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Producing Videos
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Kimberley Brown, Camera Operator and Digital Editor.(Photo by Henry Naudluk)

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Producing Videos
A COMPLETE GUIDE

Second Edition

Martha Mollison
Winner, 2003 The Australian Awards for Excellence in Educational
Publishing: TAFE and Vocational Education, Single Title
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First published in 1997

This edition published in 2003
Copyright © Martha Mollison 1996, 2003
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage
and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the
publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a
maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever
is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for
its educational purposes provided that the educational institution
(or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to
Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.
Allen & Unwin
83 Alexander Street
Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100
Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.allenandunwin.com
National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:
Mollison, Martha, 1948- .
Producing videos : a complete guide.
2nd ed.
Includes index.
ISBN 1 86508 916 8.
1. Video recordings - Australia - Production and direction.
I. Title.
791.450232
Set in 9.75/12 pt Stempel Schneidler by Bookhouse, Sydney
Printed by Ligare Pty Ltd, Sydney
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
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With thanks to my parents

Marie and George Mollison
who gave me wings
and taught me how to use them.
Bh0654M00-PressProofs.QXD 25/3/04 9:35 AM Page vi

Good Relations community service announcement shoot, Murriimage.

The skills you bring with you—memory, sight, hearing,

perspective—are exploited by media technology to communicate
your message. As a video producer, how you use them can be
good, bad or indifferent. It’s up to you.

Carl Fisher,Muriimage Community Video and Film Service,Wolvi via Gympie,Qld,Australia.

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Contents

Contents
Contents

Acknowledgements ix
Greeting xiii

1 The camera 1
2 Image control 25
3 Composition and framing 43
4 The camera’s view 57
5 Telling the story 74
6 Videotape and data storage 84
7 The video signal 97
8 Recording the video signal 108
9 Analog video editing 120
10 Going digital 139
11 Thanks for the memory 154
12 Digital editing 164
13 Editing techniques 180
14 Digital effects 191
15 Microphones 200
16 Having the right connections 213
17 Location sound recording 222
18 Sound postproduction 243
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viii Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

19 Safety on the set 256

20 Lighting 272
21 Using lighting equipment 290
22 Production options 306
23 Scriptwriting 319
24 Doing short dramas 333
25 Preproduction 343
26 Budgeting 369
27 The location shoot 376
28 Studio layout and equipment 394
29 Studio roles 409
30 Operating the vision mixer 419
31 Operating the studio audio mixer 435
32 Studio procedures 448
33 The HOT studio 466
34 Studio interviews 472
35 Video transmission methods 489
36 Videoconferencing 498
37 Video on the Internet 511
38 Copyright 520
39 Distribution 529

Glossary 532
Index 556
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Acknowledgements

Thanks to Jim Tumeth, Rowan Ayers and Ian Stocks for their contri-
I butions to the previous incarnation of this book, The AFTRS Guide to Video
Production.
Thanks also to the AFTRS staff who read and commented on the text, helped me
find materials, and graciously posed for photographs: Tony Atkins, Gilda Baracchi, Sara
Bennett, Tony Bosch, Ian Bosman, Rod Bower, Peter Butterworth, Helen Carmichael,
Rebecca Chiu, Ian Clark, Ken Crouch, Hilton Ellingham, Julian Ellis, Barry Fernandes,
Chris Fraser, Serge Golikov, Trevor Graham, Marguerite Grey, Ernst Hadenfeld, Phillippa
Harvey, Sara Hourez, Colin Kemp, Elisabeth Knight, Anna Lang, Ben Lay, Gerry Letts,
John Lonie, Vicki Lucan, Yvonne Madon, Tony Mandl, Peter Millyn, Marilyn Murphy,
Jane Paterson, Grahame Ramsay, Helen Salter, Wayne Smith, Faye Starr, Fiona Strain,
Alistair Thornton, Jason Wheatley and Annie Wright.
Additional thanks to media professionals who’ve advised and assisted me: Lester
Bostock, Kathryn Brown, Peter Chvany, Ian Collie, Marsha Della-Giustina, Tom Kingdon,
Darrell Lass, Sue L’Estrange, Brian McDuffie and Scott Watkins-Sully. Larger text
contributions were made by Sara Bennett, and Tom Jeffrey. A range of imaginative
learning activities were provided by Rachel Masters. Don Bethel, Harry Kirchner and
Meredith Quinn each contributed an entire chapter.
Ian Atkinson, Rob Davis, Richard Fitzpatrick, Peter Giles, Phillippa Harvey, Sebastian
Jake, Bruce McCallum, Dominique Morel, Bill O’Donnell and Charlie Tesch all helped
me come to terms with the new methods and equipment of digital video.
Michelle Blakeney, Barbara Bishop, Kimberley Brown, David Cameron, Richard
Fitzpatrick, Bernadette Flynn, Dominique Morel, Grahame Ramsay, Keith Smith, Neil
Smith, Rob Stewart, Peter Thurmer, the TEAME Indigenous TV and Video Course and
Metro Screen all supplied large numbers of vivid photos.
Help as needed came from Alex Bohme at Canon Australia, Bruce McCallum at
Sony Australia, Elizabeth Taggart-Speers at Screen Sound Australia, Monique Licardy at
Panasonic, JVC, Optus and Telstra. To top it off, Kylie Schott, Kathie Turton and Apple
Australasia loaned me a computer and Final Cut Pro 3 to learn on over the Christmas
holidays!
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x Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

This edition was written during my lectureship at the School of Indigenous Australian
Studies, James Cook University, and SIAS provided the facilities, support and paid work
time for me to do it. A huge thank you to Kylie Wilson who photocopied chapters and
chapters and chapters, did Web searches and chased details for me.
And very special thanks to Meredith Quinn, publisher of the first edition, Miranda
Douglas, designer of the first edition, Elizabeth Weiss, publisher of this edition, Colette
Vella and Ann Savage, my understanding and intrepid editors, Simon Paterson and
Michael Killalea, designers, Anthea Stead, illustrator, and John Buckingham, photographer
for both editions.
Finally, a warm tribute and smile to the tips providers, who’ve generously contributed
their kernels of wisdom:

Andrew Abernathy, Channel Seven Townsville, Townsville, Qld, Australia.

Leone Adams, ABC TV, NSW Training Coordinator, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Marjorie Anderson, National Coordinator Aboriginal Employment and Development,
ABC TV, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Ian Andrews, Metro Screen, Paddington, NSW, Australia.
Gilda Baracchi, Producer, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Claire Beach, Edmonds-Woodway High School, Edmonds, WA, USA.
Jason Benedek, Tin Sheds, University of Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Sara Bennett, Editor, Australian Film Television and Radio School.
Don Bethel, Consultant, Television Production Techniques, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Barbara Bishop, Independent Producer, Winthrop, MA, USA.
Jeff Bodmer-Turner, Manchester Memorial School, Manchester, MA, USA.
Julie Booras, Offspring Productions, Lynnfield, MA, USA.
Ian Bosman, Gaffer, Australian Film Television and Radio School.
Ken Bowley, University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia.
Carol Brands, Curtin University of Technology, Perth, WA, Australia.
Kathryn Brown, Director, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Kimberley Brown, Editor/Camera Operator, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
John Buckingham, Photographer, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
David Cameron, Charles Sturt University, Bathurst, NSW, Australia.
Helen Carmichael, Scriptwriting, Australian Film Television and Radio School.
John Carroll, Charles Sturt University, Bathurst, NSW, Australia.
Sandra Chung, ABC TV, Training and Development, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Peter Chvany, Emerson College, Boston, MA, USA.
Ian Clark, Video Maintenance, Australian Film Television and Radio School.
Paul Clark, Manchester Memorial School, Manchester, MA, USA.
Hart Cohen, University of Western Sydney–Nepean, Werrington, NSW, Australia.
Lester Crombie, Queensland School of Film and Television, Brisbane, Qld, Australia.
Rob Davis, Editor, Digital Dimensions, Townsville, Qld, Australia.
Marsha Della-Giustina, Emerson College, Boston, MA, USA.
Tracy Dickson, College of the Southwest, Roma, Qld, Australia.
Miranda Douglas, Publishing, Australian Film Television and Radio School.
Shaun Edwards, Cape York Indigenous Theatre Troupe, Cairns, Qld, Australia.
Hilton Ellingham, Props and Staging, Australian Film Television and Radio School.
Julian Ellis, Cinematographer, Australian Film Television and Radio School.
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Acknowledgements xi
Philip Elms, Media Resource Centre, Adelaide, SA, Australia.
Lee Faulkner, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Qld, Australia.
Barry Fernandes, Sound, Australian Film Television and Radio School.
John Fiddler, Producer, Reel Image, Brisbane, Qld, Australia.
Carl Fisher, Murriimage, Wolvi via Gympie, Qld, Australia.
Richard Fitzpatrick, Camera Operator, Digital Dimensions, Townsville, Qld, Australia.
Jeanne Flanagan, Independent Producer, Somerville, MA, USA.
Bernadette Flynn, School of Film, Media and Cultural Studies, Griffith University,
Brisbane, Qld, Australia.
Joseph Ford, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Vic, Australia.
Chris Fraser, Cinematographer, Australian Film Television and Radio School.
Denise Galloway, University of South Australia, Underdale, SA, Australia.
Peter Giles, Head of Digital Media, Australian Film Television and Radio School.
Serge Golikov, Post Production Supervisor, Australian Film Television and Radio School.
Trevor Graham, Documentary Filmmaker, Australia.
Ernst Hadenfeld, Engineer, Australian Film Television and Radio School.
Phillippa Harvey, Editing, Australian Film Television and Radio School.
Philip Hayward, Macquarie University, North Ryde, NSW, Australia.
Alan Hills, Queensland School of Film and Television, Brisbane, Qld, Australia.
Sara Hourez, Special Projects, Australian Film Television and Radio School.
Rich Howley, Video Trainer, Somerville, MA, USA.
Hsing Min Sha, Independent Producer, Somerville, MA, USA.
Stephen Jones, Australian Film Television and Radio School.
George Karpathakis, Edith Cowan University, Perth, WA, Australia.
Donna Kenny, The Video History Company and Center for Recording Life Stories,
Florence, MA, USA.
Colin Kemp, Engineering Department, Australian Film Television and Radio School.
Tom Kingdon, Director, Emerson College, Boston, MA, USA.
Harry Kirchner, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Vic, Australia.
Stewart Klein, Scriptwriting, Australian Film Television and Radio School.
Elisabeth Knight, Directing, Australian Film Television and Radio School.
Debra Kroon, Northern Territory University, Darwin, NT, Australia.
Anna Lang, Directing, Australian Film Television and Radio School.
Darrell Lass, Production Designer, Sydney, Australia.
Ben Lay, Editing, Australian Film Television and Radio School.
Gill Leahy, University of Technology, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Sue L’Estrange, Videographer, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Gerry Letts, Operations and Facilities, Australian Film Television and Radio School.
John Lonie, Scriptwriting, Australian Film Television and Radio School.
Bruce McCallum, Technician, Sony Australia.
Penny McDonald, Filmmaker, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Brian McDuffie, Director, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Shane McNeil, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA, Australia.
Yvonne Madon, Australian Film Television and Radio School.
Clodine Mallinckrodt, Director, Boston, MA, USA.
Tony Mandl, Gaffer, Australian Film Television and Radio School.
Peter Millyn, Production Accountant, Australian Film Television and Radio School.
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xii Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Dominique Morel, High Performance Computing Support, James Cook University,

Townsville, Qld, Australia.
Steve Morrison, University of Western Sydney–Nepean, Werrington, NSW, Australia.
Lyvern Myi, Media Resource Centre, Adelaide, SA, Australia.
Andy Nehl, Head of Television, Australian Film Television and Radio School.
Bill O’Donnell, Television Technician, Townsville, Qld, Australia.
Florence Onus, School of Indigenous Australian Studies, James Cook University,
Townsville, Qld, Australia.
Steven Parris, Edmonds-Woodway High School, Edmonds, WA, USA.
Jane Paterson, Sound, Australian Film Television and Radio School.
Meredith Quinn, Publishing, Australian Film Television and Radio School.
Jeremy Reurich, Technical Trainee, Australian Film Television and Radio School.
Cameron Rose, Video Art Society, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tas, Australia.
Adrian Rostirolla, Editor, Metro Screen, Paddington, NSW, Australia.
Danny Sheehy, Queensland School of Film and Television, Brisbane, Qld, Australia.
Ian Slade, Southern Cross University, Lismore, NSW, Australia.
Keith Smith, Edith Cowan University, Perth, WA, Australia.
Neil Smith, t.a.v. productions, Adelaide, SA, Australia.
Wayne Smith, Props and Staging, Australian Film Television and Radio School.
Rob Stewart, Northen Melbourne Institute of TAFE, Collingwood, Vic, Australia.
Mark Stiles, Writer and Filmmaker, Sydney, Australia.
Fiona Strain, Editor, Australian Film Television and Radio School.
Charlie Tesch, Independent Producer, Somerville, MA, USA.
Mark Tewksbury, The Nine Video School, Brisbane, Qld, Australia.
Alistair Thornton, Props and Staging, Australian Film Television and Radio School.
Peter Thurmer, Hamilton Secondary College, Mitchell Park, SA, Australia.
Christine Togo-Smallwood, Entrepreneurial Unit, School of Indigenous Australian Studies,
James Cook University, Townsville, Qld, Australia.
Francis Treacey, Deakin University, Clayton, Vic, Australia.
Gypsy Rose Tucker, Scriptwriting, Australian Film Television and Radio School.
Jim Tumeth, Training Development, Australian Film Television and Radio School.
Lindsay Ward, School of Information Technology, James Cook University, Townsville,
Qld, Australia.
Peter Watkins, Educational Media Services, University of Western Sydney–Macarthur,
Bankstown, NSW, Australia.
Scott Watkins-Sully, Independent Producer, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Brian Williams, Western Australian School of Art and Design, Northbridge, WA, Australia.
Jason Wheatley, Educational Media, Australian Film Television and Radio School.
Alison Wotherspoon, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA, Australia.
Ian Ingram Young, Academy of Photogenic Arts, Artarmon, NSW, Australia.
Bh0654M00-PressProofs.QXD 25/3/04 9:35 AM Page xiii

Greeting

Greeting

Hello to you, Aspiring Videomaker!

I You’re about to learn a skill which will give you both satisfaction and
unexpected challenges. You’ll find yourself looking at film and television differently, and
even real life will sometimes get a frame around it in your eyes.
The book you’re holding is an attempt to pass on to you the things I can tell you
about video. I’ve tried to write it so it feels more like I’m right there talking to you rather
than like I think I’m some remote authority on the subject. I hope you find it easy and
fun to read.
As with any communication, you have a right to ask about me, so you can decide
how to weigh what I’ve written. But as books aren’t geared up for two-way com-
munication, I’ll take that step for you.
For 21 years I’ve been working in video, and it’s opened many doors for me which
would never have opened otherwise. I’ve lugged gear to cover a wide range of events—
cultural, political, and personal—in the USA and Australia, and gone to Kenya and China
as well.
As a teacher of video, I’ve helped other people develop the tools to tell their own
stories, some heartfelt, some fantastical, some straight, some quirky. I’ve been a sort of
midwife of the medium. On screening days, and even at rough cut sessions, I’ve felt
wonder and awe at the imaginativeness and uniqueness of the stories being born in front
of me.
At times I’ve been entrusted with telling other people’s stories. To do this I’ve been
invited into the lives and perspectives of people who are elderly, differently abled, newly
arrived in Australia, or very young. I’ve always walked away a richer person.
For me the greatest satisfaction of all has been in working with Indigenous Australians,
whose many stories are beginning to emerge and alter forever the consciousness of people
worldwide and the accepted definition of what it means to be Australian.
No teacher comes from nowhere, and I owe my own formation as a video person to
the Somerville Producers Group, in Somerville, Massachusetts, USA. SPG is a constantly
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xiv Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

evolving collection of people who, as a group, have maintained the longest running
public access cable TV show in America.
I got lots of practical experience working for Adams Russell Cable TV in Norwood,
MA. The Women’s Video Collective, from the Boston area, was the enabling group for
many intense video experiences, including covering the Women’s Encampment for a
Future of Peace and Justice in Seneca, New York in 1983, and the International Women’s
Conference in Nairobi, Kenya in 1985.
When I struck out on my own as a videomaker I had the privilege of making a
documentary on the experience of a special sector of US women. It’s called The Invisible
Force: Women in the Military.
In Australia I guess I was in the right place at the right time and got to teach short
courses for the Australian Film Television and Radio School. It was through this
connection that I was invited to teach video in Ngukurr in East Arnhem Land. And then
followed opportunities to do video training with Indigenous Australians in Tennant
Creek, Katherine, Alice Springs and Sydney.
I’ve worked as a video teacher at the University of Technology, Sydney, and the
University of Newcastle, and taught within the Koori TV Training Course and the
Indigenous TV Training course, both run at the Australian Film Television and Radio
School and later at Metro Screen.
In 1995 Director David Wang and I took a team of Indigenous Australian students
to south-west China to make a documentary on the women of the Dai ethnic minority
who live in the mountains of Yunnan Province.
For the past five years I’ve taught video at the School of Indigenous Australian Studies
at James Cook University in Townsville.
Why am I telling you all of this? Because I’m
indebted to people all along the way, who’ve taught
me what I didn’t know, shown me how to do new
things, and shared their ideas and methods gener-
ously, and their anecdotes and laughter as well.
It’s a great feeling to be part of an international
network of media teachers who are passionate about
what they do, and committed to helping others build
their skills so they can tell their own stories.
In both the first and second editions of this book,
many, many video teachers have participated by
offering their training tips. The book is better for it,
Martha helps Amanda Hart use the vision mixer, but the thing which makes me happiest is that I feel
ASPIRE program at James Cook University. this book, in some small way, reflects the breadth of
people out there trying to bring media literacy and
accomplished storytelling within the grasp of those that seek it.
So seek on and build your skills. You have stories to tell which are both uniquely
yours and also reflective of the times and culture from which you come.
The more stories that get told, the richer we all will be.

Martha Mollison
Townsville, Queensland, Australia
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Chapter

1 The
Camera
Producing Videos
The Camera

The way to learn video is by doing it.

So swing that camera up onto your
shoulder and have a go! You can’t hurt the camera,
unless you drop it.
You already know plenty about screen images:
you know what you like, what you don’t like, and
what you want to see.
Now—how to get it.
The most effective way to learn video is to make
a start and then ask the questions you need as you
go along. No-one can learn a hundred buttons at
once, so work at your own pace.
Usually you’ll be working in a group and what Camera operator Donna Jamieson from SQIT College
one person forgets, another person understands and of the South West, Roma, Qld, Australia.
can explain. Don’t be afraid to ask someone else,
because next time you may remember what they’ve
forgotten.
Most people start off thinking that video
production is about technical knowledge. Of course
that’s part of it. But almost no-one produces a video
on their own.
Video work is group work, and it relies on the
combined efforts of a good team. When the crew
members communicate well with each other, and
everyone feels their contribution is needed and
respected, people start to really fire with creativity.
That lifts the production to a higher level. Camera operator and assistant, Batchelor College,
Okay, where to start . . . Batchelor, NT, Australia.
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2 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

The Power Supply

There are two ways to power up the camera. You can either use a battery or you can
connect the camera to the electrical outlet on the wall, using the AC adaptor.

The Camera Battery

Most cameras operate on a rechargeable battery. The older models used NICAD batteries
and the newer models use lithium ion or NMH (nickel metal hydride) batteries. The
newer batteries are lighter in weight and they run for longer. NICAD batteries are being
phased out now, due to the heavy metal, cadmium, which they contain.
The camera and battery are designed so you can only put the battery into the camera
the right way. If you try to put it in upside down or backwards, it won’t go.
This leads us to:

THE FIRST LAW OF VIDEO

If it doesn’t go easily, don’t force it.
In video, everything is made to insert or connect easily. If you’re having
trouble connecting something, you’re doing it wrong.
If you think pushing harder will do the trick, you’re doubly wrong. If you try
to force something in video, you’ll break it.
If you learn nothing else on the first day, learn this.

If you look at the battery, which is a dark, heavy and uninspiring looking lump of a
thing, you’ll see that it has little metal contacts on it somewhere. They’re the gateway
for the battery’s stored electrical power to get into the camera. They’re on the end which
goes into the camera first. If you memorise which way to orient
the battery by referring to the metal contacts, you’ll be moving a
little faster when you get started next time.
When you want to take the battery out of the camera, look
for a little button called battery eject. It’s usually very close to where
the battery is inserted or attached to the camera. When you push
it, the battery will be released and pop out a little way—but not
far enough to shoot out of the camera and knock you out.
Of all the various and sundry extra bits in video, the battery
Metal contacts go in first. looks the most robust. But there are ways you can damage it.

How to Avoid Battery Problems

1. Don’t drop it.
The cells inside can be broken by shock. Then the battery won’t work.

2. Don’t recharge a NICAD battery without fully discharging it.

NICAD batteries, which unfortunately are still available for some cameras, have a quirk
you may not know about. If you repeatedly discharge them slightly, and then recharge
them again, they can develop a memory. So if you frequently use a battery briefly and
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The Camera 3
then put it on the charger to top it up, what started out as a battery designed to power
the camera for 60 minutes, can turn into a battery that’s only good for ten minutes.
Needless to say, that battery will be a serious liability to anyone who gets it next.
Although it seems considerate to the next group to give them a fully charged battery
(and it is), you should either use the battery till it has completely depleted its charge, or
make sure the equipment storage people know the battery has been only slightly used.
Most media stores have dischargers that will drain the battery before it’s charged up
for the next borrower.
Good video manners include that if you get a
battery which doesn’t last very long at all, you should
let the equipment store know that it’s sus.
Note: Lithium ion and NMH batteries do NOT
give memory problems.
Sometimes ‘memorised’ batteries can be restored
to their full potential by cycling them through a series
of charges and discharges.
Batteries do eventually die, though. After 200 or
so recharges, or two year’s constant use, they’ve
usually done their dash. At that point they should be
disposed of.
When you get rid of them DO NOT burn, break, compact, or
compost them. Take them to a battery recycling place OR return
them to the place you bought them if it was a battery specialist.
Battery specialists do some recycling and can recover some of the
chemicals in them.
3. Don’t leave it behind.
Batteries are unobtrusive little numbers and fade into the
surroundings quite easily. It’s not at all hard to leave one under a
chair, on top of a piano, or on the floor of a car.
The problem is, their appearance belies their monetary worth.
Unlike the AA cells for your walkman, video batteries can cost a Don’t just chuck batteries in the bin.
day’s pay or more. They’re expensive to replace.

Charging a Battery
Your camera kit will come with a battery charger. Usually the charger is combined in
the same piece of equipment as the AC adaptor (more about that in a minute).
Charging a battery is simply a matter of connecting the battery to the charger (via a
cord for that purpose, or by inserting the battery into a slot on the charger), plugging
the charger into an electrical socket and turning it on. In some cases you’ll also have to
move a switch to charge. A light will come on to show that it’s charging, and the light
goes off when the battery is fully charged. On some chargers a red light will come on
when a quick charge is happening, and a green light will come on when a trickle charge
is happening. A quick charge can get a battery up to a usable level of stored power, and
can save the day when on a shoot. But whenever possible you should let your batteries
get the full trickle charge.
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4 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Batteries take much longer to recharge than to use (a one-hour

battery may take three hours to charge), so it’s a good idea to
charge your batteries the night before your shoot. It’s no good
having your crew waiting around while you try to will your battery
charger to work faster.
Another thing to know: an AC adaptor/charger can only do
one thing at a time. If you’re using it to power the camera, it can’t
simultaneously be charging a battery for you. If it’s charging a
battery, you can’t use it to run the camera.
Time for a tea break? Many’s the time batteries are charged
under the table in a cafe. Just don’t go off without them!

Battery Behaviour
Like many of us, batteries work well when they’re in comfortably
warm surroundings. A battery will last less time if used in a cold
Sony’s DVCAM has a dual battery setting. So for those shoots of skiers and ice skaters, take more
charger with a handy carry handle. batteries.
Also like many of us, batteries lose energy when left on their
own. So a charged battery left in the storage room will gradually lose power. For
maximum battery strength, it’s best to charge up your batteries the day before, or the
day of, your shoot.

The AC Adaptor
Portable video equipment is designed to operate on battery power, so you can be mobile
and take the camera wherever you want to go to get your story.
That means the camera is made to use direct current (DC) electricity, because batteries
supply DC power.
But the power points (electrical sockets) in
buildings supply a different sort of electricity, called
alternating current (AC). The camera can’t accept AC.
So in order to use wall current, you need to use
an AC adaptor—which does just what its name
implies: it changes AC to DC.
You plug the adaptor into the wall and it takes
the alternating current up the cord from the power
point, changes it from AC to DC, and then sends the
direct current along the other cord into the camera.
Just one caution: to avoid giving the camera a
power surge, which could damage it, make sure that
before you plug things together you turn all the
power switches off. Connect the AC adaptor to the
wall and the camera, then power up in this order:
1. Turn on the wall power point.
2. Turn on the AC adaptor.
3. Turn on the camera.
Follow the cord from the wall.
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The Camera 5
Why use an AC Adaptor?
1. To save your batteries.
Since batteries have a limited life span, it’s sensible to use them only when you need
them.
2. To ensure that your power doesn’t cut out at a critical point in your shoot.

Scenario: The bride and groom have stood patiently through all the wedding
ritual and are just about to exchange their vows when—oops—the camera shuts
off. While you scrabble through your bag for the other battery, they say their
words, and you’re recording again just in time for their exit.

Power Supply Exotica

A BATTERY BELT
When you’re doing a shoot which will require battery
power over a long period of time (like a surfing
carnival) and you won’t be able to plug in a battery
charger anywhere, try to borrow a battery belt. It
holds several batteries connected in series, so it can
give you power for hours.
The first down side of a battery belt is that it’s so
heavy to carry, and if you wear it around your waist
it will require considerable endurance to hike up that
steep and rocky headland at the end of the beach. Murray Lui, Indigenous TV Training Course, run by
The second down side of a battery belt is that Kuri Productions at AFTRS.
sometimes the wiring breaks, and then it’s an utterly
useless dead weight.
It’s prudent to carry a few regular batteries with
you in case your video expedition falls prey to
Murphy’s Law, and the battery belt succumbs to an
unexpected death.

AN ADAPTOR FOR THE CIGARETTE LIGHTER OF A CAR

An optional video accessory is a little adaptor which
plugs into the cigarette lighter of a car and extracts
12 volts of useable current.
If your genre is road movies, this may be just the
thing to liberate you from standard sockets and keep A cigarette lighter still has a use in this post-
your show on the road, so to speak. smoking era!
Check the length of the cable on the adaptor
before you head out, though. The cord tends to be fairly short, so it can keep you closer
to your vehicle and the passing trucks than you might otherwise choose.
An extension cord can usually be purchased or soldered together by a helpful
technician. Then you can get whatever shots you require.
Another handy use for the cigarette adaptor is to power your battery charger as you
move from one production site to another.
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6 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

A CAR BATTERY
The standard car battery supplies 12 volts of direct current for a long time and can be
used as a power source when it’s worth the effort.
Doing video in remote mountain villages where there’s no electrical supply is the
sort of situation where you might want to strap a car battery to a hand trolley and go
for it.
A word of warning: make sure your equipment has an internal voltage regulator (or
add one to the power supply path) because car batteries can vary up to 14 volts.
Also, make sure that you connect the positive and negative terminals correctly. Even
though well-designed equipment has an inbuilt
protection against being wired backwards, there’s lots
of equipment on the market, and some of it has been
manufactured with cost cutting in mind. You don’t
want to fry your equipment by mistake.

DUAL BATTERY CHARGER/HOLDER

With a dual battery charger/holder it’s possible to be
using two batteries on your camera at once. This
gives you more time to record without stopping. In
fact, you can even take one battery out of the holder
and replace it with a fresh one, without stopping your
recording. So I guess you could go on like this for
hours.
The battery charger/holder clips onto your belt,
and because it uses lithium ion batteries, it doesn’t
drag you down like the old battery belts did.
This system is great if it’s imperative that your
recording not stop and you’re in a situation where
you can’t use AC power.
Rani Chaleyer uses a Canon XL1 camera with a
beltclip dual battery charger/holder, which isn’t much
bigger than a mobile phone.AFTRS.
Getting to Go
Once you’ve supplied an electrical source to the
camera, find the power switch and turn the camera on.
Remove the lens cap and right away you should
see a picture in the viewfinder.
If you see a bright screen but don’t see a picture,
check that the iris is on automatic. If not, it may be
in the closed position.
The iris is the aperture (hole) that lets light into
the camera and allows it to ‘see’. You’ll find the iris
control ring on the lens barrel. If it’s closed (if C is
next to the white line), turn the iris ring around,
thereby opening up the iris, and a picture should
appear.
If your viewfinder image looks like a dark night of the Alternatively, you can switch the iris from manual
soul, remove the lens cap. to automatic, and it will open up by itself.
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The Camera 7

The Electronic Viewfinder (EVF)

The viewfinder is a tiny monitor which shows you
what the camera is ‘seeing’. It allows you to establish
and frame the shot you want to record.
The viewfinder’s picture may be in black and
white, even though the camera is producing a colour
signal. But aside from this, one of the beauties of
video is that ‘what you see is what you get’.
Hang on, what if you’ve turned the camera on
and you don’t have ANY picture in the viewfinder?
Don’t panic. Reach around to the front of the lens
barrel and take off the lens cap!
Now, if you’ve got a good picture in the The EVF gives you your camera’s view of the world.
viewfinder, you’re pretty well assured that you’re
recording a good picture.
Except . . . some viewfinders have brightness and contrast
controls.

EVF Brightness and Contrast Controls

Because any knob on shared equipment is subject to random
tweaking, it’s always possible that the person before you has
turned the brightness or contrast up or down and the viewfinder
is not giving you an accurate impression of your shot.
To ensure that the viewfinder is working for you, rather than
tricking you, always adjust it to colour bars at the beginning of
your shoot.

Using Colour Bars to Normalise the

Viewfinder What you see is what you get.
Colour bars are a standardised video test signal which
have a number of uses, and really are in colour if you
see them on a monitor or record them, but they may
be black and white in your camera viewfinder.
Look for a switch on your camera labelled bars
and flick it on. In a black and white viewfinder you’ll
see eight vertical stripes. They should range from
peak white on the left, through descending levels of
grey, to black on the right. If they don’t, the
viewfinder is incorrectly set and needs to be adjusted.
Turn the brightness and contrast controls until the
stripes look the way they should. Once you’ve
adjusted your viewfinder to show this standard signal The viewfinder has its own controls, usually
correctly, then you know that what you see is what somewhat out of sight.
you get.
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8 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

The colours aren’t random—each one has a

meaning—and together they represent the total
number of combinations possible of the RGB (red,
green and blue) signals. To a technician, especially
one dealing with NTSC signals, colour bars can
indicate problems with the colour part of the video
signal, and s/he may need to make adjustments to
the camera to align the colours correctly.

On a colour viewfinder, the stripes from left to right

Are you Left-eyed or Right-eyed?
are white, yellow, cyan,green, magenta, red, blue, Most likely you can’t answer this because it’s some-
black. thing you’ve never had to know. Oddly enough, your
eyedness (is that a word?) doesn’t necessarily conform
to whether you’re left-handed or right-handed.
But there’s sufficient variation in people that camera manufacturers have taken account
of it. The viewfinder on many cameras will slide left and right, once you untighten a
little knob located near it.
Check it out. Which is more comfortable for you, to look through the viewfinder
with your right eye or your left eye? Whatever works, that’s the way for you. The soft
eyecup is removable, so you can turn it around the other way if you’re left-eyed. It’s a
fiddly thing to get off and on, but you can do it with gentleness and patience. Actually,
gentleness and patience are useful in lots of video tasks!

Jacqueline Antoinette checks if she’s right-eyed . . . or left-eyed.

Find out if you’re left-eyed or right-eyed, then adjust the viewfinder so it works best
for you.
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The Camera 9
Other Words of Wisdom From Your EVF
Mini DV cameras contain an
The viewfinder has various lights and words or increasing number of functions
symbols which advise you on such things as white and settings you can access
balance, battery strength, light levels, remaining tape and adjust via the menu
length, shutter speed, whether you’re in manual or button on the camera, some of Andy Nehl,
auto mode, and whether you’re recording or not. which you may never have Head of
It’s a good idea to read the camera manual’s page need to use. While most Television,
on EVF messages, so you’re not the last one to know AFTRS.
people have a natural aversion
what your camera is trying to tell you. to reading the manual and can
Your camera may also have menus which can be usually get the camera to work
viewed in the viewfinder. The menus give you without referring to it, it’s
options for the various functions of which your worthwhile reading it to see
camera is capable. You scroll through the menus what these functions are, as
and register the settings and features you want to some of them may well be
activate. useful to you. It also pays to be
On some cameras you can even access and very careful that you don’t
register menu choices by using the camera’s remote accidentally switch on some
control. camera settings or functions,
or that they haven’t been left
switched on by someone
else who used the camera
LCD Screen before you.

The newer cameras often have LCD screens, which

show a larger version of your video image, and they’re in colour. This is a relief to many
people because it allows them to see a full colour representation of their shot, so they
can feel more confident about their white balance. (White balance is discussed in
Chapter 2.)
But all that glitters is not . . . correctly focused. The LCD colour screens only have
one-third the definition of the images being recorded, so you can finish the shoot with
a satisfied glint in your eye, and find out back in the edit room, or at the first screening,
that your image has a soft focus. It’s still a good idea to use the black and white viewfinder
for focusing, even if you want to do most of your work using the LCD screen.
It’s always your choice as to whether to switch to the little black and white viewfinder
or the LCD. If you’re handholding the camera and
want it next to your eye, of course the LCD is Andy Nehl,
If you’re walking and following Head of
useless, but if you want to show your footage to an actor or shooting tracking Television,
others, perhaps your actors in order to discuss their shots, always look at the flip- AFTRS.
performance, the LCD makes it possible to go out out screen rather than through
recording without an additional field monitor. So the viewfinder.You’ll get a
that’s a plus. steadier picture.
The minor drawback of an LCD screen is that
it uses more power than the viewfinder, so if you’re
running out of batteries, you can squeeze out a little more time by turning off the LCD
screen.
A major fault is that if you get direct sunlight on an LCD screen, it can burn out the
pixels and you’re left with yellow smudges where picture detail should be.
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10 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

LCD Brightness
Just as with the viewfinder, the LCD screen can have a brightness control. If the brightness
is turned up too high, you may get a false idea of the brightness of your image. Always
use the colour bars display to normalise your viewfinder. Then you can decide whether
or not you need more light.

LCD Gymnastics
Some LCD screens not only open out so more than one person can view the image,
they can even flip over, so the person in front of the camera can see their own image, if
desired.
When you flip the LCD screen over, it can automatically flip the image as well, so
it’s right side up for the viewer in front of the camera.
And just so your actor or presenter doesn’t get
confused, the screen can be set to show that person
a mirror image, rather than the true TV image.
Why? Because we’re all used to looking in
mirrors and seeing our left hand on the left side of
the mirror, and if we move to the right, the mirror
image moves to the right of the mirror, too. But in
real life, when we’re viewed by someone else, they
see our left hand on their right side, and so on. That’s
the way the TV image is, too. But people aren’t used
to seeing their TV image, and it can get them all
When down is up and left is right.Show them what flustered when they move one way and the LCD
they EXPECT to see. screen shows them moving the other way.

The Diopter
The diopter seems to be the best-kept secret in video! It’s the lens in the viewfinder’s
eyepiece—the one with the soft rubber eyecup around it.
Some plain-English camera manuals now refer to the diopter as the viewfinder lens.
Whatever it’s called, you need to use it.

Use this tiny knob, located on the underside of the viewfinder, to adjust the diopter.
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The Camera 11
This lens can be moved forward and backward
to suit the eyesight of each user.
Whenever it’s your turn to use the camera, you
need to adjust the diopter to your own eyesight, so
you can see the camera’s image clearly. Otherwise,
how can you know if you’ve got the picture in focus
or not?
On some EVFs the diopter is moved by sliding
a little button on the underside of the viewfinder. On
others, there’s a ring behind the eyecup that you turn
to control the position of the diopter.
And on still others, there’s a ring that you loosen
which allows you to pull out the tube holding the
diopter and set it to the right position, then you
carefully tighten the ring down again to hold the
diopter in place for you during the shoot.

