Using a simple shot from the ‘Be Myself’ music video, I will shot the different elements used in compositing used to create the shot. Software used: Adobe PhotoShop, Premiere and AfterEffects.
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Band members took turns to stand against a green screen to be filmed. They were filmed over several takes, each take positioned the five cameras at different angles. (Or rather, the band members faced forward, faced left, then faced right). This allowed the band members to be positioned in different shots as if in traditional performance music video.
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This is an example shot from the music video. It is one of the most simple; just the lead singer, without her instrument, singing.
Below, starting with the background, we’ll go through each layer, working our way toward the front layer. |
1. Background: wall of amps, monitors, speakers.
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Before any filming was done, I spent some time in a studio photographing their amps, speakers and monitors. These were photographed in front of a green screen from various angles. This gave me a library of images I could use to create the background. |
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These images could then be taken into PhotoShop, the amp, monitor or speaker isolated from the image, and then imported into a new PhotoShop composition. In building the wall I converted them to black-and-white and ensured consistency of tone and contrast in the grayscale. |
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The finished ‘wall’ was large – it enabled a virtual camera (within AfterEffects) to be positioned anywhere around the wall, and the wall would fill the frame. I would use pools of light to have the centre seen, but edges of the wall would disappear into darkness. |
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For each shot in the music video, there is an AfterEffects composition, and the background to this composition is the wall of amps, monitors and speakers was zoomed to this distance away from the camera, appropriate to the framing of the lead singer. |
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In AfterEffects, some virtual lights were created. This lighting effect, effectively a pool of light over a part of the wall, would be consistent over all the backgrounds. In wider shots, the very edges of the wall disappear into darkness. Also, because of the relative close framing of the lead singer, some camera blur was added to simulate depth of focus effect appropriate to the shot. |
2. Smoke in front of the wall of amps, monitors, speakers.
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Again, prior to filming with the green screen, I gained some time in a studio and filmed some smoke. All the lights are turned off apart from a few lights to simulate the kind of lighting I envisioned for the music video. Several cameras were recording at once, at different framings and different angles, as smoke was generated. |
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The resulting footage was taken into AfterEffects as another layer, de-saturated and the smoke, as a layer of luminance, added to the background layer. The intention is not to have this heavily interfere with the other layers; but to add some mist, to simulate part of a hot-and-steamy live venue performance. |
3. The lead singer.
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From the many cameras recording at the same time, each capturing different framings, this is a loose medium shot. Recorded in this manner it can be scaled up or down from a tight medium shot to a distant figure in a wider shot, without compromising the resolution. |
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This is the finished shot as it has been manipulated within AfterEffects. The footage has been rotated, zoomed in appropriately for this shot, de-saturated, and brightness/contrast adjusted. The matte, created by keying the green area of the footage, has been cleaned up and made clearer. |
4. The lead singer’s face.
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A copy of the layer with lead singer is duplicated, and a mask isolates just the face. This is because the lighting on the day was only very basic, and there was no money for any male-up artist. As a result the faces of the lead singer and bassist look rough and unflattering. They need some additional work on them. |
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This additional layer, before being de-saturated, etc, has some filters and tools applied which acts like a ‘virtual make-up artist’. This aims to do the work of the additional lighting and make-up we couldn’t afford for the actual filming. |
5. Smoke in front of the lead singer.
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Another layer of smoke; from the same recording session as the other smoke, from a camera at a different angle, and later in the recording, so the two layers super-imposed on each other will create realistic patterns of smoke in a room. |
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there are usually at least two layers. The different layers of filmed smoke, when layered in subtly, creates a layer of mist. In other compositions, there will be at least one layer of filmed smoke between performers; but the layers are more gently super-imposed onto the shot so as to maintain a continuity of luminance to the smoke. |
Final composition:
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So even for the simplest shot there are 6 layers. For most of the shots – involving the whole band – there can be around 25-30. For the more complex sequences toward the end of the song, the numbers of layers would pass 50. |