Hi all,
Just thought I'd share my first paid OSMO gig.  A mannequin challenge at a senior center.  The residents and staff were awesome and they put a lot of work into getting this going.  Because of logistics (and the advanced age of many of the residents, we couldn't shoot the entire thing as a single take (mostly because the building we shot in was just too large), but this is a really fun video.  Enjoy.

Creepy. Unpleasant. Weird.

Nice work. Cool dude. It looks like you put a lot into the project. I trust the participants like the vid. Thanks for sharing!

fans90c13814 Posted at 2016-12-7 11:27
Creepy. Unpleasant. Weird.

Heh... fans... why creepy, unpleasant, and weird?  Have you never seen a Mannequin Challenge video or is it just weird to you because of the old people?

Osmo_M_jalexart Posted at 2016-12-7 12:19
Nice work. Cool dude. It looks like you put a lot into the project. I trust the participants like the vid. Thanks for sharing!

Hi M-Jal.  Thanks for the compliment.  I was only on location for just under two hours.  The residents and staff were all prepared with props and tasks.  I got the OSMO ready, did a walk-through to check it all out.  I pre-conceived where I would have to make cuts so I could shoot with those cuts in mind, then we went like crazy.  It took a lot longer to edit the video because it wasn't a single shot, so I took a bit of a hit in terms of hourly rate in the edit... but overall was a great experience and a lot of fun.

Really cool and funny. A couple of wobbly glasses being held apart from that seamless. Did they all start moving again after you finished, how many fell asleep

How did you do the beer bottle prop?

This is awesome! I love seeing these. I did one for a gym near where I live, and it was with the OSMO and it turned out great!!

Great work! Very creative and fun!

Very impressive.  I too would like to know how you videoed the beer pour and the pouring paint?

Mabou2 Posted at 2016-12-7 13:32
Hi M-Jal.  Thanks for the compliment.  I was only on location for just under two hours.  The residents and staff were all prepared with props and tasks.  I got the OSMO ready, did a walk-through to check it all out.  I pre-conceived where I would have to make cuts so I could shoot with those cuts in mind, then we went like crazy.  It took a lot longer to edit the video because it wasn't a single shot, so I took a bit of a hit in terms of hourly rate in the edit... but overall was a great experience and a lot of fun.

Thanks! Now, if I could just give it a 5-Star rating. I have viewed it several times. It is entertaining & funny...

brilliantly filmed. love the way you change speeds between areas

Amazing work!! WOW

Thanks for sharing, very nice video.

Wow that's an AWESOME video!! Well done mate, I wish I was half as good.

You've got me feverishly planning on doing something like this at work (I work in an A+E dept in the UK)....

That is fantastic....! How was it done?? I don't believe that you got so many people to sit rock solid still like that..... or is that a stupid comment??
And great music choice too...

Great job by all.

Im thinking that place looks like an awsome place to live !

Awesome. Great work.

Hi all, thanks for the comments.... a couple of answers...
1) The residents age ranges from about 70 to 102.  Considering how much they shake in general, they did a great job.  I had to use tricks throughout the shoot to minimize the talent shake and blinking.  Then there are several times where I used a quick speedup, or post production zoom, or creative cuts to remove someone blinking or eyes on the camera.  (Regardless of how much some of the people tried, bless their hearts, they couldn't remember what to do for long).  But overall, I think they did a great job.  The biggest problem with the location was that it was an active residence and there were a lot of people walking around in the background.  There are many shots with people in motion in the background, but I edited the video at 720P, so I was able to crop/zoom etc from the original footage to cut people out.

2) The pouring beer and the spilling paint were all built ahead of time.  For the beer it was basically tinted plastic wrap that hung from the bottle into the glass... same with the "spilled" paint being a flexible tube, covered with paint (I wish they had chosen a higher contrast color was my only criticism).  In the bar I had the client find a still image of football being played and we got that on the TV screen so it was frozen too.

3) This was my first time using the OSMO outside of my house.  I had only used it a few times just running circles around my living room.  The most difficult part of the shoot (on the technical side) was exposure.  I shot completely manually in terms of shutter and ISO.  I locked the ISO to 800 (because the footage from this camera is way too grainy at higher ISO), and if needed, adjusted the shutter speed to get exposure.  I was often able to get a good exposure by slowing down the ISO too.  Except for saturation and sharpening (since I shot LOG) I didn't do ANY post production work on color and exposure because client didn't want the video to look too polished, they wanted it to look a bit home-made, like so many other mannequin challenges that have been posted.  So you are basically seeing the exposure right from the camera.

4) The most difficult challenge I faced as far as a viewing experience goes was learning how to pan the camera without making the viewer feel nauseated.  This is something I think is important for OSMO: Lets say you need to pan the camera 180 degrees during a shot.  Rather than having you be the pivot point and spin your body with the camera at the end of your arm, envision the camera as the pivot point and walk yourself around the camera, keeping the camera in the same spot.  To me, this makes the turns much more palatable and less likely to make the viewer vomit.  Also seems to work better with the Gimbal itself.