How to Make the Diopter Adjustment

The first thing to do is to make sure the main camera
lens is zoomed out all the way to the wide angle
position. That way, the camera’s focus will not be an
issue. To adjust this diopter, unscrew the tightening ring
Then put your eye to the eyepiece and move the and extend the eyepiece towards you, then tighten
diopter forward and back till you see the clearest the ring again.
possible image. It helps to look at something with a
sharply defined outline, like the edge of a door, or at the camera messages on the screen.
Once you have it right, secure the diopter in that position.

Changing the EVF to Distance Viewing Mode

On most viewfinders, the diopter is mounted on a hinge and can be swung aside,
allowing you to stand back and watch the picture from a distance on a miniature screen.
It often helps to do this on long shoots, when the camera is mounted on a tripod.
It lets you stand more comfortably and look around if you need to, and it cuts down
on that eye twitching that sets in with fatigue. It also makes it easier for two or three
others at a time to review the shots you’ve recorded.

Diopter closed for handheld operation. Diopter open—an option for tripod operation.
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12 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

The Zoom
The zoom is a complex lens system which gives you instant gratification.
It allows you to alter the image you see, continuously varying it from a wide shot,
all the way through to a close-up, and back again.
You do this by changing the angle of the lens.

Lens Angles
Wide angle: with a wide angle lens the camera gathers an image from a large vertical
and horizontal field.

Wide angle Telephoto

Telephoto angle: with a telephoto lens the

Avoid full telephoto handheld
camera gathers an image from a much narrower
shots.Telephoto magnifies
angle of view. It allows the camera to show an
everything, including camera
enlarged view of a small detail, even from quite
wobble.
a distance.
Philip Elms,
Media
Resource
Centre. Zoom Lens
The zoom lens is actually a number of individual lens elements mounted within one
unit in the lens barrel of the camera.
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The Camera 13
The front and back lens elements remain stationary while the middle elements can
be moved forward and backward, allowing the camera view to range from wide angle
to telephoto, and to reproduce every stage in between.
Zoom lenses are almost always fitted as standard items on video cameras, to provide
production flexibility.

Zoom Focus

A Fixed front elements

B Movable group for

internal focusing

C Optically compensated
zoom movement for
10:1 ratio

D Fixed rear group

Iris

D C B A

Elements in a zoom lens

Zoom Ratio
The zoom ratio is the degree of difference between
the widest shot and the tightest shot that the particular
zoom lens can handle. Telephoto
Consumer level cameras often have a 6:1 zoom
ratio; better cameras have a 10:1 or 14:1 zoom.
Some zooms have extender lenses which can be Wide angle
flipped into the optics line of the camera and give a
higher powered telephoto image.
Since a tripod is almost always used in pro-
fessional video work, high zoom ratios are accept-
able, like 20:1 or even higher.
Some cameras have a pseudo-extender on their zoom which operates by producing
a digital enlargement of a section of the image. These give dramatic results, but the image
can look a little odd. It often looks like a mosaic.

Automatic Zoom
The zoom rocker switch operates the automatic
zoom which is powered off the camera battery.
It’s usually found to the right of the lens barrel
and is labelled W (wide angle) on one side and T
(telephoto) on the other.
By pressing the T side of the switch you cause
the camera to zoom in all the way to give you a close-
up (a telephoto or tight shot). Pressing the W lets you
zoom out all the way to a wide shot. Zoom rocker switch
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14 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Don’t use the ‘Digital Zoom’ On some cameras the zoom rocker is touch-
setting available on many sensitive, which means the harder you press, the
cameras. Make sure it’s turned off faster the angle will change.
in the menu. If you want to zoom The advantage of using the auto zoom is that it
further into the image than the produces such a smooth transition from one shot
Andy Nehl,
Head of lens is capable of by itself, you size to another.
Television, can do this in post-production in There are two disadvantages to using the auto
AFTRS. zoom.
AVID or Final Cut Pro or in Online
Edit suites.The exception would 1. The little motor that operates it makes a
be if you’re making home videos whirring sound which can be picked up by the
and there’s not going to be any camera mic when there isn’t much other sound
post-production—then there happening.
may well be occasions when the 2. The motor uses quite a lot of battery power. If
digital zoom would be useful. your battery is nearly flat, it may be silly to waste
power on the auto zoom.

Auto/Manual Zoom Control Switch

You can change the zoom over to manual operation
Zoom mode by flipping a camouflaged switch which often lurks
switch on the underbelly of the lens barrel.
Once you change over to manual mode, the
zoom rocker switch is disempowered, and the zoom
is operated by turning the zoom ring on the lens
barrel.
You must flip this switch back again to restore
the zoom to auto mode. When the zoom is in auto
Peer under the lens barrel for the mode, you can’t move it manually. Don’t try to force
zoom mode switch. it—put it back to manual if that’s what you need.

Manual Zoom
You can operate the zoom manually by turning the zoom ring on the camera lens barrel.
Usually there’s a little stick jutting out from it, which makes it easy to find and latch onto.
It takes some practice to get a manual zoom to look smooth, but on the other hand,
if you want some weird effects, like a jagged zoom or some lightning in-and-out changes,
hand controlling it is the way to go.
Manual zoom does not cause a drain on your camera battery.
Zoom
control stick
The best way to keep the camera
steady without a tripod is to
shoot everything on wide angle.
Forget about the zoom—move in Zoom ring
Marc physically closer to the subject
Tewksbury, and suddenly your shots will look
The Nine Video a lot steadier.
School.
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The Camera 15

The Iris
The camera iris is the mechanism which controls the amount of light entering the camera.
The size of the opening in the iris (the aperture) can be varied to let in greater or lesser
amounts of light, depending on the brightness of the scene, and the quality of the image
you seek to record.

Human Camera

Iris Pupil Iris Aperture

The camera iris system is similar to that of the human eye.

F Stops
The size of the aperture (opening) is measured in f stops. A common range of f stops is:

f 1.4, f 2.8, f 4, f 5.6, f 8, f 11, f 16 and f 22.

This numbering system is confusing because the smallest number (f 1.4) means the
largest opening, and the biggest number (f 22) means the smallest opening.

Just memorise this: the bigger the number, the smaller the hole.

The system is calibrated so that moving from one iris setting to the next either doubles
or halves the amount of light admitted to the camera.
For example, moving from f 22 (the smallest opening) to f 16 (the next opening)
doubles the amount of light entering the camera.
Conversely, moving from f 16 to f 22 halves the light entering the camera.
And so on through all the f stops.
Just as with the human eye, the smallest aperture opening is used under the brightest
light, and the largest aperture opening is used under low light conditions.

The human eye pupil at a sunny beach. The human eye pupil in a dark room.
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16 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

For the best picture results, medium f stop settings are preferred (especially f 5.6).
To be able to use them, you may need to add lights to your scene.
Note: Images shot with large aperture openings have less depth of field. This affects
the focus of your shot. (See Depth of Field in Chapter 2.)

Choosing the Iris Control Mode

The iris can be assigned to either automatic or manual
control. Some cameras also allow remote control of
the iris, for multicamera situations where the
technician adjusts the settings of all the cameras via
their CCUs (camera control units) from the studio
control room or OB (outside broadcast) van.
There’s a movable switch (usually to the right of
the lens barrel, near the zoom rocker switch) which
is used for selecting the iris control mode. Slide the
button to A for automatic control, to M for manual
Iris mode select switch control and to R or S (servo) for remote control.

Manual Iris Control

The iris is adjusted manually by turning the iris ring
(covered with f stop numbers) which is located
towards the back of the lens barrel.
If you choose to operate on manual iris, you
decide which iris setting to use for each shot. You
select the exposure level to suit the part of the picture
which is most important, and to give your image the
overall look you want.
You need to be careful to match this look to that
of the other shots of the same location which will
Iris ring come before and after it in the planned edited
sequence. You don’t want a room to pulse light and
dark from shot to shot!
Luminance: Look at whites. Push If you’re not certain which iris setting to choose,
the iris till they begin to flare and you can put the camera to auto and see what it would
then wind back a little. In the choose, and then work from there.
absence of a zebra function in Some cameras have a push auto iris button. When
Jason the camera, this will give a fast, you press it the auto iris function takes over and
Benedek, usable video level. selects an iris setting, but when you let go of it, the
Tin Sheds,
University of camera returns to manual iris mode. This button is
Sydney. useful for quick referencing, then you can do the fine tuning yourself.
Manual iris poses a challenge if, in one shot, you’re following a subject through
changing lighting conditions. Auto iris might be better for this.
Manual iris is especially useful in shots which have a high contrast ratio, and where
the dark or bright sections of the image might trick the auto iris into choosing an
undesirable aperture setting.
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The Camera 17
Automatic Iris
In auto iris mode, the camera uses its own inbuilt sensor (a type of light meter) to measure
the incoming light. Then the auto iris circuitry averages the variations in brightness and
applies a formula to select the appropriate f stop.
Much of the time the auto iris chooses the best aperture setting. In scenes with a
low contrast ratio—where there’s not a huge difference in brightness between the light
and dark areas of the picture—the system works the best.
The formula is constructed to deal with the majority of video images, which have a
brighter top than bottom due to the presence of some amount of sky or a well-lit upper
background. The light level from the top of the image is given somewhat less weight in
the calculation than is that from the bottom of the image.
However, sometimes the auto iris gets tricked.
In images with a high contrast ratio, where
there’s a substantial part of the picture which is Are you driving the camera or
much darker or much lighter than the rest, the is the camera driving you?
calculated formula doesn’t give the best result. Automatic settings put you on
For example, in a wide shot of a performer automatic.Take control of the
dressed in white, who is on a dark stage, the auto camera and practise ‘active’ Keith Smith,
iris could give you an overly bright image of a flaring cinematography! Edith Cowan
University.
costume with no detail.

Auto Iris Mistakes

A person in front of a whiteboard or white wall

becomes a near-silhouette because the auto iris
closes down too far in response to the reflected
brightness of the background surface.

A person in front of a window or a bright

sky becomes a silhouette because the auto
iris closes down too far in response to the A person in front of a very dark background can look
incoming light. bleached out if the auto iris opens up too much in
response to the large section of darkness.
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18 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

High Speed Shutter

Another control of the amount of light used to form the picture is the high speed shutter.
This control allows you to grab each frame of video at a specified speed. It’s a good
tool for videoing fast action, as in sport or dance.
If you look at fast action taped at the standard shutter speed, you’ll see that each
individual frame of video has a blurred image because the subject is moving faster than
the camera can capture it. When you play back this image, it looks fine because the eye
gets the sensation of speed and it doesn’t have time to focus on the blurs.
But if your aim is to analyse the motion carefully, to improve your golf swing or
find out just where that gymnastics tumble went wrong, you need to see the image
clearly in each frame.
You can achieve this by increasing the shutter speed. The speeds available in high
speed shutter mode vary from camera to camera, but on some digital cameras you can
get speeds from 1/50 sec. to 1/8000 sec.
As you increase the shutter speed, you increase the speed of action which you can
capture clearly. So you can record an exact unblurred image in every frame.
However, because the camera still runs at 25 frames per second in PAL video (30
frames per second in NTSC), using high speed shutter means that you’ll have gaps in
the action. When you play back something which was recorded in high speed shutter,
it will look stilted because there’s a distinct jump from each frame to the next. There’ll
be no blurring in the image to smooth the transitions.
The other important factor is that the higher the shutter speed, the less the amount
of light that can get into the camera to form the image. The faster the shutter, the darker
the picture will be. So high speed shutter works best in a brightly lit space, and is pretty
useless in darker areas.

Confusing Buttons
You may find that high speed shutter and manual iris control are operated by the same
button on your camera. Although the camera manufacturers may think this makes for
compact design, this double-function button can cause disasters for the inexperienced user.
If you’re trying to alter the manual iris setting but
Recent advances in technology are changing the high speed shutter by mistake, you
are allowing variable frame rates may get quite mystified by what you see happening
in video.This is great news to your image. If you find the picture getting much
because it means that true slow darker than you think it should, check whether you’re
motion and time lapse video can accidentally altering the high speed shutter. This is
Richard
Fitzpatrick, be done! This is the crossing of one instance when studying both your camera
Camera the last frontier of the manual and the markings on your camera body
Operator, makes good sense.
Digital fundamental differences
Dimensions. between film and video.
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The Camera 19

Gain
Sometimes you’re in a low-light situation where even
the largest aperture opening isn’t good enough. And
you just can’t add lights—either you don’t have
them, there’s nowhere to plug them in, or the person
in charge of the space has said no.
In a case like this, you can make use of the gain
function.
The gain allows the camera to electronically
boost the brightness level of the signal it’s processing.
It does this internally—with no added light—and the
Gain switch
picture is more acceptable.
There’s a trade-off for boosting the gain, though.
Your picture will look grainier and it won’t copy or Richard
On a lot of the digital cameras Fitzpatrick,
edit very well.
we shoot on 3 dB. It gives you Camera
Often cameras have these gain settings: Operator,
better definition. Some new
Digital
0 dB which means there’s no additional cameras even have 6dB. Dimensions.
gain inserted, operation is normal.
6 dB which means the video signal is
boosted a bit (by a factor of two). Try
to get by with this level if you can.
12 dB which means the gain is boosted
quite a lot (by a factor of three). This
can give you a very grainy picture
(covered with random red dots) and
should only be used when it’s
essential to get the shot. It won’t edit
well.
18 dB this occurs on only some cameras. Be Sunlight on your azaleas can make for an overly
very reluctant to use this one. Wait till bright picture, so you may need to close down your
you’re in a cave! camera iris.

Before you go boosting the gain, though, make sure you really are on the largest aperture possible
and not accidentally on high speed shutter.
If your picture has a large amount of white or black in it, you may have to manually adjust the
iris or gain to get the best results.

Inserting the Videotape

There’s a button on the camera labelled eject. When you push it, the side of the camera will pop open,
revealing the tape carriage.
You insert the videotape cassette into the carriage slot, making sure that the arrows on the videotape
cassette are pointing straight ahead towards the inside of the camera and the clear plastic windows
on the tape cassette are against the outer cover (and windows) of the tape carriage.
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20 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

If your camera doesn’t have a

flip-out screen and you want
walking or tracking shots, it’s
better not to use the viewfinder
Andy Nehl, at all because your head moves
Head of up and down as you walk, as will
Television, the camera if you have it to your
AFTRS.
eye.You’ll get a steadier picture
if you don’t use the viewfinder,
hold the camera away from your
head in a comfortable position
and imagine there’s a line Sony DVCAM can take both small and large tapes.
running straight through the
camera out of the middle of the
lens—you point this imaginary Then you gently press the side of the camera
line at the centre of the shot you back into place. You’ll hear a marvellous series of
want to frame.You then put little whirrs and clicks. When they finally stop, the
your effort into holding the cassette is loaded and the videotape inside has been
camera steady as you walk laced up around the head drum.
rather than trying to keep it to The camera is now ready to record an image.
your eye.This is also a safe thing To get the tape out of the camera, press the
to do because you can see same eject button. You’ll hear some more whirring
where you’re going and are less and clicking (don’t lose patience!) and after a while
likely to walk into things. the side of the camera will suddenly pop open
again and you’ll be re-presented with your tape.

Recording
To make the camera start recording, you use your thumb to press the little flat button
on the camera grip.
This is a most unsatisfying button. It barely moves. It never clicks aloud or gives
your thumb a sensation that it’s affected anything underneath it. It gives no sign of
response at all.
Consequently people sometimes think that they need to hold it down to keep the
recording going. This is not true.
Once you press the button, you should see a message in the viewfinder which
confirms that the camera is recording—it could be the letters REC or it could be a steady
or a blinking light. Something will tell you that the show is on the road.
As soon as the camera’s recording, you should move your thumb aside, so you don’t
accidentally put the camera in and out of record mode by unconsciously changing the
pressure of your thumb. (It’s a sensitive switch, even though it’s unsatisfying.) Even if
you like special effects, you don’t want to strobe things now.
There’s often a thumb rest next to this smooth switch, and sometimes it’s ridged so
you can easily feel the difference. That’s where your thumb should be for the rest of the
recording session.
So there you go!
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The Camera 21
The camera is recording
and you now know how to
zoom in and out, and how
to change the brightness of
the image by either adjusting
the aperture or engaging the
gain.

Joanne Ollive, exchange student

from the UK, RMIT, Melbourne,
Vic, Australia.

Stopping the Recording

You stop recording by putting the camera into pause. This is done by re-pressing the
little smooth button on the handle grip that got the recording started.
When you pause the camera, the tape will remain laced around the heads in exactly
the same position, waiting for you to begin your next shot. If you press the record button
again, the camera will make a beautiful, technically clean edit and the transition (change)
to the next shot will look as good as if it had been edited in a proper edit system.

In-Camera Editing
You can make use of the camera’s capacity to do clean edits by planning out every shot
of your program ahead of time, and then recording your material step by step in the
exact program sequence.
You can put together a whole piece this way, and save yourself heaps of time in the
edit room. But you have to be quite good at your camera work so every shot is acceptable.
And you have to move quickly through your shot list, because the camera won’t stay
in pause mode for long.
After about five minutes the camera will go out of pause mode and into stop. In
stop mode the videotape is no longer laced around the record heads, and the tape is
ready to be ejected from the camera.
If you go back into record mode from stop mode, the tape will never lace up on the
record heads in exactly the same position, so the possibility of getting a clean edit point
is lost. The control track will be broken, and there will be a glitch between the previous
shot and the next one.
If you’re doing in-camera editing, a glitch like this mars your product.

