Page 36 - Fujifilm Exposure_24 Stephen Fry_ok

SHOOTING
INSIDE THE FILMIC WORLD OF MUSIC VIDEOS
TO THE MAX
N o less an authority than The Buggles once claimed that video killed the radio
star, but what of video itself? In the music world, film remains the gold stan- dard despite the frequent
misnomer of ‘pop videos’ promoting the work of big name bands and singers.
There is also a degree of inventive- ness in the medium that belies the surprisingly limited budgets – con- trary to the assumptions of many they fall well below the levels lavished upon commercials though it might be said that they fulfil a similar function.
So the onus once again falls on the DP to give maximum value to the look and feel of an often pressurised shoot.
“There is obviously a massive dif- ference between film and videotape,” explains Ben Smithard. “From the quality and the beauty of the image the difference is enormous. The thing with music videos is that you can shoot high speed, you can change shutter angles, you can do a whole lot more with a film camera than you can with a video camera.
“Ideas-wise videotape is fine; if you’ve got a good idea you can shoot on anything. But if you’re dealing with something that’s purely about visuals I think you have to shoot on film.
“You have much more chance of shooting something interesting because there’s much more you can do with film. There is more detail in
the negative than there is in tape, so it’s a much better point to start at.
“People tend to forget that there is a marked difference between 35mm and 16mm too. Depending on the situ- ation, I can sometimes make 16mm look like 35mm; if it’s shot well and exposed well you can achieve that in certain situations. But you have to bear in mind that the 35 is approxi- mately four times the size of the 16mm negative. It’s so much better and so much sharper.”
Stuart Gosling is a man who com- bines the duties of DP and director, and recently worked on Tom Jones’ cover version of Black Betty. The con- cept was a straightforward one, inspired in part by the Rat Pack in their pomp and the styling of Francis Coppola’s The Cotton Club.
“The idea is that Tom comes into this club as a regular person, and interacts with the people he meets there. He is obviously the performer and the star so we wanted to intro-
duce him naturally, which is why he ends up on stage.
“I shot the promo on Fuji Reala 500D. The fourth layer has been a big improvement, and the new grain tech- nology is better too.
“And I was lighting tungsten so I was going to get a very warm look to everything that I could then control in the telecine. The latitude has increased dramatically. It’s very flat so I didn’t have to worry too much about fill.
“It’s a club scene that uses a lot of hard spotlights, and instead of bring- ing in a lot of fill and bouncing stuff, we let the natural ambience be the fill and allowed it to be over exposed with the key lights.
“It was a bit unnerving at first because the video footage at the time looked very flat. But because it was over-exposed for all the key lights we were able to bring it down and crush what to the eye was looking very exposed; it was brought down and turned black effectively. It basically handles over exposure very well, and has a very fine grain.”
Adam Smith is another director who turns his hand to the camera whenever he can. Shooting the promo for The Streets’ song, Give Me My Lighter Back, Smith found necessity to be the mother of invention.
“We were doing a lot of long exposed stop frame stuff to create a streaky effect,” he recalls, “the effect is a bit like when you’re filming head-
Photos above: Tom Jones’ cover version of Black Betty
34 • Exposure • Fuji Motion Picture And Professional Video