The RØDE Lavalier GO is a new tiny lavalier microphone with a 3.5mm TRS jack connector. It contains a high-quality 4.5mm omnidirectional condenser capsule and a durable, kevlar reinforced cable. Though it is optimised for use with the RØDE Wireless GO, it will work with any device with a 3.5mm TRS mic input. Available now for US $79. Lavalier GO microphone. Source: RØDE The Australian audio equipment company RØDE does not need an introduction. Their microphones are very widely used and I think most filmmakers are familiar with some of their products. This year during NAB, RØDE announced the Wireless GO – a very compact wireless audio transmitter & receiver set. For more information about the RØDE Wireless GO, please check our announcement article and our NAB video interview with RØDE. Today, RØDE launches the new Lavalier GO – a lavalier microphone to accompany their tiny wireless set. What are its features? RØDE Lavalier GO The Lavalier GO is a broadcast-grade lavalier microphone with a 3.5mm TRS jack connector. TRS (tip-ring-sleeve) means that the connector has three conductors. It contains a high-quality 4.5mm omnidirectional condenser capsule and a durable, hard-wearing kevlar reinforced cable. Lavalier GO microphone. Source: RØDE It is optimised for use with the RØDE Wireless GO, but will work with any device with a 3.5mm TRS mic input, which supplies plug-in power. It is even compatible with smartphones and other devices with TRRS inputs, using the RØDE SC4 adapter. Lavalier GO microphone. Source: RØDE RØDE Lavalier GO – Key Specs Acoustic principle: permanently polarised condenser Polar pattern: omni-directional Frequency range: 20Hz – 20kHz Output impedance 3k Ω typical Signal to noise ratio: 67 dB Equivalent noise: 27 dB typical Maximum SPL: 110 dB Sensitivity: -35dB (17.8mV @94dB SPL) Dynamic range: 83dB typical Power requirements: powered from plug-in power TRS socket (2.7V) Output connection: gold-plated TRS plug Lavalier GO microphone – included accessories. Source: RØDE The RØDE Lavalier GO is now shipping and will be available in stores soon. The costs are set at US $79. The Lavalier GO comes with a durable mounting clip for quick and easy rigging, a foam pop filter for reducing harsh plosives and wind noise, and a carry pouch. For those looking for a lavalier with a locking connecter, the RØDELink Lavalier microphone that ships with the RØDELink Filmmaker Kit is now available to buy, separately. What do you think of the new Lavalier GO? If you use RØDE’s wireless GO, how do you like it so far? Are you going to pair it with this new mic? Let us know in the comments underneath the article.

Once again, my colleague Johnnie met Mr. Kazuto Yamaki from SIGMA corporation, to talk about future trends and products for the Japanese lens – and also camera – manufacturer. During this interview, taking place on the CP+ 2019 exhibition floor, Kazuto Yamaki speaks about new L-Mount lenses, their new L-Mount adapter and briefly about the upcoming SIGMA L-Mount mirrorless camera. Many New Lenses for L-Mount As you might know from our previous article, SIGMA will release 11 new Art prime lenses for the L-Mount system – 14mm F1.8, 20mm F1.4, 24mm F1.4, 28mm F1.4, 35mm F1.4, 40mm F1.4, 50mm F1.4, 70mm F2.8 macro, 85mm F1.4, 105mm F1.4, and 135mm F1.8. Those lenses are not entirely new, but SIGMA engineers take the whole – already existing – SIGMA Art full-frame primes line-up and redesign them for L-Mount specifications. The lenses are already available for Canon EF mount, SIGMA SA mount and Sony E-Mount. Precisely, the mentioned E-Mount versions are now being redesigned for L-Mount, which is most likely the case due to the similar flange focal distance – 18mm for E-Mount and 20mm for L-Mount. As Kazuto Yamaki told us, SIGMA engineers are working hard to make sure these lenses will be available during the second half of this year. We also found out that SIGMA already works on additional lenses for L-Mount and some of them should become available this year, too. Unfortunately, we do not know anything more about those lenses yet. Possibly some zoom lenses, like the 24-70mm F2.8? In any case, this really shows SIGMA’s 100% commitment to provide a high-quality lens portfolio for the L-Mount ecosystem. It looks like there will be a handful of native lens choices for the new Panasonic S1 and Panasonic S1R cameras very soon. SIGMA L-Mount Camera and MC-21 Converter SIGMA does not only work on native L-mount lenses, they have also announced the MC-21 mount converter, which will allow mounting existing SIGMA lenses with Canon EF mount or SA mount onto L-Mount cameras. SIGMA has a similar product out there already, for EF/SA mount to E-Mount conversion – the popular SIGMA MC-11. The MC-21 adapter will support quick autofocus (but not continuous autofocus for filming), as well as correction functions of a camera, such as peripheral illumination, chromatic aberration of magnification, and distortion. Last but not least: Already at Photokina 2018, Kazuto Yamaki told us that SIGMA is working on their own L-Mount mirrorless camera. The camera will be based on SIGMA’s own Foveon full-frame sensor. Now at CP+ 2019, we were told that due to slight delays in development, the camera will not be released this year. The new release year for the camera is 2020. What do you think about the L-Mount system and the upcoming SIGMA L-Mount lens lineup? Are you planning to invest in the new system? Let us know in the comments underneath the article.

