Another Music Video

Last post was a music video I did on whim to just try things out. I had no plan more than going to a beautiful location and film some stuff. This time it is the opposite, a video with more planning. To have 6 amateurs sing another artists song and only have about 15-20 minutes to film each actor was a bit chalanging. But I tihnk it turned out great anyways.

This is Gigo with Senses.

A big thanks to all the “actors” who made it possible as well as the cozy café Sophies Café in Stockholm.

You can find the song on Spotify here.

A Music Video

Lately I’ve been getting more into music videos. I’ve been watching a ton of them from different eras, reasearching trends and styles. I’ve been watching as many behind the scens videos about how they where created and now all I want to do is do music videos.

One fun finding was that I found a new favorite director without even knowing. I looked for inspiration in many places and after a while something hit me, for many of the things I liked there was a common denominator, Paul Thomas Anderson. He is the director of an old favorite, Magnolia, which is almost a feature length music video (look at this scene!). After using an amazing film makers tool called Shotdeck to look at movie stills I ended up saving a lot from the film The Master which happened to be by him and for music videos I saved almost all of Haim’s videos. All of the ones I saved where by, you guessed it, PTA.

Now my head is full of ideas and I wanted to try out one of the easier ones just to see if you could do a nice video without too much preparation, just going with feeling. I messaged a friend named Mattias Larsson who I know makes music but haven’t really released his own stuff to ask if he would be my test subject. He said yes, I decided on a location and just him and me went out shooting with no more planning than that.

This is the result:

I am pretty happy with the video, especially the location and the lighting. Swedish summer is amazing for things like this as the sun stays low for so many hours. One thing I did want to do and that was the plan from my part was to shoot everything on a tripod. Last minute though, when I realized it was 30 degrees that day was that I did not want to walk around with my big video tripod on my back. Call me lazy, I do, and that actualy is the one reason why I am not a 100% happy with the result even though I like it. I really wanted to do completely locked down, well composed shots for this and now there is some shake instead. The shake goes well with the 8mm feel of the video but I should haved leaned even more into that instead if that was the case. Another idea that I was a bit too stupid to remeber in the heat of the moment was that I could have just brought my monopod and stabilzed the horisontal movement in post. But you live and you learn, for a first test of this style I am very happy!

Next time I want to do a rock video that is completely different from this.

Outdoor Gym

Something I’ve noticed in my latest videos (not a lot of it can be shown for different reasons) is that I’m not as good as I want when it comes to following the motion with a handheld camera rig. I like the organic feel of handheld but I usually end up just holding it “still” or doing a short pan or so. That doesn’t really utilize the possibilities of handheld so I need to get better at moving with the action.

I asked my girlfriend if she was going to the gym (outdoor of course because of you know what) today and if I could tag along to make a video of it. She said yes and within an hour we where away! Sadly that was not enough so we just got about 20 min of shoot time before the sun went down. A sad miscalculation on my part after looking at maps and sun data and not realizing there where tall buildings right next to the gym that would block the sun 1 hour earlier than I predicted. You live and you learn.

Anyway, I still ended up with a video and I quite like it. The plan was to almost do sort of a “commercial spec”, in other words a fake commercial to show what you can do. Think about for a brand of shoes, gym clothes or maybe more some sort of video of a brands sponsor.

Without further ado, here it is! Just make sure you watch it in 4K, even on a FullHD monitor because wow how Youtube compresses the 1080p version crazy bad. Check the images beneath the video.

Here are some stills from the 1080p and 4K versions both captured in the same real resolution on screen.

4k vs 1080p Youtube compression.

I Filmed my Father

When I was home at Christmas I made my father sit down and become an actor for a short while, this is the result and I love it!

It is filmed with my Fujifilm X-T3 and lit by a Aputure Amaran 672C through an umberella as a key light and an Aputure M9 with blue filter as backlight. The image was severely underexposed instead of exposed to the right as I’ve felt I haven’t gotten skin tones to work for darker images that way. And this was supposed to be dark. I think I went a bit overboard though and even though I like the end result I should have overexposed at least one stop to be able to lift the shadows a bit if I wanted in post.

But hey, you learn as long as you live :)

Music Video or Art Film?

Just before Christmas I filmed and edited a short promo video for an artist by the name of Gigo. The idea was to do a short version of a music video that he could use in promotion for his single release. I came up with the idea of a lost girl running and dancing in the forest. So that is what we did and the result can be seen further down. In the music video I built a short story with her and the singer and edited it for social media. I however loved the footage so much so I also made what maybe can be called an art video(?) with a completely new story. What do you guys think about them?

Here is the music video:

And here my own version:

Which is better?

What is good design? [Swedish]

A while back I took the train to Uppsala to meet the design agency Gistvall Holm and talk a bit about design. I took this opportunity to learn more about what makes a logo “good” and how you create a successful graphic profile. I asked these guys because I think they are some of the best around here in Sweden, have a look at their page and tell me what you think.

Here is the video I did with the answers to the above questions. Sadly it is in Swedish.

Mini Vlogs

while I’m relearning how to do video I’ve tried a new thing I call mini vlogs. Super short vlogs without sound that mostly create a feeling of the day. The goal now is to be able to do them really fast and learn how to edit with presets and such. Here are the two first:

Episode 1 - A Cigar on the Balcony

Episode 2 - After Rain Comes Sunshine

Maybe I should create an intro and outro? So they have something in common.

Portraits & Phones - Episode 3 of the vlog

Yesterday was a very hectic day with so much to do that I didn’t even have the time to eat properly. First I did my hours at the office with way to many meetings. I actually think there should be a limit on how much time one can spend in meetings in one day, don’t you agree?

After work I hurried home for more work, as I had a photo shoot booked just an hour later. Then, when the shoot was finished, I went into town for a small event where Huawei showed of their latest phone, Mate 20 Pro.

For you who wants to know how the shoot went, and my thoughts about the phone I also recorded a vlog so check it out!