Do your home movies turn out like bad? Let’s be honest here. The majority of folks that ‘shoot video’ are normally not composing and shooting, but rather pointing and hoping. So what separates the JJ Abrams from the JJ amateurs (The answer is not lens flares). Well, it boils down to a couple of things, that if employed, will increase the quality and polished look of your home videos. Hey, you may even realize you were better than you thought all along.
- KNOW YOUR GEAR
I’ve been asked many times to help price out cameras for people. I get people telling me that they do not want to spend more than a couple hundred dollars on it and that they want it very high quality. Well, unless you like using a GoPro (which is a good option for many) you will be very disappointed with the end results of the couple hundred dollar budget. True, the gap is closing as far as cost over quality is concerned, but it isn’t at the point to where we can safely get away with a cheap-o.
The point is this, owning a camera is one thing. Knowing your camera is another. I don’t just mean where the record button is, but where it came from, how much was it? Is it used? All of these questions may nip the ‘quality’ issue right in the butt from the start. Don’t cheap out on video gear I always say, but if you must then know your gear and don’t over expect.
- TRIPOD
The shaky cam movement is really starting to get popular with action and even adventure scenes. If you’ve seen Hunger Games you know what I mean when I say shaky cam. The camera shakes (almost nervously) in and edgy handheld type of way. While sometimes this can add to technique, I’m pretty sure you don’t want your child’s birthday or a wedding shot in this format. This is where the tripod will come in. In essence the tripod will stabilize your video and make it as smooth as silk compared to just holding it (yes, even resting it on your body will still be shaky). As you get more familiar with video you may choose to step away from the tripod, but for now just keep it with you and shoot with it. Look at it this way, your family won’t need Adderall when they watch your home videos anymore.
- LIGHTS
You may have immediately thought about lighting in your house or potentially in the venue in which you are in. You are basically shooting yourself in the foot (not by camera) if you rely on the lighting available in the venue you are shooting.What happens when you are demanded to stay in a dark corner? What happens when a light burns out in the room you are in? What happens when a storm passes by? (I’m writing this from Florida so this happens a lot). The point is this, you never know where or when ‘the darkness’ will creep up on you. Here is something you need to know, cameras (at the moment) do not see what we see. I would venture to say that at best they see 90 percent of what we see (and that is the expensive stuff). Until that technology is around you will need a good lighting kit. Check out the links in the ‘download’ section to get a good idea of some lighting kits you could use.
- COMPOSE
I plan on doing a post just on this, but we’ll start it off with this small paragraph. Shot composition is, according to the dictionary: an organization of pictorial images in a frame. Basically how you frame the story you are telling. Be it a birthday party or a full length film, composition is important for everyone to “get” what you are doing. We’ll go more in depth later, but for now remember this statement. Every inch of the area that fits on the camera’s screen is important at all times.
So hopefully this is a good head start on shooting. Each one of these could have its own blog in all honesty, but for now we’ll keep it short.
>>THE DOWNLOAD
- Lighting Kit: http://www.amazon.com/LimoStudio-Photography-Portrait-Umbrella-Continuous-Lighting/dp/B005FHZ2SI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1423107766&sr=8-1&keywords=Lighting+kits
- More Lighting Kits:
3) How to compose a shot: http://courses.iddl.vt.edu/DEDCM001/sa/11sacompostion.html