Behind the Scenes at the Haunted Farm

Medina Haunted Farm

Things get a little spooky at Medina this time of year at the farm in Medina. This community event is created by the Medina Lions Club and has been going on for 40 years. Since it is run by a civic group, all the scarers are volunteers and all the funds go to support local charities. We did a number of things for this project but the primary piece was the video.

Shooting a video at a farm and in the woods in the dark away from electricity was a bit of a challenge. Luckily, we have invested in the Sony A7SII line of cameras that are renowned for there excellent low light capability. We also brought several battery-powered lights with us for the shoot. The ‘hero’ image of Pennywise walking through the forest was achieved with a battery-powered 120D and two Dracast LED panels and a fog machine. (The most unnerving thing of the whole night was that Pennywise didn’t break character even when we were shooting this scene.)

The scarers were all super great about being filmed and did a great job of working with us. While the production was tricky, everything was taken to the next level in editing. Editing to music helped make the scary footage even more terrifying.

This video had amazing organic results! With over 100 shares and 15,000 views in the first couple of days, it spoke to a few things:

1. The Community is invested in this project. It takes lots of folks from lots of different groups of people to put this on, which connects the project with lots of different tribes around the area. It is also entering its 40th year so that leaves a legacy to connect to.

2. This is the first year they have promoted the farm in this way. There is a novelty to this video. People seemed to really enjoy that.

3. The production value of the video made people excited about the farm. If we had shot this on a cell phone, people would not have been as interested in the content. The high production value makes it worth watching!

So without further ado, here is the video:

Medina Haunted Farm 2018 from Kevin Adelsberger on Vimeo.

Client Spotlight – JCVB Video

JCVB Tourism Video

Video projects are pretty varied. Sometimes you show up with a little idea of what you want to shoot and allow the location and subject matter to direct you. Sometimes, however, you have to plan every shot out ahead of time. This was one of those times. With Paige from the Jackson Convention and Visitors Bureau, we planned out every shot of this video. Part of the reason this was so important was the goal. We used motion tracking to display statistics in places all over the Jackson area.

This meant going to several locations and filming very specific shots. Then, we combined them with music to give them a unified feel. Using the motion tracking abilities of Adobe After Effects, we were able to insert the explanatory text and numbers into the different scenes. We also used ‘practical effects’ (noncomputer generated effects) and incorporated numbers that were already in use at locations when we could.

Three great examples of this:
1. At the Old Country Store, we used the practical effect of shaped mashed potatoes (Sculpted by JXNTNWKND Host Paige Keith) in combination with digital effects to leave words on the table.2. At ComeUnity Cafe, we used the practical effect of a hand-lettered (Hand lettered by Renae Adelsberger) number with a digitally placed explanation for clarity. This was done to match the style of the menu used by Comeunity Cafe.3. At Rusty’s TV and Movie Car Museum, we were able to use the existing number of the General Lee to illustrate a point with digital words next to it.

It was also fun using real music for a video! Most of the time, we use stock audio. That can be bland sometimes. LoLo, a local Jackson artist, allowed us to use her song “No Time for Lonely” for this video. Using that song added a great beat and excitement to the video!

Here is the video:

Visit Jackson Tourism Stats Video from Kevin Adelsberger on Vimeo.

 

 

State of the Camera Gear 2018

Camera Equipment

One of the bad things about being in the photography and video industry is that there is always something new to buy! So here is a glimpse into the equipment we use on a daily basis:

Photography:

Nikon D500

Favorite Lenses:
Nikon 50, 1.8
Tamaron 70-200 2.8
Tokina 14-20 F2

Lighting:
Vivitar On-Camera Flash
Godox Ad200 Flash
Apurture LightDome 36 inch softbox

Video
Sony A7SII (x2)

Favorite Lenses:
Sony E 50mm f/1.8 OSS Lens (x2)
Sigma 30mm f/2.8 DN

Lighting:
Apurture LightStorm
Dracast LED500 Silver Series Bi-Color LED Light

Sound:
Sennheiser MKE600 Shotgun Mic
Sennheiser ew 112-p G3 Camera-Mount Wireless Microphone System with ME 2 Lavalier Mic

Stabilizer:
Zhiyun-Tech Crane v2

Behind the Scenes: Jackson Chamber Carpool Karaoke

This was a fun one!

 

The Jackson Chamber is one of my favorite clients. They like to have fun, are pretty laid back, get me the information I need, and let me be creative with our projects. That makes for a great combo of traits. When we got together to talk about ideas for this year’s annual celebration staff video, Alexis and Jill decided they wanted to go after one of the trendy styles – a Carpool Karaoke video.

We started with research. I googled and googled how James Corden films his videos and came across this great video from the Met Film School with some excellent tips.  We then set a date to record and I went over to LensRentals.com (A Great Tennessee based Firm!) and had 3 GoPro Hero 6s and suction cup mounts sent over for the shoot.

Normally with Carpool Karaoke, Corden and a guest(s) sing different parts from a lot of songs. This is great if you have two celebrities who are ready to ham it up on camera. We saw it as a weakness during research. If you do not have Adele and Corden, sometimes it can drag a bit depending on the guests. To counteract this, we decided to have everyone sing the same song, which would allow us to use the most entertaining bits of each group, to help keep the video funny and fast moving.

 

Disclaimer: I did not pick the song. But the choice worked out great. It was somewhat ironically funny and had enough vocal parts that people could get into it to add some hilarity to the shoot.

We shot in one afternoon. Starting at lunchtime, we borrowed the executive director’s SUV and set up our 4 cameras. I had a GoPRO Hero Session which we mounted on the sunroof to get a good view of the folks in the back seat. (This turned out to be important because 4-Runners are built like tanks and you can’t see the back seat from the front.) GoPros provided the right size and camera abilities for this task, and the Hero6’s got pretty good audio. (I did have an H4N recording but something went wrong and it failed me, which has happened on a few occasions.)

Each group went through and we had a fun time.

The editing was tricky. I needed to put four cameras in sync and then edit all 8 different groups into one final video edit. To accomplish this, I synced the four cameras based on the 8 groups. I could usually do this by finding a clap or a door closing as my match point. Then, I found each song start in the car and synced it to the audio track. I then had all 8 groups synced to the audio at the start of their own timeline. This allowed me to see approximately what time I made each cut to bring a group into the main timeline and make the next cut at the same time spot on the timeline on a different set of people. This made editing take just 4-5 hours instead of probably 8-9.

I believe in content marketing. With a shoot this intricate and fun, I decided it would be worth the investment to have someone there to take photo and video of this event for Adelsberger Marketing. The photos throughout this article are from Ricky Santos and the behind the scenes video is from Brooks Neely.

Here’s the video:

 

Behind the Scenes: Carpool Karaoke with the Jackson Chamber from Kevin Adelsberger on Vimeo.

Here is the Carpool Karaoke video: