The Making of New Year Video

I’ve had a number of people ask me how I made my ‘New Year’ video so I thought I’d share my process on this project. I filmed this video by myself in a room that gets lots of natural light, but I also used fill light, as the lower half of the room doesn’t get as much light as the top half and I wanted it to be even (that’s my photography background coming through there!).

I filmed part of the video on a white paper backdrop and some on a cloth greenscreen. I learned a lot about what not to do! I don’t recommend a fabric greenscreen. The folds and wrinkles can create uneven lighting on the backdrop and this caused issues in post production for getting a clean cut away from the subject (me). I had to do a lot of retouching in photoshop and masking in Premiere Pro to get my footage to work. This was especially challenging because I am moving so much in the video, so masking without me moving into the feathering zone was a tedious process. That said, this is my first time filming on greenscreen, and I am still learning in Premiere Pro, so I won’t be too hard on myself!

Another challenge was my camera spilled over the edges of my backdrop whenever filming horizontally, this created a lot of retouching and masking as well. Let’s just say I learned that getting as clean a cut as possible from the get-go is well worth the time you’ll save in editing. However, you have to work with what you’ve got. I have some challenges with the space I film in so it is what it is!

After removing the green screen, I placed stock footage video backgrounds behind myself and then resized and colored my footage to blend better. Pretty much all the scenes where I’m in a sign or on a screen or something are greenscreen videos from a stock library.

When you’re making a video of yourself just singing, and there’s no other characters involved and no story, and only one location, I feel like it can get boring for viewers, so I try to include interesting elements in my videos so that it doesn’t feel monotonous. That’s why I used so many fun green screen backgrounds!

Also, I can’t stress how important it is to look at yourself in the mirror before every take you film!! I didn’t do this and there are some things in my video that absolutely drive me crazy that I couldn’t fix. They could have been easily addressed if I had looked over my appearance in a mirror before each take (this is why high budget projects have people whose only job is to make sure you look perfect!). You can’t fix everything in post! And if you can it takes too much time!

Well, that’s the overview! Nothing earth-shattering–just filming, having a creative vision, and lots of technical practice in Premiere Pro! I’m excited about my next video. It will also be greenscreen that combines reality with storybook-feel elements. I’m already working on the preliminary steps in Premiere Pro so that I’ll be ready to film after the holidays. Plus, I’m waiting on some wardrobe to arrive!

Until then, Happy Holidays!