Some shiny video effects I've been using

Making a video convincingly ‘dream like’ and stylish can be tricky.

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All sorts of effects can be used with lights both in camera and later those effects can be replicated in the edit too.
Endeavouring to capture something different and interesting personally really interests me as a videografilmmaker (Hang on, I think I just invented a new term?..)

I really savour the idea of orchestrating as much in-camera as possible, where possible.
This stems from my love of anything that, for example, Wes Anderson or Michel Gondry have done. They inspire a sense of ‘the moment’ that others seem to miss.
The focus on creating the energy and aesthetic in a real way, then and there. That kind of organic feel is fascinating to me.

Anyway, this is really about a super (super) small but effective visual element to do with creating fractures of lights that splinter across the frame.
Now, I've had fun here creating some animated GIF's, featuring my big old face. Which I've not done much of before (making GIF's not filming my own face), but enjoyed exploring this to demonstrate my ideas, instead of a video :)

To achieve an effect like the one above you need to have spots of directional lights (ideally from opposing angles)... and a bloody huge glass ‘diamond’.
Behind me and what some call 'christmas lights' where as I tend to call them 'hot bastards', because they get errr, hot quite quickly.

Below is the ridiculous 100mm crystal I used on the above..

The other day on a music video shoot I took the diamond along (that I bought months ago to use on a different shoot.. but sadly that planned shoot didn’t happen).
I bought it off eBay for £18 or something which I thought was reasonable price for it's size.

And hey, and even if I didn't use it, who wouldn't want that as a Christmas gift?!

Luckily, it did work favourably to the style of video I was going for on my shoot the other day; which was slow, dreamy, and ethereal.

The style of using glass to this creative effect I believe comes from photography with a term called ‘Prisming’ where a glass prism is often held directly in front of the lens - often just inches from the lens glass - to create fragments of randomly scattered light within the picture. However, using the crystal gives loads more dimensions and possibilities - even really neat ghostly reflections..

It took a few goes at figuring out the best distance and angle to hold it at, but I eventually hit my stride on the shoot with it.
That video will be done soon and I'll make sure I put up a post about it once it's ready.

Thanks for reading about that big bloody crystal and how I use it. @ashtv