Intro

As mentioned in the intro, there are a huge number of video cameras on the market. The range in price from a few hundred dollars to thousands. Each will have it’s own settings and features so what follows are some generic tips for best results.

General Camera Use and Tips

• Use a Tripod

  Using a tripod will keep your shots still. Shaky or wobbly camera shots are distracting. Unless there’s a good reason for your camera to be moving, keep it still on a tripod.

• Crop the image

  In general, camera shots should be cropped to what is needed to tell your story. If you are making a documentary about sewing you will want lots of close ups of the person’s hands and the sewing, not shots that are taken 15 feet away from the person. Of course, you will want a few long shots so that people can see the person, the setting that they are in, etc., you just don’t want too much so that they are distracted and miss important points of the story that you are telling.

• Zoom

  It’s best to focus on your subject or scene by zooming in or out and then leaving the camera alone. Be very careful if you are zooming in or out while filming. There are two reasons for this: you don’t want the audience to get motion sickness (or do you?) and some older cameras are kind of glitchy when it comes to zoom. It’s best to experiment a bit and see what kind of results are produced.

• Lighting

  If you are shooting indoors and have special lights, this makes for the best shot. If not, here’s a few things to try to avoid:

  • Shooting a subject placed in front of a window. The camera generally doesn’t adjust properly to the flood of light that is coming through the window and you are left with the subject coming out too dark.
  • Lamps in the scene. Having lamps or other lights in the scene also makes it difficult for the camera to figure out what to adjust to. They can wash out part of the scene or cause unwanted colors (orange or red) to appear in the scene.
• Shutter Speed

  This is related to lighting. The camera has some preset shutter speeds. Some cameras also allow for manual settings. The shutter speed adjusts how much light is let into the camera. The preset shutter speeds are often labeled as: indoors, outdoors, night, etc. It’s best to experiment and see what works best.

• Microphones

  If the camera has an audio input, then plugging microphone into this input will give the best results, especially for interviews. If not, try to limit the amount of background noise in the room or scene and get as close as possible to the person speaking. A certain amount of “clean up” of the audio track can be done in post-production.

• View Finder vs. LCD

  Many camcorders have a view finder and an LCD. The LCD is good for setting up the basic shot but what you are seeing is not what is really going to tape. The display is adjusted to make it easier to view. To make sure that the lighting in your scene is correct, it’s best to check in the view finder.

• Auto Focus vs. Manual Focus

  Professional video cameras have manual focus that allows for fine-tuning of a scene. Consumer camcorders often do not. They have auto-focus. This is intended to make it easier for the user. If you are using auto-focus be careful of scenes where motion is happening at various distances from the camera. In these cases, the camera has a hard time deciding what to focus on and you can end up with a blurry image of your main subject.

• Blue Screen

  A “blue screen” (sometimes green, rarely other colors) is used for compositing two images. What this means is that if you shoot a scene with your actor on a blue background that is evenly and well lit, you remove the blue in post-production and replace it with another image or movie clip. This can give the impression that the actor is somewhere that is either too expensive to go to or create or is simply impossible (e.g. science fiction scenes, think Star Wars). Video editing software makes this fairly easy to do these days. A few things to keep in mind:

  • A “blue screen” doesn’t have to be a screen (or blue!).
  • It needs to be a solid color and evenly lit and bright.
  • The actor should not wear clothes that are the same color as the screen or these things will disappear when that color is removed and replaced with something else.

Activity

Each team should take a camera and do some recording. Each person in the group should have a turn at operating the camera. Recording should be done using by starting and stopping the tape for each “section” that you are recording (we will see why later) - i.e. don’t leave the camera on and just pass it around.

If no other ideas come to you, you can interview each person in the group, eg.

• What is your first name?
• What is your favorite past time?
• Name some place that you would like to visit and why?