Swiss camera manufacturer ALPA is showcasing their newly redesigned custom housing for the Hasselblad H6D-100C digital medium format back. The design provides PL-Mount, lots of mounting threads, active cooling, V-Mount powering system and overall improved ergonomics for filmmakers. Watch our interview with Matthew Carmody – independent filmmaker who has been using the ALPA housing with medium format sensor. ALPA is a swiss camera manufacturer with a long history going back to 1930s. Nowadays, they do not produce their own sensors – they rather work with digital and analog backs of other medium format cameras. We met with representatives of the company already back in September at Photokina 2018 where they showcased the ALPA PLATON – the Hasselblad H6D-100C housing. The housing provides PL-Mount and it is aimed to improve workflow for filmmakers who want to get the medium format look. My colleague Bato wrote a nice post about it (including our interview from Photokina) – link HERE. Fast forward to February 2019 – ALPA seems to have a new version of the Hasselblad H6D-100C camera housing which they are showcasing at CP+ show in Japan. We didn’t get any official name of the product as it is still in the testing phase and not yet commercialy available. We are not sure if the name ALPA PLATON still remained, so for the needs of this article, I will only call it ALPA camera housing. In our interview, an independent filmmaker Matthew Carmody, who has been using the ALPA custom camera housing, told us about the new design and its features. ALPA Custom Housing for Hasselblad H6D-100C First (and most noticeable) redesign concerns the powering system. Obviously, when using only the digital back of the Hasselblad H6D-100C without the camera’s grip, there is no battery and it needs to be powered via the DC power-in connector. ALPA decided to replace the previously used powering system based on Sony NP-F batteries with the V-Mount system due to the higher capacity, faster charging and also simply because V-Mount is a widely spread industry standard already included in many filmmakers’ kits. In this particular camera they used the V-Mount Mini battery plate, which sends the power through LEMO cable in to the DC power-in connector on the side of the Hasseblad brain. There is also a D-tap version of the housing, which can be more convenient for gimbal work as it can draw power directly from the DJI Ronin or Freefly Movi battery and therefore stay more compact. The housing still provides PL-Mount in the front and various mounting threads all over the body. There is now a new small fan underneath the camera body, which ALPA added to the design after getting a feedback from Matthew who experienced some overheating issues when filming in hot environments with the camera. On the right side of the ALPA housing, there is only a door providing access to memory card slots (SD and CFast 2.0). On the left side, ALPA designed a small panel with three physical switches. One switch is used to turn the camera on or off. This switch would normally be located on the camera’s grip, which is removed in this case. Other two switches are being used to operate the fan located underneath the camera body. One switch turns it on or off and the other one changes between “low” and “high” mode for different fan speeds. There is also the DC 12-24V power in connector on the panel. The small panel on the left side of the camera does not obstruct the important connectors on the Hasselblad body itself. There is still access to the headphone jack, audio-in microphone jack and HDMI connectors for instance. There is no official information about the availability or pricing of the ALPA camera rig, but the design looks like it is already fine tuned and should be available relatively soon. What do you think of the ALPA camera rig? Did you ever use medium format camera to capture motion image? Let us know in the comments underneath the article.

