The green screen should be set at around 3 meters from the subject and the larger the screen the better. Try to not compromise on this distance from the subject, even if it means choosing another location. 

This gives you separation from the screen and reduces the amount of green reflecting off the screen and onto the back of your subjects. This green contamination is a real no-no.

Light your screen separately. Lowel Tota-Lites are good for this however KinoFlos or Lowel Caselights are also very good. I position one to each side and run them through a dimmer to control the output. The plan is to get an even spread on the screen with each of the lights washing out any creases in the fabric if that's what you are using. Lighting the screen so that it's one stop darker than the subject is a good rule of thumb.

Once you are happy, light your subject separately using all the modelling with the light and shade that you would normally use. Keep in mind that strong back-light on the hair and shoulders can exaggerate the fact that’s it is a green screen shot when the final composite is done. When you have finish lighting the screen, turn off the lamps lighting your subject so you can check to see if any green is reflecting back onto the backs of the subject. A small amount of back lighting will generally take care of this problem. It's important to make sure that there is no reflected green from the screen falling on the back of your subject – if there is, it will come back to haunt you as the production manager coughs up the extra dollars for the editor to clean up the problems.

Even lighting

As an on-camera light, the Lite-Panel LED is hard to go past. The ability to trim the brightness for any given lighting situation is important and this light allows you to do that. The daylight balanced 50 degree model works best as an on-camera light in my experience.

Use a piece of CTO correction gel for the tungsten lighting situations but you will loose some output as you'd expect. It's perfect for a night shoot inside a car and the wider beam of the two is more versatile.

Rosco LitePads also work nicely and have the ability to fix any lighting holes; those places where you find hard hide a light. Interior scenes in vehicles at night are nicely taken care of with LitePads along with so many other potentially tricky situations. These are my favourite light because of the different shapes and sizes that are available.

The great thing is that when you use it, nothing feels lit. It just appears like you've gotten lucky with soft natural available light every where you point the camera and we all know life's not really like that. It's the balance of light's output on the subject compared to the background that's the key to making it work.

As long as you can get the light reasonably close to your subject, remembering that if it’s a daytime exterior interview it’s a little harder to fill; the ambient daylight level will probably be quite high in the first place. The small on-camera light panel is even good used as a key light in low ambient light situations. It’s in the great sunny outdoors that you find there is not sufficient output.

I’d go for the wider beam version. It performs better as an all round camera light, but you'll have to power it from a separate battery (9v to 19v) in say a waist bag, as the battery provided clips onto the back of the light and makes the camera far too top heavy. It's no Sun-Gun, but a beautifully subtle lighting tool for video.

© 2013 Pieter de Vries ACS

Photographic tripods consist of two primary parts – a tripod and a fluid head, however it is common to refer to the whole unit as a tripod or a tripod system. 

To get precision pans and tilts, you have to take the time to balance the camera once it is mounted on the fluid head. Australian manufacturer Miller Camera Support design and build a broad range of tripod systems so I will discuss the Miller DS10 Carbon Fibre system here. 

On the Sony PMW-EX1R and some other digital video cameras, you must be sure that  ALL OF THE MANUAL ADJUSTMENT icons are active if you want to have full manual control over your camera.

Iris, Gain, Shutter Speed and White balance settings and icons must all be in seen along the bottom of the screen. Do this by pushing the corresponding Iris, Gain, Shutter Speed and White balance buttons on the camera.

Here is why

The camera software assumes that any parameter that you don't see on the screen must be automatically adjusted by the camera. For example, if you have all of these settings active except the GAIN, the camera will automatically make a gain level adjustment for you when the picture is too dark. Even though you have control of the IRIS, it appears to be adjusting the light level automatically when panning to dark area of the scene. 

It's not the IRIS that is automatically adjusting here, it's the GAIN.

Finally, remember, "locking" the manual adjustments by sliding the switch to the HOLD position locks out ALL the adjustments, including the iris, which is the one thing that you usually need to have control over.

© 2013 Pieter de Vries ACS

A few years back I was filming a documentary with Mark Strickson a natural history director with Bristol based UK production company, Partridge Films. We were shooting sequences for Discovery Channel in Far North Queensland in Australia, and were at the tail end of a six week stint shooting "Deadly Crocs" with then relatively unknown Croc Hunter, Steve Irwin. Steve was the same then…and I claim little more than to have introduced him to the art of making and drinking decent strong coffee while we were camping. This may have been a catalyst to his rather odd presenting style.

Having finished most of Steve's sequences, Mark and I set up our tents by the South Kennedy River in Far North Queensland, Australia. We planned to leave early in the morning for a pleasant filming trip up the river in our small tin boat in search of Salt Water Crocs. The next morning we slowly motored up river heading north towards the mouth of the river. There were a large number of "Salties" sunning themselves on the muddy banks. This was encouraging. The river ahead divided, and on the bank where the river split, there was a large lifeless salty taking in the sun. Mouth open and rock solid, it lay motionless in the distance.

