10 min. run-&-gun-documentary (WMV-Stream). Suggestions for improvements?

[Roland Oeller]

Hi!

You need Windows Media Player to stream this.
The compression on the clip is high, you may want to set the media player scaling to 100% and don´t watch it full screen. :)

I shot this documentary this summer in Austria. Most of it happened during one day. I also wasn´t supposed to "interfere" with the project and the students too much, so I was more of an observer. All of what you see was done by me, I didn´t have any assistance.

Maybe some of you want to have a look at it and make suggestions on how to improve future projects. I´m not very proud of it.

The camera was still very new to me then so I unfortunately overexposed some of the footage. Exposure is still something I have trouble judging. I also used a too warm preset. At least now I think so. I toned that preset down afterwards. Also my hands are not as steady as I would like them to be. And the music sucks, but I didn´t have anything else to work with. Okay, now nobody will want to watch it. ;)

Here it is any way:
mms://archiv.schule.at/vis/collage_2007/Collage07-Doku.wmv

[Alessandro Nucci]

Originally Posted by Roland Oeller

The camera was still very new to me then so I unfortunately overexposed some of the footage. Exposure is still something I have trouble judging.

I haven't seen the clip yet, but exposure for a tv camera operator is something to learn very quickly (with any camera)... since you have to perform it hundred of times per day when shooting for ENG and this kind of work.
Do you know how to use the zebra pattern? Without it, fast and accurate exposure is just impossibile.

Alex

[Roland Oeller]

Originally Posted by Alessandro Nucci

Do you know how to use the zebra pattern? Without it, fast and accurate exposure is just impossibile.

Alex

Yes, I´m using Zebra at 100%. But this is my first professional camera so I wasn´t used to it. It took me a while and I´m a lot better already. But sometimes there are difficult lighting situations where for example bright light from a window lights a person from one side while the other side is dark. I find it difficult to decide how far I should open the iris. I don´t want the persons face to be dark but I also don´t want his/her bright side overexposed too much. Ah, the problems of documentaries. :)

I don´t have trouble judging exposure in standard situations any more. That I learned quickly indeed.

[Alessandro Nucci]

Originally Posted by Roland Oeller

But sometimes there are difficult lighting situations where for example bright light from a window lights a person from one side while the other side is dark. I find it difficult to decide how far I should open the iris.

Well, the bright side of the face should stay around 80/90 IRE, so given the zebra at 100 IRE, you should close the iris a bit just making the stripes disapper from the bright face, or a bit more. It's easier doing it than talking about it. :-)

Many camera operators use zebra at 75 IRE, so they are costantly looking for opening the iris until the stripes appear on the faces. I personally feel more confident with 100 IRE, because I know that the stripes mean "burn out" that way. At 75, too much zebras across the image :-)

Alex

[Doug Davis]

I didn't think it was too bad... The only critique I would have would be a boom mic for the interview shots of the students feedback... The audio kind of popped going from the voice-over and there is a lot of background noise...

Overall, I thought it was decent given what you had to work with... A little more time and interviewing the students might have added a difference and quality to the project...

As far as image quality it's fairly difficult to gauge due to the compression of the WMV stream....

I thought it was as exciting as the topic could have been. It was 10min. and I wasn't watching thinking Oh my god... When is this going to be over... I was reasonably interested...

[Roland Oeller]

Originally Posted by Doug Davis

I didn't think it was too bad... The only critique I would have would be a boom mic for the interview shots of the students feedback... The audio kind of popped going from the voice-over and there is a lot of background noise...

That´s very true but a boom mic would require additional manpower. Since I´m on a tight budget (if you can call it that) with these ministry-jobs, I don´t think it would pay off enough to justify a second crewmember. The Interviews were shot inside a computer-room. I had no choice there since I was an observer. I didn´t even lead these interviews since they were not intended for the video but for the evaluation of the project.
I think investing in a radio-transmitting clip-on-microphone would pay off. This movie was shot entirely with a Sennheiser ME 66 microphone, attached to the camera.

Originally Posted by Doug Davis

Overall, I thought it was decent given what you had to work with... A little more time and interviewing the students might have added a difference and quality to the project...

That´s also very true. Getting people to agree to an interview is often a struggle. And a question of time. But I should insist more on interviews, yes.

Originally Posted by Doug Davis

I thought it was as exciting as the topic could have been. It was 10min. and I wasn't watching thinking Oh my god... When is this going to be over... I was reasonably interested...

Thanks, that´s probably all I could hope to achieve with this subject.

[Matt Vanecek]

Just saw this (waiting on some sound to render). There was only one transition that caught me by surprise, towards the beginning. Other than that, I was more intrigued by the content and had to remember to watch the camera movements & editing. Probably a second watch would make the critiquing easier. I imagine it's a good thing when viewers don't really notice the camera work & editing. :) I'm really interested in promoting quality education, so I did not really notice the technical sound issues described by the others on first watch--I found the content overwhelmed any technical issues that may have been there.

The main suggestion I offer: watch the video and look for long shots where there was no narration or other stuff happening. This may be a US bias, but there always need to be something happening, and only short stretches of setup shots or environment shots (or whatever you call them--when you're just watching the kids go by) . I think there were only a couple of places where I was, "c'mon, get to the next bit of information/narration, already!".

The concept described by the video seems really good, too. Kinda like to see that video piece exported to the US....

Good job.

ciao,
Matt