How to Learn Video Production in 6 Hours
I took a video workshop a few weeks back, something I’ve been meaning to do for years.
I consider myself “a film guy.” I’ve had a number of marketing roles where basic proficiency in video production would have been helpful. Why didn’t I learn earlier? All the usual reasons: inertia, a short attention span, intimidation at the hands of the thing I was trying to learn (in this case, a camera).
Getting older, and with it, more restless, has a way of gradually sanding down these mental hurdles, so I finally worked up the gumption to get on with it.
The class geared toward guerrilla-style shooting for a one-person crew, and the day’s assignment called for shooting an interview, the most basic shooting premise: Where to put the camera, how to arrange lighting, how to keep the image in focus, how to shoot with sound, among other things.
I’m not saying I’m a professional videographer now, but I did learn how to think about shooting before even turning on the camera, which, in my experience, is one of the biggest barriers to picking up a camera in the first place. That, and understanding which buttons merit my attention early in the game.
Operating the Camera
The sight of a functional camcorder was always pretty intimidating to me. All those buttons! If I pressed the wrong one, surely this would set into motion an irreversible chain of events (I realize this is exactly how the elderly thought of computers before Facebook).
At the workshop, I learned which buttons to focus on first just to get the basics down and how to manually adjust focus, exposure and zoom.
Before getting to that, though, I needed to understand how to light my subject.
Lighting the Subject
One of my biggest weaknesses as a photographer is understanding how my subject is lit and how to adjust for a better image. Let me tell you, it’s a weakness that translated seamlessly to video 😉.
In particular, my problem has always been thinking (or not thinking) about where my light sources are in relation to the subject I’m shooting.
When asked to take a photo of a group of people, I usually break into cold sweat; I know they’re probably in for a dim photo with horrendous back-lighting. In the workshop, I learned to stop and consider the specific subject I’m shooting. In an interview, the subject isn’t really a person — it’s the person’s face. And more particular still, their eyes. That’s the window to the soul, after all.
Keeping that small fact in mind totally changed how I thought about available light. In the first of many embarrassing epiphanies, I realized my light sources needed to be trained on the subject’s face, not the top or the back of the head. The more light the better. That goes for overhead lights, lamps, or light pouring in through a window.
If you need to move the subject or have them turn a certain way to get better light, it’s OK! That’s part of directing, and if someone agrees to be on camera, they expect to be directed. They trust you to make them look good. The least you can do is make them look as good as you can.
If the camera isn’t capturing light landing on the subject’s face well enough to see their eyes clear as day, they won’t look as good as they could.
Exposure
Exposure has always been sort of a blind spot for me. The basic concept of brightening or darkening an image based on how much light is hitting the image sensor makes sense. How to manually control the light hitting the sensor? Eh, not so much. Here’s what I picked up.
Aperture
Aperture is like the pupil of the camera’s eye. It expands and constricts to control how much light passes through the lens. It also controls depth of field You can measure and manipulate it through “f/stops,” the ratio between the diameter of the aperture and the focal length of the lens.
That’s why you see numbers like f/1.4 or f/16 on the LCD screen when playing with aperture. Basically, the smaller the numerical value, the more light is coming through.
If shooting an interview in someone’s office and trying to light the person’s face and keep it in focus, a smaller number is the way to go. If shooting a crowd of protesters outdoors, you might go with a bigger number (which restricts the amount of light coming through) so the image isn’t washed out.
You can control the exposure with what’s called an Iris on the camera. On some camcorders like the one below, it’s a little ring behind the Focus and Zoom rings. On others, it’s a little wheel or dial close to the Auto/Manual Iris button.
You could go pretty deep on f-stops and other exposure settings, not to mention ISO (light sensitivity) and shutter speed, which, it turns out, still matters when shooting a video. If you have access to even the tiniest digital camera, it’s helpful to spend some time with these settings and how they affect your image.
Focus
Mastering focus, I learned, is tough work for even the most seasoned pro. Doing it manually gives you much greater control over which objects in the frame get priority — but with great power comes great responsibility! Even if you achieve razor sharp focus on your subject and shallow depth of field (more on that in a sec), you have to maintain it.
