Daniel Hentschel
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Inner Circle Blog - Beach Shoot
🕑 Added 2024-08-14 16:51:39 +0000 UTCHere are some photos of the set up for YIPPEE - I'M CANCELLED.
I shot this at Point Mugu State Park. I picked this beach for its seclusion and its proximity to on-street parking for easy equipment access.
Here I am using a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K, shooting ProRes HQ 4K.
The composition in the finished video is very odd. It's sort of a weird very flat medium shot with a lot of head room. As a result you get this uncanny effect where the background feels like a green screen, and then when the first wave hits, you are sort of surprised that it's actually really the ocean.
I like that this happened, but I would lying if I said it was intentional. I arrived at the beach with no real plan other than "This is a video where I'm at the beach."
My first thought was to shoot it looking down parallel to the beach so that you would get the nice cliffs in the background. But I tried both directions and didn't like either of them. The only option left was shoot with the ocean as the background.
This introduced the idea of the waves crashing into me from behind unexpectedly. I liked this a lot.
If you've ever been to the beach you know that the waves tend to crash on the beach in more or less the same place, and then 1 out of every 15 goes up much farther than the other ones and ruins all your stuff.
So the chair had to be close enough to the ocean where the timing of this happening would be funny.
Once the chair was in the right place, then the camera had to be in the right place. I mentioned the composition is very odd.
I used to have to shoot interviews with people all the time, which you may or may not know is called a "talking head." And the traditional way you shoot that is like this:
But in this video, I am dead center in the frame, staring AT the camera, and the entire top fourth of the frame is empty headroom.
There's also a smudge on the lens. As a matter of fact the entire lens was coated with mist from the ocean.
Anyway, really the only reason I shot it like this consciously was because I wanted you to be able to see each wave crash and move up the shore in the background. This way, you are just as focused on the movement of the ocean as you are on me and what I'm saying.
When I look at this finished video, I like all of the visual things that ended up accidentally happening. Because the chair is basically ground height, so it's like I'm sitting on the ground, I had to move the camera very far back and punch in to get the waves/ocean in the background and not just the sand. As a result, the shot has no depth and is very flat. This creates the illusion that the background is a green screen, then when the first wave finally hits me it's sort of a funny reveal that it isn't. Then the perspective becomes even more confusing because it seems like the only way it could be visually possible is that I'm buried in the sand halfway up to my waist.
Then there's the color grading, which also inadvertently contributed to all of this.
Here's what it looked like as-shot:
Even this has a LUT on it, so there is some color correction being done in camera. But the lighting is horrible because I shot it in direct sunlight at high noon, the worst possible outdoor lighting situation. So half my face is in shadow.
The color grading was actually probably what I struggled with the most. I kept cancelling the YouTube upload and re-doing it because it wasn't right.
Unfortunately I didn't save the project I eventually uploaded, but I recreated basically what I did here so you can get the general idea:
I also cranked up the saturation and the vibrance and added a white vignette.
This is really not what you are supposed to do, and if you light the shot well, you shouldn't have to. But I did not light the shot well, so I had to compensate in grading.
Also, as an aside, I recommend doing something you are happy with on your monitor and then double checking how it looks on your phone and then maybe a TV (in general with video or sound editing you should check your work on whatever device you think most people will watch or listen to it).
So anyway, these weird color grading choices work in tandem with the weird shot composition choices to create the weird final product.
And let me be very clear: I hated all of this the entire time. My mental process was, I'm such an idiot, I fucked this up so bad, so now I have to fuck it up even more to fix the other way I fucked it up, and this sucks and I should kill myself.
And when I uploaded it, I had no idea how it would go, because it was out of my comfort zone and I was pushing myself. And it was only after seeing how people responded to it and seeing how the visual choices effected the viewer that I could look back on them like this and see how they all actually did make sense. At the time, they felt random and clueless and desperate, which they were. But I was acting instinctually, and I need to trust my instincts more, because in this case they led me to the right place.
I've talked many times about not feeling like I can be confident in my own work unless I get external validation for it. The mindset I've tried to have is, I don't want to give people more of want they already want to see, I want to figure out what they don't know they want because they've never seen it before. So it concerns me that I need the external validation to be happy with anything I make, because I fear I will never make anything truly good if my primary motivation is the opinions of other people.
