Bottom of Form

Production

We're going to spend this section teaching you about Hollywood's production model: Lie, cheat, and then steal. We're kidding. The basics of good video production are timeless. Hollywood has spent the last hundred years learning about creating great video. Their process looks something like this:

Pre-production. The work you have to do before shooting starts. Scripts, rehearsals, raising money, and scouting locations.
Production. The actual shooting of the content. Cast and crew head for the set or location and start working.
Post-production. When the shooting is done. Editing, sound work, special effects, and music.

Pre-production

Concept. Remember your concept. Keep it in mind throughout your pre-production planning process. Consider watching the "director's commentary" you will find on some DVDs to help prepare for the production process.
Script. Like with most creative endeavors, a lot of the most important work you do in producing a show is done on paper. Your script is the flushing out of your concept. Even if you don't need a formal script, you should write something down. Write notes about what you want to talk about. If you're doing interviews, do some research and write down some questions in advance. If you're producing a drama, comedy or a documentary you'll probably want something closer to a formal script. If you're doing a sitcom or something similar you may benefit from doing "table reads" of the script before you start shooting.
Storyboard/Shot list. The more complex the show, the more you'll want to storyboard or at least make a shot list. A storyboard is like a crude comic book with each of the shots you want being one frame. A shot list is a text list with descriptions of the shots you need. Even a simple show can benefit from a shot list, including "B" roll insert shots. This is particularly important when on location, because often times (especially when you need to most) you can't go back and get shots you missed. Storyboards help immensely if you're using one camera, in different locations, doing multiple takes, or doing a tricky stunt. Special effects and stunts are often storyboarded using 3-D software to make "pre-visualizations," for the cast and crew to follow. Here's a story board how-to, and a bunch of storyboards to look at.
Location Scouting. Now here's a fun job! Before you shoot anywhere, send one person with a still or video camera to the location. Have them shoot at the same time of day you'll be shooting, and have them report back on what the light looks like and what the ambient sound is like.
Release Forms. Don't forget about things like Release Forms for those appearing in your videos. Here's an excellent blank release form from New Media Expo.
Gear. Charge your batteries. Grab the duct tape. Check your lights. Plan for rain, earthquakes, locusts!!!... you get the picture.

Production

Cameras are sensitive electronic instruments that record light and sound. Focus on this simple fact. Be the lens, Grasshopper. See the flag pole coming out of your subject's head. Be the mic. Hear the air conditioner roar.

Video

Here's a condensed to-do list to consider when shooting video:

White Balance is maybe the most important piece of shooting good video that you've never heard of. White balance is a complicated concept, but just know that it has something to do with "color temperature." It's called white balance because white is the baseline color used to determine temperature. You can learn more on Wikipedia.

· Compose your shot. Take a breath, look at every corner of the frame and the background. Learn how to use the the Rule of Thirds, and video framing techniques. Here's an excellent Digital Juice Video on framing techniques.

· Use a tripod.

· Clean your camera's lens.

· Keep the camera at the subject's eye level, unless you have a good reason not to.

· If there's bright light, make sure it is behind you and not behind your subject.

· Use manual focus if you can. "Catch focus," meaning zoom to subject, focus on the glint in their eye. Zoom back and...

· Shoot a wide establishing shot of the scene, or travel footage of getting there, a medium shot, and then your content.

· Shoot "B" roll (close-ups, environment, subjects being referenced, hands moving)

· Start recording at least 10 seconds before action begins and keep rolling a while after the action stops.

· Avoid zoom and movement. This breaks the spell of the video and attracts attention to the camera. Move when subjects move. Pan the camera to a specific place or cut to your subject in motion.

· As your show grows you may want to consider using multiple cameras. Multi-camera shoots are common in traditional television, and more and more Web show producers are starting to use the technique. Don't do this too early though — you're best off starting simple and growing into more complex techniques later.

