Filming Paul Brandt’s “I Was There” Music Video – Part 3 of 4 – Real Characters

This is Part 3 of my experience filming the Paul Brandt “I Was There” Music Video.

You can also view Part 4 – Action and Editing, Part 3 – Real Characters,  Part 2 – Video Gear and the 7P’s, and Part 1 – Nashville

My vision for the music video was to have video portraits or “vortraits” of people that embody the spirit of hockey combined with hockey “moments” that would trigger people’s emotions.

As a photojournalist with the Edmonton Journal I wanted to stay true to my roots as a journalist and make sure that all the characters in the film were real people and not actors pretending to be hockey fans.

We put a call for nominations in the Edmonton Journal and got about 100 responses. We contacted the best 20 and with the amazing help of project organizer Taryn Melnyk we created a shooting schedule that would allow us to film as many characters as possible in one month.

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Here are some of my favourite behind the scenes photos from filming in Calgary, Edmonton and Spruce Grove. All of the portraits are actually video frame grabs from the Panasonic GH2. Untouched and uncoloured except for the first one.

 

 

 

Tags: #iwasthere

Filming Paul Brandt’s “I Was There” Music Video – Part 2 of 4 – Video Gear and the 7P’s

This is Part 2 of my experience filming the Paul Brandt music video “I Was There”.

You can also view Part 4 – Action and Editing, Part 3 – Real Characters,  Part 2 – Video Gear and the 7P’s, and Part 1 – Nashville

I spent about two months on this project. The first month was mainly pre-production, gear selection and testing, script-writing and preparing for the second month when we did most of the principal shooting.

Our first real day of shooting for the music video was Paul Brandt singing the actual song. I had filmed him singing in the recording studio in Nashville but I felt that we really needed him in a hockey rink with a guitar on the ice.  Paul lives in Cochrane so Amanda and I arranged to get him on the ice for a couple hours.

When I said “a couple hours” I really meant it!  Paul was extremely busy with his cross-Canada tour about to start so we only had him for two hours!

Amanda and I spent four hours setting up all of the lights, cameras and doing test footage. I had originally envisioned recoding Paul in multiple locations but in the end we only had time for three takes of him standing on the ice and three takes of him sitting.

No pressure!!!!   Did I mention I was using a brand new hacked camera and had only shot one music video before?

I strongly believe in the 7P‘s: Proper Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance

I had spent a month of non-stop research, writing, testing, planning, scripting and practice to ensure that nothing would go wrong. And thank God I did!

Paul Brandt was such a professional! He’s made nearly two dozen music videos before and knows what he’s doing. When editing the footage, Adam Kidd with Limbo Editing noticed that he tipped his guitar up and did the same moves at the exact same time for each take.

Paul was also just a super nice guy! He stopped to sign autographs and talk to any fans that came by. He didn’t have any kind of ego or image problem …. he didn’t need to! He already knew how to look good!

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Back to the planning and preparation:

For the Paul Brandt “I Was There” music video I wanted the video quality to be as high as possible as it would be broadcasted on CMT, TSN and on the giant video screens at Rexall Place in Edmonton and the Saddledome in Calgary.

I did a ton of research and also tested a lot of gear before starting the project. I already had a Canon 5D Mark-II and 1D Mark-IV which are fantastic for video but also have some drawbacks.

• Canon D-SLR drawback #1 was Aliasing and Moire which are strange patterns that appear in objects like fences and nets and also in clothing like hockey jerseys.  Since a music video about hockey would contain plenty of both I knew this would be a problem.
• Drawback #2 was the rolling shutter of the CMOS sensors on Canon D-SLRs.  Basically D-SLR video looks great until you start moving the camera and then you get what is called a “jello effect” where the video looks weird. One rule with music videos is that the camera is ALWAYS moving.
• Drawback #3 was just that Canon D-SLR video looks like Canon D-SLR video. There’s nothing wrong with it but it seems like everyone is shooting with 5D Mark-II’s now and I can always tell when avideo is shot with one.

My budget wasn’t large enough to rent a RED camera nor process the video from one.

