Capturing the Holidays

Holidays are the time when we are most likely to grab the video camera and capture family events. For most of us, it is why we bought the camera in the first place. Taping a holiday home movie can be fun, and should be something you will cherish years from now.

Media Notes Episode 10 | Holiday Videos

Capturing holiday events, quick tips and tricks

The holiday video does not have to just document annual events. With a little planning you could create a great video postcard from the family that you send out before the holidays.

The Video Post Card

One topic idea could be to shoot some of the activities where you are getting the house and family ready. If you get a tree, shoot a little sequence of the journey there, choosing “just the right one”, bringing it home and decorating it. If you have young kids have them describe their version of the meaning of these holiday celebrations. Have each member of the family give a message why they are thankful, or who they miss, or what gift they are hoping for, or any topic that has special meaning for your family. And shoot to edit. Don’t be afraid to shoot something more than once, and only use the best version.

A great way to get your video post card ready for distribution is to edit it all together using iMovie or MovieMaker and upload it on to web sharing site like Vimeo, Blip or Soapbox. Write your family letter and include a link or embed the video. For those friends and relatives that are far away, the chance to see your family may be the best gift of all.

Holiday Movies

When it comes time to record the family holiday gathering, here are a few survival tips to make it a movie to remember, in a good way.

First of all, use a tripod whenever you can. I realize most tripods are so clunky and big they could be considered lethal weapons in six states, but they really help improve the watchability (if there is such a word) of your work. Things like breathing and body movement can be exaggerated significantly on your camera, particularly when you are zoomed in. Using a tripod can make your video look more professional, and can eliminate the nausea-inducing movement common to most home video. This is particularly true of the holiday classics like concerts, plays, religious services, gifts, and video taping in low light.

Second, film a few set-up shots of an event before you film the actual event. For instance, film the tree sitting by itself before you film people opening presents, or film people filing into an auditorium for a concert before the actual concert. Hold each shot for at least 10 seconds. When you edit you won’t have to use all of it, so don’t make the mistake of shooting each moment as if it were a snapshot. Just count to ten quietly to yourself until you get a feel for how long is long enough. Years from now you will really appreciate the footage of your holiday decorations, or the holiday meal. Look for camera shots that catch the feeling of where you are and set the scene for your holiday home movie.

As I have indicated in earlier posts, interview your subjects. Have them describe what is happening, have them tell you what is going on around them. If your child performs in the Holiday Pageant, asks him about his performance. If gifts are a part of your celebration, ask your kids what they want the night before, and then get their reaction when they finally discover what’s in all those packages.

No matter how well you plan, how well you shoot, how succinct your interviews, the odds are that you will shoot tons of boring video that no one, not even you, will want to watch again. So shoot to edit and edit what you shoot. It is not that hard. Try to trim out sections of the video that don’t have much going on. If your video looks choppy, a fun idea can be to make a holiday music video. Select your favorite holiday song, and the set clips of your holiday celebration to the music.

Enjoy the Moment

Plan ahead. Plan when you will shoot and when you will put the camera down. Don’t let your camcorder keep you from celebrating the holiday with your family and friends. A home video can give you great memories, but nothing will match the memory of being fully present in the holiday events yourself. Besides, some folks will get really tired of having the camera out all the time, or may not appreciate the intrusion to their vision of the perfect holiday. Keep it in balance and appreciate every moment of the holidays. You only get one shot at it so make it the best you can.

Drew Keller

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Flip over HD

Just when you thought HD cameras couldn’t get any smaller, Pure Digital, maker of the mega-popular Flip camcorders, is rolling out the the MinoHD. This is essentially the Flip Mino shooting 720p HD video.  The Wall Street Journal’s Katie Boehret tested this insanely small profile camera and had generally high praise for this potential game-changer in the consumer HD camera market.  You can see some of her test footage below.

This is not a camera that can be easily dismissed. The New York Times reported that the fastest growing company in Silicon Valley over the past few years was not Facebook, VMWare, or all-mighty Google. According to Deloitte, the professional services firm, it was none other than  Pure Digital Technologies, maker of, you guessed it, the Flip video camera.

