Section 2.3. Get the Shot


2.3. Get the Shot

Rule No.1: Get the shot.

If you and the camcorder aren't ready when something great happenswhether you're trying to create a Hollywood-style movie with scripted actors or just trying to catch the dog's standoff with a squirrelthen everything else in this book, and in your new hobby, are for naught.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTION
The Slate: Lights, Lens Cap, Action!

I'm getting tired of seeing that "clapper" boardit's the iMovie icon, it's the picture that shows up when you choose iMovie About iMovie, its the icon of every iMovie document. It's practically the world's most overused symbol. Everybody uses it to symbolize filmmaking . What the heck is that thing?

It's called the slate or clapstick, and they really do use it when they make commercial movies. Using a dry-erase marker, an assistant writes the movie's name , scene number, and date onto this plastic whiteboard (nobody uses chalk on slate anymore). As soon as the camera is rolling, the slate is held in front of the lens and the clapstick on top is slammed shut. The camera photographs the time-code readout (which is generated by the sound-recording equipment) in the top part of the clapper. Only then does the director shout, "And, action! "

The purpose of this exercise is to make editing easier later. Although your camcorder records sound and video simultaneously , he soundtrack for film is actually recorded on a different machine. When editing, technician can plug in the time-code number captured on film to cue up the audio track quickly and efficiently .

And if that sync-up circuitry fails for some reason, editors can synchronize the sound and picture manually, just as they did in the old days: by aligning the loud, crisp sound with the visual moment when the clapstick closes .


Both human and mechanical obstacles may conspire to prevent you from capturing the perfect footage. Here are some examples:

2.3.1. Is the Camera Ready?

Your camcorder is only ready when its battery is charged and it's got fresh tape inside. MiniDV cassettes these days cost about $4 apiece (from, for example, www.bhphoto.com or warehouse discount clubs like Costco), so you have no excuse not to have a stack of blanks, at least a couple of which should live in your camcorder carrying case for emergency purposes. If you bite the bullet and buy a box of ten or fifty, you'll save even more money, you won't have to buy any more for quite a while, and you'll be able to keep a couple of spares with the camera.


Tip: Professional broadcast journalists never go anywhere without fully charged batteries and blank tape in the camera. Even if you're not a pro, having enough tape and power at all times can pay off, since you can make good money selling your video to news shows because you caught something good on tape.

The same goes for battery power. The battery that comes with the camcorder is adequate as a starter battery, but buying a second oneespecially if it's one of the fat, heavy, longer-capacity batteriesis further insurance that some precious shooting opportunity won't be shut down or lost by equipment failure.

Remember, too, that today's lithium-ion batteries are extraordinarily sophisticated. But even though they're rechargeable , they're not immortal; most can be recharged only a few hundred times before you start to notice a decrease in capacity. In other words, use the power cord whenever it's practical.


Tip: Camcorder batteries are far more fragile than they appear. Keep them dry at all costs. If one gets damp or wet, you may as well throw it away.

2.3.2. Are You Ready?

There's a human element to being ready, too. For example, remember that from the moment you switch on the power, your camcorder takes about eight seconds to warm up, load a little bit of tape, and prepare for filming . It's a good idea to flip the power on, therefore, even as you're running to the scene of the accident , earthquake, or amazing child behavior.

2.3.3. Is the Camera Actually Recording?

Every day, somewhere in the world, a family sits down in front of the TV, expecting to watch some exciting home movies, and instead watches 20 minutes of the ground bumping along beneath the camcorder owner's hand.

As you begin to shoot, always glance at the viewfinder to confirm that the Record indicatorusually a red dot, or the word REC or RECORDhas appeared. Make it a rigid and automatic habit. That's the only way you'll avoid the sickening realization later that you punched the Record button one too many times, thus turning the camera on when you thought it was off, and vice versa.

If your subject is a family member or friend, they may be able to confirm that you're getting the shot by checking the tally light the small light on the lens end of the camcorder that lights up, or blinks, while you're recording. Most videographers, however, turn off the tally light (using the camcorder's built-in menu system) or put a piece of black tape over it. If you're trying to be surreptitious or to put your subject at ease, the light can be extremely distracting, especially when it starts blinking to indicate that you're running out of tape or power.

Similarly, make sure the indicator disappears when you punch the Record button a second time. Sometimes this button sticks and doesn't actually make the camera stop filming.


Tip: If the recording-the-ground syndrome has struck you even once, check your camcorder's feature list. Some models, including most Sony camcorders, offer a special feature that's designed to eliminate this syndrome. When you slide a switch into a mode Sony calls Anti-Ground Shooting, the camcorder records only while you're pressing the Record button. As soon as you remove your thumb, the camera stops recording. This scheme isn't ideal for long shots, of course, and it ties up your hands during shots when you might need to adjust the zoom or focus while filming. But it's extremely good insurance against missing important moments.

2.3.4. How Much to Shoot

For years , books and articles about camcorders have stressed the importance of keeping your shots short. In the pre-iMovie era, this was excellent advice. When you show your footage to other people, there's absolutely nothing worse than endless, monotonous, unedited scenes of babies/speeches/ scenery . If you don't want your guests and family members to feel that they're being held hostage during your screenings, strive for short shots and very selective shooting. So goes the usual advice.

But the iMovie revolution turns that advice on its head. Yes, it's still agonizing and tedious to watch hours of somebody's unedited video, but thanks to iMovie, you won't be showing unedited video. By the time an audience sees it, your stuff won't be endless and boring. In fact, it will be far better than a bunch of short, selective shots on the average person's camcorder, because you'll have had a much greater selection of footage from which to choose the most interesting scenes.

In other words, it's safe to relax about how much you're shooting. It's much better, in the iMovie Age, to shoot too much footage than too little. After all, if your camcorder stops rolling too soon, you might miss a terrific moment. (Almost everyone who's used a camcorder has experienced such unfortunate timing.)

In Hollywood and professional TV production, in fact, shooting miles of footage is standard practice. When filming movies, Hollywood directors shoot every scene numerous times, even if nothing goes wrong in most of them, just so that they'll have a selection to choose from when it comes time to assemble the final film. (As an extreme example, legend has it that during the making of Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, the director asked the actors to repeat a scene 140 times, on the premise that eventually they'd no longer be actingit would be real. ) The more takes you get "in the can," especially if they're shot different ways (different angles, zoom levels, and so on), the more flexibility and choice you'll have when editing, and the better the finished product will be.

Don't go overboard, of course; there is still such a thing as shooting too much footage. You should still think in terms of capturing shots that you've thought about and framed in the viewfinder; don't just roll continuously, pointing the lens this way and that. And you should still remember all the extra time you'll have to spend transferring the footage into iMovie, reviewing it, and editing it. The more you shoot, the greater the editing time.

But it's certainly safe to say that in the age of iMovie, you'll improve your odds of catching memorable moments on tape if you keep the camera rolling as long as the kid/animal/ tornado is performing.



iMovie HD & iDVD 5. The Missing Manual
iMovie HD & iDVD 5: The Missing Manual
ISBN: 0596100337
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2005
Pages: 209
Authors: David Pogue

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