*Cringe* Posting stuff for feedback.... crave it and fear it simultaneously. Im a musician turned filmmaker who has been faking knowing how to make music videos for the last year. This is the 3rd semi serious video Ive put together. It is a cover of a classic hymn for country artist, Drew Baldridge

Project details

Small budget: No complaints here. Just chose to use some simple stuff and make my limited time/ gear/ know how look as good as I could

One Location: Nashville First Lutheran Church

7 hour total production time (set up and strike included)

Small crew

-Me: DP/Director

-Production Assistant

-Makeup artist

-Intern from Management to make sure we all were thoroughly coffeed up.

-One black foam core board

Gear

Sony a7sii

Monopod

Rokinon 35mm, 85mm

2 Kino Flo 4 banks to supplement natural light. (First time using these)

Skateboard and a tripod for ending "dolly shot"

Walked into the location having never seen it before. I had 1.5 hours before artist showed up to unpack gear and decide where to set up. 

Church was one big room with a balcony and blue stained glass in rear. Church also had huge stained glass on each side of room. Tons of natural light but it was also bouncing everywhere so it was tough to find point of contrast. 

I decided on 3 core performance set ups 

First set up (Photo1)

Sitting one one of the pews . Since I didn't have any grip to cut light, I placed the Kinos up high at the same level as the stained glass on the right side of talents face to try and create a little bit on contrast between the 2 sides.

Second setup (Photo 2,3)

Wanted to use the pulpit since it had a darker vibe and some interesting wood textures.  Since it was in the back corner of the church it was pretty dark. Not much natural light so we used the Kinos. In hindsight I think I hit his skin a little hard with these guys. O well. Live and learn. 

To complement the Second Setup I just rotated the camera to face the back of the room and the rear stained glass. 

Final Setup (photo 4)

Used the balcony in the rear to get some of the interesting colors cast by the stained glass. This shot was tighter so I had my PA hold a black foam core near the left side of talents face to create contrast. 

End of shoot had just enough time to add some quick pick up b roll shots. Just used natural light for that. 

Always learning. Thanks for the killer class Ryan!

Full version here https://vimeo.com/172684951