The appeal of the Flip has never been incredible optics or a robust feature set… no it is all about simplicity. When my daughter started shooting with flash-based cameras (she was I marveled at the novelty. The rock-bottom price of these cameras put them in the range of an impulse buy at the electronics store. One of the potential challenges that Pure Digital may face is the price for this new camera. It jumps to $230 and puts it out of impulse range and more directly in competition with consumer cameras that have such novel options as an optical zoom, image stabilization and external mic jack.

But this is all about simplicity and you can be certain this camera is simple to operate.

Its internal 4GB of will hold up to an hour of video. I am not personally a big fan of the 720p format. It is a frame size that straddles the line between standard definition (480i) and HD (1080i). Both Sony and Cannon have adopted 1080 as the HD format for their cameras, while JVC and Panasonic have chosen 720. (Can you say VHS v. Betamax?)

 

Most new HD Televisions will handle either format quite nicely. The choice to work in 720 for the Flip Mino is logical. 1080 files are significantly larger and to get smooth recordings would require the ability to write a lot a data very quickly to the memory chip. Not only are you pushing fewer pixels around with the smaller 720 format, you are also pushing fewer 1’s and 0’s. You can record and retrieve files faster. Mixing your Mino footage with content from your Canon or Sony HD camera could be problematic as you will be mixing formats and most current edit packages don’t handle this problem very smoothly.

The new camera also will utilize new FlipShare software. This on-board software platform allows a user to plug the camcorder’s flip-out USB arm into any computer for easy drag-and-drop video organizing, editing and sharing. This has not always been true with past iterations of the software. Particularly when wrestling with a sometimes balky DivX codec.

FlipShare’s use of drag-and-drop video organizing resembles the way that Apple iTunes songs can be dragged into playlists. Users can manage their files, rename and copy through the intuitive interface. They have made following the usual paths of distribution quite easy (save to the computer, play full screen, share via e-mail, upload to YouTube, AOL or MySpace, or create a movie.) On the Mac side, it’s fully compatible with Apple’s video applications, including iMovie and iDVD.

While not quite perfect, and I usually hate to buy the first generation of any technology, I have a feeling I know which camera will be under the tree this Christmas.

 

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Say goodbye to Firewire?

With the rollout of the new MacBook comes the inevitable news that Firewire is dying. The machine is loaded with oodles of new features and many old favorites wrapped in a signature aluminum case. The drag coefficient for this new case must be significantly lower than the old plastic one, and that will be quite handy if I ever leave it on the roof of my car.

The development of this new machine does not herald any new or startling development in the Mac ecosystem, save one. There is no firewire port on the MacBook. And there is no way to add one. You can swap hard drives like you currently swap external drives, and the new track pad reflects the usability of the iPhone and Touch.

But losing the firewire port is a signal that consumers are not going to transfer their video tapes to their machines. No editing, no DVD, no looking back at your old movies when you make that video designed to embarrass your daughter on Prom night. (“Dad! You will NOT show me naked in the tub when I was 18 months old! You will NOT show me tap dancing at the talent show!”)

It is a sure sign that consumers are no longer buying tape-based cameras. Any trip to Circuit City will tell you that. Just try and find a tape-based camera on display. There might be one HDV… two DV. The rest are flash-based or hard drive.

That is fine going forward, but what about our legacy content? What do we do with that? And when the hard drive on our new camera gets full what do we do with the media? I hate tracking and searching file-based content. It is the definition of needle in the haystack. More likely, what happens when that hard drive fails?

I am still struggling with a closet full of legacy content; shelves full of magnetic tape slowly trying to reach a state of stasis. I have Hi8, DV, DVCam, Betamax, VHS, Beta, BetaCam, DigiBeta, DVCPro, D5 and HDCam waiting to get called back into action.

Apple’s decision just reaffirms what I have know all along. Those formats are not coming back into action. In 10 years you will have a very hard time finding a deck that will even play these formats. My kid’s birthdays, my family’s holidays, the business trips and vacations will all be inaccessible.