Then I learned about the Panasonic GH2 which is called “arguably the most aliasing-free, highest-resolution hybrid camera out there”

The best part is that a guy named Driftwood has hacked the firmware allowing you to shoot MUCH MUCH MUCH higher quality video.

How does it work?  Basically the GH2 records standard 24 Megabit (Mbit) video out of the box. However the camera is capable of shooting over 170Mbit/sec video and also capturing Intraframe (also known as GOP1) where every frame of video is an individual still image instead of other codecs that only record full still images every few frames and then guess the frames in between.

I read reviews of how the hacked GH2 fared well against the $80,000 Arri Alexa and RED Camera. Not that it’s better than those cameras, but pretty damn amazing compared.

The aliasing-free GH2 solved Problem #1, the Intraframe codec produces much smoother motion which solved Problem #2 and the higher resolution and bitrate solved Problem #3.

The only drawbacks of the GH2 were:

• The sensor was half the size (a 2X crop instead of the 5D’s 1X full-frame sensor) so a 24mm lens would become a 48mm lens. It would also be harder to achieve the narrow depth of field look but would be easier to manually focus since I would have more depth-of-field.
• The smaller sensor produced more noise at high-ISOs compared to the Canon so I would need more light
• The extremely high quality 176Mbit/sec produced 1 gigabyte of video per minute and required expensive Sandisk 32GB Extreme SD cards. A 32GB card would only hold about 30 minutes of video therefore I had to buy five of these cards at $150/each. Of course the price dropped right after I bought them!
• The menus and functions of the GH2 weren’t as friendly as the Canon D-SLRs.

I wanted to light almost everything in the music video for maximum quality as well as dramatic effect.

As you can see from my portfolio I love to light my portraits and I also wanted a consistent look all through the video.
I used two Interfit Monstar lights with 48-inch Octoboxes for the main lights. For fill lights I used three 500 LED video lights I got from eBay.

I bad to bring hundreds of feet of power extension cords as there was only one power outlet in the whole arena!

Other gear I used was:

• Ikan VX7e 7″ HDMI HD monitor which was a HUGE help for manually focussing as well it has a false-colour exposure guide which helps prevent you from blowing out highlights.
• A wide matte box which helped block lens flare and also keep snow off of the lens. This item proved surprisingly necessary for filming with video lights.
• Kessler Pocket Dolly for short camera moves.
• Cinemover for longer camera moves.
• Libec tripod and Manfrotto 504HD video head.
• Cavision rails and shoulder mount
• Fader Neutral Density Filters. You always want to keep a 1/50th shutter speed with video so an ND filter helps you stop down the light so you can shoot at 1/50th shutter at f1.2 outdoors in the sunlight if you want.
• Western Digital MyBook Studio Edition 4TB RAID drive to deal with the massive 1GB per minute of video from the hacked GH2 cameras. I had the drive set to RAID1 so my data was backed up 2TB+2TB.
• 15″ Apple MacBook Pro i7 Quad Core for reviewing footage and converting the GH2 AVCHD footage into ProRes422 HQ. That meant for every minute of video I shot I would get 1GB original + 1GB converted ProRes422HQ video

 

 

Here is the end result. The next blog post will be about filming the characters.

Tags: #iwasthere

Filming Paul Brandt’s “I Was There” Music Video – Part 1 of 4 – Nashville

This blog post is Part 1 of my experience filming the Paul Brandt “I Was There” Music Video for the Edmonton Journal. Later posts will cover filming the actual video. Today’s post is about traveling to Nashville to capture Paul recording the song.

You can also view Part 4 – Action and Editing, Part 3 – Real Characters,  Part 2 – Video Gear and the 7P’s, and Part 1 – Nashville

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Country music star Paul Brandt records the official theme song “I was there” for the 2012 World Junior Hockey Championship at Ocean Way Studios in Nashville, Tenn. on October 24, 2011. Journal photographer Ryan Jackson is shooting the official music video and will be traveling around Alberta for the next month capturing junior hockey players and fans.

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So one day I go to work and ask one of my editors what my next project will be. “Your shooting a music video for the World Junior Hockey Championship….. oh and Paul Brandt is singing the song…. oh and you actually have a budget!” she says.