I decided to shoot initially from a distance to get a safety shot. This is the shot to get in case I the subject takes its leave. He or she could become shy and quickly slip into the water. I asked Mark to give me some forward motion with the motor to help stabilize the boat and then suggested he switch it off and allow us to drift quietly towards the croc. The resulting footage was smooth as I had my Miller Arrow HD tripod straddling the uneven floor of the boat. It appeared that this animal was very much at ease in the sunny spot and as I knew that I already had a few great shots in the can, I thought we go for the cream. With the tiny outboard switched off, we drifted into the bank with some assistance from the oars. The bow of the boat wedged into the muddy bank around two meters from our croc who was still very much in relaxed mode. 

I found an even closer handheld shooting position at the bow and decided to stabilise myself by quietly placing one foot onto the bank. The plan here was; one foot on the bank and the other in the boat. This prevented the tinny from sliding back off the bank. As I put my foot onto what I though was solid bank, my whole leg sank down, into the mud, all the way to my thigh making an obscene squelching noise! I couldn't pull it out – my let was in too deep and the suction was too strong. 

I whispered loudly to Mark to fire up the outboard and reverse rapidly to yank my leg out. I was there with one foot on floor of the tinny with the other leg buried and seemingly permanently imbedded in three feet of mud. The nine footer was only two meters away and now getting wary – I had nowhere to go. The outboard motor didn't start (have you ever know an outboard to start first go?) and by now I was making way too much noise. Had the croc decided to strike, it would have been curtains.

I'm happy to say that the option of grabbing me, a meal for the taking, was mercifully, not as enticing as the joy of continuing to lie in the warmth of the tropical sun. I can recall his/her eye slowly opening, a slow look to me then…. closing again and back to the business of sleeping. There is truly no way that I could have escaped. I did eventually extract the leg and so here to tell the story.

The trip back to the camp site was interesting. The tide had retreated and the river level by now was dramatically lower. What water there was, was a torrent that flowed the wrong way! We ended up having to carry the boat full of 16mm camera equipment over the rocks . Then we ran out of fuel!

Almost dark and in full view of the many crocs now forming a peanut gallery along the banks, we must have been a site for sore eyes. None of them moved off the bank to take us. I think by now they just felt sorry for us.

© 2013 Pieter de Vries ACS

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For a night shoot, often full of mixed light sources, use the pre-set tungsten/indoor camera setting. This will cover you for the lighting nasties that can play in the scene and it will look the most natural. 

It's helpful to know the best way to work with what nature dishes out – sunshine or cloudy days. Click here to read how

Make an improvised stand for your material on a table and lean the "stand" back to around 45 degrees. I use a large coffee table book as a backing board leaning it back against other coffee table books or a couple of telephone books (good for something these days). The photos should rest nicely here with the odd strip of gaffer tape on the back to prevent them slipping.

The camera should be on your tripod set to a distance that allows you to focus without having to turn the focus ring all the way to minimum focus. You need some focus breathing room. Camera should be set to a height that results in the picture having even focus from top to bottom. It’s better to be seated behind the camera as these can turn into long sessions – be comfortable so you can make accurate camera moves over small areas. It's very demanding at these high magnification levels.

In the case of photos, you need to frame your shots WITHIN the photo. Don’t reveal the edges of the photos as this takes away any atmosphere that images evoke. Frame a shot that takes in as much of the photo as the wide 16:9 permits and shoot a static shot for a minimum of twelve seconds. This amount of time allows for dissolves and narration. Factor this in as you can always chop it in the edit. Lock the pan and tilt on the tripod so there is absolutely zero camera movement. Happy with this shot? Now explore the detail in the photograph by panning from say, face to face – tilting up from shoes to faces or moving slowly across landscapes to reveal something interesting or a feature in the landscape.

Zooms work well here too and as you pull out, don’t be too concerned that you’ll reveal the edges of the prints as you can reverse the shot later or dissolve out before you reach the end of the zoom. When you’re shooting, try to imagine how the shot might be used. Think of the mood as you record as this is where the a lot of impact can be set in place. Do the moves at two speeds.

Lighting should be flat on photos and bright enough to get you a camera aperture of around f5.6. A light on each side of the camera at the similar angle; about 45 degrees. If there is a flare from a light on a glossy print, move it further away from the camera to the side (almost reaching 90 degrees to the camera) but at the same time make sure you don’t introduce unwanted shadows into the print. This is caused by the photo not being completely flat. Some old photographs are a bit curly.