Rollback Time
Something to be careful about with in-camera editing is rollback time.
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22 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Just like your car at an intersection, cameras can’t go from stop to record speed in
an instant. So when you go from pause to record, they roll backwards a little, come
forward getting up to speed, and then go into record mode when they’re synched up
to the signal of the previous shot and just before the tape gets to the end of the recorded
signal.
This means that you lose a little bit of the video at the end of the previous shot. It
also means that the recording doesn’t happen just when you press the record button.
So you need to allow for both of these things.
First, always shoot a video buffer—that is, a little bit more video than you need at
the end of the shot. If you’re working with a presenter,
Watch out! Domestic cameras train this person to finish the commentary, then just
backspace a little before they stand still so you don’t get sideways eye motions or
begin to record.You can test if other silly face or body movements. You’ve seen
your camera does this by those reporters on TV who go into freeze mode at
recruiting the help of a friend the end of their report? If you’re taping an action, roll
Rachel
Masters, and getting him/her to count to a little more tape after the action is completed.
Corporate 10, on camera. At 10, you pause Then know your camera. Work out how long it
Training takes to get into record mode once you press the
Coordinator, the camera.Then ask your friend
SBS. to begin counting again, and you record button. This can be about four seconds. Once
recommence recording. When you’re sure of how your camera handles rollback,
you play back the tape, you’ll see don’t give the signal for speech or action till after those
how many seconds the camera seconds are over. That way, your in-camera editing
has cut out, and then you’ll know will work, and you won’t have a story which is
what its ‘roll-up time’ is. missing bits, as if some mysterious video moths
chewed holes in it when you weren’t looking.

Standby
Some cameras go into standby mode to save battery power if they haven’t been used
to record anything for a few minutes.
In standby the viewfinder goes black but the camera is still receiving a little power.
To get it going again, press the standby switch and the camera should come fully on
again immediately.

Playback Mode
You can use the camera as a playback machine, too. Once you finish recording, press
stop. The camera will go out of record mode and the tape will come off the record heads.
Then you can operate all the same functions you have on your home VCR: Play,
fast forward, rewind, search forward, search backward, pause and stop.
You can watch the playback in the tiny viewfinder, or you can connect the camera
to a monitor or TV and watch it all on the big screen.
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The Camera 23
To send the image to a monitor, connect a cable from video out on the camera to video
in on the monitor. For sound, connect another cable from audio out on the camera to
audio in on the monitor.
To send the image to a TV, the camera needs to have an RF out connection. If it
does, you need only one cable. You connect it from RF out on the camera to VHF in
(antenna in) on the TV.

RF
In Out

video
In Out

audio
In Out
video out

audio out

VHF in

RF out

Now you’ve played back your video, are you thrilled? It’s such a high the first time
anyone gets picture and sound!
If you found that you had stretches of video which surprised you, long shots of your
own feet and the pavement as you walked along, and then nothing of the shot you
thought you’d gotten, don’t panic. It’s just that you fell into the most common of all
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24 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

video traps, taping when you thought you were off, and not taping when you thought
you were on. You know what we call those shots? Spare footage!
Have you had enough? If so, close the book and have a good play with the camera.
That’s the surest way to learn.
If you can deal with more at this point, the next chapter addresses quite a few more
camera essentials, like focus, depth of field, colour temperature, white balance, black
balance and the use of filters.
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Chapter

2 Image
Control
Producing Videos
Image Control

Now you know how to get the camera up and running, the next step
is to be able to get the image that suits your production design.
There are a number of variables in the video image. The most obvious one is focus—
you can have an image that’s clear, soft or downright blurry. There are times when you
might want each of these. But you need to have enough knowledge of the camera so you
can choose the image quality, rather than getting lumbered with results you don’t want.

Focus Focus ring Setting marks

In a focused image the subject looks sharp and clear,

and objects have well-defined edges. This applies
whether you’re doing a panorama scene or a close-
up of a tiny detail.
Focus is directly related to the distance between
the subject and the camera lens. If the camera moves
closer to the subject, or if it moves further away, the
focus may have to be changed.
Altering the focus is accomplished by changing
the distance between the camera’s lens and its light-
gathering surface (the CCD or tube) inside the body
of the camera. To do this, the lens is eased forward
or back by turning the focus ring located at the front
end of the lens barrel.
There are markings on the focus ring which
indicate settings for different distances between your
subject and your camera. These are usually written To change the focus, you turn the focus ring at the
in both metres and feet and range from about 1 m front of the lens barrel.
(3 ft) to infinity.
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26 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

You may find these markings helpful in setting the focus, though in fact most people
just turn the focus ring until the subject is clear to them in the viewfinder.
Being able to set focus of course depends on being able to see a clear image in the
viewfinder in the first place—so it’s necessary to have set the diopter correctly for your
eyesight. You may want to review the section on the diopter in Chapter 1.

Auto Focus
Auto focus is quite commonly found on camcorders, though professional cameras usually
don’t have it—for good reason: it isn’t the solution it pretends to be. There are many
times when autofocus gives you the wrong focus setting.
This is why:
Auto focus operates by sending an infra-red beam out from the front of the camera.
The beam hits the ‘subject’ and bounces back to a beam receiver on the front of the
camera. Then the auto focus circuitry calculates the distance between the subject and
the camera and adjusts the lens accordingly.
The problem is the system has no judgement.
Auto focus assumes that your subject is in the centre of the frame. If it isn’t, auto
focus sets focus according to whatever is in the centre of the frame, no matter how
irrelevant that object is.
Which leads to problems like:

FOCUSING FOR TOO GREAT A DISTANCE

Seeking a more artistic composition, the director has positioned the pre-
senter at the left side of the frame, and asked her to gesture towards a
statuette beside her at the right of frame. But in centre frame, quite a distance
in the background, there’s a small decorative table against a wall.

Result: The infra-red beam targets the table, and the camera focuses clearly
on it, while the presenter and the statuette are fuzzy in the foreground.

FOCUSING FOR TOO CLOSE A DISTANCE

There’s a chain link fence between you and the geese at the animal park.The
camera is resting on your shoulder. As you breathe, the camera moves slightly
up and down. With each breath, the heavy-gauge fence wire crosses the
centre of the frame.

Result: The focus keeps shifting between your close-up of the goose and a
sharp picture of the fence wire. Your audience feels nauseated.
Or
You’re at the top of a tower building doing a cityscape shot. The windows
haven’t been washed for a long time.

Result: The camera focuses on the window dirt rather than the Opera House.

SEARCHING FOR FOCUS

You’re doing a pan along a line of people at the cafeteria lunch counter, but
you feel self-conscious about being there with the camera so you’re standing
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Image Control 27
at the other side of the room. This means you’ve had to zoom in all the way
to get the close-up face shots you want for your story.
The students are standing in clusters, rather than in a rigid primary school
type line, so some are closer to you and some are further away.
During your pan, as each person crosses the centre of frame, the auto
focus gets a message that the distance to the subject has changed.

Result: The focus control is continually searching, moving the lens in and out.
The shot looks ridiculous. Again your audience is nauseated.

OTHER AUTO FOCUS GREMLINS

Autofocus can give you the wrong results if:
Your image has lots of horizontal stripes.
Your subject has very reflective surfaces, like chrome or glass.
Your image has very little contrast, like a pale wall.
Your subject is on a slant away from you.
Your subject is quite dark. Fifty per cent of the job is
It’s night time. having creative knowledge
and 50 per cent is having
TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES technical knowledge.There’s
You can also get auto focus problems if: a good balance between Kimberley
the two. Brown,
Something (e.g. your hand) is blocking the Editor/Camera
sending or receiving of the beam. Operator.
Or, if the beam receiver gets dirty.

So, although people are often delighted to get a camera with auto focus—and willingly
pay more for it—using it sometimes gives them poor results.
However, if your eyes have difficulty seeing the image clearly on the small camera
viewfinder, and you understand how auto focus works and allow for its limitations, it
can be a useful tool.
Still, if you can see clearly, you’re better off learning how to focus and relying on
your own skill.

How to Focus a Video Camera

Zoom in and focus—it’s as simple as that.
Imagine that you’re taping an interview with
someone and you want to be able to alternate
between a long shot, a close-up and a mid shot.
Because you’ll be rolling tape non-stop through the
whole interview, you’ll need to avoid any awkward
moments when your subject is out of focus.
Before you do any recording, this is how to
ensure good focus for all your shots:
1. Set up your camera in relation to your subject. Zoom in and focus.Allan Collins, freelance
2. Zoom in all the way to the eyes or mouth of your cinematographer.
subject.
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28 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

High definition TV has five times 3. Turn the focus ring until the image is as clear as
more information, so you have to possible.
be five times more accurate in 4. Zoom out.
your focus.The high definition You’re now ready to shoot. You’ll find that the image
Richard cameras all have black and white is correctly focused for every type of shot of that
Fitzpatrick, viewfinders for clarity of focus, subject.
Camera but they recommend you use
Operator, As long as both you and your subject stay at the
Digital 9-inch field monitors to be sure same distance from each other, you won’t have to
Dimensions. of your focus. focus again.

Fixing a Back Focus Problem

If you’ve zoomed in and focused clearly, but you find that as you zoom out the image
goes out of focus, then you have a back focus problem. This is a hazard exclusive to
zoom lenses.
The back focus adjustment is located at the back
of the lens barrel, near the camera body. Because
most of the time the back focus lens is meant to stay
in one place, you have to untighten a little lever in
order to move this ring.
To adjust the back focus, zoom in on your subject
again and make certain that it’s in clear focus. Then
zoom out all the way and turn the back focus ring
until you get as sharp a picture as possible.
There’s a little marking on the back focus ring
which is normally aligned with another mark on the
lens barrel when the back focus adjustment is correct.
Once you’re happy with the adjustment,
The white line should usually be aligned with the carefully twist the lever back in tight so the back focus
triangle. doesn’t get accidentally disturbed.

Macro
Macro is a close-up lens which allows you to get a clear focus on things which are within
1 m of the camera—which is too close for good focus using the standard camera lens.
The macro adjustment ring is sometimes located
right next to the back focus ring, and people do
mistakenly untighten the little back focus lever and
turn both rings around together. Needless to say, that
creates more focus problems.
To use macro, the zoom needs to be in the wide
angle position (zoomed out all the way).
Then all you do is turn the macro ring until you
get a clear focus on your subject, or that part of your
subject which you want to show clearly.
Having macro is a great advantage because it
You adjust focus in macro by turning the macro ring. allows you to get good close-ups of very tiny things.
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Image Control 29
The small print on graduation and wedding invi-
tations, the text of newspaper articles, illustrations
from books, small photographs, even details within
photos—these can all be captured using macro.
You can place your subject almost against the
camera lens and have its image fill the screen in clear
detail, using macro.
The one thing you have to watch is that putting
the object so close to the lens tends to block out the
light needed to illuminate it. Careful positioning of a
side light, or working near a window, can help. A fullscreen view of the diamond.
Don’t be tempted to move an artificial light in
too close to the camera, though. First the lens hood will melt and then the harder plastic
of the camera body will be affected.

The Connection Between Zoom and Focus

Once you’ve had some practice operating the zoom and the focus, you’ll probably notice
there’s a connection between the two.
In the wide angle view (zoomed out all the way) you can turn the focus ring all the
way around in either direction and see very little change in the clarity of the image in
the viewfinder. You’ll probably find the picture looks pretty good no matter what the
focus setting.
But in telephoto (zoomed in all the way) you’ll see that a very slight rotation of the
focus ring makes a dramatic change to the image and that it will vary from being sharp
and clear to being entirely blurry. In fact, there will be only one position where the focus
looks right.
In practice, this difference means that focusing is far more critical in telephoto than
in wide angle.
When you have only one subject and it’s staying still—and so are you—you can set
the focus by zooming in and focusing on your subject at the beginning of your shot (or
your shoot) and know that it will be right for any zoom position you later choose.

When doing shots at a very great

distance, you may need a zoom lens
with a higher zoom range.Kimberley
Brown, Camera Operator, Pangnirtung,
Nunavut, Canada.(Photo by Sylvia
Cloutier)
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30 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Focusing for More Than One Subject

Often, however, there’ll be more than one subject which you’re expected to cover.
Have a look at the next drawing, shown in the ‘plan’ convention—which means
it’s shown as if you’re viewing the scene from above.
This drawing indicates that each person or object which is the same distance away
from the camera will require the same focus setting.

5 metres

5 metres

Same distance to subjects = same focus setting

However, if you have more than one subject and they’re at different distances to the
camera, the correct focus adjustment for each close-up will be different, and you’ll have
to rehearse your shots carefully so you can smoothly refocus as you change from one
person to the next.

5 metres

7 metres

6 metres

Different distances to subjects = refocus for each subject

At the most basic level, you need to know for sure which way to turn the focus ring
so the shot of the new person comes rapidly into focus
rather than going further out.

Focus Emergencies
If your subject makes a sudden, unrehearsed movement,
and you’re zoomed in for a close-up, most likely your
shot will go blurry. Zoom out immediately and stay on
wide angle until the person settles down into a new
position. Only then will it be prudent to attempt another
close-up requiring careful focus.
If your subject keeps moving, stay on wide angle.
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Image Control 31
Push-Auto Focus
Some cameras have a push-auto focus button. If you need to find focus very quickly, you
can engage the camera’s auto focus function briefly by holding in this button. The camera
will do its best to find the right focus. When you release the button, the camera’s focus
stays where it is, and the focus mode goes back to
manual.

Difficult Focus Situations

In a pre-rehearsed action with a moving subject,
reference to the focus ring markings might help you
guarantee a clear focus when the subject reaches its
final pre-determined position. However, you may still
find that following by eye and synchronising the
movement of the focus ring with the changing image
in the viewfinder is the most practical and effective
method of operation. Remember, in video what you
see is what you get.
With subjects that constantly move, such as NAIDOC Day performance at Long Bay Gaol, Sydney,
dancers, close-ups in good focus are nearly impos- NSW, Australia.(Photo by Michelle Blakeney)
sible. Only with very careful rehearsals could you
expect to do well-focused close-ups.
This is due to depth of field.

Depth of Field
You now know that focus is related to the distance between the subject and the lens.
There will be one focus setting which is the best for a subject at any particular distance.
But it’s also true that on either side of this point (both closer and farther away) there’s
a certain range of distance within which focus is still acceptable. This range, from front
to back, is known as the depth of field.

5 metres
5 metres

8
10
5
3
2

depth of field
Focus is set correctly for a distance of 5 m from the Depth of field is the range of distance within which
camera. focus is acceptable.
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32 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Lens Angle Affects Depth of Field

Wider lens angles give a greater depth of field. This means that when the camera is
zoomed out all the way, your subject will be able to move forward and backward across
a considerable range and still be in focus.
Narrower lens angles (especially telephoto) give a smaller depth of field. As you
zoom in, the acceptable focus range for your subject will decrease. When you’re zoomed
in all the way on a close-up shot, the depth of field will be smallest.

Depth of field on wide angle (zoomed out). Depth of field on telephoto (zoomed in).

Iris Setting Also Affects Depth of Field

The wider the aperture (the more open the iris) the smaller the depth of field.
This means focus will be more problematic in low light conditions where the iris
will need to be opened wide. You’ll find that your subject won’t be able to move forward
or backward very far without going out of focus.
11
1.4

16
2.8

Depth of field with a wide open iris. Depth of field with a nearly closed iris.
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Image Control 33
Telephoto Lens and Wide Iris Combined
The combination of telephoto lens (zoomed in all the way) and a wide aperture (big iris
opening) gives you the smallest depth of field of all.
This is the hardest situation for shooting action over which you have no directorial
control, because very small movements forward or backward will cause focus difficulties.
For example, if you’re taping a singer in low light at a night-time outdoor concert,
and you have the lens in telephoto to give you a close-up of her face on the screen,
you’ll find that if she sways only slightly forward or back with the feel of the music,
she’ll go in and out of focus.
There’s not much you can do. Your work will look awful and people won’t be able
to understand why you didn’t just focus the camera.
To retrieve the situation, you can stay on a wider angle shot, and then move your
camera in closer to the stage when that song ends. But it’s times like this that make you
wonder how you got into video in the first place.
For better depth of field in lowlight conditions, you should try to either get in close to your subject
so you can stay on the wide angle lens, or add lights, so you can use a smaller aperture.

Aperture Priority/ Shutter Priority

Another solution to improve
Some cameras are automated to the extent that you
depth of field under low light
can decide what function you want most and set
levels is to increase the camera’s
that one, and the camera will adjust all the other
video gain from 0 dB (normal
function settings accordingly.
operation) to +6 dB or +12 dB. Ernst
For example, if your main concern is to freeze
In the +6 dB setting you can Hadenfeld,
the motion in the image because you’re a physio- former Chief
increase the iris setting by a
therapist or sports teacher and you’re doing motion Engineer,
factor of 2, for instance from f AFTRS.
analysis, you can tell the camera to prioritise the
2.8 to f 4.0, without lowering
high speed shutter setting. The camera will then
your camera’s video signal.
adjust the iris and other functions to suit the high
speed shutter setting you’ve selected.
On the other hand, if you’re mainly concerned with getting the greatest depth of
field because you’re videoing dancers who will be coming forward and backward in the
frame and you need them to always be in focus, you can tell the camera to prioritise
the aperture setting, and the camera will make all the adjustments needed to the other
functions.

Colour Temperature
Different light sources have different colour temperatures.
We don’t notice this because our eyes automatically adjust to the light source we’re
in and they represent colours correctly most of the time. (Still, you may have had the
experience of going to a shopping mall wearing a red shirt and having it appear to turn
purplish once you get inside.)
The colour temperature of light is measured in degrees Kelvin, which is written °K.
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34 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Colour Temperatures of Different Light Sources

Incandescent lights, like the ones used in a video studio, are designed to have a standard
colour temperature of 3200°K. Their light has a reddish tinge to it.
Fluorescent lights have a wide range of colour temperatures, but the ones video people
come across frequently are those used in schools, which are usually around 4200°K, and
have a greenish tinge.
Sunlight also spans a wide range of colour temperatures, but in the middle of a clear
sunny day it’s generally about 6500°K, and skylight can be upwards of 10 000°K. This
light has a bluish tinge to it.
Dawn and dusk sunlight is redder.
On cloudy days the colour temperature outdoors can be as high as 7000°K.
Shade colour temperatures are different from the sunny positions next to them.

