AV News 197 - August 2014
F ilm c ra ft
Maurice Dybeck ARPS
With so many cameras now having a video option,
and with many 'stills' people trying their hand at this
medium I thought readers might like a few notes on
what used to be (and still is?) the traditional approach
to filming. In response to reader comments in a recent
AV News I write these with the complete beginner in
mind.
PART ONE - BASIC SHOOTING TECHNIQUES
(How to get the pictures you want)
If you are coming to video via stills you are now in a totally different world
of image-making. As a stills person you were in the habit of collecting very
short 'bites' of the world in front of you, most of them only about 1/100 sec
long. Your skill lay in choosing just the right frame and the right fraction of a
second. Then your friends could look at your image 'frozen in time' at their
leisure. That brief image stood for all you wanted to say.
But with video, time does not stand still. From the moment you press that
button to the moment you 'cut' (as they say) you take in a piece of the world
as it moves before our very eyes! Marvellous? Yes and no. If it's the right
piece (like the right still-camera shot) then fine. You've given your audience
a feeling of being there that no still camera can achieve. But whereas
choosing the right 1/100 sec for a snap requires skill, think how much more
skill is now required. You must choose not just one fraction but maybe a
whole ten second's worth of memorable activity. But never fear. These notes
will see you through.
The modern video camera is a remarkable piece of engineering. As the
adverts say, you can just point and shoot and, in most situations that will give
you an acceptable picture, correctly exposed, i