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.

SIGMA has announced interesting news at Photokina: The development of their own SIGMA full frame camera, joining the L-mount alliance and is introducing five new lenses. We interviewed SIGMA’s CEO Kazuto Yamaki and asked him about the future of the company. During Photokina, SIGMA  announced joining the L-Mount alliance (our article here) together with Panasonic and Leica and they released five new lenses (here’s our post). Furthermore, they are developing their own full frame camera. The CEO of SIGMA, Kazuto Yamaki, shared some interesting information with us, about the current and future projects of his company. SIGMA Full Frame Camera Having a full frame camera in the portfolio kind of became fashionable for big camera and lens companies this year. So many companies are either releasing their full frame camera or announcing the development. It was interesting to hear that even SIGMA will be joining the full frame segment. Kazuto Yamaki told us, that SIGMA already started this project three years ago when they decided to develop their own full frame sensor. The sensor is still in development, but it seems like it will be used in the upcoming L-mount cameras. In regards to the video capabilities of SIGMA’s new camera, we were not able to get any information due to the early stage of development. It is, however, planned to be released in 2019. L-Mount Alliance For their upcoming full frame sensor, SIGMA initially wanted to develop their own mount with short flange focal distance (for slim mirrorless bodies). In the end, SIGMA decided to join forces with Panasonic and Leica and work on the L-Mount together. All three companies of the L-Mount alliance – Panasonic, Leica and SIGMA – are manufacturers of both, lenses and cameras. We were informed that each company in the alliance is in the process of developing their products separately, not disclosing their product roadmaps to each other. However, they work together on making the L-Mount robust and providing enough lenses and accessories for it. In regards to new Nikon and Canon mirrorless mounts, SIGMA is interested in producing lenses for those in the future. For now, the L-Mount lenses are a priority for the company. New SIGMA Lenses Last but not least, SIGMA announced five new lenses here at Photokina 2018. Three prime lenses – 28mm, 40mm, 56mm and two telephoto zooms – 70-200mm and 60-600mm. We published a separate article about them with more information (link here). What do you think of SIGMA developing their own full frame camera? Do you plan on buying any of SIGMA’s new lenses? Let us know in the comments underneath the article.

cinema5D and Olympus Europe are proud to present the 5th out of six episodes of Perspectives on Filmmaking: a discussion between leading filmmakers who endorse working with compact tools in their film productions. This time: is too much technology enabling or preventing creativity? In case you missed the first episode, please watch it by clicking here, the 2nd one here, the 3rd one here and the 4th one here. Does too much technology prevent us from doing things? We start off this segment by talking about how overwhelmingly overused some pieces of technology are in filmmaking when they come out – Steve Won mentions the omnipresence of sliders when they were first released. Janne Amunet and Florian Lein mention how limitations actually make you better. As Janne points out, when advanced technology becomes available to everyone in the future, the only thing that will make you stand out from the rest will be your skills. I threw in how more equipment actually slows you down, and how more gear often means shooting less and missing more opportunities to produce content. Smaller cameras are definitely more versatile in terms of how fast they can be deployed and where you can shoot. Noaz Deshe points out how larger crews and bigger resources make you slow – unless you move onto REALLY big sets where also big cameras can float around. Florian adds that the same is true for post production: a lot of people neglect it and don’t see how heavier files slow everything down massively, often without any additional benefit for those kinds of productions. Janne mentions the importance of having a good plan when shooting: limitations and proper planning can actually make you much more creative, and help you build a film language. “If you have a plan, you can improvise.” Steve Won mentions his experience with shooting on film in film school, and how much it forced him to plan a shoot meticulously. Stay tuned for the next and final segment of Perspectives on Filmmaking coming next week, where we will discuss the future of filmmaking technology and the future of each of the guest filmmakers at the table. 

cinema5D together with Olympus Europe is proud to present the 4th out of six episodes of “Perspectives on Filmmaking”. A discussion between leading filmmakers who endorse working with compact tools in their film productions. This time: Are film festivals still relevant, and how can you find your audience?  In case you missed the first episode, please watch it by clicking here, the 2nd one here and the 3rd one here. Finding an Audience for Your Films In the beginning we are talking about how to actually find an audience for your films in this day and age – is it not enough anymore to be a good filmmaker, what do we (filmmakers) have to do to stick out of the crowd. Noaz Deshe thinks that good content – if you do your best – will find its audience automatically. Dirk Wilutzky says mass audiences aren’t important – it should just find the audience it’s intended for, and you can help by making the best film you can. He thinks that surrounding structures should do the marketing work, filmmakers should be able to focus on the filmmaking alone. Noaz thinks the film needs to “get his own life” and be good enough to take care of itself, through word-of-mouth and other measures. He says crowd sourcing in dangerous, because you show something in a very sensitive time when it’s probably not ready to be presented – to which Dirk replies that you don’t actually have to be honest about your final product when looking for crowd funding, you can always alter your plan and make something differently. Dirk thinks there is a lack of education for people who want to go into marketing for films, and there should be universities specialized on that. Jannes Amunet chimes in and says that passion is addictive, and that this passion that you radiate when making your film can radiate to your audience and excite the audience about that. Are Film Festivals Still Relevant? I raised the question if film festivals are still relevant – and if they aren’t actually preventing the film to be seen by a mass audience because often films can’t be online or available for people to see while they are still in the festival loop. Noaz replies that a film will “tell you” where it wants to be seen, and that it often is kind of clear where the film will end up ideally and find its audience. Putting Your Work Online We talk about how Vimeo offers the an incredible amount of great filmmaking work for everyone to see, and so much inspiration. Janne mentions the “fear of rejection” that filmmakers often have, and he himself has, because he is a perfectionist. And that’s why a lot of people actually don’t put their work online, which in my opinion is a mistake. There are countless ways in which “free” passion projects that I put online in my career have let to big jobs and other shoots, connections and people that I would otherwise never have met. It’s a classical example of gaining more through sharing. In next week’s episode, we will be talking about whether technology is more enabling or more preventing from creating content in new ways. 