°K
8000 -

7000 -

6000 - Fluorescent lamp

(daylight)

5600 - Camera flashbulb/

Sunlight at midday

5000 - Blue lamp for

photography

Fluorescent lamp
(white)

4000 -

3500 - Fluorescent lamp

(off-white)

Tungsten lamp for

3200 - photography

Halogen lamp

Studio lights
3000 -
Domestic incandescent
lamp

2500 -
Acetylene lamp

Kerosene lamp

Candle light
2000 -
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Image Control 35

The Filter Wheel Filter wheel

control
Some cameras come with an inbuilt filter wheel knob
which allows you to insert a colour filter behind
the lenses, in the pathway of the light entering
the camera. It’s usually found on the left side of the
camera, close to the front.
The usual filters are 3200°K for use with studio
lights; 5600°K for daylight; 5600°K+ 25% ND for
very bright daylight; and C for closed.
You operate the filter by rotating the small
serrated filter wheel till the number of the filter you
choose appears to your view. Most often, there’s a
little list near the filter wheel to remind you which The filter wheel knob (set to 1) Guide to
number goes with which filter. and nearby the range of filter filter choices
On tube cameras, the filter wheel should be set choices available.
to C when the camera is turned off.

The ND Filter
ND means neutral density. A neutral density filter reduces the amount of light passing
through it without changing the colour of the light. When an ND filter is combined
with a 5600°K filter it’s useful for ‘taming’ the overly bright areas of an image.
On very glary sunshiny shoots, like midday football games where the players have
white on their uniforms, and for beach shoots and water shoots, the brightness of the
light reflected off the white areas produces ‘hot’ spots in your image, and causes the iris
to close down. The camera then registers these spots as peak white (the top level of
brightness it can handle) and is forced to raise the black level of the image in
compensation. Why?
This is known as the contrast ratio. The camera can only reproduce a certain range
of gradations between white and black. When the peak white level is set unusually high,
the details in the picture which would normally have appeared grey are lost to the viewer
because they get reproduced as black. The definition in the darker, shadowy areas of the
picture just can’t be seen any more.
Using an ND filter on a bright day allows you to get a fuller, more satisfying image
which retains detail in the darker areas.
ND filters are available in different strengths, to suit different shooting conditions.
Because there are lots of very bright shooting circumstances (snow, sand, water) it
would seem that all cameras sold should come with
an ND filter. But they don’t.
If your camera doesn’t have one, you can buy Chant this like a mantra
an ND filter from a camera shop and attach it to everytime you put your eye to
your lens barrel on bright days. You simply unscrew the viewfinder: FILTER, FOCUS,
the lens hood, screw on the ND filter, and then FRAMING, F-STOP, CHECK,
put the lens hood back on. DOUBLE CHECK! Joseph Ford,
RMIT.
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36 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

When to Use the Filter Wheel

If your camera does have a filter wheel, be sure to set the filter to the correct position
before white balancing the camera. This will give you better colour results.

White Balance (WB)

Video cameras are made to reproduce colours fairly accurately, but to do this they must
be electronically alerted to the colour temperature of the light which is illuminating the
subject. This is called white balancing the camera.
(You know how some labels never seem to fit quite right? I’ve always thought this
process should be called colour balancing, because it’s the colours which are being adjusted,
but I guess it’s called white balancing because the signal is being correctly referenced to
white.)

How to do a Manual White Balance

1. Set your camera to manual white balance mode. If the WB switch on your camera
is on Preset, the camera can’t do a manual white balance, so make sure to check the
WB switch position;
2. Zoom in on a white card which is under the same light as
your subject will be or put the white lens cap on and point
the camera towards the source of light which will illuminate
your subject;
3. Hold the white balance button down for a second or so
(on some cameras), or till you get the white balance completed
message in the viewfinder (on other cameras);
4. Stay pointed at the white card till the viewfinder informs
you that white balancing is completed.

Storing a White Balance Setting

If your camera has the labels WB1 and WB2, it can remember
two white balance settings at the same time, which can be very
convenient if you’re rushing through a shoot with both indoor
and outdoor shots.
Do a proper white balance under one of the light conditions
with the switch set to WB1, and then do a second white balance
Bronwyn Gell does a white balance under the other light condition with the switch in WB2. The
on the white lens cap, Hamilton camera will hold the memory of both white balances.
Secondary College, Mitchell Park, SA, You won’t have to re-white balance every time you change
Australia. location, but you will have to remember to flip the switch from
one setting to the other before you start shooting after each
change.
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Image Control 37
Preset Mode
Some cameras have a preset white balance setting. In
a situation where you’re using only 3200°K studio
lights, you can switch the camera to Preset 3200°K
and not have to white balance.
Caution: studio lights tend to slip to lower colour
temperatures as they get older, so if you find that the
colours in your shot look slightly off, do a manual
white balance.

White Balance Mistakes

When you white balance, be sure to hold the white card under exactly the same light
conditions which your subject will be under. If you stand closer to the camera, so you’re
not really in the shot’s light, the camera may be influenced by some other light source
and give you the wrong colour result.
You should always white balance the camera at
the start of your shoot, and you must do it again any
time you change light sources. If you don’t, your
picture could be tinged with an unrealistic colour.
If you’re indoors and go outside without re-white
balancing, the bride’s dress will change from white
to blue as she emerges from the church door.
If you’re outdoors and go in without doing a WB
adjustment, your characters will suddenly look quite
ruddy and the surrounding room will have a golden
glow. (Sometimes you may do this deliberately—say
you’re shooting a breakfast scene and want it to have
Not here . . . white balance here
extra warm tones.)
If you go from the sun to a shade house and forget to white balance, darker skinned
people will appear to have bluish skin.
The most frustrating thing about making a white balance mistake was that you were
stuck with it, you couldn’t correct it later. No matter how beautiful your shot was, it
would look odd and unprofessional if its colour was off. Now with digital editing systems,
corrections can be made in postproduction. Don’t let this knowledge make you get
careless, though. It’s ALWAYS easier to shoot something right than to have to fix it in
postproduction! It’s easier in time, money and stress, all important things to consider.

Problems with Automatic White Balance

Many cameras have an auto white balance function which continually assesses white
balance and adjusts it automatically, even when you’re in record mode.
As long as your subject remains under only one light source your picture will look
okay.
However, if you pan from one colour temperature to another, as you would if you
were panning across a classroom, from students who are illuminated by the overhead
fluorescent lights to students lit by the sun coming through the window, the auto white
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38 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Chrominance: skin tones are balance mode will cause your picture to change
always my bottom line.You can colour in mid-shot as it senses the second light
cheat the white balance (by temperature. Again, that’s not a professional looking
balancing on shades other than shot.
white) to give people warmer, For the director, it’s decision time. Is that pan really
Jason
Benedek, colder or stranger looks.You may necessary? Or could you use just one wide shot? Or
Tin Sheds, need to open the iris or lower the should you go for two separate shots, one white
University of balanced for the students lit by the fluorescent lights,
Sydney. shutter speed for the camera to
be able to balance on hues other and a second shot white balanced for the students
than white, but it can produce over near the windows who are lit by sunlight?
the effect you’re after—and
remember to be consistent for Creative Use of White Balance
continuity’s sake.
You can deliberately trick the white balance of a
camera by white balancing to a card of another colour.
Then you can get some wild looking pictures!
Throwing the white balance off deliberately like
You can warm up your video
this will make the camera reproduce even white as
images by white balancing with a
another colour. This can work to your advantage. If
quarter blue gel or an eighth blue
you’re using computer generated titles which have
gel, instead of white, when
been printed out onto white paper so you can video
Peter manually white balancing
them, you can make the paper look another colour
Thurmer,
Hamilton this way and give your program coloured titles.
Secondary
College.

Black Balance
Some cameras also allow you to do a black balance. Usually this is done by flicking the
white balance toggle switch in the other direction to the setting labelled BB.
The camera will close its iris and balance its colour to the black it ‘sees’ within itself.
You know it’s finished when you get the ‘completed’ signal in the viewfinder.
Black balancing should be done before white balancing, at the beginning of each
shoot.
It’s not necessary to black balance again when you re-white balance on the same
shoot, but then, it doesn’t do any harm.

Filters
Filters are glass disks which screw on to the front of your lens barrel and alter the light
entering the camera, thus affecting the image the camera produces.
There’s a wide variety of filters available from photography stores, and many are the
right size for your video camera.
By using filters, you can make almost any alteration to the colour or distinctness of
your image that you can imagine.
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Image Control 39
Colour Filters
There are filters which add a uniform colour across the whole
image. You can use these to ‘warm up’ or ‘cool down’ the tone
or mood of the image.
Or you can give the image an overall colour wash—make it
magenta, yellow, green . . .

Graduated Filters
Some filters have a colour which is darker at one edge of the filter
disk and lighter at the other, changing its depth of colour evenly
across the filter.
These give a more intense colour to the top, bottom or side
of your image (depending on how you orient the filter in relation
to the lens), but contribute a tinge of that colour throughout the Paul Pledger watches as Adam Giles
whole image. checks out a graduated filter.
Graduated filters can be used to intensify the sky colours on Hamilton Secondary College,
sunsets, for example. Mitchell Park, SA, Australia.

Bi-Coloured Filters
There are filters which can add two different colours to your image.
They can simultaneously enrich the blue of the sky and the green of the land—or
whatever you choose. You have to construct your shot to match the filter, though, or
you may get a colour in the wrong place.

Star Filter
A star filter turns any very bright spot in your picture into a star (e.g. lights, headlights,
reflections off glass). Some people like them and some people hate them, so they should
be used with discretion.
They can make a group of children holding candles and singing carols look like
they’ve just arrived from another sphere. Great for special effects on holiday tapes.

Polarising Filter
A polarising filter reduces or cuts out bright reflections and glare. It can let your camera
see the fish swimming beneath the surface of a brightly reflective pool. It can heighten
the drama of cumulus clouds in a bright sky.
Because a polarising filter is directional, you can adjust the degree of effect you want.
If you want to get rid of all the glare, orient it one way; if you want to get rid of just
some, give it a bit of a turn. You can keep turning it till it gets rid of no glare at all.
A polarising filter affects all wavelengths equally, so it has no affect on colour balance.

Multiple Image Filter

If you’re into drastically altering your picture, you can use filters which multiply your
image across the screen.
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40 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

So instead of one red Ferrari driving in, you can have five. And they can be driving
in the top, bottom, sides and centre of your screen.

Avoid some lens flare by using UV Filter

your hand as an extension of the An ultraviolet (UV) filter absorbs ultraviolet radiation
rubber lens hood. beyond the visible spectrum. The UV radiation would
otherwise cause a blue colour cast.
Lyvern Myi, A UV filter doesn’t alter your image much, but it’s an inexpensive and effective way
Media to protect your lens from scratches and other damage. Lots of people put a UV filter on
Resource
Centre. a new camera for just that reason.

Additional Camera Features

Your camera may have additional features which allow you to affect the image you’re
recording. These are delightful at first, and fun to play around with, but all of them can
be done at the editing stage as well. These effects are most useful to the home user, who
doesn’t have access to video editing.
It helps to bear in mind one of the real advantages of working in video, which is
that video editing is a non-destructive process. Video footage isn’t cut up or in any way
altered by the editing process, so good shots can be used again and again in several
different projects. Although at this point in time you might want an effect on the footage
you’re shooting, for another project you may not want that effect. That’s why it’s more
efficient to shoot footage plain to start with, and add the effects later.

Superimposed Text
Nearly any camera these days allows the operator to add titles while taping. The titles
can be an opening name for the program, like ‘Lisa’s Birthday Party’ or ‘Jack and Judy’s
Wedding’. Spiffier setups can do rolls on the screen, so end credits can rise across the
image, like you see on TV. Some cameras are even able to do key effects, so you can
superimpose a sort of stencil of one image over another one. There’s lots of scope for
creativity with this.
The simplest superimposed text is when you record the date and time as you tape.
Not everyone realises that the date and time can be turned off and on, and that variations
can be used, like the date but not the time. And not everyone even notices the date and
time in the bottom corner of the screen while taping.
If you’re shooting video as a record of a trip, the date and time can be very handy
as a memory jogger, and a sort of diary record. It may even solve some arguments with
your travel companions about when you were at a particular place!
But imagine how silly a drama would look if it were shot over several days but not
shot in the order of the final story (the script order). The first shot could say one day,
the second shot could say an earlier day, the third shot could jump to a week later, and
so on.
If you’re shooting for editing, jumping dates is a ridiculous effect.
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Image Control 41
So train your eye to always check the viewfinder screen carefully to make sure the
date and time aren’t displayed—what you see is what you get.
With any of these superimposed effects, once they’re recorded as part of the image,
you can’t get them off.

Digital Effects
There are many digital effects your camera might offer you. You can strobe the motion,
introduce cometing of the image, put a spotlight onto a performer, produce mosaic effects
and freeze frames, you can shoot in black and white, or squeeze or stretch the image.
For going from one shot to another, you can set up neat transitions, like dissolves, fades
and various wipes.
This is good fun for home movies, and it will produce lots of laughs from the family
when played back, but the same thing applies as with the superimposed effects. Once
you shoot footage with a digital effect, you’re stuck with it.
If you’re shooting for a more public project than home movies, it’s better to shoot
the footage plain because you have far more control of an effect in editing.
Say you want to strobe your friend as he plays his guitar and his offsider dances. If
the strobe (jumpy vision) starts in the right spot it could look great. But if the strobe
starts a mini-second earlier or later, the whole strobe can look awkward and less appealing.
Previewing the strobe effect before editing it can help you find exactly the best place
and time to start the effect.
But if you’ve shot it strobed in the first place, you just don’t have the missing bits,
and you’re stuck with whatever way it happened at the shoot.
How lucky are you? Don’t answer that.

Other Image Changers

There are many semi-transparent things which you can put in front of the lens. If the
material is very close to the lens, so the lens can’t focus on it but looks through it, you
can get some wonderful effects.
One or two layers of black silk stocking stretched tightly across the lens (held in
place with an elastic band or tape) can beautifully soften the image, making it look more
romantic—good for topics dealing with memories, dreams, nostalgia.
If no-one has black silk stockings (and who does these days?) try anyone’s semi-
sheer tights and see what you get.
Other good materials to try are lightweight gauzes, and very fine fabrics.
And then there’s the age-old trick with Vaseline (petroleum jelly).
You smear Vaseline around the outer edge of a clear glass filter or a UV filter—NOT
your camera’s lens—and then attach this in front of your camera lens. You’ll get an image
with soft edges all around, like a photographic vignette—again, good for dreams and
memories.
Use your imagination. Try lots of things. Create your own look. Be an initiator in
the screen world!
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42 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Cleaning the Lens

No matter whether you want to reproduce life in the natural colours you see, or alter
the image to make your own unique aesthetic statement, you need a clear lens.
If there are fingerprints, dust, smoke, fluff, pollen, sea spray or hairs between the
world and the camera, the truth of the image will be reduced, due to an inglorious lack
of good housekeeping. Maintaining the cleanliness of the lens is paramount.
The first way to keep the lens clean is to put the lens cap on whenever the camera
isn’t in use. Shelter the camera from blowing dust, smoke, grit. Don’t let sea spray or
rain drops get to it. Don’t let that toddler, with her peanut butter-smeared fingers, run
up and touch it.
But sometimes lenses do get dirty, and you need to clean them before your next
shoot.
Remember: glass scratches easily. There are sharpnesses that you wouldn’t suspect
in ordinary cloth and paper tissues. So always clean your lens with the tissues that are
sold in photography stores especially for lens cleaning.
You can buy a lens cleaning kit. It has a soft brush for clearing away any major dust
and grit. And it has a small bottle of lens cleaning fluid and the special super-soft tissues.
1. Brush or blow away any movable debris.
2. Wet the tissue with a few drops of lens cleaning fluid.
3. Start cleaning at the middle of the lens and make circular motions with the tissue till
you gradually work your way to the outer edges.
4. Repeat the circular cleaning till the fingerprints and other marks are gone.
5. Don’t try to scrub off the purplish coating! It’s supposed to be there! It helps reduce
unwanted internal light reflections in the lens system and also helps reduce flare.