Just over a month ago I was in New York City for DJI’s launch event of the Osmo Pocket. (In case you missed it, you can find our review here.) Parallel to that event, I was able to interview Adam Lisberg, DJI’s Communications Director for North America, about company strategy.  Thanks to Austrian journalist Patrick Wollner, who set up this interview with Adam Lisberg, I was able to film this conversation. It’s a rare opportunity to have someone from DJI talk about company strategy in front of the camera – and considering the popularity of DJI’s products, I was excited to hear about their thought progress “behind the scenes”. We talked about how DJI evolved from a small Chinese company that made “drone kits” to use with your own cameras into what it has become today, a truly global company with over 15,000 employees around the world, and a brand name that has become synonymous with drones (at last count, their market share in the non-military drone space was 70%). We asked Adam Lisberg about what differentiates them from other big tech companies, being originally from China, unlike most others. We went on to talk about how they deal with new regulatory measures regarding drone use around the world – the Gatwick drone incident is the most recent example of how drone use will definitely be much more regulated in most countries in the near future – and how they talk to governments around the world in order to create a more global regulatory environment for drones. As Adam explained, DJI doesn’t see itself as the “drone company” unlike most audience members however, as the use of gimbals and small cameras evolves into more product categories like the Osmo Pocket, for example. Watch the entire interview above. As a reference, here’s a full list of the questions we asked and the topics we talked about. Topics / Questions: 00:32: How did DJI develop from a small to a global company? 03:11: Does becoming a big company make it harder to compete for making even more innovative products? 04:41: Being from China, what distinguishes DJI? 06:55: Are you perceived as a Chinese company? 08:39: Do you develop anything outside of China? 11:12: How did you manage to become good at both engineering and software design? 12:42: Do you still regard yourselves as a drone company only? 14:41: How do you face new global regulatory challenges around drones? 19:45: Does DJI lobby governments to create international legislation around drone use? 23:41: In what areas can we expect DJI’s technology to improve more? 25:22: Are cameras going to improve more with their hardware or with processing of the images in the future? We hope you found this in-depth conversation useful and interesting and look forward to your thoughts. We plan having more discussions with filmmakers and filmmaking tech companies alike in 2019. Let us know what you think in the comments below!

As we discussed in Part One of this series of articles, art direction plays a huge role in a music video. It can be easy to come up with big ideas and tons of props when you are working for prominent artists. But how to still get a fantastic art direction when you are working with independent artist and less money? To gain more insights, I caught up with director Drew Kirsch who has directed videos for Lil Yachty, Valentino Khan and more. Could you introduce yourself briefly? My name is Drew Kirsch, and I’m a director based out of Venice, CA. In the past five years, I have heavily focused on music videos. I’ve worked with artists such as Lil Yachty, Blackbear, Gryffin, Louis The Child, Bryce Vine, Quinn XCII, and more. Have you seen a change in the music and music video industry in the past years? To be honest, I jumped in the music video game long after a big change in the industry. Back in the day before the internet took over (NAPSTER days), music video budgets were huge! We now get about a third of the budgets music videos used to get. Music videos also used to be huge on MTV and now they only really have a strong representation on Youtube. Other than the budget, what is different to work for a label vs. an indie artist? The difference is there are fewer heads in the kitchen with an indie artist. It’s just the artist and me making the calls. Also, an indie artist is usually still being developed so there is more room to be creative. A record label has multiple heads making notes about the video. There are so many restrictions with a record label, for instance, a legal team. A legal team has to flag certain shots, so they aren’t at risk in terms of copyright. I’ve had them flag something as dumb as a lamp because they are worried the designer of that lamp may sue them. They aren’t willing to take the risk, but an indie artist doesn’t have as much to lose. How would you define art direction and the importance of it in your job? When I pitch a concept, I usually tell the artist and producer “the most important aspect to me is the art direction.” I come from the art direction world myself, and I heavily rely on