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other pages welcome | course | syllabus | reports pre-production | production | post-production: director's cut | editing the producer's cut |
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While actual shooting the video can be the most intense and fun phase
of the whole process,
it is the most expensive in terms of time and other scarce resources.
Good pre-production maximizes the potential of the production phase.
What follows is a compendium of good advice, things
that I've learned from experience, AKA mistakes and dumb decisions. The
best one-stop source for more:
First and foremost, this is teamwork. You won't be able to do this without the help of your actors and crew. Running a close second behind teamwork: you're the director! Everyone is there to help, but you have to tell them what to do. Everyone is busy and wants to get on to their next class or to the after-shoot party. Do everyone a favor by being prepared and decisive.
The best thing you can do for the actors is to give them a script and have them rehearse it.
The best thing you can do for the crew is to have a well thought out, detailed shot list.
You will need at least two crew in addition to the
actors. If you try to perform any of these roles yourself, you are
asking too much of yourself. That's like trying to play two positions
on the field during a game.
cinematographer (camera operator)
The director will spend most of the time next to the camera, looking through the viewer, telling the actors and production manager what to adjust, and discussing things with the cinematographer. The cinematographer is responsible for the camera and the tape, for monitoring the sound through a headset, and for keeping the shot in frame. The cinematographer has to be able to say that another take is necessary because the sound/lights/framing wasn't what the director wanted.
You will need a second camera operator only if you will
use a second camera during a given shot.
production manager(s)
You will need one or more classmates to manage the set during the shoot: lights, sound, sets, props, costumes. Every production will have a unique set of tasks that will fall to the production manager.
Everyone on the set needs to take responsibility for the production values. However, the checklist below will be very useful for thecinematographer and production manager(s) in the sense that attending to them will lead to Genny Award nominations. Plus you're learning something useful.
Video cameras love light and there is only so much you can do later during the post-production editing process. Your best bet is to pay a lot of attention to lighting and sound during the actual taping. The following checklist of equipment assumes that you have a good shot list and that the actors are rehearsed.
Before each and every
shot ...
___ Is the tape ready at the beginning of enough empty tape? That is, don't tape over what you've already done. This happens when you look at what you taped yesterday and leave the camera stopped mid-way through yesterday's. Then you tape over it the next day.
___ Is the set ready? Are all the people and things ready to go?
___ Are the actors miked? Is the boom ready (and out of
the frame)?
___ Is the sound working? The best way to ensure that is for your camera operator to be wearing headphones.
___ Is the shot framed? Look through the viewer and
keep adjusting until you get it right. If actors move during the shot,
how does that affect the framing? Try to avoid camera movement during a
shot.
___ Is the shot lit? Make sure there is enough light.
Look for hot spots, reflections, shines.
___ Is the shot consistent? That is, given the context
for this shot in the finished video, are the lighting (especially
tricky outdoors), costumes, hair styles, set, props, etc. consistent?
For example, if you're taping a dicussion in a restaurant, don't keep
moving the flower vase on the table unless we see a character moving
it. Otherwise, it appears to be hopping around on its own.
___ Has the camera moved? If so, is the point of view intact? That is, has the line been crossed, which will result in a reverse cut during editing? You want to never cross the line.
___ If you are stopping the tape after every shot,
remember to leave a 4-second handle at the beginning and end of every
take.
Video cameras love light and there is only so much you can do later during the post-production editing process. Your best bet it to pay a lot of attention to lighting during the actual taping.
The most important thing to remember: the camera is not attached directly to your brain, as are your eyeballs. What you "see" standing in a room is not what the camera "sees" standing in that same room.
Example 1: Your eye will adjust to a dimly lit room and see plenty of details. To the camera, those details will be a grainy blur.
Example 2: Your eye will adjust to a white shirt. To the camera, that shirt will be a blown-out white blotch and everything else will be too dark.
Solutions: use lots of light and don't have any whites in the scene, especially characters' clothes. Dark solids work best.
Your options, from most to least desirable for a well-lit scene:
1 - on a stage like the TV studio on the lower level of Main or the Lecture Hall. There are no windows, so you have complete control over the light. The TV studio offers the most lighting options.
2 - outside on a day with no sun but only light cloud cover; lots of light and no shadows.
3 - inside in a big, well-lit space like a gym where the lights are out of the way and tend to cancel out the shadows.
4 - outside in sun. Keep the sun behind the camera and be careful about reflections off windows and cars. Shooting from shadow into light or from sunlight into shadow requires special attention to exposure and focus.
5 - inside with artificial light.
6 - inside with daylight through windows.
7 - outside at night.
Every camera has a couple of buttons or menu items to adjust for lighting conditions. Be especially careful to make the distinction between yellow (incandescent) and blue (fluorescent) light indoors. Also, be careful if you are using more than one camera that they are all set similarly.
You should also be able to push a button or turn a wheel to increase/decrease the amount of light coming in. In the sun, you want to decrease it until you don't see any more blown-out spots on the white colors in the scene. In the dark of night, you probably want to increase it as far as you can.
If you are using the green screen, be especially
careful about the light to save yourself problems later on.
Video cameras on automatic focus make note of the brightest thing in front of them and focus on that. The human eye, however, especially in combination with the human brain, sees things differently. Thus, if you shoot a scene indoors of two people talking with a wall lamp in the background, your eye will see a lot of detail in their faces. The camera, however, will have the lamp perfectly in focus and the people's faces dark and murky. Switching to manual focus can solve the murky faces problem, but only getting rid of the lamp's light can solve the dark faces problem.
Don't point at a light, whether indoors or outdoors at night, and especially the sun or sun glancing off metal and glass surfaces. Turn it out, move the light, move the actors, move the camera.
