…that gave us one camera. The problem was, we felt like we needed two.

Going into the project, we knew we would film with a Canon 5d Mark II. My friend Andrew had recently bought one and had shot some beautiful footage with it. He was going to help us with filming, so that gave us one camera. The problem was, we felt like we needed two. It would be easier and save us from having to do as many different takes for different angles. At the time, you couldn’t even rent one in Denver, they were all checked out with wait-lists. Thankfully another friend, Matt Galligan, happened to procure one at the same time and he let us borrow it. Plain and simple, we lucked out.

We would record the video in Tifah’s living room. Based on the song and knowing the location I started to think about filming angles. We had a pre-shoot meeting where I took my SLR camera and shot some rough angles, so I would know where to film from.

I wanted to leave room for spontaneity during the shoot and especially for Andrew’s input.

I didn’t specifically story-board out the whole shoot – just planned different angles. I’ve shot a few short films before and while there are a lot of benefits to story-boarding, I never quite know what I want going into a small project like this. I wanted to leave room for spontaneity during the shoot and especially for Andrew’s input.

Filming

Looking at the video you would think we’d worked really hard to light it that well.

Andrew joined us on the day of the shoot. We had both Mark II’s and two tripods. The entire video was shot with natural light from the windows and two incandescent light bulbs from lights placed on top of the piano. It is amazing how well the Mark II handled the lighting. Looking at the video you would think we’d worked really hard to light it that well.

I had already picked the two main angles for the shoot – both from the side and slightly behind, on opposite sides of the piano. The plan was to shoot full takes from those angles until we had an audio take the band liked. At that point we would move on to other angles, play back the audio, and Tifah would play/sing along with herself to help us line up the other angles with the original audio.

Dann Stockton, the drummer for the band, handled the audio engineering and mix (with Reid Phillips’ help). He dangled a single Neumann KMS-105 mic from a short stand on top of the piano, right above Tifah. The audio was recorded and mixed in Ableton Live.

…the audio track on the video was recorded live in a single take.

In case anyone was wondering, the audio track on the video was recorded live in a single take. Tifah’s that good. I think Dann mostly played with some reverb and EQ – he didn’t do any edits.

It only took us 2 full takes to get the audio we wanted. I think we actually recorded a 3rd, debated a bit and then settled on the 2nd. From there we would play back the audio and start grabbing some different angles, two at a time – sometimes doing a full take because we didn’t know what we would use, and other times just filming during a certain part in the song.

…she essentially had to remember not only to act the same way throughout the video, but hit the same timing.

Tifah did an admirable job. The song is such that you can’t play it to a click track, so she essentially had to remember not only to act the same way throughout the video, but hit the same timing. Dann would sometimes cue her to an approaching note by watching the visual representation of the audio in Ableton as it played back.

All told the shoot took us about 3 hours. We came out with about 20gb of HD footage and about 18 different angles. It was a lot, but it gave me a bunch of options in editing.

Editing

Let me get this out of the way: I love Final Cut Pro, but my last version, a student version, only worked on PowerPC machines and I’d since sold my G5 for a Mac Pro. I’d love it if someone dropped the whole Studio in my lap, but my business doesn’t do enough film work to justify purchasing it. So, I edited the project in Adobe Premiere, software I already owned since I’d purchased the CS Master Collection. Don’t get me wrong, Premiere is good at what it does, but it’s a bit wonky for someone used to Final Cut.

In editing I started by picking simple, base angles, and then building on them with other, more interesting angles. I wanted the video to build and get more chaotic as the song builds, and then “quiet down” visually as the song quiets. I would send the band and Andrew “dailies” as I worked to get their input.

I wanted the video to build and get more chaotic as the song builds, and then “quiet down” visually as the song quiets.

The process took me a couple weeks because of other projects I was working on, but all-told I think I spent a couple solid days editing. I had a final review with the band, we tweaked a few things, and called it done.

A couple notes: the Mark II encodes footage in a variant of H.264. The footage is beautiful, but most of the editors seem to choke on it. I did a bit of research and found some conversion settings specific to Premier and did a batch conversion of everything before pulling it into Premier.

Distribution

[gb] Studio is also what I guess you would call the band’s “agency of record.” I’ve done virtually all of their artwork since Tifah started her music career. So I also worked with them to design the artwork for the audio EP that would be given away alongside the video.

We already had a handwriting theme going from the band’s last couple giveaways. We simplified it even further – just black pen ink on paper. Yes, that’s my handwriting. Yes, it’s that bad.

You can see the final version online and even download the music and video yourself. The name of the album, “Heart-shaped Box” comes from a line in one of the other songs, It’s Always the Same.

The band uses our Backstage system for sharing their music.

Conclusion

…if you like the video, like the music, tell a friend. That’s the point.

So that’s a bit of a peek into the making of the Joy video. Feel free to leave questions in the comments or ping me on Twitter. The project was so much fun. I feel lucky to be involved in it. I think it’s a great example of what creative minds can do, even on a non-existent budget.

More than anything though, if you like the video, like the music, tell a friend. That’s the point. We did this so that more people could experience The Autumn Film – that’s the goal and we can’t wait for more people to discover them.

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