it. Pretty much like a painting, I want to make the image beautiful! I always make sure we put a certain amount of the budget aside for art direction. I am particular about color matching in my scenes, and little visual cues that I believe make an image beautiful. On set for “No Limit” – Photo courtesy of Drew Kirsch How do you work on a concept for a music video? Do you rely on the art direction of the artist (or the label)? The record label usually gives me a track, and I pitch a concept/treatment. A treatment is a PDF full of reference images that explains how the video is going to look. Inside the treatment, I usually have a page for art direction, describing how important it is in the film, and what direction it will have. Do you look at what the artist did in the past or do you treat every project as a blank canvas? Initially, I start with a blank canvas and try not to look at any past videos, photos, songs, etc. I want a fresh idea in my head. Eventually, I end up watching to make sure I’m somewhat in line with their brand. I usually take a risk and pitch something that’s completely different from their past videos. Where do you usually find your inspiration for the treatment? In the pitch, in the music, in the artist? Finding inspiration for a treatment can come from many different places. It can be inspired by the message of the song, the tone of the beat, etc. Sometimes it will just come right away, and other times it can take days. I’ve listened to tracks over 500 times before figuring out what I want to do. I drive or walk around in public with my headphones in, looking at people and places trying to find a lead. Once I sat inside a Costco for 2-3 hours in one of those massage chairs, until I finally figured out an idea. Photo courtesy of Drew Kirsch In your treatment do you insert pictures, text, or do you prefer drawing some of your ideas? Most of my treatments are full of images from the web used as references combined with detailed text. I don’t usually draw anything because I’m one of the worst sketch artists on the planet. I wish I were able to storyboard my treatments, but I typically don’t have the budget to do so. How do you choose your color palette for a music video? I choose a color palette based on the idea or theme of the video. Of course, I have favorite colors, and I try to use those as much as I can. I love warm colors so if I’m able to incorporate those I will. Again, it depends on your story or idea. What would be your advice to make sure your treatment is successful and gets you the job? It’s about the idea. Don’t stress how beautiful your treatment is, and focus on why your approach is different from the rest. If you could pick one music video you are really proud of in terms of art direction, which one would you choose and why? I really like “Fake Denim” by Quinn XCII. My chief art director, Aunny Grace, worked her butt off peeling 100’s of labels off mustard bottles for a scene. I knew from the start I was going to stick with a color theme, which in this case was yellow. After I made that decision, we moved forward with developing aesthetics around the color yellow. Luckily, we found a location that fit in the same color scheme. I always wanted the camera to be moving because it matches the energy of the song. The scenes don’t have a ton of movement or action in them so moving the camera helps the video flow in my opinion. The lighting was a decision by my amazing DP Joe Butler. I told him I wanted “even” light and nothing moody or over the top. For this video, the point is to see the details in the art direction, so making sure everything is lit and not lost in the shadows was important. The editing was super simple for Fake Denim because I knew where I wanted everything in the edit before we shot. It was all mapped out beforehand and timestamped to the song. There aren’t any VFX or crazy editing tricks. It’s straightforward, minimal, and focuses on the performance. On the shoot, do you always stick to your treatment, or do you have room for improvisation? I mainly use my treatment as a blueprint, but there is always changes to the treatment on set. I’ve always looked at filmmaking as problem-solving. Depending on how the day goes, you have to be flexible with your initial treatment. If you could choose one artist to work with because you love his art direction, which one would you pick? In terms of an art director, I want to work with a guy named Brandon Mendez. In terms of music artists, I want to work with Tyler The Creator, but unfortunately, he directs all his own videos. Tyler’s videos are A+ when it comes to art direction. Photo courtesy of Drew Kirsch This second article is the last part of the “art direction in music videos” series. I personally want to thank Cole Walisser and Drew Kirsch for taking some time to answer my questions. What was your most creative independent project? Did you find this article useful, and would you like us to do more of them? Let us know in the comments down below!

