Maddog's Quick Video Tips

Here is a haphazard list of tips for making videos that might not suck.


Before You Start...

1. Pack your tapes

Before you use a brand new tape (or an old tape which has been sitting for a while, or been used with a lot of starts and stops), you should pack the tape. This simply means to fast-forward it all the way to the end, and then rewind it all the way to the beginning.

This will even out the tension in the tape and get it rewound evenly on its spindles. Uneven winding and sticky spots can cause dropouts, even on whizzy digital media.

2. Blackburst your tapes

After packing a tape, but before recording any footage, you should blackburst the tape. In your case, what you will need to do is leave the lens cap on the camcorder, put it in a quiet place where it can sit undisturbed, and hit record. Let the entire tape be recorded with black and (near) silence, then rewind it. Voila, you are now ready to shoot a scene.

Doing this lays down a control track and timecode onto the tape; it's kind of like formatting the tape. The camcorder will generate a new control track if the tape does not have one, but it will leave the original there if you already put one down first. This is good because, if you do it all in one straight shot, you will have a single continuous timecode which accurately labels every frame on the tape.

When You Start...

1. Leave room for pre-roll and post-roll

When you start shooting a scene, always let the camera record for a full five seconds before "Action!". When the scene ends, let the camera roll for an additional five seconds before "Cut!".

The camera takes a second or two to start up, and on top of that it's always good to make sure it has stabilized before recording anything that you are going to need. Occasionally with DV recorders, the first second or two will just come out wrong. Furthermore, when you start editing, you will find that you will need room before and after the scene so that the controller can get your tape deck rolling up to speed. (This is less of an issue with DV transfer/editing, but still comes into play, especially at the beginning of the tape.)

2. Pay attention to the white balance

Every video camera has white balance controls. Use them! Otherwise, your recorded video will look amateurish, if not downright bad. The adjustment mechanism varies by camcorder (menu selection, set when turned on, etc.) put proper white balance always requires a white surface (such as a sheet of paper) upon which the camcorder is calibrated in the lighting conditions of the scene. If the lighting conditions change (e.g. you go indoors from outdoors), make sure to recalibrate the white balance!

White balance adjusts the ratios of the R, G, and B responses of the camera to account for the lighting on hand. Our eyes have the amazing ability to perceive the same colors over a wide range of lighting conditions. Video cameras do not; to emulate that ability requires a sheet of paper and a push of a button. Without it, recording color will be off --- usually too yellow/orange indoors or too purple outdoors.

Other Random Suggestions

1. Lighting

Lighting is A-Number-1 important thing in video. Most home video recordings, despite marvelous advances in camcorder sensitivity, are made under poor lighting conditions. Yours will be, too, because chances are you won't get a hold of really bright studio lights.

What can you do?

  • Record outdoors (during the day). Harness the power of the sun.
  • Invest in some halogen torchiere lamps.
  • Watch for shadows. Manipulation of shadows is a great technique for subtle cinematography, but if you just have random shadows in the way, it looks bad. Traditional television studio production uses many "fill" lights to remove shadows and make the lighting as uniform as possible --- video cameras have limited dynamic range which tends to accentuate shadows.

2. Composition

A typical studio production (e.g. talk show) will have a cut (switch to a different camera angle) every eight seconds. That's pretty quick, but you don't usually notice it, because when done right it gently leads your visual attention around the space of the production. If a shot lasts too long, the eyes of the audience grow bored and impatient. If a shot is too short, or worse, if a transition lacks continuity and does not evenly continue the motion of the scene, then the audience will feel jarred visually. Sometimes this is intentional, but even then, it is used sparingly. Of course, on a 60 second commercial (or a 60 minute episode of Pokemon), visual jarring is useful to keep the ADD afflicted riveted to their tubes.

Remember to leave look room in a shot. This is extra space on the side of the screen to which a person is looking. If a person is looking off to the side of the screen, and they are perfectly centered onscreen, they will appear to be crowded into that same side.

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Look room No look room

3. Audio

Audio is one of the most important components to good video. A piece with poor audio quality is worse than a piece with no audio at all. Unfortunately, without wireless or shotgun mikes, you'll be at the whim of the not-very-directional microphone built into the camcorder. Try to avoid windy or echo-y locations, and try to keep the camcorder/mike close to the talent.

Fortunately, digital video also includes digital audio, so it is much harder to permanently screw-up the audio during transfers. Still, watch your levels, and be cautious of level clipping (maxxing out the range).


Composed with love and care by maddog.