Suggestions from Rachel Masters

The Macro Lens Practise using the macro lens of a camera by taping a short collage
piece—no longer than 60 seconds or 20 shots—using in-camera editing. (Don’t forget the
roll-up time!)
Shoot macro shots of interesting colours, shapes, features and textures. If you frame the
shot very tightly, it will be hard to tell what each surface belongs to.
What does the texture of brick look like in a close-up? What about grass? Try to shoot
contrasting colours and textures and observe closely the way the light affects the focus
and depth within the frame. Explore the use of focus.
Perhaps you can save this original vision for an editing exercise later on.
Image Altering Try putting an old mirror tile in a bucket of water and shooting the
mirror reflection through the ripples in the water. Frame out the bucket so the final image
is just the reflection.
Experimenting with Creative Images Test the effects of shooting through glass, net,
nylon, gauze, coloured plastic or the bottom of a glass tumbler.
Shoot through a frame made of tin foil, or through a long tube. Or cut out a paper mask
frame and attach it to the front of the camera.
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Chapter

3 Composition
and Framing
Producing Videos
Composition and Framing

Television and video are limited to presenting a flat image within a

I rectangular frame. In the past this frame had fixed dimensions, in an
aspect ratio of 4:3. This means that however wide the image was, the height was only
three-quarters of that measurement.
Widescreen is the name given to the new format that some of the high-end digital
cameras, like Digital Betacam, shoot. Its aspect ratio is 16:9. It looks more like the shape
of the image we see at the movies.
HDTV (High Definition TV ) is also shot in 16:9.
But HDTV is actually another format altogether,
Widescreen can be up-
with quite a different signal.
converted to HDTV, but it
When a 16:9 image is shown on a standard 4:3
will never be as good as some-
screen, there are black bars across the top and
thing which was sourced on
bottom of the screen. This resulting image is
HDTV. Richard
sometimes referred to as letterboxing because the
Fitzpatrick,
image appears to be being seen through a wide slit Camera
which runs across the width of the screen. The general public hates Operator,
Your camera may be switchable between the letterboxing.They feel they’re Digital
not getting the whole picture. Dimensions.
normal image and what is called cinema. If you
choose to shoot in cinema your image will also have But they are; it’s just smaller so
black bars across the top and bottom of the picture you can show the entire width
when it’s shown on a standard TV set, and the of the shot. It’s the difference in
image might look a bit vertically squashed, but it the shape of the 16:9 frame
will look fine on a widescreen TV. that necessitates the black bars
Some people like the cinema look with the black at the top and bottom.
bars, and shoot this way to be arty. Others don’t
like to lose any part of the screen to blackness. One consideration is what type of monitor
your audience is likely to have.
Whatever the shape of the image, it is through this peephole that directors seek to
convey a believable three-dimensional world.
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44 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

If shooting for TV broadcast, use Despite the necessary compression of both time
the 16:9 or widescreen mode. and space within the screen production, viewers are
VHS dubs can be made with the meant to grasp the meaning of the story and become
letterbox effect for viewing on a immersed in its telling.
standard 4:3 TV monitor. A A tall order? Yes. But over the years a vocabulary
Philip Elms,
Media widescreen monitor is and grammar of visual images—a visual language—
Resource recommended, however, during has developed. Knowing and using this language helps
Centre. directors and camera operators convey their thoughts
the edit.
and their stories.
1. Part of visual language is screen composition.
Cinema mode on mini DV Composition deals with the way the parts
cameras is bogus widescreen. (elements) of the picture are arranged in relation
You get the look but you’re to each other, and where each one appears on the
losing 25 per cent of your screen. The image can be made to look crowded
Richard vertical resolution. But you can or spacious, elegant or confusing. Some ways of
Fitzpatrick, buy a 16:9 optical converter for arranging a picture are considered more beautiful
Camera your camera, which lets you
Operator, than others, or more dynamic.
Digital shoot true 16:9 and not lose the There are known ways to lead a viewer’s
Dimensions. vertical resolution.That will attention into a picture and to guide the eye’s gaze
produce a picture which looks around the various parts of it.
fine on widescreen TV. Aesthetic and dramatic statements can be
made by the specific arrangement of the elements
in an image.
2. Another part of visual language involves shot sizes.
Shot size is related to how much of the picture is filled by the subject. When the
subject fills the picture, it’s considered to be a closer shot, even if the camera itself is
located quite a distance away. When the subject is just
What is your shot trying to say? a small element in the picture, it’s considered to be a
longer (further away) or wider shot.
The size of the shot is important to the meaning
of the shot, and to the meaning of the shots that have come before or will come after.
There are standard shot sizes which directors call upon. The way a director
Julian Ellis,
Cinematographer, chooses to use—or alter, or distort—these accepted shot sizes is part of the style and
AFTRS. the meaning of the story.
Richard 3. A third part of visual language is the framing of the
Fitzpatrick, You’ve got to keep in mind the
shot.
Camera 4:3 screen when you frame a
Operator, Framing refers to where the edges of the shot have
shot in widescreen, so the 4:3
Digital been placed. You can compare it to the frame of a
Dimensions. shot can be used for those
picture on the wall. If the framing is tight, there’s not
people who still have the
much space surrounding the subject. If the framing is
standard TVs.The widescreen
loose, the edges of the picture are a little further out from
camera has a 4:3 safety zone
the subject than they are in a conventional shot of
which you can call up on
that size.
the viewfinder to check how
The frame can be placed in accordance to normal
your framing will work on
television practice, or it can be deliberately readjusted
standard TV.
to make a statement using visual language.
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Composition and Framing 45

The way a frame is set can contribute conceptually to the overall meaning of the
piece. For example, if a character in a drama is always framed at the very edge of
the shot, or half out of it, it can visually underscore a view of this person as being
marginal or eccentric.
And the shooting mode you use will have an impact on how you frame your
shots.

Composition
By Tom Jeffrey, Producer/Director
The art of composition is in arranging the elements of a scene so the totality of the picture
yields the desired effect.
In most cases the aim is for a balanced and visually pleasing image, but sometimes
a disharmonious composition is used to reinforce the tension or drama of the storyline.
In composition, there’s nothing which is absolutely right or always wrong.

Balance Richard
The sooner we get out of the Fitzpatrick,
Balance depends on a number of factors, such as
4:3 world, the better, because Camera
the size of the subject, the subject’s position within Operator,
it’s a different feel for
the frame and the relationship of it to other objects Digital
composition. Dimensions.
or subjects.
Balance is usually desirable, but shots can be
balanced and dull. A series of shots where the subject is always positioned in the centre
of the frame won’t hold the viewer’s interest for long.
Angled shots often give more drama and dimension than full frontals.

Horizon or Horizontal Lines

In most pictures there is a horizon line. The simplest horizon line will divide the picture
into two equal parts. This can be very boring to the eye.

Boring Preferred Preferred

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46 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Vertical Lines
Similarly, a vertical line which divides the frame into two equal parts can be quite
uninteresting. Shifting the emphasis of the verticals to the left or the right creates increased
interest.

Boring Preferred Preferred

Thirds
From these ideas on horizontal and vertical lines, we can reach the notion of dividing
the frame into thirds.

+ =

+ =

Where the lines intersect can be points of interest.

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Composition and Framing 47

Diagonal Lines
Lines which dissect the frame at angles can heighten interest, heighten tension or increase
the strength of a point of interest in the picture.

or or

or

Diagonals can also curve.

Triangles
Triangles can give strength to a picture.

The face forms a natural A group of people can make The classic mother and baby
triangle. one too. may be the best known
compositional triangle.
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48 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Perspective
Perspective, in its simplest descriptive form, is a combination of vertical and diagonal
lines which give a three dimensional look to the two dimensional picture—creating a
feeling of distance or space.

When directing, remembering

the rules is very important, but
also always remember that if
the idea works for the script in
Ian Ingram hand, then it is right, so do it.
Young,
Academy of
Photogenic
Arts.

Comparisons in Composition and Framing

Consider the following examples of possible shot compositions and framings.

Don’t have all main picture elements equi-distant from each other.

Not so good Preferred

To add visual interest and a sense of depth, arrange your subjects at different distances
from the camera, taking care they don’t conceal each other.

Not so good Preferred

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Composition and Framing 49

Left/right symmetry can be boring. Balance the elements in the frame in an
asymmetrical fashion.

Not so good Preferred

Keep the horizon above or below the centre of the frame.

Not so good Preferred

When the subject is in the distance, a secondary object in the foreground can
emphasise depth.

Not so good Preferred

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50 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Parallel horizontal lines can shorten perspective and reduce the sense of depth. Try
to place a diagonal against a horizontal.

Not so good Preferred

Shooting two-dimensional objects, like paintings or signs, from a side angle will
produce a distortion. Shoot them straight-on unless the distortion is desired.

AFTR AFTRS
ENT
RANC
S ENTRANCE
E

Not so good Preferred

Composition for Reverse Shots for Dialogue

The subject facing the camera should get about two-thirds of the screen space.

Main shot Reverse shot

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Composition and Framing 51

Shot Sizes
The shot is the basic building block of a screen production. Through a succession of
shots the story emerges.
You might consider each shot to be like a phrase or sentence in a written text.
Each shot, therefore, is important and should be carefully designed to ‘say’ what it’s
meant to say.
Choosing the right shot size is one of the key decisions the director makes. It’s no
good having a deep emotional scene shown in such a long shot that the people’s facial
expressions can’t be interpreted. And it’s no good having a shot so close that important
body action is happening outside the frame.
The following illustrations show the standard shot sizes used in broadcast television.
A fluent understanding of these shot sizes will help you plan your coverage, fill out your
storyboard and call the shots on the day of the shoot.
You don’t have to stick to these shots exactly. You can have a ‘tight mid-shot’ or a
‘loose close-up’. But these terms give you a common set of reference points, shared by
other people in the industry, which allow you to communicate the scenes in your head
to the other members of your crew.

Very Long Shot (VLS) Long shot (LS)

Medium long shot (MLS) Mid-shot (MS)

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52 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Medium close-up (MCU) Close-up (CU)

Big close-up (BCU) Extreme close-up (ECU)

Underwater camera work was As you can see, shot sizes are defined in relation
traditionally wide shots, to the human figure. With the exception of the term
following shots. Now we apply close-up, these terms aren’t applied to other objects.
standard shot sizes to build You can’t have a mid-shot of a car, for example
story sequences. Anyone who (regardless of how personal your relationship is with
Richard
Fitzpatrick, wants to do nature filming your car!).
Camera should apply the same There’s one other shot size, not shown above.
Operator, It’s the wide shot. The wide shot is the unhindered
Digital traditional film techniques that
Dimensions. are used in drama, i.e. build up view you get looking at a scene. It can be very wide,
visual sequences.That’s what like a view of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, or smaller,
producers look for in demo like the front of a cafe. In a wide shot it’s possible
reels and in programs. to see many human figures.
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Composition and Framing 53

Framing
Here are some guidelines to consider when framing your subject.

Head Room
Shots of people are usually framed with a small amount of space above their heads. This
space is called head room.
Shots need to have sufficient head room because when the top of the head is right
against the top of the frame, it can produce a claustrophobic impression.
The most common framing error of beginners is to put the subject too low in the
picture, leaving heaps of head room. If nothing important is happening in the part of the
frame that’s above the head, this is wasted screen space and you could more productively
either tilt down to show more of the person’s body, or zoom in to give the viewer a
better look at the subject’s face.

Too little head room Too much head room Good

If the person isn’t framed properly s/he will appear to head-butt the frame or to be
hanging by the neck.

The Eyes
Generally speaking, you should aim to put the subject’s eye level about two-thirds of
the way up the screen.
The eyes play a very important role in communication, and eye signals and eye
orientation are very closely connected to culture.
Although it’s standard practice in broadcast television to use close-ups of subjects
facing directly to the camera, with their eyes looking straight down the lens barrel, this
is culturally inappropriate in many societies, including some Indigenous peoples.
Because it’s unacceptable in some cultures for a younger person to meet the eyes of
an older person, the full-on gaze of an older person looking out from the television screen
can cause some younger viewers to avert their eyes. If it’s important for your audience
to continue watching the screen, it makes sense to arrange your shot so they can
comfortably do so.
It may be more acceptable to have the elder shown in three-quarter face (i.e. looking
slightly away from the camera), or even in profile, so their eyes aren’t directed straight
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54 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

at the viewer, so that the scene reflects the image the audience would normally see in
daily life.
When you’re making a program, consider the cultural mores of your subject and the
needs and responses of your anticipated audience.

The Mouth
The mouth is also an important element in communication. The shot should usually be
framed so the audience can get a good view of moving lips, so the mouth shouldn’t be
partway off the screen.
Because many people watch mouth movements when they’re listening to a person
speak, profile shots—which show only the side of the mouth—can reduce the viewer’s
ability to catch the words the person is saying.
Any program which is aimed at an audience which includes hearing impaired people
(could we say this is every audience?) should be made with thought given to the placement
and visibility of the talking mouth on the screen.

Looking/Talking Room
When a person is framed so s/he is looking off screen, there should be more space in
front of the person’s face than behind the head. This is called looking room.
When a person is talking to someone off screen, as in a three-quarter close-up of a
person in a talk show situation, there should be space in front of them in the frame for
their words to flow out of their mouths. It may sound silly, but if the edge of frame is
close to the front of their face, it feels to the viewer as if their words will hit a brick wall
and go nowhere.

Not enought looking/talking space Preferred

Walking Room
Similarly, a person walking across the screen needs to have walking room at the front.
Keeping walking room requires well-timed panning on the part of the camera
operator. It’s easy to go a little too slow and have the person appearing to head into a
rigid barrier (the edge of the frame), and then jerk the pan over to try to catch up. This
looks daggy. Shots with planned movements like this should be well rehearsed before
they’re recorded.
The concept of walking room also applies to other human movements, like skating,
swimming, skiing and so forth.
And it also applies to vehicular movement—planes, trains and automobiles.
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Composition and Framing 55

Framing for Widescreen
If you’re shooting on a widescreen format, most of the same ideas on composition apply,
but in addition you have to consider who your audience will be. Will they be viewing
your material on widescreen? Or will they still have to see it on standard 4:3 screens?
Some frames just don’t convert from wide screen to 4:3.

This shot was framed for widescreen—16:9 aspect ratio.

A 4:3 centrecut of this frame looks ridiculous.

Because we’re in this transition

to widescreen TV, you have to
shoot everything in 16:9 so it’s
‘future-proofed’, so it will be
compatible to go in programs Richard
made a few years from now. Fitzpatrick,
But you also have to frame Camera
Operator,
Some editors will ‘pan and scan’it into two shots like this. your shots so they’re Digital
acceptable for viewing on Dimensions.
today’s 4:3 screens.

Appropriate Size
Make sure the subject is shown at an appropriate size, so sufficient detail can be seen
and important parts aren’t chopped off by framing that’s too tight.

Too small Too tight Preferred

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56 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Inclusiveness
Make sure that important elements are shown completely.

Element cut off Element fully within frame

Masking
Don’t let one important element obscure another main element or its value will be
reduced.

Element obscured Preferred

Suggestions from Rachel Masters

Look at the shapes the body naturally makes and interchange these with shapes found
naturally in the environment. Do the fingers on your hand remind you of anything? Are they
like the branches of a tree? What about the freckles on your friend’s face? Are they similar to
a pebbled path? The angle of a beautiful aquiline nose may remind you of the corner edge
of a roof.
Shoot a collage video intercutting these images together. Be imaginative—look at things
in a new way. Have fun!

Many thanks to Tom Jeffrey for his help in the preparation of this chapter.
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Chapter

4 The Camera’s
View
Producing Videos
The Camera’s View

The image is produced not only by

I the size and framing of the shot, and
the arrangement of the elements within it. It’s also
greatly affected by where the camera is: its position,
its height, its closeness to the action, and whether it’s
moving or not.

Handholding
There are definite advantages to handholding. The
camera is able to move fluidly through the location Tan Shaojun, from Yunnan Normal University, on
and even the action, changing its point of view, location in China for Dai Women Speak by Arise
responding quickly to unexpected changes, and Productions.(Photo by Michelle Blakeney)
sometimes interacting with the subjects.
But there are difficulties with handholding, too.
When there are people in the
In the hands of a beginner, the resulting image can
shot, the shot can support a bit
be shaky when the operator is standing still, and
of a shake. Shots with nobody
jerky when the operator attempts to walk. The picture
in them should be dead
recorded with the lens on wide angle will look less
steady. Chris Fraser,
bad, but if there’s any attempt to use telephoto, the
Cinematography
image will be unacceptably jittery. Department,
AFTRS.

A steady handheld camera can add production value to your program and save you time
in the edit suite. Handheld moving camera allows you to capture action that might have
otherwise taken a number of camera set ups. Effectively you’re editing in-camera, going
from wide shot to close up and back again, changing subjects, changing POVs, etc. With
handholding you’re able to follow actors and action, and shoot in confined spaces, saving Andy Nehl,
time on location. Head of
Television,
AFTRS.
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58 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Steadicam
Many people dream of getting a steadicam. The original steadicam is a harness contrap-
tion which holds the camera on a jointed arm, isolated from the movements of the
camera operator. The view taken using steadicam is one which seems to glide through
the world, without the jolts of the operator’s footsteps, or the rise and fall of the operator’s
shoulder as s/he breathes.
With steadicam, there’s an adjustable monitoring system for the operator, since the
normal viewfinder won’t do.

Chris Fraser demonstrates the use of a steadicam, AFTRS.

Unfortunately, a steadicam is expensive, and not likely to get bought by the media
centre in the next budget round.
S-o-o-o-o . . . you could get very good at handholding. Practice does help.
There are ways of steadying the camera by supporting your camera-holding arm
with your other arm or by holding the camera with both hands and pressing your elbows
into your chest for a firm support.
And there are usually other objects nearby which
will help you steady your shot. Rest your camera on
a fence post, a stone wall, the roof of a car, a tabletop, a
boulder, whatever you can find that’s strong enough and
less likely to wobble or move than you are.
There are also ways to walk more smoothly, by
keeping your knees loose and slightly bent, so they
absorb the shock of each footstep rather than transferring
the jolt up through your body to the camera. You may
look like a silent-film comedian, but people won’t laugh
when they see your footage. What’s better, they won’t
scream or reach for the motion sickness tablets.
There are even ways of breathing more shallowly
so your shoulder doesn’t rise and fall so much. In fact,
You can stabilise the camera by propping for quite short shots some camera operators take a big
your elbow against your other arm or breath beforehand and don’t breathe until the shot is
steadying your camera arm.Allan Collins, finished.
freelance cinematographer.
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The Camera’s View 59

Image Stabiliser
Some cameras boast an image stabiliser. Its purpose
When shooting while walking,
in life is to get rid of shaky camerawork by adjusting
open both eyes to avoid
away your own personal shakiness as you record
collisions.
your video. (This might sound good after a big
night out.)
But not all image stabilisers are equal. Electronic image stabilisers can cause a loss Lyvern Myi,
Media
in picture quality. It’s claimed that some optical image stabilisers can keep a recording Resource
steady even when using the telephoto setting or Centre.
when shooting video from a moving car or train,
when the bumpiness has nothing to do with your Hold the camera nice and still,
own skill as an operator. and then move it around
The image stabiliser is an option that can be slowly.
turned on and off, except in locked modes like easy
recording. David Cox-
It’s recommended that you turn the image Taylor,AFTRS.

stabiliser off if you’re using a tripod.

Make sure the steadyshot or
stabiliser is switched on. While
stabilisers and steadyshots will

Stationary Camera degrade your image quality very

slightly this minor degradation Andy Nehl,
is far outweighed by the Head of
If the camera doesn’t have to move around or Television,
smoothness that they add to
through the action space, then the best idea is to AFTRS.
handheld shooting. Optical
stabilise it firmly in one spot. A good quality tripod
stabilisers are better than
is probably the thing.
digital stabilisers so if you have
For any shots which require absolute stillness
a choice when purchasing,
of the camera, like telephoto shots and macro shots,
hiring or borrowing a camera,
the tripod is close to essential.
go for one with an optical
stabiliser. If you are shooting
on a tripod turn the stabiliser

The Tripod or steadyshot off.

The tripod is a three-legged structure (as its name implies) which telescopes down to a
small size for transporting it, but which can be made into quite a tall camera support if
needed.
The tripod, like some funny android, doesn’t have much to it—it’s all legs and head.