5) The other thing I did (to try to help move the story along) was applying sporadic fast motion in post production, almost always starting or stopping the speed change directly on the beat of the music. The location was too large and there was too much setup in each room to shoot a continuous take.  I REALLY wanted to do the whole thing in one take, but that wasn't going to happen.  I did shoot through some of the longer halls, so I sped those up.  The speed-ups also helped to cloak problems with the talent in the hallways or rooms.

6) The first thing I did after arriving to the shoot was try to figure out what to do with the beginning and end.  The client had not considered this part at all.  When I saw the piano, the idea came to me to have that be the start and end, with the only live action in the video being the kiss. I thought that ended up being really cute.

7) And the final thing that I considered in editing... again, in an effort to keep the viewer from feeling nauseated... I thought about ballet dancers... when they spin at high speed, they don't just keep their heads at the same speed as their bodies.  If they did, they would get sick.  Instead, as they spin they focus their face on a spot and through about 75% of their spin, they keep their face pointed at that spot while their bodies turn underneath.. then they snap their heads around and as quickly as possible get back to seeing that focal point.  This way their heads only spin for a moment at a time.  I tried to apply that same thought in post production, when I did have to do a spin or a long pan, I usually sped it up quite a bit so it didn't last long.

It's very well done, thank you for sharing!

What frame rate did you shoot at?
Love to here more about the process.


Looks Great!

Very cool. Looks like a ton of work.

Wow I loved it!!!

Perhaps fans90c13814 needs to volunteer an hour or two at an old folks home to gather a better grip on life and old age.

Good job! Did you use the 4K mode?

you did a extremely good job! i am impressed

One of the best ones i have seen, fair play to the OAP's for doing a great job staying still.

that is so cool!can I ask what kind of software you use or how are you doing this?

That's really cool, you should post that all over social media and make it go viral.
Only error I saw is the person walking across the 2nd floor in the last shot.
I bet they all got a kick out of watching that. I hope they use that for a promo video showing how fun it is to live there. Can I send my parents

DJI-Ken Posted at 2016-12-9 23:04
That's really cool, you should post that all over social media and make it go viral.
Only error I saw is the person walking across the 2nd floor in the last shot.
I bet they all got a kick out of watching that. I hope they use that for a promo video showing how fun it is to live there. Can I send my parents

Hi Ken.... good eye.  I edited the entire video, watched it probably 30 times and still didn't see the person on the second floor (in the background) until after I sent the video to the client and posted it.

Thanks!

More Answers to your questions...
1) I shot 1920 x 1080.  ONLY because I knew I was editing at 720 AND because I didn't have much experience shooting 4k with this camera.  Knowing that the on-board processor for the camera is probably getting hammered at 4k, I decided to play it safe and shoot 1080P to avoid any problems with jaggies or stuttering since I knew I was going to be shooting up-close and personal with a lot of faster moves and pans.
2) I shot at 29.97 fps.  24 fps would be to jittery with all the moderate to fast pans.
3) I edited the video on my Mac laptop using Final Cut Pro X.
4) The music was not the typical Mannequin Challenge song, but from what I understand, the artist of that song started charging licensing fees and since my client was going to use this video publicly, they asked me to not use the song.  They supplied a few examples of songs that they thought would be a good direction for the music, and one of the songs I liked so much, I asked if I could just use it.  So I bought the stock music song for $49.
5) The client is trying to get that song to go viral... more than 15,000 views so far and seems to be picking up speed.

Fantastic.   You should be really proud of what you have created.

Mabou2 Posted at 2016-12-10 11:08
Hi Ken.... good eye.  I edited the entire video, watched it probably 30 times and still didn't see the person on the second floor (in the background) until after I sent the video to the client and posted it.

Thanks!

No problem, Im my old career I was paid to notice things that didn't look right. It's kinda a problem now as I'm always correcting my friends and family.But still, you gotta make that video go viral, it's really awesome and especially that the elderly people were so great.

Mabou2 Posted at 2016-12-11 02:14
More Answers to your questions...
1) I shot 1920 x 1080.  ONLY because I knew I was editing at 720 AND because I didn't have much experience shooting 4k with this camera.  Knowing that the on-board processor for the camera is probably getting hammered at 4k, I decided to play it safe and shoot 1080P to avoid any problems with jaggies or stuttering since I knew I was going to be shooting up-close and personal with a lot of faster moves and pans.
2) I shot at 29.97 fps.  24 fps would be to jittery with all the moderate to fast pans.

Could you let us know where to get that music?? I tried Shazam, SoundHound.... everything!

Now know what Mannequin Challenge is about.... I'd never heard of it but it's cool and yours is about the coolest I've seen so far.

Good creativity, and amazing cooperation. Kudos to all of you involved!

Hi Salty,

That song is called "Rule the world" and it comes from premiumbeat.com

Thanks for the compliments guys!

Hola buenas soy Francisco tengo unprobleme con mi dji advanced que dejó de funcionar y quedó con un pitido

Lo lleve donde lo compre y no me resuelven ya  tengo varios meses y nada que puedo ser al respecto

Awesome! Kudos to the folks in the video!

this is sooooooooooooooooo awesome..properly the most creative video i saw in the DJI forum