Blog/Vlog

Been doing Television for over 30 years now, and I’ve been mentored by some great cameramen and women.  At the encouragement of others I think it’s time I paid it forward. Planning on uploading some blogs about the gear I use, why I pick certain items for my kit, and general work flow.  Stay tuned, I’m not sure where this is going.

Improving your Zoom, FaceTime, Skype look

Zoom, Facetime, and Skype are all now accepted platforms, both for meetings and broadcasters. You want to look your best and have a decent quality audio and video.  Here are a few things to keep in mind.

Web camera

Laptop webcams, or separate web cameras are a personal choice.  While the built-in cameras in most computers could be considered adequate, you may want to improve on the quality of the image. Make sure you have an HD signal (often referred to as 1080 or1920x1080)  

Background

·     Ideally you want to have separation between you and your background, and the more separation, the better. What you don’t want is to have your back right up against a wall.   

·     Uncluttered is best. Make sure there is nothing too distracting behind you. A nice clean look is preferable. You may also need to consider any personal items or photos that you may not wish to be in view.

·     You will want to make sure you are centered in the frame. There is now AI software available that attempts to frame you and ensure that you are centered.  While this may be good for Zoom, in a broadcast environment it will cause you to jump around the frame. I would highly suggest you turn it off as well as any blur or other inserted backgrounds. 

·     No windows behind you that will shut down your iris and leave you looking like you are in the dark. Unless you have adequate front lighting. 

Eyeline or height of your camera:  It is extremely important that your web camera is at, or preferably higher, than eye level.   You want to appear at your best and looking down at the camera can produce an unflattering image.  A stack of books, or anything solid can help you achieve the height you need. People will not see what the camera is sitting on! 

Framing: You should try to be approximately 24 inches away from your camera.  As you get closer to the lens, a fisheye affect will start to appear.  Look into the lens as much as you can.  Headroom, the area above the top of your head, should be an inch or two at most.  

Lighting: Additional “fill lighting” on the face is preferred.  I do not recommend ring lights as they add an “alien eyes” affect.  It does not have to be bright.  Just enough to fill your eyes in slightly.   If you will be wearing glasses, a higher light position will assist in reducing glare.  

Audio: Your laptop mic is not going to provide optimal sound quality. If possible, I’d highly recommend a better microphone option.  AirPods are a good first step as they also work for in-ear monitoring.  A headset mic is a second choice.  If you wish to go all in, then the Rode PodMic USB would give you solid audio. When working with broadcasters, they will normally send you what is called a “mix minus” return.  Basically, it is all the other voices, but without your voice coming back to you, often with a slight delay which can be very distracting.  Some software will have a check box under audio settings.  You may wish to test it out and engage it.  

If you have any questions, concerns, or wish to do a test with your system just let me know.

Social Media Kit

We now live in a world where content for social media can make all the difference in your business succeeding.   Not only are you running a business, you need to feed the machine to keep raising you profile.   What I’ve noticed is that many people who are trying to create content run in to the wall of what do I buy?   Perhaps I can help.

First you need to decide what kind of content you wish to create, and what platforms are you going to focus on?  If its just stills and product shots, your phone will probably do most of what you need.   But, if you wish to expand into video, you might want to look at adding some gear.   If it’s product shots, do you have enough light?  What kind of lights should I buy? What about audio?  Do you have a set of AirPods?  They might be good enough, but if you’re looking to chat with a second person, how are you going to mic them?   

If you want to get serious about it and build out a more complete package that gives you flexibility and room to grow, I’ve included what I’ve think is a pretty robust kit that travels well. Keeps your costs lowish, and you can build it out at your own pace.  In other words do just go out and buy the whole thing, pick up a piece or two at a time and get comfortable with them.   

I’d be happy chat about the kit, your business and you content and help you improve both.  

Camera iPhone or Android smartphone. 

SmallRig x Brandon Li Mobile Lightweight Video Kit for iphone. $180.00 USD

USB-C Hub 4-in-1 PD/USB-C 3.1/USB-C 2.0 with Audio Adapter. $30.00 USD

DJI mic 2 $480 CDN

Lights Indoor Amaran Ace Kit $140.00

Optional DJI Gimbal OSMO 6 $195 CND 

Tripod orLight stand

Do you have a Workflow?