Ollie Kenchington, cinema5D contributing writer, lead colorist at Korro Films and Blackmagic Certified Trainer at Korro Academy, has recently released his second color-grading course on MZed, called “Mastering Color” (reviewed here). We took the opportunity to ask Ollie a few questions about color grading, his start in the industry and some useful advice he would give to aspiring colorists. Here are his answers. Ollie Kenchington – Lead colorist How did you get into color grading? OLLIE: I’ve been professionally color grading for over a decade, but I knew that I wanted to be a colorist after I watched a making-of documentary for the Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, back in 2002. There was a segment about Peter Doyle, who was the senior colorist on all of the Lord of the Rings films. I remember there was a scene in the mines of Moria, and Peter was color grading Legolas’ eyes, to make them look more blue. He tracked the eyes as Legolas jumped off Balin’s tomb, and I remember being absolutely amazed by it and just thinking to myself that that’s what I wanted to do. So I did some digging and found Peter’s email address and contacted him. Amazingly, not only did he reply, he actually offered me a job as his color assistant on the Return of the King! So I’m the idiot that turned down the Return of the King and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Not the most auspicious start to my career! Unfortunately, for various reasons, it didn’t work out, and I never got to fly off to New Zealand. However, about a year later, Peter came to London and contacted me. He said he had another big project coming up and it would be great if I could be his color assistant on this new project. Agonizingly, I decided to turn him down because, by that point, I had a well paid job working with Apple and also wasn’t sure if I wanted to limit myself to just color-grading, when I loved editing and shooting so much too. I later found out that the film he was asking me to work with him on was the Prisoner of Azkaban (Peter Doyle went on to color grade all of the rest of the Harry Potter films, and a long list of other huge films), so I’m the idiot that turned down the Return of the King and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Not the most auspicious start to my career! How did you talk Peter Doyle into actually giving you a shot? OLLIE: I think he appreciated the fact that someone gave a crap about color grading! These days everyone knows about color grading, but back then (2002/2003) digital color-grading was still in its infancy. I think he was just flattered that someone saw that DVD and was interested enough to internet stalk him and find out his e-mail address! I think it was as simple as that, just good timing. What would be the best way to get into color grading nowadays, in your opinion? OLLIE: I would say the best thing to do is just grade everything and anything you can! There will always be at least two or three short films, documentaries or passion projects being made somewhere near your location, at any one time. Anyone making a film on a shoestring budget will be desperate for people to color grade their projects. Building up a portfolio is the most important step in showing people what you can do. Whilst you develop your own style and build up your showreel, you also need to thoroughly study the tools and the theory behind your craft. I’m not saying bury your head in books and forget to work, you’ve got to get the balance right, but you need to develop your technical understanding and creative flair at the same time. …if you can find a really good DP, someone that you really admire, that would be helpful. If you can get a relationship with them and get into the position where they want you to grade their work, and they’re shooting high quality content, that makes you look great, then that’s a real bonus. Once you think you’ve mastered one aspect, take it up a level, dive deeper, research more, look what other colorists are doing and refine your skills. Get out there and network and meet other filmmakers and, if you can find a really good DP, someone that you really admire, that would be helpful. If you can get a relationship with them and get into the position where they want you to grade their work, and they’re shooting high quality content, that makes you look great, then that’s a real bonus. Because, unfortunately, you could be the world’s best colorist, but if you only work on really low budget productions and poor quality footage, it doesn’t look good in a showreel and it doesn’t look good as a showpiece for your talents. Which actually is ridiculous, as it takes more skill to make something poor look good, but unfortunately that’s the reality of it. So the better looking the footage that you can work with, the better your work will look. So yes, finding a good DP or director to buddy up with is a great step. How would you weigh the importance of technical knowledge vs. aesthetic feel and experience for a colorist? OLLIE: I think, although in other areas of filmmaking experience may trump technical skill – certainly I know loads of great DPs who aren’t very technically minded – I do feel that a colorist’s job is to be that person in the production and post-production workflow that is the technical person. They are the one that needs to know everything there is to know about gamuts, gammas, compression, how additive color works, how the human visual system works – a professional pixel peeper! I do feel that a colorist’s job is to be that person in the production and post-production workflow that is the technical person The thing that appeals to me about color grading is that it is such a nice blend of technical and creative. I enjoy both elements of it and I do think that a colorist, more than possibly anyone else, has to straddle that divide. They must be able to create depth in an image and richness and vibrance and support a narrative and all those creative