CHOICES IN EDITING

We could spend days on this subject but I will try to keep to the basics. When you get your video to the editing stage you have to have choices to make things work.

I don’t care what your subject is. Make sure you a have master or wide shot of things. Then go in for a more detailed look at things (medium shots) and follow this with close-up shots of more fine detail.

Always include reactions to the subject matter (people observing things etc.) When you get to editing you have to have your coverage (all the shots needed to make editing work)

Make sure there is at least a three times change in image size from the master to the Medium and to the close-ups.

If you’re going to zoom into the subject, zoom in first without the camera running, focus on the subject then pull back. Start the camera; hold on the wide shot for at least 5 seconds, zoom in slowly to the close-up and hold for another 5 seconds. Now if you don’t like the zoom or you screw it up for any reason, you can use the wide shot and then go directly to the close-up. Without using this technique you are stuck having to use the zoom. Like I said it’s all about having choices.

Cutting on action is an old established editing technique. If you have a wide shot of someone sitting, have them do the same action again in a medium or close shot. Now when you get to editing you can cut the shot on the action of sitting, which will carry the edit nicely and make the cut seem smooth.

You don’t want to bore your audience so make sure you have a variety of shots both, wide, medium and close.

Never assume that just because you can read whatever it is on the sign in the background that your audience can too. No no, always get an insert shot of what is on the sign. (An insert, is a close-up of some object so that the audience gets the point)

Contact me about coming to do a workshop in your area.

Cheers, Barry

Night for Night lighting

Had a couple of question on lighting lately, so here is something on night for night lighting. I am assuming here that some of you have at least a couple of small lighting units to work with.

The thing about night lighting is your frame basically will have more dark areas than light areas. Lighting a set for a dark mood does not mean an absence of light. It is a way of controlling the highlight and shadow areas and arranging these areas in a way that they still have a balanced composition.

Underexposing the image to give the feeling of darkness will just result in a noisy and muddy looking picture in video and a grainy image in film. You simply have to have enough exposure to pull out the detail in what you are shooting.

A very big clue to doing effective night lighting is to make very sure that you do not light from the front (at the camera position). This will destroy the mood and give your picture a very flat look.

Try to bring your light across the frame from the side and let the light beams bring out the edges of objects but keeping the front side dark.

You have seen this many times in motion pictures where a man walks into a dark warehouse and is lit only by some streaks of moonlight coming from a skylight. If you look carefully you will notice that the side closest to the camera is often very dark but the subject is rimmed or outlined by the moonlight making the scene look very real.

By the way, the blue light is simply accomplished by putting blue gel over a tungsten balanced light you light to give the effect that the light is coming from the moon. We have come to accept this in movies, though in real life you will notice the moonlight really isn’t blue but more of a chalky green/blue colour.

Points to remember:
Light from the sides not the front
Have more darkness in the frame than Lightness. Set up the areas of light and dark for a pleasing balance Don’t simply underexpose the whole image.

Try it out and let me know how it works for you.