Truth be told, if you don’t edit your content right after you shoot it, odds are you will never get around to it. The industry knows most of this footage gets shot, viewed once and then forgotten.

Perhaps I need to send a thank-you to Steve Jobs for the wake-up call. This new computer tells me I had better start thinking about how I am going to get my stacks of tape transferred to something I can use. And I need to kiss my firewire dependence goodbye.

 

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Counters, Numbers and Timecode

The first few blog posts here on Media Flow have been rather technical in nature. I am not much of a gear-head, but I find that most often it is the technical details that get in the way of having a great experience shooting and producing personal videos. My hope is if I create a foundation by first discussing technical topics I can then move on to what I consider the fun stuff… insights on narrative and aesthetic techniques for compelling storytelling. I think most folks would much rather learn about how to compose a good shot, or sequence a scene or edit a montage than listen to me drone on about how to load a tape.

With that in mind I present the next episode of Media Notes… Timecode.

Timecode Basics

I know. As far as topics go this one is nay too sexy. But I believe you will spend more time wrestling with timecode issues as you produce your personal movies than you will with any other technical problem. At some time most of you will have challenges that range from duplicate code on your tape; to code that shifts up and down from poor shooting procedures; to problems getting your computer to track and digitize your footage. There is no reason for this wasted time and countless frustrating minutes. A little “timecode hygiene” will keep you concentrating on the fun stuff… the creative stuff.

Timecode is an exceptionally useful and important number. Timecode creates the “where” information on a tape. Each frame has a unique number (unique if you set things up correctly) and that number becomes an address for finding your content. I sometimes think of timecode as a mile marker on the freeway. If I tell you to meet me at milepost 165 southbound Interstate 35 in Iowa, we could both find it. I have nary a clue what is there, but this is a unique address and I can find that point, and you can too.

No matter if you are using tape or file-based media, timecode will be a part of your production process. It certainly will help if you spend a few moments becoming familiar with the how and why of using timecode. Grounding yourself with a few fundamentals is always a good idea.

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It was shot with a still camera…

The line between still and video cameras continues to blur. True, that’s a painful pun, but there is no denying this trend is most evident in top-of-the-line still cameras. If we could look at the names on the waiting list for the Canon 5D Mark II professional S.L.R. I would wager most of them would belong to filmmakers, not still photographers.

This is because the high definition footage from the Canon is mind blowing. It is full motion, 30 frame-per-second, 1080p footage captured on an image sensor the size of a 35mm negative, instead of the video camera’s fingernail sized CCD. Not only is the capture system vastly superior with the S.L.R., but the glass in the lens means the image in the $2,700 camera rivals that of a $100,000 HD camera used for features. Using Canon’s interchangeable lenses means the filmmaker is no longer limited to a zoom lens full of compromises permanently mounted to the camera. You now have a prime lens system with out Redrock. And you have a digital cinema solution without the hype of Red and their proprietary file format hassles.  You have a filmmakers Nirvana. You also have a very long waiting list.

There have even been a few rumors of late that Red pulled their plans to release Scarlet because the 5DM2 chopped the legs out from under it. Honestly, that would not surprise me.

Sure there are compromises. There is no audio to speak of so you are back to double system sound. But heck, I could figure that out using an iPhone or a DVcam.

The Web was buzzing a couple of weeks ago when photographer Vincent LaForet spent a weekend making a short, wordless movie using an early Canon 5D Mark II. He hired a couple of models, grabbed a crew, rented a helicopter, pulled together $5,000, and made an absolutely astonishing-looking piece of video. It was hard to find the thing online—Vincent didn’t want to host it on his own site because of the massive bandwidth required to serve it. (Here’s his writeup, and here’s the “making of” video.)

Finally, David Pogue of the New York Times writes that, “the original video has finally found a place online, and you should have a look.” I could not agree more, you should have a look. And as Pogue writes,  “Just keep telling yourself: ‘It was shot with a still camera. It was shot with a still camera….’”

