I remember the release of the GoPro at an industry show. It was revolutionary, and considering what it could do, it was cheap!
But they were originally designed for sporting-type activities mainly in broad daylight.
That changed with the GoPro Hero 3 Black Edition.
Hey, I’m not going to talk lux and lumens. It’s been so long that I’ve used a light meter it wouldn’t mean anything to me either. But I bought the Hero 3 Black with fingers crossed for a project that was to be shot inside a warehouse–one of the largest warehouses in UK/Europe, for that matter. The client had installed a 43,000 meter overhanging rail system in Clipper Logistics’s clothing warehouse and had an idea it might be interesting to put a camera on the rail.
I used the free GoPro app on my smartphone which was pretty cool. That allows you to frame the camera and also allows you to remotely start and stop it and change any of its settings.
Since this video was produced I found another great tool called the “Fisheye Fixer” by Crumplepop which works instantly and amazingly in FCPX. It would straighten up all those distorted verticals and horizontals.
But the main point here, it did pretty good with the interior lighting, didn’t it?
(The video, an off-shoot of a longer one produced for the client, is only 36 seconds long–best to watch at 720p if you can)
1: Shoots in full HD 1920 X 1080 at 50p, 50i, 25p, 25i and 1280 X 720 50p. All the test shots in this video were shot at 720/50p .
2: There’s a multi-function knob at the front which you can press to assign a key function from a drop down list in the screen (color temp, focus, exposure, etc.) which then allows you to manually control that function from the knob. Using it to manually control color temperature is pretty cool as it is an infinitely variable control. You can just roll it until the facial tones or whatever look the way you want them to.
3: There is also a feature called “My Button” whereby on the touch screen you can assign specific functions to 3 shortcut keys. For example, I set mine to Focus, Exposure and Color Temperature. By touching any of those, it brings up the options on that feature directly so you can turn them on or off or make them automatic or manual.
4: It has 96gb built-in flash memory and one card slot for an SD card.
5. File format is ACHV and is totally compatible with FCPX
For full technical specs, go to Sony’s site. For best UK price and fantastic service, go here: http://www.jigsaw24.com, and mention me and ask for a deal. Hey, I asked and they knocked another £15 off what was already the lowest price for that camera–and it was on my doorstep the next morning!
(UPDATE: 05/23/13–Autofocus and Face Recognition)
I just did a one-man-band shoot of a live performance in a Music Bar/Steak House and this bears further comment on the Face Recognition and focus tracking capability of the HXR NX30…
I did the shoot with 4 cameras: 1) the GroPro Hero 3 Black Edition (from behind band), 2) Canon 600 DSLR locked on a side angle, 3) Canon XHA1 locked on frontal angle, 4) Sony HXR NX30 hand-held.
Here we have the worst combination of factors for a cameraman shooting close-ups on a live shoot: Low light level, coloured lights, moving targets.
I simply could not have done this with with either the DSLR or the XHA1–or probably many similar cameras or larger ones.
The Sony HXR NX30, however, was a dream.
By using the auto-focus feature and Face Recognition, there was little to no lag on locking onto focus of the singer, even when she was moving forward and backwards. And certainly when there was a brief lag in the worst conditions of low red or blue light, the camera got it a hell of a lot faster than I could have manually. And when it got it, it held on. The truth is, I just didn’t worry about focus and was able to put my attention on the shot to hand or thinking ahead to where I was going to go next. This was the first I was ever seeing this performance–as I was shooting it, so I was glad I wasn’t introverted into a follow-focus nightmare at the same time because these hand-held shots were the only hope of close-ups. The other three unmanned cameras had to be framed loose to account for any movement that might occur within the frame.
I’ll link to the three songs I edited for the singer, but the first one will illustrate my point. The others are there for the fun of it–and I don’t mind at all if you comment on the videos for her sake!
As a 30 year career cameraman, I thought I’d share a few thoughts on camerawork for the one-man-band videographers and small video production companies out there.
It’s a many-faceted subject, but like any subject, it has fundamental rules. And while this isn’t meant to be a dissertation on the rules, I thought I mention one that probably isn’t written anywhere anyway as a foundation for my comments, and that is: the purpose of camerawork is to forward the message of the script or production (and that goes for every other department–sets, props, costumes, make-up, lighting, sound, music, editing, etc.).
The corollary might be: The purpose of camerawork isn’t to call attention to the camera or cameraman.
That said, there are probably few camera support systems I haven’t extensively used in both film and video production–from geared heads, the most expensive fluid heads and tripods, dollies, cranes, camera cars and steadicam. But I used them toward contributing to the overall message of the scene.