things, but also understand the tools and the mechanics of it all. I don’t think you can be a colorist if you don’t have a grasp of both parts of that. What is the best way to keep up-to-date as a colorist, apart from reading 1000+ pages of ITU specifications? OLLIE: I think a lot of reading, a lot of following certain people and what they put out there. I read a lot of white papers. When I started out I read loads on Wikipedia about what the difference is between gammas and gamuts etc. I really want to stress, though, that I’m not talking from the point of view of somebody who now knows it all! I’m acutely aware that I know a small percentage of what there is to know and there are other people out there who know a hell of a lot more than I do. I am constantly learning from those people and relish the chance to be in a room with someone cleverer than me! For me personally it’s a culmination of lots of different sources over many, many years I think it really helped me, studying photography at college, to gain a good understanding of basic photographic techniques, particularly around exposure. There’s also a lot of understanding about color theory that I learnt through my fine art education. So for me personally, it’s a culmination of lots of different sources over many, many years. Going back to doing color theory sessions on my foundation course at art school in 1999, and everything that’s happened between then and now. And I’m aware that there’s so much more for me to learn, but it’s not like there’s one book that you can buy or there’s one course you can follow, it’s about tackling it all in stages and then slowly, over the years, connecting the dots and putting that into practice. See what happens when you try these things out. When you try and color grade for HDR for example, you can read endless sources of information about HDR, but until you’re actually doing it with an HDR monitor, it doesn’t make a huge amount of sense. What distinguishes a good colorist from a bad one in your opinion? OLLIE: I think that, overall, the most important thing is how good are they at taking a step back and seeing how their work affects and supports the narrative. A good colorist understands narrative structure, understands the impact of color on that structure and understands the importance of continuity within that structure. In a way, it’s the stuff that’s less obvious, it’s the stuff that’s more hidden and certainly it’s the stuff that’s less sexy. When you see those really cool tutorials about grading on YouTube, often the footage is really beautiful and fantastically well lit and they’re often working on just one shot, almost treating it like a photograph. Yeah, it may be impressive in the end, but that doesn’t tell me very much about that person as a colorist. It doesn’t tell me how well they work with the director and the DP, or how well they communicate with clients. Those are the sorts of things that I see in other colorists as a sign of their pedigree, far more than actually the look of their work. A good colorist understands narrative structure, understands the impact of color on that structure and understands the importance of continuity within that structure. In a way, it’s the stuff that’s less obvious, it’s the stuff that’s more hidden and certainly it’s the stuff that’s less sexy. Can a colorist have a style? OLLIE: There are definitely things one can do with contrast and colors, playing with skin tones and other ‘memory’ colors, where everyone knows what it should look like, as well as working with certain palettes of colors, to establish a style. But, going back to what I’ve just said, if that style is arbitrary and it exists across multiple films for no reason, other than so you can say, ‘here is my style’, then I would argue that they’re not a particularly good colorist. If I think back, across all of the stuff I’ve graded over the years, there are very few of them where I’ve used the same style. In fact, most clients just want the image to look its best, they don’t want a style pushed in at all. The clients that do want a style, tend to have very specific notes about how skin tones are treated, how blacks are treated, how whites are treated, how greens and reds are treated, or how skies are treated. They don’t come in saying “I want orange and teal” or, “I want the Wes Anderson look”, because that’s arbitrary. It would be like creating a script by throwing in dialogue that you’ve taken from other films, and hoping that it makes a unique and original script. It doesn’t work that way. What was the intention behind your ‘Mastering Color’ course for MZed? OLLIE: My goal was to create a series of modules that identified and broke down the broad steps a colorist would take when developing an image. I wanted the concepts and workflow to be the star of the show, rather than the software, hardware or demo material I was using. I hope that these lessons can be used as a solid grounding in the art and science of color, upon which amateur colorists can build and develop their software skills, no matter which software they use. It is not intended to be a DaVinci Resolve course, as there are already tonnes of tutorials out there that show you which buttons to press to do x, y or z in Resolve. In my opinion, before you learn how to press a button, you should learn why you are pressing that button, and that’s exactly what ‘Mastering Color’ sets out to do. Thank you for your time Ollie! Ollie’s course is on MZed now. There are 7.5 hours of lessons (plus over 20GB of downloadable resources) in the course, and the first lesson is free to watch. FULL DISCLOSURE: Ollie Kenchington is my fellow contributing writer to cinema5D. However the interview given here, was not influenced by that. Are you a budding colorist? Does this answer some of your questions? Would you like more interviews like this, explaining different nuances and areas of the industry? Do you have other questions for Ollie? Let us know in the comments!

