@suresure123 Thanks. You are correct; you did not say copy, you said replicate.

What we see as "brilliant" is mostly subjective. My only issue is the comment "so we can replicate" which really means copying. If I have misunderstood the intent, then I apologise for being such a pedant! I do not have an issue with using techniques. I have an issue with not having a creative vision & copying someone else. To me (subjective) the Absolut video looks tired and dated; all style no substance.

Here's something I edited to show I have some work to back up my comments.

@caveport: "And it shows in his films."

Hey, for many that might be a compliment :)... not to get sidetracked on the value of film school, ultimately it's all about the final effect... directors are judged on their films - many famous ones never went to film school, many others did, but that didn't seem to be the determining factor on who is good and who is not... as always, it's about the talent.

Speaking just for myself, I didn't find this Absolut + Jay-Z branding video particularly great... as a matter of fact, I thought it was pretty trite and broke no new ground, just more of the same; and yeah as others observed, I can see a lot of time was spent editing and in post in general. A lot of work went into it. And by my standards, the ratio of effort to effect was mightily unimpressive. Of course, that's just IMHO and YMMV. If anyone wants to tell us why it's "brilliant" I'm more than happy to listen.

@babypanda I think sometimes Quentin directs while drinking Absolut. So you have to give Absolut some credit. Lol.

@babypanda ... And it shows in his films.

@suresure123, you might find this quote interesting.

" When people ask me if I went to film school, I tell them 'No, I went to films'. " -- Quentin Tarantino

The Shining was one of the creepiest horror movies ever. Maybe Stephen King doesn't like the liberties he took with adapting the original story.

There's actually a doc called 'Best Worst Movie'. Some 'bad' movies become classics and achieve cult status.

I was just on Youtube. Here's the little video about The Shining. Not sure if you'll be interested, but here it is fyi:

How Stanley Kubrick used Escher-styled spacial awareness & set design anomalies to disorientate viewers of his horror classic The Shining.

ps: this is getting off-topic, but the same guy who made this video also made a video about Kubrick having hidden messages in his movie about the Federal Reserve and gold (hence the gold rooms in the film). Thought that was an interesting coincidence since you were talking about gold in another thread a while back. but sorry, that's way off-topic.

@suresure123, Stephen King would agree with you. In his book 'On Writing', he said (loosely paraphrasing) if you don't read a lot don't even bother trying to be a writer. I think it's the same concept for film.

@suresure123 @caveport is right its hard to see what went on behind the scenes just by looking at the final video.

Your example video or whatever you want to call it was just a bad example for us who don't have a big crew or access to every piece of equipment. We know they had a big crew and a big budget. Can we duplicate that look? Sure. But its a bad example plus for me its not mindblowingly good.

Why not use a video/film that looks awesome but was shot on DSLRs and tell people doesn't this look awesome even though it was shot on 2 crappy 5d mark 2s like indie game the movie(another fine doc). There were some awesome shots in that movie.

Or if you want push the agenda of we can do it with cheap equipment then you could have just used this video and called it a day

Shot with a canon 5d mark 2 and canon 7d. Again, hard to tell from the final product how they even produced this short just by looking at the final product. A lot of skill and experience involved in the vfx.

I've watched most of the docs on him, A Life in Pictures is the most famous.

The description of the thread was decided in a nano second, I could of called it a music promo, an advert, a viral clip or just some black dude selling Vodka its pretty irrelevant to the point I was making but whatever. I wish people would put some energy into discussing the clip and not the bloody title worded wrongly or not.

The images are very much possible with cheap cameras and limited resources which is my point. I think its false that many here are separating themselves from this kind of work suggesting they need a 10 man team and a million dollars. Yes quite a few people were involved but in terms of images there is nothing that couldnt be done with the cheap tools we have today. Its kind of like making excuses for yourselves rather than saying HEY I COULD DO THAT, just need to improve my knowledge rather than I need loads of money and a quest for the perfect camera which is lets face it 99% of what this forum focuses on.

