Completely agree. Scratching my head wondering why no mention of sharpness in the article. The first thought I had was "wow that's blurry". You could get better sharpness that close with a cell phone camera. Maybe this is just a super niche 1-trick-pony lens.

Sigh... we need to stop equating a cinematic look with low contrast & low saturation. That's as easy (read: lazy) as somebody with a GH4 shooting in Cine-D and doing zero color correction in post. The most important takeaway from this video, IMO, is this: "it's about creating a consistent look". I don't think it's a cop-out. Having a consistent look shows you know what you're doing, whether you're producing a flat-color-profiled wanderlust #video for Instagram, or DP-ing a gritty Miami Vice-style bleeding-color short film.

I'll vouch for Benro, I'm a big fan. I consistently use the Aero 4 for quick set-up travel videography. It's one of the best travel tripods with a ball head for balancing. No variable resistance for panning and tilting, though.

I also use the BV10 a lot in tandem with FS7, and it's fantastic. Delivers on variable drag and counterbalance. Build quality of the head is great, solid construction.

Benro is obviously not as expensive as other brands, but it packs in great essential quality in "budget" packages.

Agreed. I bet under the right conditions, this could produce some interesting video.

I've been running a YouTube sketch comedy group called Bacon Bits for the past year and a half. While I think our content is pretty good, our social media outreach is lacking. A big goal this year is learning how to promote digitally, garner a larger audience, and potentially go the Kickstarter/IndieGogo fundraising route.

In the music videos I've shot, always have at least 3 master takes. This will give you coverage to cut back to in a pinch in the edit. Here is why I say at least 3:

--Usually, the artist is not a trained actor. So if you're directing, you should be giving performance notes after the first take. Consider the 1st take the "warm-up" but record it anyway. Obviously, don't tell the artist it is a warm-up. You may actually use portions of this take anyway, but often times the more emotional takes come later - the ones you look at and say "that was it; that's the shot" (if you're going for a more emotionally invested look).

-- The second take will be your 'actual' first master coverage shot.

--The third take will be your backup of the coverage shot. You can also use additional takes for the artist to try different physicality, facial expressions, emotion...

In reference to the "glitch" in the singing, a good practice is to have an amplifier or PA system with the track on a loop. Include a metronome count-in that corresponds to the song's meter (for 4/4 time, 4 beeps. 3/4 aka waltz, three beeps). The final beep can have a different pitch to signal it's the last of the count-in. This will give the artist time to prepare for the first note/chord/lyric, especially if it is a live band performance.

If it's a live band playing along to their studio track, have the amp cranked LOUD. They should feel like they are actually playing the studio recording and not just a live, in-sync recreation.

Always record scratch audio in camera on set, in sync with the footage. Premiere and other editing tools now make it very simple to synchronize audio via waveform recognition technology. Hope this helps!