In the mid-90s I changed over to video, traveling the world in small teams of 2 or 3, self included, with an 18 pound Sony Betacam. The work was fast and often “ninja style”. Little preps, lots of thinking on one’s feet. My biggest impediment annoyance? Tripods.
So early on I ditched that $7,000 carbon fiber tripod with the Sachler head for everything except sit-down interviews and I learned to do everything hand-held. Not “shakey-cam”, just a nice, steady hand-held. I’d prop that big Sony on my foot, on the ground, on a ledge, on my knee, hip or shoulder, lean against a pole or fence or building or sit it on a small bean bag I carried and shot stuff that few ever realized was hand-held.
But the main point was, I was able to shoot un-impeded. I didn’t miss those fleeting shots on location because I was setting up a tripod and introverted into my equipment.
Then came the digital revolution.
And now most of the cameras we used have built-in stabilization and most of the editing programs we use have camera stabilizer programs to boot.
Better still, the cameras themselves are light-weight with rotatable flip-out monitor screens. What more can you ask for?!
Ok, so now let’s re-visit that fundamental above about the purpose of camerawork.
Camerawork (or lighting or editing or any of those other departments mentioned) is good when it involves the audience in the story; when it helps to impart mood or emotion or direct attention.
And, (corollary), these things are bad when they call attention to themselves, or worse when they call attention to the operator showing off his technical prowess.
In fact my view regarding camerawork had always been that it’s best when it’s “invisible”–when it seamlessly becomes the eye of the audience.
That doesn’t necessarily mean perfect camerawork. It just means appropriate to and not distracting from the message.
It’s quite alright if someone after the show remarks that the cinematography was excellent, but by that they generally mean that everything contributed to the message or story and they were wowed by it all, not distracted or knocked out of the show by it.
Don’t be fooled into the notion that to appear “professional” you’ve got to have all these cool rigs and techniques. You don’t even need it to impart a “cinematic” look.
Think about all the lost opportunities to catch snippets of life and reaction at a wedding or great B roll of people working at their jobs in the office or on an industrial site while you were busy setting up that fancy shot. Instead keep your attention outward. Be invisible. Catch the stuff that only happens when no one thinks you’re watching.
Get your technical expertise up as high as you can get it without losing site of why you’re there.
I’m not saying get rid of all your cool stuff and I’m not saying don’t buy it. Just don’t get the notion that you need it to be professional. Far more important is obtaining total command over your camera so that it becomes an extension of your eye which is always outward looking, and then with it you capture what you came for better than your client ever expected.
Message is senior to technical rendition. In fact it trumps it.
If you capture something in a way that screams the message or mood or emotion, it will resonate with the audience even if faulty. They didn’t come there to watch and critique your camerawork or technique (unless that’s what your video message is about!).
My two cents.
UPDATE: While this was the subject of my last post, it occurred to me that it’s, at least, a current sample of an 11 minute video that’s entirely hand-held except for the sit-down interview (as all my videos are , to be honest). I link to it here as, unlike most of the corporate and wedding videos I do, I think it would be of interest to anyone. It’s a mini-doc on the making of a bronze statue by my wife, international sculptor Laury Dizengremel:
Posted in People on April 4, 2013 by Video Whisperer
Ever wondered how a bronze statue is made?
I did, and I’m married to a sculptor.
You’d be amazed.
So I thought I’d record the process so that in a short 11 minutes you could not only learn about and see a legendary Welsh rugby player Ken Jones in action, but also the entire process of immortalizing him in bronze 60 years after scoring the winning point against the All Blacks in 1953.
Enjoy.
P.S. For anyone who read the article FCPX Resources on this blog, all the light beam effects in the video were done with a $29 program from Pixel Film Studios. Notice how the beams interact with people walking through them.
Posted in resources on March 4, 2013 by Video Whisperer
Lots of questions on Linkedin Video groups on how to get clients. Here’s a strategy you probably haven’t thought about, but something we all can be working on right now. Please welcome Ross Web, my first guest blogger.
I’d like to thank Joe for having me as a guest on his blog. I really respect his viewpoints and I hope to have something to contribute to this conversation.
Firstly, you might be wondering, who I am. I’m a guy who built up a post facility from nothing and with no financing to turning over millions in a few short years. We also got to over 12 staff and the obligatory awards. Hell, I even had my work in the After Effects Compositing book published by Adobe press. All of this in one of the most competitive industries I’ve worked in.
Before I go on, I want to define the “Inbound” part of marketing in the headline of this post. By inbound I mean the stuff that makes your clients pick up the phone, or write the tweet, email, comment etc etc. In order to do that you, of course, need to get your message out there to the right people. This involves creating a content marketing strategy at the centre and using other tools, usually online marketing tools, to get people to view your content and to give you permission to speak to them. Then once you have that dialogue going you can see what kind of awesome value you can add to your potential client.