I was amazed! A few months earlier I had seen that the New York Times Magazine was creating music videos to go with stories and I thought that was so innovative… and now here I am with the same opportunity!

I had filmed the music video Pearson “Purity of Heart” and it was one of the best experiences of my life.

This was going to be a chance to really push my cinematic skills and create something cool.

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The Edmonton Journal and the Calgary Herald were going to be official media sponsors of the 2012 World Junior Hockey Championship and our marketing heads and editors wanted to do something innovative and different.

The idea was that we would use the power and reach of the Edmonton Journal and Calgary Herald to get submissions for ideas and inspiration for Paul Brandt to write a song about hockey. The theme was to be “I Was There”

Chorus radio, which was another official sponsor would help pay for the recording of the song in Nashville and then they would get the song for their radio stations.

Hockey Canada helps pay for the music video and they get a theme song and theme music video to play before all of the World Junior Hockey Games.

The Edmonton Journal pays for me (through my normal salary) to spend two months working on the music video with the help of staff writer Amanda Ash.

The Journal owns the music video and gets exclusive behind the scenes photos, blog posts, tweets and stories for the paper.

A newspaper creating a music video is also very innovative and shows the Journal is pushing to become more than just a “snoozepaper”

Paul Brandt benefits by getting tons of promotion at the same time as his new album and concert tour begins.

Albertans and the Journal’s readers benefit through participation as we used crowd sourcing to help write the song and also find characters for the video.

Finally proceeds from the sales of the song went to a charity to help under privileged kids play hockey.

So the whole project was pretty win-win for everyone and I got to shoot a music video for the Edmonton Journal!

The following are some behind the scenes videos and photos from recording the song in Nashville. We didn’t end up using any of the footage of Paul in Nashville in the final music video for continuity sake. It was still worth going down there though to meet Paul and discuss ideas for the film.

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A fun video reporter Amanda Ash shot of our travels in Nashville. Pretty cool.

Here is a short time lapse of Amanda Ash and I setting up the video lights for Paul Brandt.

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The next blog post will cover filming the video.

Here is the final result

Tags: #iwasthere

360-degree view from the Empire State Building in New York

In October my wife Ashe and I went to New York for a week. It was exactly “like the movies”. An amazing experience.

A panoramic view from the top of the Empire State Building in New York City on Oct. 7, 2011. This image was created by stitching multiple images together. Panorama by Ryan Jackson, ryanjackson.ca

Click on the above image to view a 360-degree panorama from the top of the Empire State Building in New York City. Panorama by Ryan Jackson.

The panorama is HTML-5 compatible so it works on iPhone, iPad and Android devices as well. EXTRA cool with an iPhone 4G or iPad2 with gyro.

We stayed at The Warwick Hotel which was built by media baron William Randolph Hearst  who is the guy that inspired the movie Citizen Kane.

Here is a view from the top of 30 Rock at night.

Speaking of 30 Rock.  Ashe and I went to see a taping of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and Ashe got on TV as a game contestant!

Ashe bought a lot of clothes and I went to the world’s biggest camera store, B&H Photo Video, and bought the crazy Canon 8-15mm Fisheye lens.

The Brooklyn Bridge with the Canon 8-15mm lens on a 5D Mark-II.

Ashe and I in Times Square.

Lisa and Aaron Engagement Photos – Movie Theatre Montage

Aaron proposed to Lisa in a movie theatre so I thought it was fitting to create an interesting illustration photo of the two of them together in the same theatre.

My friend Jimmy Jeong made this same image years ago and I’ve been wanting an excuse to copy the idea ever since! (p.s. his is much better!)

For lighting it was simply an Alienbees Einstein with a 48-inch Octobox on the couple and a second Einstein with a honeycomb grid modifier to give them a rim light. I shot dozens of images and then layered them all together in photoshop to create the montage. I used the new Alienbees Lithium battery packs for power which are amazing!

We also made some fun autumn photos!

Autumn Colours in Edmonton’s Mill Creek Ravine

A cinematic look at autumn in Edmonton’s Mill Creek Ravine on September 28, 2011. Video by Ryan Jackson, edmontonjournal.com

Trash the Dress Photos – Kelly and Tracey

Beautiful Time Lapse Video of Commuting in Edmonton’s Suburbs

With beautiful time lapses and scenery, Journal photographer Ryan Jackson has captured the different ways we commute from Edmonton’s suburbs. Learn how Canadian’s commute and follow our three commuting challengers to work in a fun way.

