Since I published my second multicam HD video a few days ago, a couple of friends sent me an email asking how i went about making this video. In this post I’ll briefly explain the entire process and share the camera settings. Please, stay tuned as next week I’m going to write a follow-up post on editing this music video in Final Cut Pro X! Besides, follow me on YouTube as I have many interesting projects coming up in the next few weeks!

Recording Audio

As audio and video have been recorded separately for this music video, my first task was to prepare the piece and record it using my studio equipment. Microphones were set-up in Stereo AB Configuration (read my article on recording classical guitar if interested). After recording, I edited the piece and did some basic processing in Logic Pro 9 (EQ, Reverb and a little Compression, all using Logic’s stock plugins)

Shooting Video

When I finished processing the audio file in Logic, I started shooting video from 4 different angles, along with audio playback from the speakers for easier post-synchronization in Final Cut Pro X. To make things interesting, however, I decided to shoot some additional footage of my studio and the guitar, shifting the focus from the object to the background, just for the sake of learning and to play with in the post-production.

Video was shot with my Canon 600d DSLR and the camera was set-up as follows:

ISO: 400, Aperture: f/2.0, Picture Style: Technicolor’s CineStyle + set Enhance: minimum, Contrast: minimum, Saturation: -1

Resolution and Frame rate: 1080p (HD), 25 fps.

Lighting

The lighting used for this set was simply 3 IKEA paper lanterns (tip as seen as on this Vimeo tutorial). In my previous video I used normal ceiling halogen lights which resulted in some unwanted hard shadows. China lanterns, on the other hand, provide a more subtle, softer light which I think gave me a more balanced and professional result.

Bokeh!

Bokeh…what??

In photography, bokeh is a term used to describe the aesthetic quality of the blur in out-of-focus areas of an image. Simply put, it’s an artistic effect where a subject appears in focus while the background is blurred (or vice-versa). As in photography, bokeh has been increasingly used by DSLR filmmakers and is responsible for some truly amazing looking scenes.

This effect is easily achieved by setting a large aperture on your lens (such as f/1.4, f/1.8, f/2.8 etc.), resulting in a shallow depth of field. Excellent lenses for bokeh include shorter prime lenses and I’ve been fortunate enough to get an EF 50 mm f/1.8 lens with my Canon 600d purchase for free! More over, I discovered 50mm is just perfect for filmmaking, so more good news!

Because I like bokeh effect a lot, I attempted to create it in this video. In some close-up shots, therefore, you’ll notice that my face is focused while the wall and the diffusers in the background are completely blurred. Do you find this pleasing? You can achieve the same very easily by opening your camera lens aperture to the maximum!

That’s it for now, stay tuned as next week I’ll cover the editing part in Final Cut Pro X.

5 Comments

  • Really lovely playing! A nice looking video too. Thanks for sharing it with us.

    Nick

  • I became a fan of you. I really enjoy your music and also learning a lot. Thank you for sharing all your precious information.

    Mike from Chicago, USA

    • Hi Mike, thanks and nice to meet you! Check your inbox, I’ve just replied to your email.

  • Hi Uros, it is pretty fascinating how you process this multi-cam video + audio. Not to mention the musical quality of your recordings, which is outstanding… I see that everything you did here is from 2012 so I’m wondering if you changed the tools/way of recording/processing techniques so far?

    I’m also starting to record myself with small zoom H5, and now I’m preparing to use multiple cameras for that. If I understand correctly, you first record audio, process it , and then do recording the videos with playback. How do you match the tempo from the processed audio? I still didn’t try it but is looks pretty difficult to play the exactly same tempo…

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