thestupendium
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The Data Stream - Video Breakdown!
🕑 Added 2021-06-21 01:22:46 +0000 UTCIt's breakdown time! The video kind, not the mental one!
I'm so happy to finally have this project out there and with how it turned out.
It's a little different from how I initially envisioned it. Back in October/November when I was planning the initial video I had grander plans. But with the video being delayed and the game being a... riskier... content proposition than it looked to be before it crashed onto the scene in a car stuck halfway in a wall, surrounded by teleporting police officers holding guns that float 3 feet away from their headless bodies, I opted to simplify.
I'd initially planned to build a fancy cyberpunk office, complete with floor to ceiling windows into a green screen to put a night time cyber-city scape in the distance. But having just done something very similar (sans windows) for Evil Genius I decided to try a different approach. I knew I wanted holograms to play a big part in the video so pre-production Greg decided to lean hard into that for the aesthetic of the piece. (Much to the despair of post-production Greg).
Huge thanks to one of my best friends Paul, one of my closest childhood friends with whom I made my first videos as a kid. He's gone on to become a successful filmmaker and videographer and thanks to your support I was able to hire him to come visit and do the cinematography for the project!
So here's a look at The Data Stream from initial storyboard, to rough footage edit to final piece! Feel free to ask any questions you may have about more specific elements!
Also, be sure to watch all the way to the end. ;)
Comments
Benzene
Amazing! Love it!
The Stupendium
No crane! We had an electronic motorized handheld gimbal and a motorized programmable camera slider. :)
Fonix Studios
Did you get a crane to do the camera? How did you get it that smooth?
The Stupendium
Crikey, that's a lotta questions! xD Firstly, than you so much! I'm really glad you enjoyed it! So the earpiece was made by my good friend CosFia from painted worbla and foam with some red LEDs powered by a button cell battery hidden in a jacket pocket. The tie is made from carbon fibre and was bought from a company called Luxurazi. They are called 'Tech Ties' and they have all sorts of designs! This wasn't my MOST difficult, but it was close. I'd say Tune Into The Madness was the most difficult with it's multiple sets, costumes and huge variety of effects. This video has a lot of effects but they are mostly the same for ever shot. Some lighting effects, some holograms and reflection in the glasses. TITM had something new happening in almost every scene! No on set anecdotes spring to mind though we did film entirely at night to have better control of lighting! I do have a bunch of silly on set footage that I'm gonna try and do something with for you guys though! :P
The Stupendium
Thank you so much! One of the hardest things to fake artificially in post is light. It has such a striking and intricate effect on what you're filming that it's really impossible to replicate in post. The way the neck lights catch the feathers or the sequins of the suit reflect the environment. So even on entirely green screen videos I make sure to do as much lighting as possible (if not all of it) practically with real light. It really ties a video together and makes any added elements in post sit in the scene better. And yes! Shooting on a set allows for a lot more flexibility in how the videos come together. Where as on a green screen a video is planned specifically and filmed one shot at a time, a video like this I'll film the whole song from multiple camera angles and usually end up finding angles I prefer to the ones I had mapped out when it comes to the edit. Like the top down angle shot from above. I liked it in the storyboards but when it came to looking at the footage I actually felt it looked quite awkward so cut it from the video except for one shot. Other sequences were simplified for time like the bridge with all the data, I just didn't have time to create 2 or 3 more scenes full of holograms so I swapped a couple out for simpler shots of graphs and charts. Ultimately I think that gave the sequence better visual variety and I prefer it!
Nymm Kirimoto
This was really cool to watch! I was pleasantly surprised to see so many effects that I assumed were done in post production (like the lasers and the neck-lights) were practical, and it really gave a lot of the live action sections a bit more groundedness to them. It's really interesting to see how the cinematography in this video diverges from the storyboards, compared to how close the boards and the video were for more green screen reliant ones. I definitely got the sense you had more freedom with the camera on a physical set! Great work!
Morganscat
First of all, you are an amazing artist, you can be proud of the amount of work you do, it shows, it shines and it blinds with flickering neon signs. Arasaka has an amazing representative and their shares have never spiked so hard in value. I hope you can rest assured that we see that. Second... i have questions! For you! Or the amazing people who has helped you on the way. Feel free to answer or to ignore them if someone already asked you. I want to know about the ear piece and the tie. ¿what it is made of? did you made it? how it is assembled? ¿do you have production pictures of the costumes or any anecdotes while on set? ¿was this one your most difficult project? thank you again for your amazing music and your breathtaking videos.
