I figure this is a good occasion to provide a bit more informative look back on the video, as the Behind the Scenes posted somewhere below in my blog shows a much more glamorous view of the set (as these things tend to do).
For this song Carlos came up with a really awesome concept that gives a fresh take greenscreen by taking traditional objects found in daily life, painting them green, and keying them out to put imagery inside (that imagery had yet to be fully determined going into the video). That idea fused with the artists desire to have a video in which he "receives a letter inviting him to a house party in Heaven" pretty much sums up how this video evolved.
The budget was extremely tight and therefore only allowed for one day of production. So our approach going into this video was highly focused on moving quickly and making sure we got all our shots. We all all admitted and understood this video's selling point was the greenscreen gag. Having a glossy or polished look was something that was unrealistic with our shooting schedule, and we hoped that a slightly unrefined the approach would further the greenscreen effect.
We chose to make use of the front-lit spotlight approach that has been pretty common in music videos recently. This was something that was portable and quick to set up, and for this we used a 200w Joker HMI with a few battery belts. We scouted in downtown Santa Ana and chose locations that were already sufficiently lit on their own, so with the addition of our one light we were ready to go. We matched our lights with the location lighting, gelling them with Lee's Urban FX Sodium Vapor and Mercury Vapor gels with the intention of doing an overall correction to the image in post to get the colors looking a bit more neutral.
One of the bigger challenges we faced was determining the best way to light the subjects. With keying greenscreen, of course its important to minimize shadows, which we anticipated would be especially difficult at night. Opting for front light wasn't the most aesthetically pleasing route to go, but it gave us the least amount of shadows and avoided any difficulty in hiding lights that would've been scene in some of the steadicam moves.
The video called for 6 so NIGHT EXT's and a large NIGHT INT. sequence that all had to be packed into a 12 hr day. Surprisingly or not, we didn't make our day and some of the NIGHT EXT's had to be left for pickups with a body double. Thanks to everybody owning a 7D now days, it wasn't hard to pick up a camera and get the remaining shots we needed.
Big thanks to the crew for putting in the extra hours on a super long and exhausting day of production.
Without further adieu, here is the video:
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