We watch and listen to music for hours every day, and music videos are everywhere. As content creators, some of us also film/direct/edit music videos, may it be for fun or for a living. I caught up with director Cole Walliser, who has directed videos for P!nk, Katy Perry, Laura Marano, and a bunch more. We discussed one aspect of a music video we don’t always think of: art direction. Photo courtesy of Cole Walliser A Quick Tour of the Music Industry Today it’s hard to really stand out as an artist in the music industry. New songs and new trends come and go, but music is now a consumer good. You listen to an artist’s album and just move on to another artist on a daily basis. Also, it’s difficult to draw attention without a video to go with a song. With YouTube being the second most popular search engine after Google and one of the biggest music streaming platforms in the world, new music videos pop up every minute. Of course, it’s amazing because you can now easily discover new artists and new music. With these new content marketing needs, an entirely new era of young directors came out. At the same time, a new “trend” also came in with all the cuts in budgets allocated to music videos. Thankfully, technical costs, i.e. film equipment for making a music video that looks “cinematic” also dropped drastically. It started when Canon introduced the DSLR revolution in 2008, thanks to the Canon 5D Mark II. The production costs continue going down, and the technical possibilities are still expanding. It’s an amazing time to work on music videos. Photo courtesy of Cole Walliser What It Takes to Make a Good Music Video I ask myself that question a lot: What distinguishes a good music video—one you’ll want to watch over and over—from just an average one? Of course, there are a lot of aspects involved and also personal tastes. The number one factor is probably the concept or story behind the music video. But for this article, let’s just focus on the more artistic part. So you wrote your treatment, and everyone is happy with it. The day of the shoot, you have a lot of things to think of, especially with small crews, because low budgets usually mean fewer people on set. You are on set, and you try to focus as much as you can on your lighting because as everyone knows, it can really make or break a music video. It goes the same way with camera movements, acting, editing, color grading, and so on. But there is one thing we usually don’t think of because we are too much “into it.” And I have found that all those components—lighting, camera, editing, etc.—have one thing in common: art direction. Photo courtesy of Cole Walliser Why Art Direction Is Crucial Personally, I think the art direction is one of the most important parts of a music video. When I talk about art direction, it’s not just a color theme or some outfits for the artist. It’s a comprehensive package that will drive you through the entire project. You have to think about it in the early stages of your project & treatment, and your proposal about art direction should definitely be in your treatment. If you have doubts about your type of lighting, your choice of gels, your camera angles, or how your editing should look, you can always come back to the art direction that you defined at the beginning of your project. But again, that’s just my point of view. In order to gain more insights about it, I asked Canadian director Cole Walliser what he thinks about art direction in general. Could you introduce yourself briefly? My name is Cole Walliser, I am a Canadian director living in Los Angeles. I’ve directed videos for Pink, Katy Perry, Tinashe, Laura Marano, and more. I work a lot in the beauty space and also direct commercial and digital content for CoverGirl, Pantene, Almay, Revlon, and others. For you, what differentiates a “good” music video from an average one? That’s a good and very subjective question! Typically, videos that I find “good” are the innovative ones. They do something a little different. That’s probably why I think videos by the Daniels are always so amazing, but I also find myself liking very simple videos that just hit the nail on the head as far as tone and style that match the music well. You don’t need to be all fancy and crazy—if the visuals match the emotion of the song, I find I’ll label it as good. Have you seen a change in the music and music video industry in the past years? Absolutely! The advent of smaller and cheaper digital cameras changed no other aspect of filmmaking more than music videos. Suddenly everyone is a director, and everyone has a music video. I actually view this as a good thing (despite budgets also getting smaller and smaller). Photo courtesy of Cole Walliser How would you define art direction and the importance of it in your job? For music videos, it is paramount. A music video can be called good with zero story but amazing visuals. The same cannot be said for films, TV shows, or even commercials. Defining art direction is a little harder—it’s anything that denotes what the video should look and feel like. How do you work on a concept for a music video? Do you rely on the art direction of the artist (or the label)? It varies with every job. Sometimes labels or artists have a very specific vision, and it’s up to you to repackage that vision into feasible and creative production. Often it’s very loose, and they want you to interpret it. (We want an unconventional love story, or strictly a performance on a beach, for example.) And then sometimes they just give you the song, and you gotta come up with it all! For you, what aspects of a project art direction are most influential? Camera and lenses selection, lighting, camera moves, editing, color grading, or all of these? Personally, I view art direction more like the overall look and feel and production design. It can involve lens selection (if there are specific shots that pertain to the concept’s creative direction). It also can denote the choice of a camera: maybe the idea is to creatively shoot a whole section on 