Newspapers 

Set the lights so that one of them is skimming along the paper at an angle of almost 90 degrees . As opposed to the advise above, this creates shadows in any minor ripples in the paper itself and gives it real texture rather than looking like computer generated graphic of some sort. Switch the camera to a warm colour balance – light it with tungsten lamps and set the camera to a daylight (outside) white balance. This will “brown up” the newspaper and give it an old newspapery look. Cutting light off other areas of the newspaper will draw the audience into the part of the text you want them to notice.

Pan or tilt up out of black to reveal the text or even a photo on the page. In other words, find your shot, focus, set aperture, then look for somewhere to come out of to reveal. Out of black is always a winner. The magic of this becomes apparent when you add music or narration. You must imagine the mood and motive of what you are doing right here and now. It will pay off later.

Television screens. Set the white balance to a daylight setting. Most TV screens output at daylight and this records as a blue tint if the camera is set to tungsten or inside. Tempting as the TV is usually inside, but just set the camera to daylight and it will look normal I promise.
Pieter de Vries ACS 

Most of the important videos that you will ever create in your life will be crucially dependent on the quality of sound that is captured at the time of recording. Whether it is the vital dialogue, key selling point, memorable quote or even just the atmosphere of the occasion, sound will play an essential part.

To ensure that you get a great result you need to plan for your sound acquisition carefully before you leaving for your location.

Camera Menu Settings

You should familiarise yourself with all the different audio recording menus in your camera as each will need to be set correctly.

Internal Microphone/XLR's

Selects either the internal or built-in microphone, or inputting audio via the XLR inputs.

Mic/Line Level

Selects whether the input is set at mic level (i.e. there is a microphone plugged in) or at line level (if the camera is plugged into a mixer)

AGC (Automatic Gain Control) or Auto AGC

Automatically adjusts the gain control on the camera to constantly provide consistent recording levels to tape.

Unfortunately, this process does not account very well for the dynamic nature of dialogue, and provides a strange sounding result. If you are unable to get satisfactory results by manually setting the gain control, or are not in a situation to constantly monitor and adjust levels, this may be a last option.

Inconsistent levels are better dealt with in post-production.

Noise Reduction

Noise reduction is a basic equalization (EQ) tool designed to reduce constant noise such as mains power hum (A/C).

Results are generally limited and tend to affect the recording quality. This is normally better handled in post production.

Wind Reduction

Very similar to noise reduction with similar limited results. Wind noise can be more easily dealt with by using wind protection on the microphone itself.

Channel 1 Record Select

Channel 1 Record Select enables Channel 1 to be recorded onto both audio tracks.

This is fine when using one mono microphone plugged into the camera, however when two microphones are plugged in, only one would be recorded onto both tracks.

48 kHz or 32 kHz

Always set to 48 kHz. 32 kHz enables a four track recording onto the camera, to facilitate laying a voiceover over pre-recorded audio. It is always better to record at the higher quality and lay any additional voice tracks in post-production.

External Camera Settings

Looking at the switches and controls on the camera body itself, we have:

+48v (Phantom Powering) 

Better quality microphones (known as condenser microphones) require 48 volt power to operate.

Leaving this switched off is a common cause of not being able to record sound. To be safe, most microphones that do not require +48v will work fine with this being switched on, but it can cause some noise with a small percentage of microphones.

Mic/Line Switch

As in menu setting Please note that some cameras have this option as an external switch on the body of the camera.

Auto/Manual Switch

Refers to the AGC (Automatic Gain Control) as discussed in menu settings. Once again, with correct gain level control, this should not be used if possible.

Setting Gain

Finally it is critical to find and set the gain controls on your camera to a “safe” recording zone. Ideally, dialogue should be peaking between –20 (soft) to –10 (loud) on your camera's level meters, maximising the dynamic range. 

If these settings are too low then you run into the problems of noisy recordings from the camera?s audio circuitry. Set too high it could potentially distort the camera.

Whilst much can be done in post-production to fix up your recordings, stay with these basic levels on location and you will have a good start to a great recording.

Three points worth remembering

1. Plan for your sound before you leave for your location
2. Ensure your camera is set to record audio at 48 kHz, not 32 kHz
3. When recording dialogue, set your levels for between -20 and -10 to optimise your cameras dynamic range

Thanks to sound recordist and sound tutor James Nowiczewski for these notes. James is an internationally experienced sound recordist, and he conducts audio for video training courses. 

Supplementary lens adaptors are designed to supplement the existing optical range of the built-in zoom. They widen the field of view through out the entire zoom range. I is not technically easy for a zoom lens to perform brilliantly at the telephoto-end of the zoom at any time.

Adding a piece of glass designed to widen the field of view makes this task even harder as you extend the zoom to try an magnify the image. Without the wide angle adaptor on the front, you do not have to stretch the zoom so far. This is why you had a disappointing result.

© 2013 Pieter de Vries ACS