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ОглавлениеCHAPTER 1
SHOOTING FLUENTLY
AND CONFIDENTLY
Get to know your camera
Secret 1: Don’t be afraid of the camera
Secret 2: Learn to “see” with the camera
Secret 3: Learn to shoot intuitively
Secret 4: Learn to operate your camera by touch
Secret 5: Learn to shoot with both eyes open
Secret 6: Shoot a movie with a unifying theme
Secret 7: Shoot a movie a day for sixty days
Trying to shoot a street scene in the rain is a little like giving a piano recital in the shower.
It is December and I am in Portland, Oregon. Today’s weather is the same as yesterday’s: wet, cold and windy under a dark morning sky.
I am crouched behind a parked car on Mississippi Avenue. Leaning out a bit, I focus a VX2100 camera on the oncoming traffic. Seven street-cleaning trucks approach in line. Lumbering down the narrow street, throwing white sprays of water from their wheels, they are a perfect visual metaphor for a scene I want to shoot.
As the third truck passes, my viewfinder goes white and I am drenched in ice-cold water. The driver—bored or maybe not liking his picture taken—flipped on the truck’s street washing spray as he passed.
I have come to Portland for a week to work with filmmaker Jon Jost. Jost is a slender, charismatic man who has been making feature films for nearly thirty years. The credits on his film usually read: writer, director, producer, editor: Jon Jost. He is a genius at keeping things simple, and doing everything himself.
Although he shot in film for nearly twenty years—16mm and 35mm Panavision—he was an early convert to digital video and decided in 1996 to shoot only on DV.
Of his twenty-something features; All the Vermeers in New York is my favorite. Shot in 35mm, without lights, it is a beautifully made, subtle character study.
Jost is in Portland for a few months to prepare for his next feature film. While here, he has agreed to give me a crash course in digital video shooting. The day after I arrived, he learned that one of his recent films had been accepted for the Rotterdam film festival.
In his apartment he and his wife Marcella are working furiously. They are doing last-minute edits and preparing a new digital copy of his film for Rotterdam. Between work sessions, Jon gave me a “mini workshop” on shooting digital video. The exercises that follow are drawn from the formal Digital Video workshops he teaches every year.
SECRET 1: DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE CAMERA
One of the biggest secrets about shooting well is simply to be comfortable with your camera.
The best way to become comfortable with any camera is to take the camera out, turn it on and play with it.
Shoot some footage and see what happens. For now, don’t worry about what the image looks like. As filmmaker Jon Jost tells his students in his Digital Video workshops, “Just make a mess!”
What you need for this chapter:
• Camcorder with a fully charged battery
• Blank media. Depending on your camera, the media may be a tape, flash memory chip, DVD, or hard disk
• Camcorder operating manual
• Computer with video editing software
1. Find a comfortable spot where you won’t be disturbed. You can do this in your kitchen, your front yard, or a local park.
2. Start recording.
3. Push all the buttons. Try every control on the camera. Learn how to interpret every word and icon on the LCD.
4. Keep going until you have about fifteen minutes of footage.
5. Dump the footage into your computer and make a three-minute movie of the most visually interesting shots.
6. Give your three-minute movie a title and save it to a DVD or CD.
7. Post your movie online.
Posting your movies online
After each exercise, you might want to post your films online. There are several reasons why this is a good idea, one of which is that it is an excellent way to develop the habit of finishing every project that you shoot.
YouTube accounts are free at www.youtube.com .
You can see my own videos of each exercise (and find many free Digital Video Secrets extras) at www.tonylevelle.com.
SECRET 2: LEARN TO “SEE” WITH THE CAMERA
When you look at a scene, develop the habit looking at it through the camera. Use the camera as a lens, through which you observe the world. When you look at a scene with your eyes, you see all sorts of things on the periphery of your vision. The camera doesn’t see any of this. The camera only sees what is within the frame.
When you practice seeing the world through the camera, you soon develop a sense of framing, composition and balance. Learning to see with the camera is the first step toward shooting truly compelling images.
What you need for this exercise:
• Camcorder with a fully charged battery
• Blank media
• Tripod or camera support.
• Computer with video editing software
• Camcorder operating manual
8.
9. Find a visually interesting spot within a five-minute walk of your home. Look for a spot where you can see movement—traffic, people walking, waves crashing on a shore, clouds moving across the sky—anything.
10. Sit down, and turn on the camera. Look at the scene on the LCD. Move the camera, and play with the zoom until you find an interesting scene.
11. Record the scene. Hold the camera on the scene for at least one minute. The first thing you will notice is how hard it is to let the camera record for even a single minute. We’re all so conditioned to quick cuts and jumps on television and in the movies, that there’s a constant temptation to move the camera to something else. Watch the scene in the camcorder viewfinder or LCD as you record it. Don’t look up.
12. Repeat five times, with five different scenes.
13. Dump the resulting footage into your computer and carefully examine the footage.
14. Assemble a two- or three-minute movie from the most visually interesting elements of the footage.
15. Give your movie a title and save it to DVD or CD. Write the date, time, and the name of the movie on the DVD or CD.
16. Post your movie online.
SECRET 3: LEARN TO SHOOT INTUITIVELY
Closely connected to learning to “see” with the camera is the ability to shoot intuitively and spontaneously.
Some of the world’s greatest photographs were only captured because the photographer had the ability to shoot intuitively and quickly.
