This blog is all about shooting video that is well shot and usable, so I thought it might be helpful to list what I consider as bad video. Footage that has no obvious purpose or subject. I once heard someone describe this sort of footage as if it was shot with the camera waving around like […]
Voice overs or narration are often used in video production. Most TV news stories use voice over, as well as live or ‘sync’ sound from an interviewee or on-camera host. But when and where do you record these? There are two main options: 1. On location at the time of the shoot, or 2. as […]
One of the key elements of most video productions is music. Music plays a crucial role in most feature films and television programs. It helps set a mood, an historical period, a sense of danger or romance! Most video producers don’t have the luxury or the budget to ask Hans Zimmerman to score their corporate […]
Shooting video with a DSLR camera has lots of advantages. They’re smaller than a traditional video camera and videographers use them for ‘the look’ and I have to agree, that’s the reason I often use my Canon 5D Mk lll. But the one problem all DSLR’s have is sound. My Canon C100 Mk 2 video […]
I’m not sure who said this, but its true. “Viewers will more readily accept poor pictures with great sound than great images with poor sound”. At first reading, this sounds wrong. Surely, it’s all about the image? On-line discussion in video forums, etc seems to be always about the latest camera and its 4K abilities. Isn’t image quality the […]
When The Shooting Stops … The Cutting Begins: A Film Editor’s Story. This is a great book by Ralph Rosenblum, a New York feature film editor. Whilst it’s written about editing with 35mm film, there are some great lessons for any one who is about to sit down to edit their footage. Workflow – plan it […]
One of the key skills a videographer needs is to know how to shoot an interview plus B roll or cutaway footage to tell a story. And there’s a way to get free lessons very night in your living room. TV News and Current Affairs programs are based around the interview. Almost every news story contains the same […]
One of the most misunderstood settings on a video (or still camera) is the one labelled ‘colour balance’. The menu behind this setting often looks like this one. From left to right, these symbols tell you what settings the camera has available – so which one do you select? When colour photography was first invented […]
This post is part 2 of a series on editing your first video. (Read the first post here) Know your Grammar When you write, you use grammar. Grammar is what gives you the structure of a sentence. Defn: Grammar: ‘The study of how words and their component parts combine to form sentences’. Film and video also […]
This is the first post in a series that follows my three earlier posts on check list for your first video shoot. I’m assuming you know your way around whatever NLE you’re using and you’re now ready to start editing the footage you’ve shot. (NLE – Non-linear editing. This describes programs such as Final Cut Pro, Adobe […]