Generic conventions of a music video - Camera Settings

Camera Settings --

Learning to shoot video takes a lot of trial and error, and can be frustrating to say the least. When you’re just starting out you’re more likely than not to come home from your fair share of shoots only to realize that the footage you’ve captured doesn’t look right. 9 times out of 10 the issue is a technical, not creative – which is good news as you can always learn the technical side of things. As for the creative side, you usually either have it or you don’t!

Frame Rate --

Most indie films, music videos, and even commercials these days are shot at 24p, (or 23.976 progressive frames per second). You may or may not want to use this setting – that’s a whole article in itself, but you absolutely need to be consistent with your frame rate throughout any given scene that you’re shooting. This may sound like a no-brainer, but it’s precisely because this seems so obvious that you may forget to double check before every take.

Here’s an example of film-style motion blur that’s associated with shooting at 24p. As a still it may not look ideal, but it can make motion look much more organic:










Shutter Speed -


When editing footage that has been shot by another DP, the most most common issue that I’ve come across is footage that was set to the wrong shutter speed. In fact I’ve had some extremely good, professional DP’s deliver footage to me that was basically unusable because the shutter speed was off.This is often because the setting for shutter speed (especially on DSLRs) is often on a place on the camera that is easy to change accidentally.





Shooting at a higher than normal shutter speed can be a great technique for high-action scenes. All of the motorcycle chase shots in ‘Place Beyond The Pines’ were shot this way:

ISO

If you’re shooting on any compressed format (in other words if you’re not shooting RAW), it’s crucial that you get this setting right. The same could be said for the other items on this list, but the reason I emphasize the point with ISO is because most compressed cameras will work much better at their base ISO than at settings that stray far from it

This is a quick sample image from exposureguide.com showing how grain can start to sneak in at high ISO’s:

White Balance


You should always be using manual white balance, and never go automatic. Auto white balance will change from take to take and make matching your shots in post a nightmare. Even if you haven’t moved your camera an inch, the lighting may change slightly in the background, or an actor enters the scene with a  shirt that throws off the cameras automatic sensor







This image was taken from the film ‘Traffic’, where the white balance was intentionally pushed to be very cold looking for stylistic effect