Video Noob

We just got finished with our second on-location shoot for MyKidsTurn.com.  This was the first stuff shot for a new podcast called Magic Spell, hosted by Jane Seward.  We shot on location at her house, which had big picture windows for lots of natural light and a warm and muted color scheme in the house.  We had two scenes, one at the bar in the kitchen, and the other on the carpet in front of the fireplace.

For the scene in the kitchen, we used two Lowel Rifa 250w soft boxes for key and fill, and a Lowel Pro 250w for a back light.  To the right of the scene was a big picture window spilling in a lot of natural light, so the combination of the blue light from outside with our warmer pro lights and the warmer colors of the interior of the house mixed very well.  I was also able to achieve a minor shallow depth of field look which I was really excited about.

For the scene on the floor we used a higher wattage light for the key, a Lowel Omni 500w with a diffuser umbrella.  We used another Lowell Pro 250w for the fill, and for back lighting we used the light from the fireplace as well as a few can lights already in room that we could aim for our purposes.

This was our second attempt at an on-location shoot, and I feel that this one went very well.  The house had a good combination of lighting, colors, and eye appeal.  We did go into Jane’s office at the end of the day to shoot an intro episode for her and did run into some problems there.  The office wasn’t very big and problems started to arise with fitting in our lights, cameras, and operators.  The shot had her moving from a desk to a high-backed chair, and we didn’t think to adjust the lighting accordingly, so she wasn’t lit as well once she got to the chair.  There were also large pictures that were hung on the wall that were reflecting our lights, so we had to make adjustments for that.

Overall though, despite our difficulties, I see this shoot as a great success. Lori came by again and took some pictures of everyone and how hard they were working. We are looking forward to more on location shoots, as well as being able to shoot outside more once it warms up.

I shot  a few episodes of the podcast Learn, Grow, Bloom for MyKidsTurn.com today.  Jodi Case, the host of LGB brought in a bunch of outdoorsy type stuff (leaves, sticks, pinecones, etc.) for props, and even showed how to make a worm farm!  LGB is a podcast for parents of very young children, but hey, worms are cool.

The resident ESSDACK photographer, Lori Fast, dropped by to snap a few pictures.

One of the biggest challenges that I’ve had since I started working with video has been my time in Motion.  It occurred to me early on that by simply adding an intro of some kind for the MyKidsTurn.com podcasts, we could make them look much more produced and professional.

I started out trying to do some very basic motion in Final Cut, until the Motion Master Templates were pointed out to me.  Those are basically templates for intros, bumbers, transitions, etc. that came with Motion and are integrated into Final Cut Pro (This probably only comes with the full Final Cut Studio, not the stand-alone programs)

I started looking through the templates in Motion to see which ones looked like they might match any of the shows for MyKidsTurn.com.  I found a template called “Snap” which I thought would work great for the Great Games Better Brains podcast.  I used an audio loop from GarageBand for the music, and made some minimal changes to the template.  Below is the template I started with, and the final product.

Overall I’d say that what I did here was much easier than starting out creating something from scratch, considering my current lack of ability in Motion.

If there is one thing that I’ve learned since I delved into the video world, it’s that video equipment is expensive. We use a Panasonic HVX200 camera in the studio, as well as a few DVX100s occasionally, and both of these models are held by the hand, not rested on the shoulder. There have been a few times where a shoulder mount would have been perfect, but the cheapest ones I’ve seen was over $150!

I did some research and found examples on places like instructables.com where people fabricated their own shoulder mounts. They had differing levels of sturdiness and complexity, but all were DIY, and at very low costs.

We took a few notes, sketched out a rough idea of what materials we needed, and Jerry and I went to the hardware store.

Materials
1/4″ x 2″ aluminum
3/8″ x 5″ carriage bolt
3/8″ acorn nut
Square camera shoe
Rubber pipe insulation tape
3/4″ PVC pipe

We used a door jam to bend the aluminum to fit the shoulder. For the handle, we used a carriage bold with PVC pipe around it, with an acorn nut to tighten it down. The act of tightening the carriage bold clamps down on the PVC pipe, making sure it doesn’t go anywhere. To mount the camera, we used a camera show we had lying around. We used the rubber pipe insulation tape to wrap around the handle and for shoulder padding.

There are a few changes or additions I might make to this now that it’s built, but for $10 in materials and 2 hours time, this project was a definite success.

If you want more information, post a comment and I will get back to you.