LaForet | Visuals (in HD)

 

 

 

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Camera Tour Part 2

Media Notes Episode 7 – Camera Tour

The great thing about the creative process is there are no rules. Oh sure, we can talk about the rule of thirds, or don’t cut two wide shots together, or electricity and water are a poor mix. But much of the process of storytelling is driven by your aesthetic sensibilities, not rules. If we were to tell a story about a common experience, each would tell it differently, focusing on details and elements that are important to the teller. To me, that is the cool part of creating videos. What is important to the teller? What do they bring to the story that sheds insight into their view of the world?

My daughter once made a video about her Furby attacking a piece of lawn art. It was a fascinating look at the way my then 8-year-old daughter saw the world. She shot it all on a little flash-based camera, strung the clips together in MovieMaker and was done. I loved seeing what she felt was important to the story and the fluidity of the plot. OK, it was so fluid there was no plot.

Where is this leading? I want to reiterate that much of what I talk about comes from 30 years of experience making TV. My point of view is shaped by a career of breaking stuff. Cameras, software, computers, tripods, more lights than I can count… I learned early that it is best to be careful, but not to be intimidated by the tools or the process. I also learned from literally hundreds of professionals who shared their opinions with me about the best way to make TV. As we continue the camera tour with a look at video tape you will see that I have opinions about the best way to accomplish a task. But they are only opinions, not gospel. The ideas and observations work for me, and have worked for the literally hundreds of students I have taught to be filmmakers. If you disagree, that is totally cool.

And please, don’t send me your lens cap. I have enough already.

 

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Camera Tour Part 1

Episode 6 – Camera Tour Part 1 

I really try and avoid jargon. Too often I slip into the trap and hear myself sounding self-important as I toss acronyms and slang into conversation. For instance, why say LCD screen when screen will do just fine? Calling it liquid crystal or plasma isn’t going to directly affect my shooting. And numbers get displayed on a screen… for me the screen is not a display. What is the point here? Well in this episode I am starting a jargon-free tour of the common video camera.

Many of you are very familiar with your camera, so the material in today’s episode may seem obvious. For example, if you have been shooting for a while you certainly know where to find the on/off switch. But there is a huge population of folks out there that are really intimidated by all the knobs, buttons and glass on a camera. I watch my wife try and shoot with anything beyond our Flip and her anxiety ratchets up appreciatively. This video blog episode, and the next, are not really geared for the power user, although I hope everyone finds something new. They are geared for those who leave their camera in the closet or under the bed, unused and unloved. The users who have hours of unseen footage in a box. Those of you who can’t figure out why your footage is not what you expected.

My goal here is to create an invitation to those who are intimidated by the technology, the complication and the impenetrable mystique of creating personal media. My hope is to open the door to those who begin a task like editing a home movie and quit because they don’t know where to start. So in the spirit of beginning at the beginning, we start with where to find the power switch.

 

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Interviews

The process of teaching some of the finer points of personal video production can be somewhat chaotic. Where do you begin? What is helpful to one may be obvious or uninspiring to another. An important part of the task over the next few months is to build a body of content that will present a foundation in the basics of digital video. It is a lot of ground to cover.

Episode 5 – Interviews

I expect much of this content will be about how you can use your camera to tell your story. The choices you have available may seem a subtle at first but they can dramatically affect your video.

Let’s take camera height. All too often we see footage of a child taken from the adult’s point of view. We watch home movies where we see are the tops of a lot of little heads and upturned faces. When I shoot kids, or anyone for that matter, I work to set the height of the camera to be level with the eyes of the subject. That means when I am photographing someone less than six feet tall (my height) I take the camera off my shoulder and drop it to the right height. This can make a huge difference. Take a look at the power of the little girl describing peacocks in this episode’s video. She talks directly into the camera, she is full of energy, and we have a glimpse into her world. I certainly am not the first to point out that the world of a four-year-old can have the same power and insight as that of a fifty-four-year-old. Thinking about your camera position will help you to show the moment with integrity.