What you need for this exercise:
• Camcorder with a fully charged battery
• Blank media
• Computer with video editing software
17. Take your camcorder, and go for a walk. Don’t make a big deal of it; just go somewhere close by, maybe somewhere that you see every day. As you walk, look at your environment. When you see something that interests you—for no reason other than it interests you—stop and record it, no matter how little sense it makes. Shoot at least thirty seconds of footage each time you turn on the camera. (Thirty seconds gives you enough footage so you can edit it easily.)
18. Continue until you have five to seven minutes of footage.
19. Dump the footage into your computer.
20. Assemble a one to three-minute movie from the most interesting shots.
21. Give the movie a title and save it to CD or DVD.
22. Post the movie online.
SECRET 4: LEARN TO OPERATE YOUR CAMERA BY TOUCH
Being able to turn on the camera and shoot without looking at the camera allows you to shoot verite or to blend into the environment in a way that you couldn’t if you had to stop, open the viewfinder or LCD, focus and frame the image.
The ability to shoot “from the hip” is a good way to get an unexpected angle on a scene. You can often capture very interesting and revealing footage using this technique.
This skill is closely associated with the other steps in shooting fluently.
• What you need for this exercise:
• Camcorder with a fully charged battery
• Blank media
• Camcorder operating manual
• Computer with video editing software
23. Find an interesting place, someplace where you can tape safely and unobtrusively. It may be a park, a city street, or even your own back yard.
24. Use the viewfinder or LCD to frame a scene. Adjust the camcorder’s zoom, focus, shutter, iris and white balance.
25. Close the LCD, and hold the camera at waist level. Point the camera toward the scene.
26. Record the scene for a minute or longer. Do not peek at the viewfinder or LCD while you are recording.
27. Repeat five times in different locations.
28. Dump the footage into your computer.
29.Select the most interesting footage and assemble a two to three-minute movie.
30. Give your movie a title and save it to CD or DVD.
31. Post your movie online.
SECRET 5: LEARN TO SHOOT WITH BOTH EYES OPEN
When you are shooting on location, learn to shoot with both eyes open. This is useful if you are doing what is called “shooting verite.” When you shoot verite, you try to be like a “fly on the wall.” You observe and film, without being a part of the scene.
Shooting with both eyes open is also useful if you need to walk while you are recording. When you are concentrating on the image in your viewfinder, it’s amazingly easy to do something dangerous—like accidentally stepping into a swimming pool. When you shoot with both eyes open, you remain aware of the immediate environment as you shoot.
It’s a little bit like learning to rub your head while patting your stomach. You can learn it with practice!
What you need for this exercise:
• Camcorder with a fully charged battery
• Blank media
• Computer with video editing software
32. Find a safe, unobstructed place where you can walk about as you film. This may be in your own home or back yard.
33. With one eye on the viewfinder, and the other eye open, walk about the location. Hold the camera as steady as possible, and keep the viewfinder at your eye. Don’t lower the camcorder until you finish all five shots in this exercise.
34. Frame as you go. When you see something interesting, stop and record thirty seconds of footage.
35. When you have five minutes of footage, stop.
36. Dump the footage into your NLE, and edit the most interesting scenes into a one to two-minute movie.
37. Give your movie a title and save it on a CD or DVD.
38. Post your movie online.
SECRET 6: SHOOT A MOVIE WITH A UNIFYING THEME
For this exercise, you will shoot a series of images with a unifying theme.
Shooting a series of shots with a unifying theme will develop your ability to create visual transitions between shots, and establish continuity between scenes.
This exercise develops visual literacy. As you assemble movies based on a unifying theme, you will become aware of the visual power of certain images, colors, and compositions.
What you need for this exercise:
• Camcorder with fully charged batteries
• Blank media
• Tripod or other camera support
• Computer with video editing software
39.Shoot a series of shots with a unifying theme. The unifying theme might be subject, color, movement... anything that appeals to you, as long as there is a visual relationship between one shot and the next.
40. Record at least twenty seconds on each shot.
41. Continue until you have five minutes of footage.
42. When you have five minutes of footage dump it into your computer and edit it down to a two to three-minute movie of the most visually interesting scenes.
43. Give your movie a title and save it to DVD or CD.
44. Post your movie online.
SECRET 7: SHOOT A MOVIE A DAY FOR SIXTY DAYS
One of the most useful things you can do to become fluent with your camera is to shoot and edit a five-minute movie every day for sixty days. You can edit the movie “in camera” or in your computer. When you edit “in camera” plan each shot so that it will transition visually to the next.
Keep your shots simple. If you make them too complicated, you may find it difficult to shoot every day. Aim for completing a simple movie, every day.
Remember: “Done is good!”
Shoot intuitively. Do not over-plan. Soon you will begin to see a pattern in your movies. It will be a pattern of your own interests and enthusiasms. This pattern may reveal the kind of moviemaking that interests you deeply, and which you might do well.
At the end of sixty days you will probably have one or two good little movies.
What you need for this exercise:
• Camcorder with a fully charged battery
• Blank media
• Notebook and pencil
• Camcorder operating manual
• Computer with video editing software
45. At the beginning of each day’s shoot, write down the date and subject of the day’s footage.
46. Film this page as the first shot of the day.
47. Shoot ten to fifteen minutes of footage in as many or as few scenes as you like. Don’t worry about story, image quality, tripods, filters, light, white balance or anything else. Focus on getting something done each day, rather than getting it “right.” Remember, “Done is good!”
48. In your computer, edit the most interesting chunks into a five-minute movie.
49. Repeat for sixty days.
