Seven Deadly Camera Sins - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Seven Deadly Camera Sins

by Jim StinsonSlide2

Seven Deadly Camera Sins

Good programs start with good camera work. No matter how carefully you plan a show or edit your material, you can’t make a good video out of lousy footage. Garbage in, garbage out!

Quality video recording is surprisingly easy to do, as long as you avoid the seven deadly sins of camera operation!Slide3

Seven Deadly Camera Sins

1.)

Firehosing

2.)

Snapshooting

3.) Headhunting

4.) Backlighting

5.)

Motorzooming

6.) Upstanding

7.) JoggingSlide4

Firehosing

Firehosing

means turning the camera on and then aiming it vaguely at one thing for a moment

and jumping from subject to subject.

In

short,

firehosing

is the sin of not knowing what you want to shoot.

You wave the camera around in the hope of capturing something, and because you never land on anything for more than an instant you irritate viewers and make them potentially seasick!Slide5

How to avoid Firehosing

To avoid this most common of all camera sins, simply frame each shot before you roll tape.

Shoot long enough so that viewers can make sense of the image, and stop the camcorder before framing the next shot.

When you edit your footage, it’s o.k. to keep

r

olling while your waggling

your

way from shot

A to shot B because you will delete the

firehosing

between the two when you edit.Slide6

Avoiding Firehosing

What if you really want to pan, tilt, or zoom between compositions to show the relationship between them?

Start by framing, but not shooting, a rehearsal composition of shot B.

Then set up shot A, lay down the footage, and move smoothly and decisively to frame shot B.

Your viewers will accept and enjoy the move because it looks planned and well

excecuted

.Slide7

Snapshooting

Snapshooting

means making shots too short to view comfortably-

shots suitable for a machine-gun car commercial or a hyper music video

Snapshooting

results from two bad habits:

1.) Unconsciously treating the camcorder like a still camera.

2.) Failing to shoot head and tail footage.Slide8

Snapshooting

It is essential that you roll tape at least three or four seconds before the action you want and another three or four after it apparently ends.

There are two important reasons for shooting this “bookend” materialSlide9

Snapshooting: Bookend material

1.) Leading footage starts recording a control track before the essential action begins. In editing, that track will display

timecode

numbers so that you can cue the shot to hit a precise edit point.

2.) Bookend footage offers you options in adjusting start and end points for the edited shot.

Without head and tail footage, you’re stuck with the edit choices you made on the fly.Slide10

Headhunting

Headhunting

is framing

subjects so that their eyes are in the exact center of the image: half way up and halfway down

Centering people is natural because that’s the way we look at them in real life, eye to eye.

Our human vision however does not have an unforgiving border around it and in this composition where it centers the eye looks well, dumb!Slide11

How to Avoid Headhunting

Use your Rule of Thirds!!

Keep the subjects eyes on or above and imaginary horizontal line one-third of the way down from the topSlide12

Backlighting

Backlighting is the sin of posing subject (usually one or more people) in front of

a lit source so

that the important foreground and subject

darker

than the unimportant background.

There is too much light exposure for the camera and the subjects become dark silhouettesSlide13

How to avoid Backlighting

Notice your surroundings and study the image in your viewfinder. If it does not clearly show detail in people’s faces or other important foreground elements, you’ve got backlighting

Move the camcorder and subjects until the foreground of your shot is at least as bright as the background.

To eliminate sky start with a higher camera position

At the beach turn away from the glare off the waterSlide14

Motorzooming

Motorzooming

is the sin of…zooming!

No matter how nifty your camera features may be, on-screen zooms are a dull waste of viewer time and professionals don’t use them except in two circumstances:

1.) Real-time coverage like news and sports, when the need to keep an image on the

screen

mandates zooming between compositions.

2.) Situations that require a progressive revelation of the image: The dark figure at the door pulls a sinister tool from her pocket to reveal that it

is (zoom in)…her

door key!Slide15

Avoiding Motorzooming

If you have a zoom lens, zooming is inescapable because it’s the only way to change image size without physically moving forward or back.

So….plan your shots to eliminate these zooms.

If not able to eliminate while shooting you can edit them out later.Slide16

Upstanding

A

sin

of shooting everything from standing eye

level

M

uch

of the world is better viewed from higher or lower anglesSlide17

How to avoid Upstanding

Shoot children, pets, flowers, and

other

critters from their own levels.

Lower the tripod and tilt the view finder upward

Raise the camcorder for dramatic establishing shots

Even if the subject doesn’t require it, a new angle makes a welcome change from the endless progression of eye-level shots.Slide18

Jogging

Jogging is the sin of walking while shooting.

Moving shots are dramatic and exciting, so go for them but to ensure that most of the movement is forward rather than up and down, observe these simple rules for hand held shooting:Slide19

Avoiding Jogging

Zoom the lens to its wide-angle setting to minimize shake.

The telephoto position magnifies the jitters along with everything else.

Don’t touch the viewfinder with your

forhead

(a snap if you have an LCD screen finder).

Walk with both knees and elbows bent so that your arms and legs act as natural shock absorbers.Slide20

Avoiding Jogging

Move much more slowly than normal

, so that the scene passing your lens has a chance to register with viewers.

Pretend the camcorder you’re carrying is a very full, very hot cup of cocoa—and you’d better not spill a drop!