Audio

The key to video! External mics are better than built-in mics because they can be close to the subject's mouth, even if the camera isn't. Boom mics float just out of frame above a subject's mouth. Lapel mics clip to shirt collars near vocal cords. Unfortunately we do not have external mics. We must use built-in mics, so stay very close to your subject. Digital Juice has a short video on getting good audio.

· Turn off refrigerators and air conditioners. Watch for noises around you.

· Record a minute or two of silence. You can use it when you edit to bridge gaps in audio.

· Run a test. Make sure you are recording audio.

Lighting

Try to use diffused, flattering light, from multiple directions and lots of it! The simplest lighting trick is to use natural light from a window, but indirect light, not sunlight. Sunlight has harsh shadows.

The next simplest method is to turn on all the lights in the house and move lights closer to the subject. You can also use brighter household bulbs. Getting into the $50 dollar budget land, you can buy some clip-on construction lights, "natural light" household bulbs and make a three light kit. This brings us to the first basic lesson of lighting for video or film - the "Key, Back, Fill" method of lighting. Basically this means having three lights.

1. A bright main Key light in front, and off to the side, of the subject.

2. A dimmer Fill light in front, and off to the side, of the subject.

3. A bright Back light, behind and off to the side of the subject.

After you learn the basics of lighting you can move to learning more complex techniques. Here's a thorough video on lighting from Digital Juice. It starts with classic 3 point lighting, but moves on to more complex subjects like shadows, filters, and lighting tough subjects. While you may not have all the equipment that these professional video makers have, you can often use the same techniques.

Post-production

The key to "post," as it's called, is organization. Before you even start to edit, organize your folders and files with accurate names. Create folders for each episode that use the same file naming system. Everyone is different, but starting with the year, month, and day helps folders appear in series and be organized. Inside your project folders, create sub-folders for content such as thumbnails, graphics, and music. Start a text file where you keep each episode's full text description, tags and title.

Video To Computer

Beginning editing software keeps the user shielded from seeing where the actual video files are located. If you move to more professional software (non-linear editing software), you'll need to understand where the actual video files are kept.

Digitizing video is pretty intuitive in iMovie and Movie Maker. For help see: Microsoft's Movie Maker Tutorials.

Editing

Editing is an art and a craft. It is a million little decisions strung together to frame the painting that is video. Ah...wasn't that lovely? Or, here's another perspective:

"Editing is the process that transforms a miscellaneous collection of badly-focused, poorly-exposed and horribly-framed shots containing reversed screen direction, unmatched action, disappearing props, flair, and hair in the aperture (but not containing any close-ups, cut-ins, or cut-aways), into a smooth, coherent, and effective visual statement of the original script, for which the director gets the credit."
Seen on the wall of KTLA-TV, in LA by editor Larry Jordan. Source.

The best way to learn how to edit besides, you guessed it, editing, is to watch television shows and movies from an editor's standpoint. Next time you're watching TV, turn the sound off and watch just the edits.

Editing Techniques

· The trick is when to cut. There are 30 frames a second to choose from. Good editors make seamless cuts, keeping the focus on content. Learn to use basic edits (cut, fade, dissolve), and rhythm, like you use punctuation when writing. Each different kind of cut communicates different things, just like commas, periods and exclamation points. Watch this video on editing punctuation from Digital Juice.

· Try to work with audio first. Some editors like to put down audio tracks first, as a complete story with smooth transitions before working with video.

· Cut on motion or action. A hand moving, someone turning, eyes rolling... you get the picture!

· Beginning editors often catch a case of "Techno-itis" and find themselves using all kinds of nifty special transitions, filters and effects. The water swirl, wipe, or dreaded flying credits. There's a cure! It's called the straight cut. Watch any random TV show or movie and you'll notice that most of the editing is made up of humble straight cuts.

Editing Audio

You will quickly reach the limit of video editing software's ability to deal with audio. Editors often "extract" the audio from their videos and use software to normalize, filter, and generally improve the quality. Audacity is a great free audio editing software for Mac and PC.