At the same time, the reality is that especially on social media, you won't have any success at all if you don't get that external validation. But I think there is a difference between doing something you think people will like, and doing what they want.
Let me also say that I don't want anyone to interpret this as me not caring about what my audience wants. And I don't think anyone in here would, because I think the reason you're all here is because you appreciate the original and inspired perspective in a sea of social media content that is what you've already seen before chewed up and regurgitated back into your mouth.
At least that's what I appreciate when I see entertainment I enjoy. And I also think if you're reading this, that probably means we have that in common! along with many more things!
Anyway, this was supposed to just be a picture of a tripod and now it became all this self indulgent woo-woo nonsense. So enough is enough. GOODBYE!!!
Comments
Jonathan
I love hearing about your creative process and the specifics when it comes to creating a composition for a shot and all the color grading details. Your comments to yourself about feeling like you need external validation for your art to be good is relatable.
alex
I love hearing about your process. It makes watching your videos even more special. You put so much thought and work into them and it shows! đ
starry
It was a great videoâeverything from the composition to the dialogue and the camera. It's hard to step out of your comfort zone, but this was a huge success. I think exploring and trying new things is the only way to grow, and each video just gets better and better, so you are on the right path! On a side note, I feel like if you ever decided to do some sort of short/feature film, a mockumentary would be interesting. The talking head commentary and your experience doing interviews might make for some interesting cinema. Anyway, love these blog-style posts, keep up the great work!
Lyss
Thatâs sick you just showed up to the beach with ur equipment and your brain and got a great vid out of it!! LMAO DONT KYS YET TRUST THE PROCESSSSS đđđ Lovin this recent very jarring era where youâre suddenly 4k đđ
madi
thank you for sharing this!! i honestly am so, SO appreciative of you giving us a glimpse into just how much you think about your videos. your dedication to planning, filming, and editing the final product does not go unnoticed to the viewers. Itâs a gift that you also choose to show this process with us. I love the direction these previous few videos have gone in, and watching you push yourself as a creator in real time is a joy to watch. All of that being said, I do hope you are giving yourself some grace and kindness. I know focusing on the imperfections in your work can help to prevent yourself from becoming complacent or comfortable, but it can also lead to built up animosity/burnout during the creative process. I hope this doesnât sound dismissive of the detailed work that goes into your videos, especially the more recent ones, but I also do think a lot of us would watch you read the phone book. Thatâs kind of the joy of you as a creator. No heavy reliance on certain editing styles, collaborative efforts with other creators, etc. Just you! Anyways, loved it, and thanks for keeping us posted. Remember to trust yourself!
non-entity
Thank you for this behind the scenes post, Dan! Reading about your creative process is really interesting and itâs great that youâre sharing it here; it isnât ânonsenseâ at all!! I totally understand your feelings about feeling clueless throughout the creative process and needing external validation to feel good about your work. What I want to say in response to that is: you absolutely deserve to feel confident about the work that youâre doing right now, not only after people have praised it, but throughout the entire journey from start to finish. I know you say itâs difficult to trust your instincts, but to me, there has never been a time where it seemed like you werenât confident in what you were posting. If that makes sense lol. Which is just a long way of saying keep doing what youâre doing and follow what you think is right. Just from this post alone itâs evident that you know what youâre doing, and youâre doing it extremely well. Even if it feels ârandom and desperateâ, it all culminates into something that works to your benefit. Your creative efforts do not go unrecognized! And I think you deserve to recognize them for yourself first, too. Anyway, thatâs my soapbox for the hour. I care a lot about this stuff so it makes me happy to see the level of care that you have put into your videos, especially as of late. I look forward to seeing what else you have in store in the future! Take care :)
looseseal
Never woulda guessed the color grading was to compensate for the lighting! It definitely seemed like an aesthetic choice and intentional ârule break.â I also really liked the addition of you talking with the videographer grabbed from the other take
Ethan Roberts
Thanks for explaining the odd composition, I thought it was really neat when I watched the video. That outfit is cool too, it almost feels like a religious figure which contrasts well with the villainous monologue.
Jackson
Thank you for the blog Dan! I find your creative process and thoughts on your craft fascinating