Tripod Construction
There’s variety in the shape and material of tripod legs. There are the rugged heavy
wooden ones, and the lighter weight metal ones. Some tripods are absolutely spindly.
These were designed to be used with lightweight still cameras, not video cameras.
The first considerations in choosing a tripod are whether it’s strong enough to support
a camera of the size you’re using—and whether it’s got sufficient weight in itself to keep
a gust of wind from blowing it over once the camera is on it.
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60 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

The second consideration is whether it pans and tilts smoothly. Don’t use one which
requires you to unlock the tilt mechanism by twisting the panning lever’s handle. These
give you terrible picture results because every time you want to change the tilt, that
twisting motion puts a jerk into your picture. Many of the cheaper tripods have this
obnoxious problem. Okay for stills, not okay for video.
The third consideration is how heavy the tripod is, and how far you’ll have to carry
it. Unless you’ve got a Rambo on your crew, you may not want to take a heavy one on
a long bush trek.

The Legs
You’ll find, along the three collapsed legs, a series of knobs, enlarged wing nuts, or some
other form of release mechanism. Wherever you find one, that’s an expansion point for
the tripod leg. There are one, two or three of these for each leg, depending on the brand
and style of tripod you’ve got. The expansion points allow you to open the tripod up
to be very tall, put it to a medium height, or even use it at a very low level.
In fact, tripods can be purchased in different sizes, from tall to baby legs. For table
work, you can even buy the head mount without any legs at all.
One of the tricks of using a tripod is lengthening all the legs evenly. If the legs are
uneven, then the platform at the top where you attach the camera won’t be level, and
your shot will be slanted in relation to the horizon or the walls of the room you’re in.
One effective way of evenly lengthening tripod
legs is to lay the closed tripod across your lap, and
extend all three legs so the feet are flat against your
outheld vertical palm. If they’re even when the legs
are closed, they’ll be even when the tripod is set up.
The leg procedure goes like this:
1. Loosen a leg.
2. Lengthen the leg.
3. Retighten the leg.
4. Roll the tripod over to do the next leg.
Lengthen the tripod legs evenly before you open Step 3 is the important one. It’s so easy when
them.Gunther Hang, AFTRS. you’re rushing or momentarily distracted to forget to
tighten one of the legs!
Then what can happen? You can attach the camera to the tripod top, turn to get a
battery out of the bag, and look back to see the untightened leg collapsing and the camera
beginning to topple (or worse).
So, . . . Loosen . . . Lengthen . . . Tighten.

The Feet
At the base of the tripod legs are what we might call the feet. Some tripod models give
you a choice in feet. You can use the round rubber bottoms, or you can screw them
upwards to reveal pointy metal ends; on other models, there are metal claws which you
can flip downward. Choice of feet, like your choice of shoes, is based on common sense.
Which tripod feet would you use on the polished wooden floor of a library? Which feet
would you use at the soccer field?
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The Camera’s View 61

Tripod foot with rubber pad. Tripod foot with spiky point.

Setting Up
When you set the tripod up, it’s a good idea to spread the legs out
fairly wide so it has a good stable base. It’s better to have the legs
extended a bit further and the feet out wider (if there’s space where
you’re operating) than it is to have the legs precariously close
together.
Most tripods have a way of stabilising the spread of the legs,
with straps, chains or connecting strips. If your tripod doesn’t have
any way of keeping the legs from sliding further out, you can build
a wooden triangle to set the legs in. Oddly enough, this triangle
is called a ‘spreader’.
Tightening the bolts at the apex (top) of the legs also stops
them from spreading.

The Head
Some cheaper tripods have a fixed head attached at the top of the You’re not always going to have level
legs, but professional tripods usually have a head which attaches ground.On location for Dai Women
via an adjustable, swivelling ball-and-cavity system. This lets the Speak.(Photo by Michelle Blakeney)
operator level the camera platform independently of
the legs, and check the levelness of it by using the
spirit level gauge on the side of the head. When the
head is level, the little bubble will be inside the circle
on the gauge.

Attaching the Camera

There are a number of ways that cameras can be
attached to tripods.
The easiest way is if your camera comes with a
mounting plate. In that case, you screw the lightweight Michelle Watson adjusts tripod using spirit level.
Hamilton Secondary College, Mitchell Park, SA,
Australia.(Photo by Stephanie Rowe)
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62 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

In this age of lighter, more mounting plate onto the receiving bolt on the tripod
portable and smarter digital head.
cameras, tripods may seem to Some tripod heads have a tightening system
have almost become irrelevant. consisting of two knobs and a lever. With that system,
Image stabilisers can smooth you tighten the smaller bottom knob first, then the
Ian Slade,
Southern out the camera operator’s wider upper one, and finally you swing the lever across
Cross excitement in capturing the to do the last tightening. (Make sure you start with
University. the lever moved to the untightened side, so it has
action. Stabilisers are good for
dealing with small amounts of somewhere to go when you need to use it for the final
camera movement, but only up tightening.)
to a point. After that, image Once you’re sure that the camera plate is firmly
quality is what is being on (give it a wiggle and check to see if you can see
sacrificed to keep the image any air between the underside of it and the tripod
steady. head), then you can attach the camera.
With the increasing use of
the 16:9 aspect ratio across all
digital cameras, editing and
digital television broadcasting,
image quality is becoming more
important.The wider screen
demands extremely high
quality image reproduction.
People often choose
lightweight tripods.This is fine if
you’re not wanting to pan and Screw the mounting plate on tight.
tilt with accurate beginnings
and endings to your shots.The
choice of a rock-steady tripod
and fluid head that offers
smooth variable dampening in
pan and tilt should be the start
of wonderful relationship
between what you see in the
viewfinder and what the
audience gets to see.You’ll get
Make sure you insert the camera correctly into the
steady images when you need
mounting plate and then lock it in place.
them, and of course when you
don’t you can go back to
wobble cam.
So choose a tripod that can
handle a little more than you’re
asking it to carry.Then the
image quality will come with
practice, no more blaming the
tripod.

Give it a wobble to make sure it’s secure.

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The Camera’s View 63

Carefully place the camera into the positioning slots at the back and front of the
mounting plate, flip the lever at the front of the plate, and it’s locked into place.
Be sure to position the camera correctly—it is possible to do it wrong and still flip
the locking mechanism.
So you never let go of the camera until you’ve given it a little shake to see if it’s
firmly attached.
Another way to attach a camera is when the tripod itself comes with a quick release
plate. This is a small plate which is pentagonal or hexagonal in shape. You screw it onto
the bottom of your camera, and then the plate itself
fits into a slot on the tripod head. Again, there’s a
Never leave a camera
locking lever, this time to hold the plate firmly in
unattended on a tripod.
place.
The third way to mount a camera is to screw it
directly to the bolt on the tripod head. This is the fiddliest way—and some people find
it quite hard to do. Part of the problem is in supporting the weight of a heavy camera, Tracy
Dickson,
and the other part is in lining up the bolt to thread correctly into the camera bottom. College of the
There never seem to be many turns of thread to grab onto the camera, so be sure South West.
that you get it as tight as possible.

Tripod-head Moves
Although the tripod holds the camera in one place, the camera can still be moved to
vary its view from that one spot, similar to the way we can move our heads on our
shoulders. The smoothest moves are done with a fluid head tripod.

Pan
Panning refers to rotating the camera in the
When panning, try to frame in
horizontal plane—that is, to the left or right.
such a way that if your shot
Panning is used to follow an action, survey a
was still-framed, you would be
scene or show where one person or object is in
happy to get it back from
relation to another.
Kodak. Chris Fraser,
Some things to keep in mind when preparing
Cinematography
to pan: Department,
AFTRS.
1. Make sure the horizon line will be level at both the beginning and the end of the
pan. It will go out of whack partway through if your tripod is on a slight slant.
2. Record tape with the camera still before starting the pan, and continue to record
more with the camera still after you’ve finished the pan. This is necessary for editing.
It’s not usually acceptable to begin or end an edit in the middle of a pan.
3. The speed of the pan should be slow enough so the audience can absorb the
information and fast enough to prevent the audience from getting bored with the
shot. (When you have enough time, it’s a good idea to redo the pan at different
speeds and in different directions, so there’s more choice when it comes to the edit.)
4. Whether using a tripod or handholding, always move your body from an
uncomfortable position to a comfortable one. This means you should stand facing
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64 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

When panning, try to start and the end point of your pan, then turn the camera and
end on a well-framed and your body towards the starting position, with your feet
composed shot. still facing the end of the shot. Doing the pan from this
position means that it will get easier for you as you
move through it, and helps avoid that awkward, shot-
Philip Elms,
Media ruining camera jerk just at the end of a beautifully executed pan.
Resource
Centre.
Tilt
Tilting is the vertical movement of the camera, when you tip the camera lens up and
down from a fixed position.
It’s used to emphasise height or depth, to follow an action, to survey the face of a
building or the length of a human body, and to show the relationship between one place
or object and another.

Zoom
When you have a camera attached to a tripod, it’s often easier to change the camera’s
shot size by zooming than by actually moving.
You may zoom to prepare for your next shot, or you may zoom while you’re rolling
tape. It’s easy to overdo recorded zooming, though. Despite the fact that it tends to
fascinate the novice camera operator, too many zooms can irritate the viewer and make
editing the shots difficult.
(Zooming in and out frequently is called tromboning.)

Combining a Tilt With a Zoom

With experience you’ll see that zooming in or out
I find it easier to get a smooth changes the height of your subject in the frame, so in
pan by twisting the tripod head order to keep a consistent framing, you’ll need to
itself, rather than using the combine a tilt with your zoom. If you practise the shot
extension handle. before you launch into recording it, you’ll get better
Richard results.
Fitzpatrick,
Camera
Operator, Motivation for a Camera Move
Digital
Dimensions. Something within your shot can motivate a camera move. Your viewer can develop a
desire to have a question answered. For example:
‘What is that object in the distance?’
or
‘What is that child playing with?’

This gives the shot motivation to zoom in so the eye can see more clearly.
‘Where is that person going?’
or
‘What’s at the other end of that bridge?’
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The Camera’s View 65

This gives the shot motivation to pan left or I don’t ever lock a tripod off
right. unless an effect (animation,
‘How tall is that building?’ superimposition) hinges on it.
or You never know when an
‘Whose feet are these?’ action or gesture will extend Jason
beyond the area it took place Benedek,
in during rehearsal/blocking. Tin Sheds,
This motivates a tilt upward. University of
You need to keep the flexibility Sydney.
to follow it and capture it all.
This applies even to tighter

Moving the Camera frames of people talking,

moving, gesticulating.
Many directors prefer to use a static (stationary)
camera. It gives good control over the image and, when necessary, it’s possible to produce
strong feelings of movement within the shot by carefully orienting the fixed camera in
relation to the action.
However, as we all know, sometimes you just have to move.

The Dolly
A dolly is a unit with wheels on it, to which a tripod The terms dolly and track have
can be attached. Once the tripod is on a dolly it can become blurred, and the word
be moved along smoothly in any direction. track is now used to cover all
When a director wants a camera operator to these movements. Few people
move the camera in closer to the subject or to back use the word dolly nowadays. Chris Fraser,
away from it, the expressions used are dolly in and Cinematography
dolly out. Department,
When a director wants the camera to be moved to the left or to the right, the AFTRS.

expressions used are track left and track right.

If you need the dolly to stay fixed in one spot, you can lock
the wheels by stepping on the footbrake above each one.
Tracking shots can be used to move the camera alongside, or
to the front or back of, a walking figure or a moving animal or
object.
With the camera moving, it’s possible to keep the subject the
same size in the shot, even though the subject’s relationship to the
background is changing.
A wheelchair is wonderfully manoeuvrable and can get
through some small passageways.
Other camera-moving possibilities are: a baby carriage, a
supermarket trolley, the equipment trolley from the media store
(though these can give a pretty rough ride, maybe worse than
handholding), a slow-moving automobile, a child’s wagon (again,
could be bumpy), a merry-go-round, rollerskates, rollerblades and
a skateboard. Can you think of others?
Studio work, University of South
Australia.
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66 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

A wheelchair can make a great With the last three you definitely need a compe-
dolly and tracking device and tent rider. The idea is to provide a moving camera
can be bought cheaply second support, not a camera death ride.
hand. For a ground level tracking shot, a camera
strapped to a skateboard and rolled along can be
Peter
Thurmer, quite effective.
Hamilton It’s great to be creative, but whatever camera-moving device you use, think safety
Secondary first for both the operator and the equipment.
College.

Andy Nehl’s camera moves from a fixed position

If you’re going to use camera movement and vary the shot as part of your shooting style
while your subject is not moving, you can achieve a range of variation in your shots
with a steady moving image by standing on the one spot and moving your body with
large, flowing movements.
If you place your feet about 1 m (1 yard) apart, by bending one knee and moving
down and forward over it, holding the camera in front of you, you can achieve about a
metre of forward movement which can vary the shot significantly if your subject is close
and you’re on full wide angle lens.
By keeping the balls of your feet on the same spot and pivoting around to bending
the other knee, as you turn you can achieve a relatively smooth handheld pan through
180 degrees.
This position also allows you to move up and down.
It’s worthwhile practising it so you can get good at smooth movements. It’s
also worthwhile blocking through these kinds of shots before you shoot them if you
have time.

Tracks
A very few video training centres have access to a dolly and track
system. The tracks may not take you far, but it’s a great ride!

Alex Dunton tracks Paul Pledger while

also monitoring the actor’s wireless mic. L to R: Peter Watkins, Hunter Cordaiy and Colin Barton record a scene from
Hamilton Secondary College, Mitchell Our Heritage of Learning—The History of Education in Bankstown,
Park, SA, Australia. University of Western Sydney.
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The Camera’s View 67

Andy Nehl demonstrates his fluid method of camera movements, all of which arise from a fixed position.
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68 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Cranes
Cranes are used to lift the camera to great heights,
and lower it down again.
They’re good for long shots which survey the
scene, or the shot which brings the viewer down
from a high perspective and into a locality.
The thought of having a crane on a shoot is
seductive, but as with other seductive thoughts, there
are important second thoughts about what it means
for both the personal safety of the camera operator
and the survival of the project budget.
Tony Bosch with Piccolo crane, AFTRS.

One thing I like at Wakefield

Community Access TV is a
camera on a boom that is
controlled by the camera
Barbara person. It’s a digital camera
Bishop, (they all are) mounted on a 10-ft
Winthrop ‘pole’ on a fluid head tripod with
Cable TV.
a camera monitor at eye
level.The camera can swing
around, up and down, whatever,
with a very smooth
movement.They use it for
opening and closing shots for At Wakefield Community Access TV they’ve mounted a
serious programs and kids love digital camera onto a boom pole, for great 3D control of
it for music videos. the camera, with a sense of freedom and flight.Wakefield,
MA, USA.

Camera Angles
The height of the camera and the angle at which it views the subject can subconsciously
affect the way the audience perceives the subject. The camera’s angle of view can resonate
with meanings in the viewer’s life experience.

Eye level High angle Low angle

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The Camera’s View 69

High Angle
When the camera is high in relation to a human
subject, so it’s tilted downward to get its shot, the
perspective is similar to that of an adult looking at a
child.
This angle of view tends to diminish the authority
of the person in front of the camera. It can make that
person look inferior, and give the viewer an impres-
sion of their own superiority.
A high angle shot is useful when doing a long
shot of a larger scene because it can give more of a
‘bird’s eye view’, showing the relationship of the
various elements in the scene, giving a sense of the
geographical layout of the location, and showing Rima Tamou and Murray Lui on location for a
action in greater spatial depth. University of Western Sydney co-producion,
Katoomba, NSW, Australia.
Low Angle
With a low angle shot, where the camera is looking
A fly on the wall—most shots
upward at the human subject, the camera’s view is
are from the objective point of
like that of a child looking up at an adult, or an
view, like the view of a fly on
underling looking up at a figure of power.
the wall. But the common fly
This camera angle can make the subject look
doesn’t always hover at eye Marc
more dramatic, and give the person an aura of
level. Make your camera work Tewksbury,
authority or grandeur. The Nine
more interesting by shooting
Low angle shots are useful for eliminating Video School.
above or below eye level.
unwanted background elements, or for separating
the subject from the background. They can heighten
the sense of size and, in some cases, speed.
They’re also useful for dramatising a point of view—of a child, or a dog, say.

Don’t look down on your subject. Go for a neutral angle.

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70 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

As a general rule, shoot with the Neutral Angle

camera at full wide and frame A neutral angle shot puts the viewer’s perspective on
your shot by physically moving an equal par with the subject, so there’s no
closer to the subject rather than subliminal commentary going on in the visual
Andy Nehl, zooming in.The wider you are, language of the program.
Head of the steadier your handheld shot
Television, will be; the more you zoom in,
AFTRS.
the shakier your shot will be.
Unintended Angles—Handholding
The exceptions would be if you
can’t move in physically closer,
or the value of the close-up to
the story you’re telling
outweighs the negative of the
shakiness of the shot. (E.g. the
person with the home video
camera who zoomed in on the
Concorde to see the flames
streaming out of its engines as
it crashed near Paris made the
right decision.) An up-the-nostril shot! University of Technology, Sydney.
(Photo by Bob Humphries)

Short people need to stand on a box to avoid getting

Choose an interesting angle.
that up-the-nostril shot. Tall people need to lower
themselves so the tone of their footage doesn’t always
look down on their subjects.
When a person is handholding, the camera’s view is the same as their own. When
Sue a tall person is holding the camera it’s higher off the ground than when a short person
L’Estrange,
Videographer. is holding it. If the operator is unaware of this, unintended messages can be introduced
into the look of the image.

Unintended Angles—Tripods
If people aren’t aware of the meaning of camera
angles, they set the tripod to the height that’s comfort-
able for them.
So when someone’s shooting an interview of
seated people, the shot gets done from a high angle
because the camera operator is standing. This usually
gives a diminished look to the interviewee.
Or when someone is shooting a standing
presenter, the shot gets done from whatever height
works for the camera operator, rather than from a
neutral angle at the height of the presenter’s eyes.
Learn to ask yourself: What is the right angle for
this shot?
Sometimes the director and the camera work from
different heights! (Photo by Michelle Blakeney)
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The Camera’s View 71

Choosing the Right Lens

Your videocamera will have a zoom lens so you can
take shots from a distance, and it’s also likely to have
a macro lens for close-ups. But sometimes the work
you choose (or get asked or told to do) requires
specialist equipment. Sorting out what gear you need
is a job for the time period known as preproduction.
You don’t want to get to the job and then realise you
haven’t got what it takes (literally or otherwise).
But how can you know what to choose if you
don’t even know what’s out there? Here are some
interesting possibilities.
For wildlife photography you’ll need the ability Eyeballing a snake.Richard Fitzpatrick uses a probe
to do super zooms and super close-ups. lens for Digital Dimensions.
This long slim lens is called a probe lens. It allows
you to get in extremely close for wonderful shots
which fill the screen.

