Circe Link Music Video "Tiger Swami"

This was pretty much the first thing I did in FCPX. We fondly refer to this as the "kitchen sink" video. I'm sure many of you will recognize many of the effects and generators used, There are far too many things in the video to talk about in detail. Obviously, it's all green screen. And there are a couple of Motion things as well.

The most complicated shot was the bodhisattva (many armed being) dance. This is also the source of one of my FCPX gripes - no automatable handles on Masks. Because there were parts of Circe peeking through from the other arms I had to slice the shots frame by frame and re-position the mask handles for each frame. And each set of arms had three masks to get the right shape. A VERY tedious process. But worth it in the end, I think. If anyone has any questions about how I did any of these shots, let me know. Also would love to hear all comments.

Here are links to my and Circe's youtube page if you'd like to see some of the other FCPX stuff we've been up to. Enjoy!

www.youtube.com/user/circelink/videos

www.youtube.com/user/xtian1/videos

VERY nicely done video! BRAVO! So much fun! Such an upbeat song, colorful visuals, absolutely love it!

Thanks Ben. It was a lot of work and learning. But I think it all paid off. Thanks again.

I'd kill to have a band (and singer) that good to work with. Your imagery was spot on with the story of the song. The girl wasn't too over the top, but not too laid back (one or two spots, but I can overlook that), timing was great. And the keys you pulled were really impressive. I'd love to work with y'all some day.

Actually, my main job is a musician. The girl, Circe Link, is my S.O. for 10 years. I co-wrote, played guitar, produced and mixed this from her album California Kid as well as six other albums for her. We've made several videos, some from her albums and others that are covers just for fun. You can see them in the youtube links I included in the first post.

The keying was just the built in FCPX keyer and was brilliant. And truth be told, the green screen is actually one of those $160 dollar kits with a sheet and a couple of lights set up in our dining room. So even *more* kudos to the FCPX keyer.

As for energy, I dig what you're saying. You should know however that, except for a couple of pick-up shots (her in, on and by the TV/ her flying out of her own hand) and the bohisattva build, the rest was taken from three passes of her lip syncing - one medium and two semi close. So, since we were limited in our source material, we decided to go hog wild with effects.

Lastly, I guess you can chalk the timing up to the fact that I'm a musician and so I was compelled to edit rhythmically, if you will. Thanks again for all the input and compliments.

I've been a composer since I was very, very young. So as a fellow composer/musician, I'm really impressed. Give my best to Circe, too. Y'all did a really good job. A good video is 90% imagination, 10% busting your butt to get it done. Just like song writing.