How to questions about an 4year old sony camcorder.

[Lowell Bernhardt]

Hello all. I didn't know where else to post this so I figured I'd try it here.

I shoot vide for our church, and our minister moves around alot during his sermons. I try to keep him in the frame as best I can and I stay pretty well zoomed in so as not to have the entire audience in the frame also.

Anyway, we use a notes page in our bulletin that we put up on the power point during the service and there are blanks to fill in from points in the sermon. Since the pastor moves around so much I can't fill in the blanks. I would like to be able to enter the time that each blank occurs in the sermon.

I have not found anything in the manual that would allow me to enter a "flag" so to speek while I'm recording. That way I would be able to basically cue the tape to that point to add the subtitles thus saving the time of searching for each point later.

I hope this makes sence to someone?

My camera is a Digital Handicam: DCR-TRV27


Thanks in advance!

Lowell

[Chris Soucy]

You lost me with the paragraph starting "Anyway........".

Try it from there again, I'm sure you're making sense, just not to me!

Without understanding the question, have you considered Super Glue on his shoes?


CS

[Lowell Bernhardt]

chris,

thanks for your reply! Lemme try this again!

You know when you come in the front doors of most churches they will usually hand you a bulletin that will tell of the events going on in during the service.

Well our bulletin has a page in it that is an outline for the service. The page has various blanks on it that correspond to points made by the minister during his sermon. There will be a very similar page up on the power point screen during the sermon that will show the answers to the blanks on the outline page.

Here's an example, lets say the first blank occurs at a point 4:35:00 into the sermon. the next blank answer happens at 9:23:00 into the sermon. Now when I edit I'll go back to those times and add the outline notes for that particular time (blank) as a subtitle to the video.

Is there a way that I can mark these points while I'm recording the service?

I hope that makes more sence.

thanks again!
Lowell

[Greg Boston]

You'll have to make note of the timecode I'm afraid.

As to your Pastor moving around a lot, open up your framing a little bit. It makes people seasick watching so much movement like that. I usually leave space for movement within the frame and try to keep subject from getting much further than half way before moving to follow. A wider shot like this will allow the subject to move without you losing them, and better yet, you'll be able to tell direction of movement before losing the subject out of frame.

What you are describing is a feature on some newer cameras such as the F350 I'm using. I have two different shot marks I can use repeatedly to mark points of interest in the clips.

-gb-

[Chris Soucy]

it doesn't really. I haven't been through the front doors of a church (back doors either, come to think of it) in so long I'm at something of a loss with the entire concept.

Moving swiftly on, hmm, well, er, I have to admit utter defeat on this one. Perhaps not utter, but close.

I'm going to apply a bit of lateral thinking to this.

You need to know, after the event, when these events happened, correct?

You don't have time to log them, as the Demon Deacon (I jest) is wandering all over the stage (sort of) with you trying to track his movements with the camera?

Budget - Zero, correct?

OK, how's this?

Do you record in stereo or mono? If he's on a standard PA system with one mic, it'll be a mono feed (most likely). IF, (big if) the preceeding is correct, why not use the second sound channel to press a button giving you a sound tone when the event happens?

If you're recording in Stereo that's a non starter, but for the moment it's the best I can come up with. The audio generator could be a super el cheapo Radio Shack thingy with a push button rigged up to send the tone to Channel 2 (say) which would give you a "heads up" when editing that it's time to "do something".

Best I can do with what I've got.

As I'm sure there's a lot more to this than meets the eye, I am probably a mile off an answer, but hey, we can but keep trying.


CS

[Lowell Bernhardt]

Greg, Chris,,,

thanks for the input.

Greg,
I try to allow about 6'-8' on either side of the "Deamon Decon" (that was great Chris I'll have to use that one! ;-)) So as to try to keep him in the frame, but he moves ALOT. At times it can be hard to keep him in that 12' window. However, to your point about that being a newer feature than I would find on my camcorder you're absolutely correct.

Chris,
I kind of understand where you're going with the audio "pinging". I'm still working out the details on the audio side of things. (long story) Right now I'm just using the mic on the camera to capture the sound so I can't really make the entry that you suggest.

You know I just had a thought (can you hear the collective "oh MAN" that just echoed through the forum?). I could use a stopwatch. I could start the stop watch at the same time as the camcorder and enter a "lap" each time there is an entry on the power point screen. During editing I could go to the "lap" time on the tape and I'd be set to make my subtitle entry. Do you think this would work? I could hit the button on the stopwatch without ever looking away from the view finder.

Any thoughts?

Thanks again for the help.

Lowell

[Chris Soucy]

Well, it's gotta be worth giving a try. Can't see you've got anything to lose, especially if you can borrow the stopwatch for the test.


CS

[Lowell Bernhardt]

I've got a stop watch that is on my Ironman.


thanks again!
Lowell