Workflow, one of the buzzwords of today’s media production landscape.  I hate buzzwords.  But this one I’m willing to use.  Some readers may have no experience with a tape based system.  But back in the day, you shot to tape, ingested tape, and even edited on tape!  Now it’s cards to drives to files to client, for the most part.  Below is how I have been working since 2014 when I went freelance full time.

The shoot- 

My main camera is a Sony FS7 which shoots XQD cards. The B camera is a Sony A6500 recording to SD cards. Additional footage maybe from GoPro’s, drones, hand-held gimbals, and even iPhones. These are for the most part, micro SD cards.   I also use a PixE5 which has both an SD card recording H264 and it’s own Speeddrive which captures ProRes files.  That is a shit load of codecs, cards and file types.   

Backing it up-

At the end of every shooting day, be it a single day or like some of the outdoor programs I’ve shot, multi day, I always download the footage, back it up and clear the cards.   I like to have two copies on two different hard drives.  Remember, “two is one, one is none”.  I don’t know who coined it or if I got the quote right, but I believe in it.  

For the most part, I travel with double the media space I think I’ll need.  Here is where I will cheapen out and use Western Digital Passport drives.  Good old Costco seems to have them pretty cheap.   Do yourself a favour, and label one A and the other B.  Or come up with you own way to tell them apart.  

Now the fun part, cracking a beer and watching the computer.   I use Shotput Pro.  You can just copy your cards, but I’m a firm believer in a “Verified Copy” of every card.  Why? Cause shit happens.  By checking every bit against the original, its pretty hard to wind up with it cocked up.   Yes it takes time, but didn’t you just do best job you could shooting that media? Do you really want to get part way through a project and have a corrupt file or a whole card suddenly say F@#K YOU? I didn’t think so.  How do I do the file structure and naming convention?  Make a folder, call it what ever you want.  Project X, Location, Client Name then Location.  Just something distinctive.   For example, one from the summer, TNFF18_WhiteCliff.  Short form I use to identifying the client TNFF. Year it was shot in, 2018. Location of the shoot, WhiteCliff Lodge.   Now I subfolder it by WC_Day 1, WC_Day 2, WC_Day 3, etc. Next I would go with a folder indicating what camera.  A_Cam, B_Cam, Drone, Gimble, GoPro A, GoPro B etc.  You could easily skip the organizing by Day, but to each their own.  

Once all the cards are copied, I tend to do a spot check.  First and last file from each card, and a couple in the middle.  It confirms for me that everything is working as it should.    Next up I would then copy the WD Passport A Drive to the B Drive.  Once I have my A&B Drives and I’ve done a spot check, only then do I wipe the cards.   I suggest you format the cards, but you can delete them and move on, but I find a format is more of a better purge of the card.  Just deleting clips can leave some orphaned files that could come back to haunt you.  That is just my opinion.  

Pre edit and edit-

   Once I’m back at home I hand off a copy either A or B.   The in-house editor then takes over and backs it up however he wants and does a master and two back ups of the original source media.    If it’s my edit, I will take two 10,000 rpm drives, usually WD Black drives and make two copies.  One will be the working drive, one will be the sit on the shelf back up.  Once the two passports are off loaded they will go back into rotation for the field.  

I edit with FCPX.  Why?  That’s a topic for another blog.  Let’s just say it works when and how I need.    I like to import my media and have FCPX generate optimized media.   Yes I could convert it all with Catalyst or one of many encoders, but for the most part FCPX handles it for me while I sleep.  I prefer to have the original media on one drive, and the FCPX project on another and copy the files to a fresh and clean WD Black drive.  Just make sure you are using drives that have enough room to handle all the media you will generate.  If there is a lot of 4K stuff, then I will also have FCPX generate proxy media as well.   Cutting 4K native takes a lot of horse power.  Proxies make my life easier.    I usually set up the import in the evening and let the computer and FCPX chew on the import and file conversion over night.   Next morning I close it all down and do a restart of the computer, open the project and start the cut.  

So that’s my workflow from acquisition to edit.  Might not be how you do it, but if you follow a protocol that works for you, I believe you will have fewer problems when you get to the edit suite.