Video Breakthrough, Video Setback
Possibly too late to matter, but I have finally started doing video projects for both schools.
One had a set of interviews for a giving day launch and one is hosting the Relic of the blessed Carlo Acutis exhibition, soon to be sainted.
The first job could not have been easier.
My brief was simple and to the point, all direction left to me and I had a decent amount of time (about an hour). Gear was minimal as I knew the location was capable of producing good light, asa long as I had some freedom to setup.
I asked one principal to talk to me for a minute or two, using interview style and it went perfectly. I expecting to have to interview two, but after a simple prompt question, he gave me almost two minutes of unbroken and on point audio, then some stills and b-roll and I was done. I did nothing to the base clip apart from some light grading, then added some other elements and all was done in twenty minutes.
ed. turns out this has gone right to the head of Catholic Education thinking in the state.
Interview style which puts most subjects at ease, was a good lesson I learned from the paper. S5II, 35mm Lumix with APS-C crop (tend to crop this lens rather than change to my 50 to keep colour identical, the 50/75 is used for more controlled interviews), 1080/422/10 bit/Flat with the MKE-600 low in front into a Zoom H5.
After a frustratingly long Dropbox upload, then a spelling mistake fixed and a re-load, it was done same day. Uploading took longer than total production.
I find stills, the thing I have the most experience in, come easily as video fillers and are a perfect in this context.
The other job, in stark contrast was a multi person, multi location, multi day, stylistically mixed and very last minute moveable feast. It was a good example of being overthought, over controlled and then, with rigid time constraints, under produced. I feel a minute of planning is work three in the field.
Some great footage thanks to solid people and lucky locations, but very mixed and some clangers unfortunately. Control in video production is paramount, something I had very little of. The original concept was to show this subject with the flags and mural the space is known for (high above left in the shot), but the realities of lens science and geometry won and the shoot through teleprompter requires a certain dynamic. The compromise was a walk through wide shot, when we could have used a low pan around the subject (the "Michael Bey") to a smooth head turn to camera and had both.
The one big take away from it was the use of “walk and talks”, which something I feel are used simply because gimbals allow them (basically vlogging backwards), not because they are actually any good.
Professional talent and crews can pull them off, but rarely do anyway, amateurs have little chance but try more often. I was even shown a sample and it was wooden and fragile at best.
They were the two shoots that took ages and in one case had 14 takes with the poorest results of the day! The kids had no rehearsal time, they were not practiced at it, neither was I and the whole thing became just a mess of semi-useful bits, which looked stilted and amateurish.
Unfortunately in both cases they were the first shoots, so held up all the rest.
The students were given the small but wordy script on the same day, the day they were also in house debating comps, so brains were full I am sure, then they were asked to walk in pairs, often after meeting for the first time (older and younger campus students) at a measured pace, while interweaving their presentation.
To my mind, if the movement is to include both camera and subject, it needs to be non-distracting or the message is lost. In a nutshell, only action movies or art films can get away with the camera being busier than the subject. A movement owning the shot is counterproductive.
Creative interaction was three degrees away, time was limited in the extreme, so we made the most of what we had, but it could have been better with some creative license.
I must admit, the whole thing got me a little “gimbal jittery”, but I have worked through that.