16mm. It all boils down to this: if the visual idea denotes what camera, editing, or color need to be used in order to execute that concept, art direction can dictate what those should be. Do you think new directors should focus more on art direction nowadays to improve their work? I think directors can do a lot of things to improve their work! Not that I think we are generally sub-par in any way, but because it’s always an evolution. You are always learning as a director, so I would say art direction should not be excluded from that, but it’s just as valuable as any other aspect of production. If you are asking specifically about music videos, though, I would say it’s marginally more important, as MVs lean heavily on the art direction. Photo courtesy of Cole Walliser Do you give tips or insights to artists who are just starting out in the music industry about the art direction they should follow? I really love having these conversations with artists, and especially new artists who are defining themselves for the first time or redefining themselves. The only tip I have, really, is to look at the big picture—how does one want to be represented? Think about what makes an impact and will last, not just about what’s hot today. If you could pick one music video you are really proud of in terms of art direction, which one would you choose and why? I think it would be the first Tinashe music video I directed. She was just starting out as an artist, and we had very little money. We bought a bunch of Home Depot lights to recreate Maxi-Brutes and shot a dance video in a single warehouse location. Tweaked the color a lot in post-production. I thought it came out really dope! If you could choose one artist to work with because you love his art direction, which one would you pick? Hard to say! I love working with women artists because I feel like you can do more with them. They can be bright, dark, strong, soft, beautiful, fierce, etc… For better or for worse, the range can be so much more dynamic for female artists these days, and with that said, I’d say of course Beyonce. One last thing you’d like to add? Thanks for giving me the opportunity to share my thoughts about art direction… I’m going to go think about it a lot more on my next projects now! Photo courtesy of Cole Walliser Part Two is coming with another interview and more insights about art direction in the music video industry. Do you work on the art direction treatment at the early stage of your project? Did you find this article useful, and would you like us to do more of them? Let us know in the comments down below!

At Photokina, we talked with Mister Dayong Li – chief lens designer of Venus Optics, the company behind Laowa branded lenses. Well known for their unusual unique lenses, they recently introduced their first cinema zoom lens. The company wants to further specialize in deveolping unique lenses for photographers and filmmakers. The company Venus Optics (full name – Anhui Changgeng Optics Technology Co., Ltd) was established in 2013. Their headquarters and manufacturing facility is in Hefei, in the eastern part of China. They are mostly known for their line of lenses called Laowa. We previously reviewed some of their popular lenses. Last year, we took a look at their micro four thirds ultra wide angle 7.5mm f/2 lens (link to our review). This summer, my colleague Nino reviewed the unique 24mm f/14 snorkel macro lens, which took Kickstarter by storm and it should ship this fall (link to our review). The widest full frame zoom lens for E-mount – Laowa 10-18mm f/4.5-5.6 These two examples are somewhat communicating, that Venus Optics focuses on unique and unusual lenses rather than introducing classic focal lengths. This year’s Photokina was a very important show for the company behind Laowa lenses. They announced many new lenses. We reported about their first cinema zoom lens – The Laowa OOOM 25-100mm T/2.9 and four new lenses for micro four thirds (MFT) and Sony E-mount. We had an interview with Dayong Li – the chief lens designer and engineer from Venus Optics. Mister Li told us about the birth of the company. Their team of optical designers has more than 20 years experience and previously designed lenses for japanese and german manufacturers. Dayong Li himself has more than 15 years of experience designing lenses in Japan. He did not like the fact that the decisions about new lenses were coming from the management only and therefore he decided to start the Venus Optics. The widest circular fisheye lens for MFT – Laowa 4mm f/2.8 Laowa lenses are being mainly designed based on the ideas from the photographers community. Mister Li tries to keep in touch with the community, listens to their needs and ideas and transforms them into new unique lenses designs. We talked about new trends in the lens industry. Mister Li acknowledges there is a big growth in smartphone photography nowadays. He still sees a high demand and bright future for professional cameras with bigger sensors and Laowa will continue to produce unique lenses for these cameras. Especially, Mister Li sees big potential in the mirrorless cameras. They are getting smaller and better and Laowa will focus on this segment of cameras. Laowa’s first cinema zoom lens – Laowa OOOM 25-100mm T/2.9 Another core trend for the company is growing cinematography market and therefore Laowa will further focus on development of cinema lenses with high quality and high resolution. The OOOM 25-100mm T/2.9 cinema zoom lens is Laowa’s first try to position themselves in the area of high quality parafocal cinema zooms with no focus breathing and great build quality. In the future, Laowa wants to develop a wide angle and telephoto cinema zoom lenses as well. The company also wants to develop a good autofocus technology for their zoom lenses. Do you own any lens from Laowa? How are you satisfied with the optical quality and overall usability of the lenses? What do you think about their newly announced products? Let us know in the comments underneath the article.