cinema5D together with Olympus Europe is proud to present the 3nd out of six episodes of “Perspectives on Filmmaking”. A discussion between leading filmmakers who endorse working with compact tools in their film productions. In case you missed the first episode, please watch it by clicking here, and the 2nd one here! In this 3rd episode of “Perspectives on Filmmaking”, we talk about how some manufacturers seem to “neglect” their “small cinematic camera” market completely, because they were almost created by accident in the early days, 8 or 9 years ago. We go on to talk about shooting music videos – and the way of making them work financially as there usually isn’t a lot of budget. Florian Lein talks about shooting an improvised music video for the major artist Macklemore. Noaz Deshe mentions how the challenges, restrictions and accidents – being technically or otherwise – are actually gifts for the final product. He likes to work the tools until they break apart, to find their limitations. The journalistic piece he saw shot on a DSLR when they came out impressed him, because he saw a kind of access that he didn’t see before because of the look and the size of the tool. OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA Dirk Wilutzky mentions how he was preparing big Hollywood films like Mission: Impossible 3 and similar projects, but then found it a more interesting challenge to work on smaller projects as a producer – and he really always wanted to work as a director. Then he started with very small projects because of the availability of small tools, and he says there are no limits to filmmaking anymore. I posed the question of the “cinema form”, whether it’s something everyone is only obsessing about? Dirk agrees that right now, people should focus on the shorter form which becomes more prevalent in our world, and is actually a bigger challenge than shooting long films. Noaz disagrees that people do this job to put food on the table – he says that people do it because they “hate not doing it” – the filmmaking process. “It’s good if the things that are weighing you down don’t anchor you, and you can be light and deal with people instead of things that drag you.” In the next segment of “Perspectives on Filmmaking”, we talk about marketing for films – do filmmakers have to be their own marketers for their films?

Stay away from counterfeit products: Straight talk with Vincent Laforet in this episode of ON THE GO.  Vincent Laforet and Nino Leitner “On the Go” for cinema5D. “Innovation is being destroyed” In this year’s first episode of our car talk show ON THE GO, I talked to commercial director / photographer and DSLR pioneer Vincent Laforet about the state of the industry. Vincent identified a dire state in gear manufacturing, with more and more innovative products being ripped off by (mainly) Asian counterfeit products. To make matters worse, some of those clone companies aren’t small operations, they are becoming huge international players. What’s left for the innovators is to go to court, which isn’t easy – not even having expensive patents necessarily protects you from counterfeiters, if you don’t have the financial resources to fight against them in international courts. And even if you do, particularly Chinese companies are still often hard to grasp legally from Western countries. We talked in particular about a high-profile clone of the MoVi Pro which has been announced just before NAB, which upset Vincent in particular as he was the person who launched the MoVi M10 together with his friends from Freefly a couple of years ago. Check back next week for another episode with Vincent Laforet, in which he will talk about how it is to shoot commercials for Apple, where his career is moving and where he expects things will go in the coming years for him and the industry. Do you care if you have “the original” of a product if it works better or is price all that matters to you? Let us know in the comments below! Please visit our sponsors’ websites to keep new episodes of ON THE GO coming! Watch previous episodes of ON THE GO (& On the Couch) by clicking here. Visit our Vimeo and YouTube playlists, and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes!

In collaboration with production house Neighborhood Film Co, premium stock footage site Filmsupply has launched its own film series called “Filmsupply Originals”. Last week they premiered their first film, a well-crafted short with high production value and a cast of non-actors. We have looked at stock footage start-up Filmsupply before. What is special about this site is that their catalogue consists of high-quality licensed footage only, targeting productions that look for quality content instead of amateurish clips that can be found on other stock sites by the millions. In an effort to promote their filmmakers and create a set of original film clips that companies can purchase, they have launched the Filmsupply Originals series. Writer and director Ricky Staub from Neighborhood Film Co had the chance to realize his first narrative short film as the kick-off production of the Filmsupply Originals series. The Cage is an honest picture of redemption in the face of overwhelming darkness, a film for which Staub used a cast of non-actors in order to bring raw authenticity to the story of a young man’s survival on the streets of Philadelphia. The Cage is a tribute to second chances, to the profound transformation that can come from one kid deciding to walk toward the good, even when society has labeled him the opposite,” Staub said. “The cast of this film – people from my own neighborhood in North Philly – are very connected to the vulnerability and suffering at the heart of the film. They were so present and so honest. They had an almost childlike playfulness about getting into character.” For those among our readers who are aspiring directors, cameramen or other visual film enthusiasts, I think this production can be a true testament to what happens when a passionate filmmaker walks the bold path of being true to his vision. Personally, I find this film very inspiring and I applaud the crew and cast for the extraordinary performances they achieved with limited resources. As each filmmaker faces challenges, no matter if personal or work-related, it’s nice to see a story on screen that talks about facing those in light of the brutal reality that life can often be. There is a full interview with the filmmaker that you can read to find out more about the making of the film, which is an interesting read. For those among you who are like me and prefer the spoon-fed version of info about the production, check out this well-made 7-minute behind-the-scenes look at The Cage: The Cage and future Originals will be featured on Filmsupply’s platform and marketing channels. All scenes from each of the films will be available for licensing from Filmsupply.