Wedding Reception Lighting

A lighting kit is a good idea to have on hand at any wedding where there is even a slight chance of rain.
Most videographers use an on-camera light for those dark receptions, but what if the ceremony at the same location gets moved from an outdoor setting to indoors because of weather? Well, that on-camera light isn't going to cut it. Especially if they set-up right in front of a large window or glass paned door. Recently, I was at just such an occasion where the lighting kit proved necessary. The rain forced the ceremony indoors in front of a large glass paned door. This is typically a difficult situation to overcome, because it takes a great deal of light to bring up the lighting level high enough indoors to compensate for the outdoor lighting, and not get a blown-out look. I balanced my camera for sunlight and used a 1000 watt fresnel with a blue gel and a 500 watt light with no gel on either side of the ceremony to get a good mix of daylight and tungsten. Along with the indoor lights turned up, this created a nice balance of light and color.

Don't Expect Greatness From Amateur Video

I've seen this scenario too many times. You want to save some money on your video production or you need to stay under your wedding budget, so you hire a relative with a video camera. You then give the video a watch, and you can't believe how bad it looks and sounds. There are many reasons why a professional will deliver a quality video time and time again. Besides equipment considerations, you will often find similar characteristics in amateur videos. They're typically very shaky, framed poorly, not edited and often they've missed important moments. Additionally, proper sound recording is never even a thought. Don't set yourself up for disappointment, and make sure you consider hiring a professional for your event video.

A Look at Color

In the previous post, we explored what goes into a video production. I want to go a little deeper, and take a moment to talk about color grading. Color grading is an art form in itself. I almost never produce a video without some color correction. This is typically done last, when the edit is complete and all the sound design is taken care of. Not every shot, especially outdoor footage, is perfectly lit, and this is where I go in and adjust the brightness and/or contrast. Sometimes I will "warm up" a scene with some orange or yellow, or cool a scene down with blue. To give my productions a "cinematic" look, I will employ various filters to achieve certain effects such as a glow, black and white, or vignette's. And there are some productions where I need a "hollywood" sort of look, and use filters to achieve that as well. Whatever the case may be, color grading is something you may not be aware of since you don't usually get to see what the raw footage looks like, but it's very important to the final look of the piece.

What Goes Into Your Video Production?

Experience, talent and of course the right equipment. But behind the scenes, you may not realize how many different skills a video professional or production company needs to be able to produce a quality video. It's important to be aware of these aspects. They are: Shooting with the correct framing and technical skills, lighting (often for interviews and other indoor scenes but not limited to outdoor scenes), capturing audio during the shoot, post production (putting video and sound together to tell a story, includes sound design, which is not limited to color correction, filters, effects, graphic design and motion graphics) and final delivery (DVD authoring or internet video). This is just a brief look at a typical video production, but should give you some insight to what goes into your video production.

1-chip cameras VS 3-chip

One measure of the video quality of different cameras is whether the camera is 1-chip or 3-chip.

The 1-chip camera uses a single computer chip to process the colors the camera sees. The more expensive professional 3-chip camera has three separate computer chips. Each chip processes a separate primary color - red, green or blue. Because of this, the video quality is much better.

Professioinal cameras are often labeled as 3-CCD or 3-CMOS (CCD stands for "Charge Coupled Device, and CMOS stands for "complementary metal oxide semiconductor."

Great Sound is not an Accident

Good sound design is as important to video production as good camera work. It brings texture to a video production, a richness that music alone can't provide. Sound design begins with the assumption that what we hear enhances our appreciation of what we see. Like poetry, sound design is evocative: we may not actually see the source of a sound, but the presence of the sound evokes strong memories and images. Clever mic placement and solid audio editing skills can dramatically enhance a production.

Today's Wedding Videographer

Is your idea of a videographer someone running around with big clunky cameras and blinding bright lights? Like sequins, ruffles, and big hair, this wedding service has also evolved.

Today's wedding videos are shot with smaller, high-tech digital cameras that require less lighting, making the whole process less obtrusive. The video captured by these cameras is a higher resolution, resulting in clearer more vibrant images. Audio equipment has also become smaller, and capable of recording clearer audio signals. Editing techniques have also advanced, allowing videographers to turn out a wedding video that flows more like a feature film.

Today more than ever, through online content and social media, videographers and video producers like Treasured Moments have access to a wealth of information to stay current on video trends, techniques and new equipment. We can also see what other company's are creating. It pushes us to produce higher quality videos to stay competitive, which ultimately benefits you.

New Blog from Evolved Studio

http://www.evolvedstudio.com/blog/

Life of a MacBook Pro Battery

I do most of my computing on my trusty MacBook Pro. It's a power house fast enough to replace my old G5 powerPC, and it gives me the flexibility to take my work with me when I travel to a production location. It also acts as an external monitor when I have Adobe's On Location running. However, I've kept it plugged in most of the time. I'm not good at, and don't want to worry about checking the battery levels throughout the day. A year has gone by, and now my laptop just shuts down after a few minutes of use when it's not plugged in. It turns out it's a good idea to routinely "exercise" your battery, draining & charging it, so that this doesn't happen to you. Hopefully I can get my battery back into shape.

Need An Animated Bar Graph?

I recently produced some graphics for an annual report video. I needed to produce 3 bar graphs. I found keynote from Apple's iWork suite very helpful. I was able to quickly produce a 3-D bar graph, that grew and rotated. I then imported a quicktime of the animation into After Effects and used expressions to add a running numbers effect to complement the graph. A great solution to add interest to any chart or bar graph.

Recording in LP mode - Stay away.