The College has a light kit that you can borrow. It is designed to be used indoors on location.
In general, point the camera away from the light and have the light bounce off the actors' faces.
Please note that these guidelines are for well-lit scenes. If you want murky suspense, or a sun-dazzled washed-out ski scene, go for it!
All video cameras have a built-in microphone, but that doesn't mean you should use it.
If you are taping an interview in a quiet room such as the College TV studio with the camera on a tripod two feet in front of the person being interviewed, then the microphone in the camera will work just fine. At the other end of the spectrum would be the extreme difficulty of recording the dialogue between two basketball players running down the court after the go-ahead shot during a championship game. They're moving and panting in a delirious sold-out gym.
One? One for each actor?
The shotgun or boom mic could be directly fed into the camera, preferably through the bigger XLR and not the smaller mimi jack. Or several lapel mics could be run through a mixer and that output fed into the camera, again preferably through the XLR connection. Or the sound could be recorded separately and then synced with the video. If each voice is its own computer file (.wav or .mp3, for example), then you can compensate for almost any problem with the software during post-production.
For concerts, live music, and situations were the sound will be seriously loud, see whether you have a Mic Attn setting. Switching to it will cut the level of the sound before it reaches the tape.
CHECK THE LEVELS Always wear a set of headphones and check the sound before pressing record. Check the audio levels. They should peak at around minus twenty decibels. If the levels are too low adjust them manually, get closer or ask your subject to speak up.
DISTORTION If the source is very loud, the audio levels will go off the scale. This tells you the sound is distorting. This is a bad thing and cannot be cured later. To avoid distortion switch the control on the audio panel to Mic att. This will cut the levels and stop distortion.
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add the
voices later either by dubbing (matching the orginal) or voice-over.
plan on
video that doesn't need voices.
The one could be on a boom held toward or over the actors. Each actor could have one clipped to a lapel. Those clip mics are also called lavalier mics or lapel mics.
When you arrive at a location check it for noise. Try to eliminate any unwanted background noise. If it's still too noisy, go somewhere else. If you have to shoot in a noisy location, show the vierer why it's noisy. For example, show the cars in the shot so that the viewer can identify the source of the traffic noises. This helps the viewer focus on what is being said.
Some clip, radio, reporter microphones record sound from all
directions. If you use them, be careful about extraneous sounds on the
set or location.
Directional microphones like the shotgun mic register sound coming from in front of the microphone. They pick up less background noise, which is useful when filming in a noisy area.
Stick microphones are good for conducting
interviews on camera. But they cover an arc of sound from all
directions so they need to be close to the source.
Clip microphones are designed to be clipped to the contributor’s clothing. Like reporters mics they are omni-directional and need to be close to the source. Clip mic’s pick-up close sounds. Clothes rustling and even heavy breathing can be a problem. So be careful where you clip them.
Gun microphones are directional. This means they pick up a narrow beam of sound from in front of the microphone. All mics are sensitive to wind blast. With a gun mic a foam or fluffy shield should always be used when outside. Gun mics are best operated on a pole. They are great for reacting to spontaneous action. The microphone must always be pointed at the person talking. And be careful the mic doesn’t drop into the shot. Learn where the edge of the frame is.
Simply DV's Sound Sense. See “What NOT to do with a mic”
Pandora's Tips for Mics
DV Info's Troubleshooting
DV Ccreators' Common production audio killers
Your first and almost only choice is to mount the camera on a tripod and hold it still.
Avoid zooming during a shot. Turn (swivel) the camera very slowly, if at all. Be very careful about moving the whole camera or camera operator during a shot. The camera is not (usually) a character.
Your next best choice is to rest the camera on a shelf, ledge, wall, rock, or piece of furniture to get the angle you want.
Only on rare occasions should you use a hand-held camera. Have good reason to do so. And please note that you probably won't be able to hold it still enough for as long as you'll need to.
Today's audiences expect a lot of action on the screen, quick cuts from one shot to another. Or you may have a complicated set, as we did for the So You Think You Can Dance video that we taped in the Lecture Hall last fall. We had three cameras: one in the center of the audience pointed at Joe while he danced concentrating on head close-ups and his upper body, one on the judges, and the third from off to the side concentrating on full-body shots and his feet.
When you are shooting, don't
forget to shoot extra
footage extra
footage that you can cut away to. It can be an off-camera character
listening, a shot establishing a character's point of view (what he/she
is seeing), and context shots of the outside of the building or of the
weather.
Many locations on campus
are optimal for taping your videos. Here are a few of the obvious ones.
The best all-around option
for lighting and sound. The only option for green-screening. It already
has multiple cameras. The stage can be decorated in any way you want.
On the downside, it is small and the ceiling is low. It is in high
demand, soit must be
reserved ahead of time.
The lighting is terrific and the sound can be easily made so. It is large, giving a lot of options for camera placements and active scenes. On the downside, you have to bring cameras and you will probably want a shotgun mic on a hand-held boom. It is also in high demand, so see me about reserving it through the Registrar's Office.
This is a more home-like space than the TV studio. The lighting is good and so are the acoustics if you're mindful of noise from the hallway.
This is the new space on the fourth floor of the Main Building. It has great natural lighting and the sound is pretty good. I'm curious to see how it works as a production space. It is student-run, so you should check with the staff well before you want to use it.
The lighting will be fine, and the acoustics may be good enough that you don't need microphones. As long as a classroom is empty, you're welcome to use it until the next class or scheduled event needs it.
The lighting will be a challenge and you will want to use a boom or shotgun mic.
The lighting and sound will be a challenge, but you have hallways, stairways, bathrooms, bedrooms, laundry rooms, and a variety of other useful, adaptable spaces.
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