I hate to say we had “the” answer. I think as soon as you say that you’re exluding many, many great ways of achieve a similar goal. But we definitely did a few things right. Please note we didn’t have anything particularly special in our equipment. We never bought a Flame box or a Da Vinci Resolve. I’ve heard that so many times from Freelancers. That clients want to you to be using X software. Thats not true in any case I’ve been in.
So what did we do to get clients? Well firstly, we realized (the hard way) that there are two different types of clients. The good, high margin types and the bad, low margin type. The challenge is that there is a LOT of work in the low margin space. And as someone who never had any work and had to crash on his parent’s couch, saying no to ANY type of work is scary. Crazy scary. But you need to. You need to be able to fire clients if they don’t make sense to you.
But how do you get these high margin guys? I am convinced the only way to do this today is to focus on inbound marketing. You really need to engage your target market. Lets say that you’ve done a few ads for restaurants and hotels. Great. But you spend a lot of your time marketing online and spending tons of time, for example, on Linkedin Production groups. Thats awesome.
Most production people spend their time on Creativecow, or DVinfo, Reduser and tons of other forums and user groups. While I think thats awesome and I still spend a bunch of time there as I love to know whats going on with new cameras etc, its totally the wrong forum as far as speaking to potential new clients.
But what I’d suggest, is getting to know loads of Restaurant owners and hotel managers. I bet that they agree that they need a video. Hell I bet they’ve even had a few quotes. But they need to know you understand THEIR problems. They don’t care about your camera or HD for SD. I could bore you to death about a discussion about codecs. I even once had a hotel ask me for a quote and when it was too high for them, they said they could shoot the whole thing on an iPhone. They weren’t stupid or ill informed, I just didn’t have any credibility.
They didn’t really want a video. Lets face it, what they wanted was more people to book their beds (which they loved telling me cost over 10k per bed.) But I wasn’t selling that. I was selling pixels and edits and music and pretty pictures. Which is brilliant. Then again I’ve had meetings with great hotels who wanted to the entire package. PR, SEO, PPC (Pay Per Click).
While thats not the business I am in anymore, its what I’d do today. I feel there is a massive amount of new videos being produced but the days of just creating a video and moving onto the next client are over. And thats great. Hopefully you can work more directly to a client and have a better impact on their bottom line.
There is so much high margin work to be done with really awesome clients once you establish your credibility in their industry. Pop up on their trade websites, go to their conferences. Hey present if you can. What about trying to co-host a webinar with some of their other vendors? I’m sure there’s a web design company who specialises in hotels and restaurants.
Inbound marketing works. I love it. I love it more than I do when I was creating video coz you can actually see the impact of the ad. I used to get told my Creative Directors at Agencies that the ads I’d created were increasing their sales by X% but it felt so far removed. Now you can see the needle on the dial actually move so much faster. I really want you to get rid of your bad clients. The ones that make you beg them to get paid. The guys who are high margin and who come knocking on YOUR door usually are great with payments. While I used to enjoy spending a day on a shoot. Nowadays a day spent with a small but growing Production company working on their Inbound Strategy is just as exciting.
I’d love to discuss this in more detail and I could go on forever. I hope I’ve given you something positive to think about and some actionable items. Thanks so much for reading and I really wish you the best of success in your business and creative work.
Ross is the Co-founder Mindway Media: Online Catalog, Review and Approval Software for Production and Post Companies.
Posted in resources with tags resources on February 28, 2013 by Video Whisperer
Ok, it’s a hopeful title.
But maybe you can help get the word out.
Anyone who’s read a Steve Job biography knows the story of how, in the era of Great Worry about financial losses and pirating in the music business he got the record label executives together around a conference table, beat some sense into them and iTunes was born. Soon everyone was swimming in profit again. More than a Billion downloads. More than a Billion Dollars. And not a penny needing to be spent in manufacturing, stock, or shipping.
Netflix in the US got the message and did the same thing with the movie industry.
When the App Store appeared in Mac’s OSX operating system, I remember looking up a program I wanted to update. That program used to cost $79 in disc form at the store (which was the only way to buy it then). There it was in the App Store for $19.99. I was already set-up for “One-Click” purchases, so I enthusiastically clicked on it and watched in amazement as the icon jumped off the page, into my dock and loaded itself in seconds. One click. I didn’t have to do a thing. One minute later I had the full program. $19.99. Cool!
A couple years later I wanted to upgrade to Lion. The complete operating system for Mac, with all its features cost a measly $19.
What does Microsoft Windows cost these days?
