Click here to see the Postcard From NYC video on the main website or here to see it on Vimeo.
I’ve spent the past two years or so, on and off, trying to learn something about shooting video. Because I wanted to. Because I am convinced I need to ( clients are going to need video for the web and I want to be able to offer that service ) . And because technology now allows me to do things that, until very recently, would have been impossible, both technically and financially. A long time ago, I was assistant to a fashion and advertising photographer who also shot commercials and music videos. I would assist him on those too, and go to watch the rushes and then the editing in progress. This filming thing wasn’t entirely new territory.
Any working photographer knows that digital has brought an increased workload: a day spent shooting generates at least a day of post-production which you have to do to maintain quality but which generally goes unpaid. Finding time on top of that to learn new techniques means very ( crazily ) long days.
I started with iMovie, then Final Cut Express, now Final Cut Pro Studio, moving on each time I got to the limits of what the software had to offer. Add to that basic sound editing, video transcoding, colour grading and the arcanes of publishing video to the web. That makes a lot to learn in your “spare” time.
Most recent effort is a video postcard from New York City, made during a very brief visit at the beginning of the year. I knew I wanted to use my time there to film something but decided to leave my Canon 5D MK II at home, preferring simply a Panasonic TZ7 / ZS3 and a Zoom H4 sound recorder.
Why only the Panasonic? Because it is small and discreet, has a wide zoom range, good stabilization and – above all – looks like nothing special at all. Just another tourist, which is sometimes – increasingly – a Good Thing to appear to be.
Getting a result in photography can be a question of knowing what you can’t hope to do and concentrating on what is possible. Be over ambitious and you come home empty-handed. Limitations can be liberating.
No video technique here. There are plenty of excellent resources elsewhere for that and Google is, as always, your ally.
Instead, some thoughts on experience gathered during these last 24 months.
Overheard, while shooting a reportage job: “I don’t care about photos! What I want is video now”. OK, but what video and why?
We are going to see a rush to video. It’s hip. It’s modern. The problem is that video takes time to watch. Imagine a company with 5000 employees that puts 5 minutes of video on their intranet twice a month for a year: 10 000 man hours are going to be spent watching that content ( and that’s only if it’s watched once ). Those man-hours cost money. The web requires frequently updated content so a twice monthly renewal cycle would be pretty slow. More frequent renewal, more man hours spent. You get the picture. While an effective still photograph can viewed rapidly and continue to work in the mind of the spectator, video requires a real-time commitment. Is your message worth what it will cost you in man hours for it to be seen? If your message is destined for the general public, can people be bothered to sit through your moving content or would a still image be more effective?
Images produced on a commissioned photo shoot can often be used more than once by the client. Video is far less versatile, unless you constantly re-edit your footage. Re-editing takes time and time is…
Producing video requires a far closer collaboration between the client and the supplier than producing photographs does. A photographer can do a shoot, return to base, process the images and deliver them. The client can then draw from the pool of finished images according to their needs. With video that pool is the rushes, video and audio. By themselves the rushes don’t add up to much. They become something when they are edited and editing is a complicated and time-consuming process. You can’t afford to be constantly modifying your edit while your client makes up their mind about what they want.
The more cuts / clips / audio sources you have in your final edited video, the longer it will take you to edit. The longer it takes you, the more you will have to charge your client. Anticipate this in your initial quote and you run the risk of being too expensive. Ignore it and you end up losing money. Deliver only the rushes to your client and you suddenly have no control over quality or whether your initial intentions are respected or understood…
Getting the whole process to work will obviously going to be a question of mutual ( read client / supplier ) education. Sounds obvious? Easier said than done.
The client also needs to understand that their budget also determines production values. So much money will get you a video, so much a well-lit video, so much a well-lit video with makeup etc etc… What do your really need? What is your product worth to you?
So back to the little cameras and simple productions: budgets are limited, content will need to be renewed frequently, long videos are going to be too time-consuming to watch and too expensive to create. A traditional two or three man video crew ( camera / sound / director or interviewer or assistant ) is going to be too cumbersome and far too costly in many cases. The task will be producing quality results on a budget, rapidly and often in parallel with a photo shoot. Using video capable DSLRs or even compact digital cameras allows us to reduce the production footprint and keep costs down while maintaining quality. They also allow us to move ( fairly ) seamlessly between stills and video.
A final technical thought: internet connection speeds vary immensely and video files have to be scaled down and compressed for transmission. Is it always worthwhile to shoot full HD 16:9 when you will be streaming at 1280 x 720 ( which the Panasonic shoots natively ) or less? Do you really need a 16:9 HD aspect ratio? Have you noticed just how much compression technique, just as much as resolution, determines the look of your online video?
