Getting Ready for Your Shoot


Your movie begins with the right preparation, including both the technical and creative aspects of your shoot:

  • On the technical front, you need to review the essential equipment to bring to your shoot, as well as think about bringing extra, helpful items.

  • On the creative front, what shots would you ideally like to have in your finished movie? We'll review what shots are most important to get and a list of other shots that are "nice-to-haves."

If this is your first time videotaping a live event, you can use one camera, a tripod, and perhaps a shotgun mike or an external mike. This is the simplest setup, and with it you can get plenty of good footage.

A tripod is essential. You don't want to see wobbly shots of your star in her big moment. After you've used a tripod, you will wonder how anyone could shoot an event without one. You are likely to get tired of holding a camera for an entire performance. On the other hand, if your "star" is a six-year-old and the "performance" is a 5- to 10-minute classroom play, you may be able to get by without one.

For important occasions, you may need an external microphone to capture the sound. When you shoot live events, you often cannot get close to the performers, so you may need to have an external mike (a shotgun mike is best) because it's better than your regular camera-mounted mike at capturing audio from a distance. A less desirable solution is to mount an external microphone closer to the action; it will need to connected (by an audio extension cord) to your camera.

Here is a list of essentials you should bring with you to shoot the live event:

  • Camcorder

  • Videotape (removing the plastic wrapping ahead of time will save you time and aggravation during your shoot)

  • Tripod

  • Power supply

  • Fully charged batteries or your camera's power cord

Here is a list of other equipment you should consider taking with you:

  • Directional/shotgun or other external microphone

  • Long audio extension cord to connect the external microphone to your camera

  • Duct tape (to cover audio extension cords or power cords)

  • Extra charged batteries

  • A second camcorder, tripod, and power supply if you want to have continuous coverage of a formal performance (to cover any breaks when a tape ends)




Create Your Own Digitial Movies
Create Your Own Digitial Movies
ISBN: N/A
EAN: N/A
Year: 2005
Pages: 85

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net