If the subject is the interviewee’s face, you want to emphasize it above everything in the frame — including the background or anything else in the environment. To do so usually requires what’s called a “shallow depth of field.” Just about every scene in every movie that features one person talking uses some degree of shallow depth of field: the talking head is in focus, in the foreground, and the background is out of focus, because it’s not important in relation to what the subject is doing.
To get this effect, you have to adjust focus manually on your subject with the Focus Ring until their face comes up crystal clear in the viewfinder or LCD and the less important objects in the frame are a little muted.
Now, what might seem like it’s in focus to your eye, when blown up to a larger screen, might still be a bit blurry (you even see this in big Hollywood movies sometimes). We learned a little trick called snap focus to automate focus at a defined length. Ideal for setting up to shoot an interview once you’ve marked out where to put the camera in relation to the subject.
Zoom
Whenever I use the zoom feature on my smartphone camera, I notice the image deteriorates pretty quickly, so I rarely use it.
On a camcorder or DSLR, though, don’t sleep on the Zoom! Especially for shooting interviews. When you want to capture your subject’s face through a close-up or medium-close shot without putting the camera so close to them they feel uncomfortable, use Zoom.
Zoom can also greatly assist with keeping your subject in Focus. With neat little tricks snap zoom, you can first zoom in on the specific part of your subject you want to prioritize, like a person’s eyes, sharpen focus on the eyes, then zoom out and feel pretty confident that your subject’s face is very much in focus.
Most cameras, I learned, come equipped with different Zoom options, depending on how quickly or smoothly you want to use the effect, and what’s most comfortable for your hand position on the camera. For this exercise, I’ll just point out where the Zoom Ring is.
If you can control all three, you can shoot a professional-looking composition.
Composition
Turns out a visual concept called the “Rule of Thirds” organizes much of the film & TV images we’re used to watching. It plays out in a few ways we’re all familiar with.
First, let’s consider aspect ratio.
From YouTube to movie theaters, our brains tend to like images presented in a 16:9 widescreen ratio. With 16:9 as our “frame,” the Rule of Thirds organizes images in that frame along certain critical focal points, like so:
The idea being , for the object you want to draw attention to in the frame, capturing it at or near these focal points naturally tells the viewer’s brain, “Hey, look here!”
Here’s what it might look like if you wanted to frame a long exterior of someone walking toward the camera.
Epic shot, right?
Pretty much every movie or modern TV show applies this rule to great effect.
On 60 Minutes, the gold standard for the interview format, and, let’s face it, one of the ten best shows in television history, the use of Zoom, Focus and the Rule of Thirds is used to invite the viewer to compare what Rex Tillerson’s mouth is saying with what his face is saying.
Which brings me to my last great (delayed) realization about composition:
Notice how the footage, or “a-roll” of Tillerson’s interview finds him aligned to the right of the frame, with all this space to the left of his face? That space is called “talk space,” and aside from granting a professional look to the composition, it can be used to great narrative, psychological effect.
Here, Tillerson is in conversation with another person — his interviewer, Margaret Brennan. As they speak to each other from their chairs, they occupy different literal and psychological perspectives. As their conversation plays out, the juxtaposition of the shots they appear in tell that story. Tillerson and his perspective is aligned to the right of the frame. Brennan is on the left. In addition to providing a seamless, aesthetically pleasing depiction of a conversation, the compositions also relay subtle, psychological tensions, too.
In the workshop, we looked at how the characters in a movie like The King’s Speech are framed to convey tons of important emotional, psychological information.
Practicing with a Camera
Hopefully I’ve demystified the camera a little bit and shared an accessible way to think about shooting something as simple as an interview. No doubt, you could learn a lot more reading other sources online and watching some YouTube videos.
From my own experience, though, taking a paid class established some much needed motivation to get off the couch and get my hands dirty. With some basic tools in hand, the next step for me is to rent a camera for some practice before considering an investment in one.
Then, it’s on to editing!