Ok, this isn’t about Mac vs PC, so don’t get your hackles up.
It’s about the way iTunes changed the world. And too much of the world hasn’t caught on yet.
I strongly feel that good software developers should be justly rewarded. So this isn’t about screwing developers out of profit either.
I just think they’d make MORE MONEY if they started selling the stuff at a MUCH LOWER price.
Makes no sense? Read on.
CASE IN POINT
I was looking for a blueprint effect and stumbled on Pixel Film Studios. They had it and it came with a dozen or two other related great graphic effects, (cartoon, paint, pencil, chalk, etc.) each of them with infinitely variable parameters. It cost $29. I bought it.
They also had tons of other fantastic stuff for the same price and a few just a bit more ($34). I bought their fog set too. 50 different fog templates, all of them infinitely variable. $29.
I’ll be back for more. Lots more.
Meanwhile I have tons of additional stuff loaded into my FX pane and every time I find one that I like and decide to pay for it, it’s–oh $20 or so for a single effect or transition. I buy it because it solves a problem and I guess that’s the strangle hold they’re hoping for. But I don’t think too highly of the company and I sure don’t go telling everyone about them either. Oh, and I’m also going to be dumping them all out of my program. No more polite blackmail for me.
But I AM telling everyone about Pixel Studios.
Go to Boris, or Industrial Revolution, SUGARFX, and many others and it costs $100 or hundreds to get a package (and they boast it’s a 40% discount!). There are plenty I’d like to have and could use. But I haven’t bought one yet.
SO WHAT IF…
If 10,000 non-corporate editors want a certain effect that comes as part of a $100 (or more) package, how many sales are going to be made?
Shall we say 100? So that’s $10,000 in sales.
If 10,000 non-corporate editors want a certain effect and find that effect with tons of related variations, each with controllable parameters for $25, how many sales are going to be made? The better question is: Who wouldn’t pay $25 for exactly what they’re looking for and then some? Shall we say in this case 8000? That’s $200,000 in sales.
Or, who wouldn’t pay 99 cents for a song they liked? Even when there’s a chance to pirate it for free. It seems the answer to that is over a billion.
Look guys. The work is done. Sure it cost a bunch to get it made. But it’s done. It’s up there in the sky. You don’t have to package it. You don’t have to stock it. You don’t have to inventory it. You don’t have to ship it. You don’t have to do a damn thing.
If you want to make a lot of money, sell it to just about EVERYONE for a few bucks instead of selling it to a few for a few hundred.
(I don’t usually make this request, but use the buttons and share this one please)
First off, this is for FCPX editors and not an invitation to debate editing programs.
That said, there are tons of resources for FCPX or any editing program for that matter, but I recently found one in particular that blew me away.
Pixel Film Studios
I was looking for a “blueprint” effect and these guys came up: (http://store.pixelfilmstudios.com/). Their blue print effect was exactly what I was looking for, but in that $29 package came a lot of other very useful goodies (various cartoon effects, line art, painting effects, etc.) and all of them with lots of parameter controls.
That was just one little package of dozens available. I also got an awesome Fog package with 50 different types of fog, each with controllable parameters, and each capable of layering for a practically infinite pallet of fog effects.
They’ve also got amazing rain, smoke, snow, flare, make-up (skin), and dozens of other fantastically usable and controllable effects and transitions. Even holograms. They install instantly in the FCPX effects pane and put a host of cinematic effects at your fingertips. All inexpensive and with some bundles available.
Alex4d
Found this on the same day while trying to solve a problem. Alex is one of those geniuses that cranks out dozens and dozens of useful plugins that are either stand-alone new, or which improve on existing program features–ALL FOR FREE. (you can donate money to help him out using the donate button on his blog). But if you’re an FCPX editor, you’ve got to check out all he has made available. It’s an impressive array: http://alex4d.wordpress.com/
IzzyVideo
I’ve mentioned Izzy many times on postings relating to FCPX. If you want to learn FCPX and be editing happily in one day, he’s got the best tutorials I’ve found on the subject. A couple hour’s worth of simple step by step tutorials for FREE. Then, for about $49, you can buy a couple more hours worth of advanced tutorials. It’s worth it. Plus you can become a “member” for a ridiculously low fee and have unlimited access to hundreds of videos on the subject of video basics–from how to choose a camera, lighting, sound recording and lots more.
But mainly, it’s his FCPX tutorials that I keep referring people to. There are lots of tutorials out there. For some reason I found his to be the perfect balance of information needed to be able to easily grasp the basics in a logical sequence. I tried some others and got very frustrated and annoyed. With Izzy, I just enjoyed the process every step of the way. Check out: http://www.izzyvideo.com
