rate my rookie effort

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Permalink Reply by Mike Deal on January 22, 2008 at 11:41pm

I have just a couple of comments to make here besides the fact that I think you did a good job of gathering decent sound with a variety of people and also a good job of shooting the people on the stage as well as the crowd.

First, you need to get your hands on a tripod. The video would have been way better shot the way it was, but with a tripod. Huge difference.

Second, try not to zoom very much... I know its hard, but it will keep the viewer from thinking about the production of the video and focused on the story that you are showing them. If you have to zoom do it really slowly... crawl up to the tight shot or from it.

Experience will make you a better video journalist... the two tips I just gave you came to mind right away because I broke both of them today while shooting a house fire. While driving home tonight I just had to keep telling myself that the important thing was that I could look back and see the mistakes I made, I just have to remember them for the next time.

Permalink Reply by Zac Echola on January 23, 2008 at 12:12am

A few things to note about tripods and zooming:

Think of each frame as an image. The bigger the difference between one frame to the next, the larger your file size.

The harder you compress your video, the more these differences between frames really matter, because they'll result in poorer quality and lots of pixelization.

Stabilize the frame and let the action happen within it rather than creating movement with the frame. You'll save your self tons of headache when editing too.

Permalink Reply by matt king on January 23, 2008 at 8:58am

Thanks,

The effort was hurt by my failure to get more generic crowd reaction that I could have used to interrupt the zooming, I think. In other words, medium range shot of preacher, overlay his audio on crowd shot, back to close up.

Does something like that work?

As for the tripod, is it simply a stability issue or is there some other aspect to it? And how do you shoot an action scene (like a fire) with a tripod?

Permalink Reply by Zac Echola on January 23, 2008 at 10:52am

Every situation is different (so don't take this too literally) but find a point in the center of the action at the fire.

Point the camera at some action in front of you, like the fire. Shoot wide, medium and tight shots for at least 10 seconds each. Turn the camera on action to your left or right and shoot wide, medium and tight shots of people standing around or the trucks. Then do the same behind you.

Then go get your sound bites.

Try not to shoot too much, especially in situations where the video is most valuable immediately. More video means more hassle in editing.

Four angles times 3 shots each gives you 12 different edits to work with. You can start out with a head of someone talking about the fire, cover the sound with multiple shots of the fire, then end with a second person talking about it.

That doesn't mean shouldn't take your camera off your sticks at some point. Just make sure that you hold it steady (if it's a small camera hold it close to your chest. If it's large, get it on your shoulders).

Permalink Reply by matt king on January 28, 2008 at 9:40am

Thanks for that thoughtful analysis (and to all the others as well).

The reason I chose to shoot video is I couldn't think of any reason to write a story, quoting people talking about what MLK means to them, because that story's been written about 47 million times. I was to cover the day, though, and I was relying on the video to make this story different - the music , the fiery preacher, etc.

I'm not sure what someone could have said about MLK in an interview that woulda been compelling. Do you think a slicker video would have obviated that?

I get what you're saying about lingering shots