I spent about a week and a half on this project to wrap-up Elise Stolte’s living on the edge series about Edmonton’s new growing suburbs. I followed three commuters who get to work in different ways. Since they leave for work at 6:00 AM I had to get up at 4:00 AM each day so I could commute down to the south-end and then video them going to work. I then shot tons of footage of cars, bikes, trains and walkers getting to work.

I wanted all the images to have a certain mood so I shot everything in the morning with my white balance on Tungsten to give that cool early morning feel.

David Pritchard took part in our commuting challenge. He lives in Summerside area and typically drives the Century Park LRT station and then takes the train to work downtown. Pritchard poses for a photo before heading to work on August 24, 2011. I simply used two Canon 580EX flashes zoomed into 80mm placed to the sides of the car and pointed at his windows. I rolled the windows down to reduce reflections. I had orange gels on the flashes and the Camera white balance was set to Tungsten to make the image blue.

Kim Halmilton took part in the Journal’s commuting challenge. Hamilton usually rides her motorcycle to work downtown from her home in north Edmonton. She poses for a photo in front of her home in Edmonton on August 25, 2011. I used two speed lights placed behind her with orange gels on them. Camera white balance set to Tungsten.

Kevin Wirtanen took part in our commuting challenge. He typically bikes to work downtown from his Terwillegar home in south Edmonton. Wirtanen poses for a photo before heading to work in Edmonton on August 23, 2011.

Pritchard poses for a photo at the LRT station before heading to work.

Here are some behind the scenes images. I build an 8-foot long slider and motion controller that I used for a couple of the scenes.

Thanks to my friend Kevin Hill for helping with this time lapse scene.

Most of the time lapse footage was shot on my Canon XH-A1 video camera and then sped up 20X in Final Cut Pro X.

Here I am all setup and ready to shoot David Pritchard at 6:00 AM. This project involved a lot of preparation as I only had about 15 minutes with him before he headed to work.

This video was also my first time using Final Cut Pro X. I must say the program is pretty powerful and amazing. It makes use of all of your CPUs and has background rendering so you can just keep editing without waiting for anything. Do I like it better than Final Cut Pro 7? For some things yes… for others no. It takes a lot of time to get used to. The speed and added features are AMAZING but the complete change in interface and way of editing is frustrating. Hopefully it will get better with time.

Interactive Video Series of Alberta PC Leader Candidates

For the election of the new Progressive Conservative leadership candidates I wanted to do an interactive video like I did with the federal election candidates. The general idea is that I ask all the candidates the same questions, in the same style and then Lucas Timmons at the Edmonton Journal build a website that lets you jump right to the questions and issues that concern you.

Instead of watching 30 minutes of video in hopes of getting the information you want, you can jump right to the questions and issues that matter to you and compare.

Click on the above image to see the interactive website.

I lit all of the candidates the same with our three 500 LED video lights and white background. I asked them each to look into the corners so I could have them looking at the candidates that is currently talking in the video.

Here is my setup. Just a big white sheet for a background. I pointed two 500 LED video lights at the background and then had a third 500 LED light above them on a boom. I used a Canon 5D Mark-II with a 50mm f1.2 lens for video and a Sennheiser G2 wireless mic and a BeachTek DXA-5DA mixer for audio.

The great thing about this setup was that after the video interview I could do portraits.

Here are a couple of my favorite photos of Gary Mar and Ted Morton.

New green energy power co-operative SPARK

Here is an example of when simple props can really add to a picture. I wanted to illustrate “power” so I grabbed as many extension cords as I could find.
I usually shoot at low apertures to blur out the background but here I wanted Jeff, Paul and the solar panels in the background to be sharp so I shot at F9 with a wide lens to get lots of Depth of Field.
I lit this picture one Canon 580EX speed lights to the right.
1/160sec, F9, ISO100. 16-35L @ 32mm. Read the story: Alberta’s first energy co-op eyes green power