SP and LP refer to the speed with which the tape moves over the tape heads when recording your digital video. LP can give you a longer recording time, but increases the chances for dropouts. A dropout is when your camera fails to record an image for a short period. When capturing in LP, the recordings are a slower speed and often have unstable data streams. You may also have trouble playing back a tape that was recorded in LP mode in a different camera or deck. LP should be avoided if at all possible.

Better Wireless Range For Your MacBook Pro

Downloads were taking forever. I though it was because my router was about 150 feet away from my computer. But on further investigation, I came to the conclusion that was only part of the reason my internet connection was lagging. The answer came in the form of a MacBook that I recently purchased as an additional workstation. My MacBook Pro was not getting a good signal, but the MacBook was? If distance was an issue, why could one computer get a strong signal and the other get such a weak one? Well the other part of the problem was in the material. It turns out that the aluminum body of the MacBook Pro was interfering with the already diluted wireless signal. That's why the plastic MacBook didn't have any connection problems. Great. I figured it out, but now what? The solution: I purchased an external usb antenna from newertechnology, called MaxPower. Only $40 from MacSales. It basically replaces the internal airport card, far from any interference from the aluminum casing. You can position the antenna for the best reception, which visually changes in a display with the included wireless utility. I did some internet speed tests and the results were amazing. Over 5x better reception! If you have an aluminum MacBook Pro, and are getting a poor signal, you really can't beat this device.

New Use For Those Old VHS Cases

When's the last time you shipped out or shot on VHS? Those heavy duty plastic VHS cases that are probably just sitting around your studio don't have to be useless. They make excellent shipping containers for small portable drives. These cases are sturdy and actually double walled, providing good protection to the contents inside. Most likely there will even be room for extra packing material, since portable drives are so small.

Mixing DV Tape Brands

In DV's early days, Sony and Panasonic tapes used different lubricants, and if you used one brand and then switched to the other, incompatibilities between the lubricants (which get deposited on heads and tape guides) could cause your camera's tape deck to jam up or the heads to clog, sometimes permanently. Supposedly the lubricants were made compatible starting in 1997, but, I would still be hesitant in using different brands, as stories about these problems still arise. Pick one brand of tape, and “stick” with it. You simply won't see the problem. If you do have to use a different brand tape for some reason, use a head cleaning tape before and after the change.

SmugMug Review

If you're trying to find a streaming service for your video content, don't waste your time with SmugMug. Primarily a photo sharing web solution, they've added video to their repertoire. The demo video on their site is beautiful. It streams high quality video in a slick looking Flash Player, but what they don't tell you is that users uploading video from a Mac get a far less slick looking Quicktime Player that is progressive download. Too bad I wasted my time with the trial, uploading content and then being disappointed by the results. Their user interface is also very confusing. If you're trying to use one of their many uploaders (which don't include detailed descriptions - just small useless ones) for video, the buttons are still labeled "photo". Very odd. Nothing on the SmugMug website is really geared toward someone who is primarily a video professional. It seems their video service is a quick add-on that wasn't thought out. I don't know why EventDV gave them such a good review. I will continue my search for a quality video streaming service.

Add Interest to your Videos

For a more dynamic video, try getting out of the habit of putting the camera at eye level. Today's lightweight video cameras can be easily placed up high (like on a ladder), way down low and a variety of other places that much larger cameras of yesteryear just wouldn't fit.

Also, there's no rule that says your horizon has to be level. Try tilting your camera, and moving angles quickly. Or try a slow tilt from one side to the other. These simple things can add drama, and a sense of forboding in tense scenes and can add interest in shots with lots of action.

By considering an innovative and unusual camera angle to shoot your scene, you'll engage and entertain your audience while telling your story.

Video Camera Battery Life Tips

Video camera battery life tip: Check the battery’s mAh (milliamp hour) rating. It's usually printed on a label on the battery itself, the battery company's website, or in the product manual. The higher the rating, the more charge the battery can hold. A rating of 7 mAH will give you about 7 hours of camera use.

To extend the life of your battery while shooting, use the viewfinder instead of the LCD screen, or, if you prefer not to use the viewfinder, remember to close the LCD screen when not in use. If you’ll be shooting for a long time, consider buying an extended-life battery. These larger,batteries cost more but can double a video camera’s battery life. Also, consider buying extra batteries to have as back-ups.

Film-style editing

When I edit a video, I limit the use of cross-dissolves and other transitional effects. Instead, I use hard cuts. Since I mostly edit what I shoot, I can plan better for this type of editing, but sometimes you may not be able to use just hard cuts, when the footage you need just isn't available. Most of what I edit ends up on the internet, so using hard cuts is the best way to go in this situation. Dissolves tend to really break-up when compressed for the web. To get a fluid transition when making a cut, I find the start, or part of an action to lead me to the next clip, rather than just cutting together two clips that have no action. It can be someone walking, opening a door, picking up an object, or any other action. It gives the video a natural sort of transition. Watch movies with action sequences to see what I mean. Of course, to get different moods, this is not always the best technique.

DELL UltraSharp LCD Monitor Review

If you're looking for a great LCD monitor on a budget, then check out Dell's line of UltraSharp LCD's. These monitors are as good as the Apple Cinema Displays in my opinion, and they're half the price. I also prefer Dell's black front beveled edge to Apple's aluminum casing. Much easier on the eyes.

Major Leopard OS Bug

I have recently discovered what I consider to be a major bug in the Leopard OS. If you're working on a Mac running Leopard don't do what I did. By changing the permissions on your hard drive to "No Access" under "everyone", it will cause your hard drive to crash. Once you shutdown after doing this, you're Mac will no longer boot! Why would Apple allow a place in their OS to break your computer? Anyway, I didn't realize that this was the problem until after Apple replaced everything in my MacBook, including the logic board, RAM, hard drive and connections. I verified this permissions issue with AppleCare over the phone.