My point is simply as filmmakers we should focus on what we do as an art form not as a technician. Nothing wrong with learning technical stuff but in the end our viewers won't care about a bit of aliasing, noise etc especially at many of us our level which is lets face it 90% amateur professional.

Something I have recently been inspired by is the fact Kubrick was an accomplished photographer long before he was a filmmaker and learned much of his craft in photography. I highly recommend this youtube channel The Art Of Photography by Ted Forbes. It has tons of resources that you can take into your filmmaking.

well, there are some nice shots.

Is it a brilliant doc? No. But thats just me. It might be for you. For me it looks like a day in the life of Jay-Z, that's its.

Whats a good doc for me? Something that surprises you, shocks you, inspires you, opens your eyes to something new, or something that is just plain stranger than fiction. This video did none of that for me.

Docs that I think are great: Hoop Dreams, Spellbound, Murderball, Impostor(this is awesome, blending doc with narrative)

Do the video's 8mm looking shots look nice? YES.

Did they have unlimited resources regarding people? YES. There is a long list of people in the end.

Did they have unlimited resources regarding equipment? YES. These guys have done Gap commercials. This is a video with Jay-Z and Absolut vodka.

Can I do something that looks like this with less than $10000 in equipment? Probably YES.

Can I do something that looks like this with less than $10000 in equipment when it was shot in 2010? Probably NO. Canon 5D mark 2 was only 2 years old then, Sony F3 at $16k came out November that year, no one knew who Blackmagic were, and our beloved GH2 was released Aug 2010 and hacked by Vitaly mid 2011.

In 2010 would I chose a 5D mark 2 and shoot directly at a person sitting on a big glass window with bright sunlight like the way they shot the MSG persident at 2:18 and risk getting a blownout shot while the Absolut ad executives were watching behind the set? NO. I would get a 14dr $$$ sony f35, alexa which came out in 2010, or at least the new sony f3 ($23K) and bring bring big ass lights on the set just in case and maybe a graduated filter.

So basically I don't think its a brilliant doc.

I learned that 8mm black and white like footage is good for b-roll in certain portions when you want a gritty look, but you mostly want clean footage when shooting talking heads.

These guys for sure used a large amount of equipment that i could never afford BUT I can replicate this now since its 2015 not 2010.

On a side note. I think watching music videos is a great way to see lots of different styles. Some awesome videos out there from some amazing people doing risky stuff and bending the rules.

@kellar42 Bingo!! someone gets it.

Art is art wherever it comes from. What is a music video but a short advert for a bands song. Probably some of the best visual artist today are working in advertising, photographers and filmmakers.

Actually what really interests me is trying to learn from what I see and discuss how it is put together and why it works. This style isn't for everything but for Doc work a music video at least and some indie movies it could work. Pi is basically a similar black and white contrasty style and I heard the director is doing quite well these days. ;) if all we got is cheaper tools I don't see why we can't use them to our strengths. Too many of us are trying to make a blockbuster on prosumer cams and no budget when we should be making visually interesting work and taking risks cause it costs nothing.

A few observations, I tried out the layering and found it worked if the main layer was on top and the images you want coming through under the track with the top obviously opacity toogled down, the other way around which logically would work didn't look good at all. Its funny but that kind of layering, opacity thing in my mind is the worst thing I see in amateur work but it works somehow in black and white and with these particular visuals, I would use this technique only very rarely to honest, it could looks shit if not used appropriately.

The actual structure was textbook really, interview cut aways, interview, cutaways then maybe a short segment, interview, cutaways etc. And followed the textbook of show what they say i.e. if the interview is talking about Madison Square gardens then show Madison Square gardens!, its not quantum mechanics. The cut aways tended to be the more imperfect images, I think it works when combined with a more pro looking interview. I don't know but possibly some or all is actually film, 8mm, 16mm. but I'm guessing its just video roughed up a bit. I wondered how they got the out the window interview shots without blowing them out, I'm guessing it was later in the day or as I said its film which could handle it a bit better than video. I would love to know what cameras were used.

All in all I think I learnt about 3 things I can use possibly at some point...We should be pulling apart work and seeing how the elements work so we can replicate and learn more IMHO.