This episode is not about camera angles, oddly enough. It is about how you can tell a story. When we shoot home movies we usually just spray the camera around the room. Hosing down the event as if the place was on fire. We see Uncle Ed in the corner, there is Aunt Ethel at the table with her Niece, and look, there is the toddler unwrapping a gift. It is a string of random moments with little connective narrative. A great way to create home movies you will treasure for a lifetime is to interview the people in your video. Have them tell you what they are doing, how they feel, what is important about the day or the event, who they are, why they are there… I think you get the idea. This is your chance to play journalist and ask them who, what, when, where, why and how. It is not an inquisition, but their answers can give perspective to otherwise confusing footage. Besides, you will have the added benefit of using your interviews as the narrative spine of your video.

You Can Edit. Really

Editing sometimes seems like so much alchemy. Managing all the cables and software can feel overwhelming. But the learning curve for editing does not have to be steeper than the face of an isosceles triangle.

Episode 4 – You Can Edit. Really

You can, and should, edit your footage. There are a multitude of resources available to you for managing your footage. Whether you are on a PC or Mac, there are solutions that will do a great job and are already built right into your computer. While videotape is far from dead, we are seeing more and more cameras that record the image to a file, making moving and managing your video as easy as moving and editing a Word document. Finally, with the expansion of video on the internet, we will begin to see more and more web-based editing applications where you can edit and distribute your work with a minimum of muss and fuss.

But it does take practice to become familiar with the process. It is not all that difficult to do and you can have success within the first few minutes. This is especially true with the Beta build of Movie Maker. This package appears to be a few months away from release, but shows tremendous promise. I expect to spend a fair amount of time exploring it with you as they get closer to release. In the interim we have iMovie, Windows Movie Maker, Premier, and many other apps.

You have to start somewhere, so dive right in. It won’t be perfect at first, but you need to start somewhere. Simply, just start editing your videos. You will see that the story you have to tell is important, and that more folks will listen as you eliminate the bumpy spots in your footage. Eventually you will learn how to add sound, organize the footage, and use basic editing techniques. But you can’t learn until you start. Find the courage to poke around the editor that is waiting for you.

 

 

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Media Notes Episode 3 – Get Up and Move

 

Episode 3 – Get Up and Move

We have all endured the excruciating home movie. You know the one… a single wide shot of “Little Johnny” or “Little Judy” running around a field playing some sort of pee-wee sport. The camera is locked on a wide shot, the kids are dots in the back ground. A proud mom or dad offers commentary about how, “there is my kid. The blue smudge over there.”

A Wild West dentist would inflict less pain than these parents. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Shot variety is a great way to propel a story or event. Wide shots should be left to the domain of surveillance footage, establishing shots and weather cameras. As photographer and story teller it is up to you to choose what is important and communicate that point of view with your camera. It is all about how you frame the shot. This episode introduces you to the notion of shot variety and camera placement. There are a number of thoughts about how you can convey emotional messages by how you position your subject in the frame, and in future episodes we’ll explore the logic and emotion behind the choices you make. For now, I just want you to start thinking about where you could be to make your shots more interesting.

It is not difficult and once you practice moving around you will find that you are placing your camera and framing your shots by intuitively knowing what is best for your story. There is no need for intimidating theories and a pile of jargon. Let’s keep it simple. Get up and move. Often closer is better. Look at the corners of your shot, is there anything distracting there? What feels right?

Shooting your home movies is not a test, it should be fun. Sure, there are times where the final outcome is not the vision you had. But that is how we learn. There are events in your family that can not be repeated and if you stop using your camera because you are afraid you will make a mistake, well that would be the real mistake.

I love shooting everyday stuff. After a while all the Christmas packages look the same, but the water fight in the back yard, the inflatable pool, bath time, dinner in a high chair… those have a special beauty in their own right. Most of life is lived in the in-between moments, not just during life’s milestones. So be certain to capture life’s little pleasures. Twenty years from now having your four-year-old daughter sleeping under your arm will only be a sweet memory. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could revisit the moment with more than your mind’s eye.

 

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