The baby turtles dash for the sea, and on to the TV

screen, taped for Digital Dimensions.

The endoscope lens is very tiny and comes on a long

flexible lead with a light mounted next to it.

The endoscope lens attaches to the front of the

camera lens, shown here by Julian Ellis, A tiny bat takes refuge on the dive boat, taped for
cinematographer. Digital Dimensions.
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72 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

An endosope lens comes with a fibre optic

Some of the animal behaviour internal reflection cable mounted next to the lens.
shoots I do can take months, The cable can be bent any which way and still send
but I may only be shooting light through it. The lightable end is mounted right
once a week. next to the lens so you can get into very tiny spots
Richard where you couldn’t video otherwise. You attach the
Fitzpatrick, endoscope lens to the front of your camera.
Camera
Operator,
Digital
Dimensions.

Choosing the Right Camera

When the camera needs to work inside very tiny
places, you can use a lipstick cam.
Lipstick cam is very useful in wildlife photog-
raphy. For example, you can drill a hole in the side
of a box in which an animal is giving birth, and insert
the lipstick cam through the hole to video the process
without disturbing the animal. Lipstick cam can use
a variety of lenses, including wide angle.
This is called lipstick cam—it fits in your handbag! If the camera must soar, here’s one way to do it.

Helicopter cam.(Photo by Digital Dimensions)

Caring for the Camera

Caring for the camera is largely common sense. But for those for whom common sense
is commonly absent, try to remember these few things:
Don’t EVER let it get wet. This could mean carrying a spare (clean) garbage bag with
you on every shoot so that if it starts to rain you can cover it for the run back to the car.
If you’re working in the Tanami Desert, you don’t need to take the bag for rain protection,
but then again, you may need it for the next rule.
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The Camera’s View 73

Keep it away from sand, dirt, smoke and other
airborne particles. Grit can scratch the lens and cause
problems with the tape transport system. The salt of
seaspray is corrosive.
Keep it fairly cool. Don’t ever leave it in a hot car,
especially not where the sun can get to it. Don’t leave
it too close to video lights or a wood stove.
Carry the camera by its handle, not by its view-
finder or microphone!
Don’t knock the camera into things, or allow it
to bang around in the back of the car while being Pressurised air can clean fine particles from the lens
driven to the next shoot. without scratching it.
When moving between very different tem-
peratures, allow the camera some time to adjust to
the new situation. Going from an airconditioned Fine dirt on the lens, or salt
room to a humid outdoors area can cause con- spray if you are shooting at the
densation to form on the lens and the electronics. beach, may not be visible on
This has to dry off before the camera is able to the flip-out screen but will
operate. show up more easily on the Andy Nehl,
Don’t use the camera near TV transmitters, port- B&W viewfinder in the Head of
able communication devices and other sources of eyepiece if your camera has Television,
AFTRS.
magnetic or electric radiation. These can cause one. It sounds obvious, but it’s
disturbance to your picture and may even perman- worthwhile to remember to
ently damage the camera. visually inspect the front of the
lens regularly to make sure it’s
clean. Lens cleaning tissues are
cheap from any camera store
and a very worthwhile
addition to your camera kit.
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Chapter

5 Telling the
Story
Producing Videos
Telling the Story

There’s another kind of angle to consider when you’re making a story

I
for the screen. That’s the inner perspective on the action that you want
the viewer to experience. Where you put your viewer psychologically is very much a
part of how you tell the story, and it affects what your viewer will think and feel.

The Inner Perspective

Objective View
An objective camera views the action imper-
sonally, as if through the eyes of an unseen,
outside observer.
Objective camera angles are good for
giving an overall view of what’s happening.
They’re frequently used in news reports and
documentaries.

These 9th graders, Sharmisha Willis, Lenard Howze and Dyon Smoots, were credentialled, through the World
Trade Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, to cover the WTO meeting.The students are from Aki Kurose
Middle School Academy, Seattle,WA, USA.(Photo by Bi Hoa Caldwell)

Subjective View
Subjective shooting brings the viewer into the scene. The camera lens becomes the eye
of a person able to move through the action, and therefore able to observe it from many
different angles. The audience tends to feel more involved with this kind of camera work,
not just as though they’re stuck on the sidelines or in front of the stage.
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Telling the Story 75

Subjective camera work is much more common When you are operating a
in recent years, and has been highlighted in TV camera you should always
shows like NYPD Blue and Blue Heelers. remember that, as you move
Some people say this style of camera work, your camera, you are moving
which evokes being present in the scene, is a result your audience. Ian Ingram
of the rise of home videos. People have become Young,
used to shots recorded by a camera operator who’s Academy of
a member of the family which is celebrating the wedding or travelling through the Photogenic
Arts.
theme park.
Home videos may also be the genesis of what I disparagingly call wobbly cam, but
that’s another story.

POV
POV stands for point of view. It’s the most subjective
When you’re introducing kids
camera view of all. The POV shot is taken from the
to the creative medium of film
perspective of one of the participants in the action,
or video construction:
perhaps the presenter in a travelogue, or one of the
characters in a drama. • Don’t freak out if you’re not
The POV is very powerful, because it shows the where you want to be at, at Josephine
Bourne,Video
viewer everything from the ‘head’ of someone inside any given time; you have to Producer/
the program. It’s also very limited because it can’t let them lead you a little. Community
look neutrally at what’s happening. It can’t step • Be aware that as the Education
Counsellor,
outside the action for a more objective assessment. experienced film maker Pimlico High
With POV camera work you can take your you’re going to feel a little School.
audience on a ride, whether a plane or rollercoaster out of control.There’s a brief
ride in an IMAX cinema, or a descent into fear or moment when you have to
grief. Be careful with it. give them control, yet still
guide them to achieve their
vision and maintain quality.
• Remember: It’s a creative
thought process.You can’t
always tell them what their
vision should look like. Once
you take away their creative
freedom, it’s no longer fun.
This isn’t to say that working
with this medium is not
hard work. What I’m trying
Children in Sandy Tyndall’s class,Years 5, 6 and 7 at Mabuiag
to say is that it can be fun, so
Island State School, worked with Josephine Bourne on a
why not allow for it to be?
short video documentary on diabetes.

Your Own Perspective

Another choice you have is to be clearly autobiographical in your work, and to include
yourself as the person speaking.
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76 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Many cameras come with a remote control unit,

which allows you to start and stop recording despite
being at a distance from the camera.
This sort of recording is especially nice when
sending messages to loved ones, or when making
your own brand of video diary of your thoughts and
feelings. Under such circumstances people often
prefer to have privacy rather than speak with a
camera operator in the room.
One helpful hint is this: Attach a monitor to the
camera so you can see what the shot looks like
throughout the taping session. It’s so easy for you to
With the remote control the whole family can be shift your position while speaking and later find that
seen and heard. the shot looks poorly framed, or that your head has
left the picture entirely!
With some digital cameras, you can flip the LCD screen so you can look at that and
not have to worry about adding a monitor.

Remote Operation
There are many other uses for remote operation. It can work in circumstances when
getting the view you want is not something you would normally be able to get. For
example, you may want to capture some great close-up shots of the wild birds at the
birdfeeder.
If you set up your camera on a tripod near the feeder, put the camera on wide angle
lens so focus isn’t a problem, and then settle yourself in a comfortable chair on the other
side of the verandah, you could get some absolutely wonderful footage. It may take a
few attempts to get the aiming and framing right, and the birds will have to become
accustomed to the new weird object near their feeder, but patience does have its rewards
in video.
You may find that remote operation works better with your family, too, if they tend
to freeze up when you approach them with a camera on your shoulder. The main trick
is to remember to keep the lens on wide angle.

The Historical View

Photographs from the past, from many other people’s
perspectives, are often important in telling a story.
You can incorporate photographs into your video
very easily.
All you do is pin the outer edges of each photo
carefully to some cork or other upright backing, put
the camera on a tripod, zoom in till the picture fills
the frame, and shoot.
There’s a huge range of wonderful materials kept
Julie Booras and Jodie Cutter select photos for the in people’s homes, even in old coffee tins in the attic!
video The Story of Nana, produced by Offspring Photos don’t need to be still images when trans-
Productions, Lynnfield, MA, USA. ferred to video. You can add liveliness by moving the
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Telling the Story 77

camera through the picture, panning across a row of basketball players, for example, or
starting in close on someone in a group shot and zooming out to show everyone else.
There are a couple things to bear in mind when shooting photographs. You have to
make sure there’s enough light on them. Mounting them near a window helps, or
working in a studio situation where there’s good lighting. Don’t let a hot light get too
close to the camera, though. I once saw someone melt a lens hood that way!
If the photos have a glossy surface, your light may cause unwanted reflections which
will show up as white spots on the picture. Getting it right is a matter of fiddling with
the light and the placement of the photos, and sometimes with the angle of the camera.

Making History Yourself

Digital cameras often have the capacity to shoot in It’s a shame that the camera
photo mode. You can go around and take video-based makers aren’t involving
stills yourself which you can then edit into your professional photographers in
project. Lots of scenes are timeless and can be the design of the digital stills
discreetly mixed in with archival footage. cameras.They’re being John
If you really want your stills to look historical, designed by computer people, Buckingham,
not photographers. A photo- Photographer.
you can employ the sepia effect from your camera’s
digital effects menu, or use the black and white grapher would like to be able
setting. to feel as at home with the
Whether historical or not, a collection of stills digital camera as he would
makes a great zappy montage for an opening with a conventional camera.
sequence or a transition (segue) between two parts What he needs is focus, f stops,
of a program. shutter speed, ISO ratings, not
all the effects.They can be
done at home on the
computer later.These digital

The Storyboard cameras are like microwave

ovens!
One sign of a beginner in video is the person who
thinks s/he can just wing it on the day.
Plan. Plan, Plan, Plan and Plan.
‘I’ll just shoot what’s happening,’ or ‘I’ll get what
That is where the real work lies.
moves me at the time.’
Editing is the magic, the rest
A more experienced person knows that having
will fall into place.
a shooting plan will make the success of the end
video far more likely. Claire Beach,
Edmonds-
One kind of shooting plan is the storyboard. Woodway
A storyboard is a series of drawings which clearly shows the expected camera coverage High School.
for a shoot. It’s drawn out shot by shot—looking
rather like a comic strip—and amounts to a paper
edit of the project. It’s essential to storyboard your
The storyboard is drawn up during pre- scenes before the day of the
production, and then carefully discussed and shoot. If you’re working with an
revamped until the director feels satisfied that the editor, have him/her look over
coverage is complete, and that once shot, the images your story boards and give you Julie Booras,
will be able to be edited. feedback. Offspring
Productions.
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78 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

CU biker puts helmet on. LS biker rides towards camera,race banner in b/g.

MS profile biker rides to screen right. VLS biker rides to screen right.

CU boot on pedal. CU exhaust pipe shooting flames.

LS from rear, Biker rides towards finish line. CU biker’s head as he passes finish line flag.
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Telling the Story 79

Working things out carefully before the heat of the It helps to think of the shot
moment gives the director the mental space to before and the shot after each
imagine creative shots, and to check whether there shot—when visualising,
are any gaps in the coverage or places where there scripting, shooting, editing—
may be jump cuts which require the shooting of whenever. Denise
cutaways or cut-ins. Galloway,
Jump cuts occur if two similarly composed shots University of
of the same subject are edited in next to each other. The effect is disconcerting because South
Australia.
the subject appears to suddenly jump to the new position.
There are ways to plan your shots to avoid jump
cuts in the edit suite. When you’re thinking of a shot,
1. Make a major difference in shot size for any two first of all you have to ask,‘Is it
shots which will be adjacent in the final edit. going to cut?’
For example, follow a long shot with a medium
shot or follow a close-up with an MCU. This can be done either by moving the Julian Ellis,
camera nearer to the subject (or further away), moving the subject, or zooming in Cinematographer,
AFTRS.
or out.
2. Change the camera angle between shots. For
Planning both drama and
example, go from full face to half profile or from
camera direction requires
eye level to a lower or higher angle shot.
careful visualisation. If you
3. Shoot cutaways to use where similar shots must
don’t know what you want,
go together.
how can you hope to create it? Ian Ingram
Young,
Academy of
Photogenic
Arts.

Never cut from this . . . . . . to this (jump cut)

It’s okay to cut from this . . . . . . to this (change of angle and size of shot).
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80 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Or cutaway from this . . . . . . to this . . .

. . . to then return.

Crossing the Line

In any scene you shoot, there’s an imaginary 180° line called the action axis line. It runs
along the path of the dominant action. This action may be moving people or vehicles,
or the eyeline between the characters in the scene.
If the camera shoots the action from one side and then crosses over the line to the
other side for a different shot, the subjects will jump from one side of the frame to the
other when the two shots are edited together.
Or the vehicle or moving person will appear to reverse direction.
During an action sequence, for example, continuity of screen direction is essential.
It tells the viewer where s/he is. Break that illusion and the viewer becomes disoriented
and distracted and the edited sequence becomes nonsense.
How can you avoid ‘crossing the line’?
1. Draw the imaginary action-axis line on your storyboard picture before shooting a
scene. This will show you the limits of your camera positions.
2. Then always make sure that if the subject appears on the left side of the screen in
one shot, it also appears on the left side in the next.
3. Be sure that people or objects only change direction if they’re seen to do so in a shot,
or if there’s a neutral shot edited in between the shots which show a reversal.
A neutral shot shows the action headed straight towards the camera or straight
away from it.
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Telling the Story 81

Camera C
(No!)

View from Camera A (okay)

Ac
tio
na View from Camera B (okay)
xis
lin
e

Camera A
View from Camera C
Camera B (Not okay—subject
appears to have
switched to the
If you cross the line, the characters will other side of the
swap screen positions. table.)

1
View from Camera B
2
3

3
Acti
on a Camera A
xis li
ne

View from Camera A

3
2

Camera B

Are they going in the same

direction? How can a viewer make
sense of this footage?
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82 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

But not everybody agrees all of the time.

Directors don’t always worry about crossing the line anymore. Watch the Bathurst races,
the cars go in all directions. Who cares? We all know that they’re going in the same
direction. It’s far better to place your cameras where they get the best shot, and assume
your audience is visually literate.
Chris Fraser,
Cinematography
Department,
AFTRS.

Suggestions from Rachel Masters

SHOT ANGLE
Choose something very mundane and ordinary like a garbage can. Shoot the garbage can
from as many different angles as you can think of—high, low, standing, sitting, overhead,
underneath, and POV from the inside of the garbage can.
When you play the video back, ask yourself,‘How does the angle affect the content?’That
is, how does it affect the way you understand the shot? Does a low angle make the garbage
bin look large, intimidating or imposing? Does a high angle make it look small and
insignificant? What does the world look like from inside the garbage can? (Don’t forget to
leave the lid off—it can get pretty dark in there!)

DEPTH
What is it that makes television, video and film so interesting to watch? Maybe it really is
magic! One could argue that it’s the illusion of depth within the frame.The television monitor
is only a square box, after all.
An interesting video makes you feel involved,you feel like you go inside the picture,inside
the frame.To explore depth, go to a park and videotape a friend walking towards the camera
from a way-off point in the distance, the point of infinity.Then tape the friend walking away
from the camera, starting by entering the frame from behind the camera. View these shots
back. Are you exploring the full depth and scope of the frame?

EXPERIMENTING WITH IMAGES

If it’s a cloudy day,prop the camera on its end and place a small sheet of glass across the lens.
Then gently drop lightweight things on the glass.Try flowers, leaves or even worms! Look at
how the strength of the light can make the images on the glass appear almost transparent.
How does this influence the audience’s point of view of the objects?

UNPREDICTABILITY
Exciting vision is often unpredictable.Shoot several shots where people enter the frame from
different sides. (For example, a head pops up from the bottom of the frame, or two hands
come in from the left and right sides of the frame.) Watch your shots back.Have you discovered
the six types of screen space? (Left,right,up,down,from behind the camera,coming towards
the camera.)
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Telling the Story 83

IMAGE ORDERING
How does rearranging the order of the images affect the story?
Editing equipment is very expensive and often in high demand.It’s a good idea to try to get
your head around the concepts of ordering and sequencing images well before you go into an
edit suite.
Here’s a game you may have played as a kid. First of all, draw a series of images on single
sheets of paper,perhaps a woman on one,a dog on the next,a house,a butcher’s shop,a butcher,
a bone, a street and a hat.
Now lay the drawings out on the floor. Ask someone to narrate a story using the pictures,
and you arrange (sequence) the drawings in the order of the story. For example, start with the
butcher’s shop. The dog looks through the window and barks at the butcher. There’s a woman
wearing a hat inside the shop. She feels sorry for the dog and buys him a bone.The woman and
the dog walk down the street together towards the
woman’s house.
One thing to remember about
Now ask someone else to rearrange the drawings to
video: if you haven’t shot it,
tell a different story,starting with the woman.A woman
you can’t edit it. Make sure
is walking down the street when she is chased by a
you’re thinking about
snapping dog. A butcher comes running out of the
alternatives both before and
butcher’s shop, brandishing a bone like a club to chase
during the shoot, and be sure
away the dog. The feral dog jumps at the butcher and
to shoot enough material.
tries to bite him,but only gets his hat.The dog runs away.
There could be so many different versions using
these images. Another could start with the butcher.The butcher is in his shop.The woman is a
shoplifter and hides a bone for her dog under her hat when the butcher isn’t looking.
Use your imagination—everyone should be able to think of a new story with the same
pictures. Some stories may not need all the pictures.
When you tell your story, are you telling it from the point of view of the woman? The dog?
The butcher? Are you using an objective or subjective point of view?

STORYBOARDING
Draw up a series of images for a short drama shoot. Explore a range of options. How would it
affect the story if you edit the images in a different order?

REVERSING THE ORDER

Another interesting exercise is to attempt to tell your story backwards. Is it possible to begin
your story with the last scene? How does this affect the way the audience will interact with your
story? Will the audience view your characters differently?

PLANNING A SHOT SEQUENCE

Practise shooting a scene which happens only once. Plan a short video of 60 seconds which
will feature a person eating an icecream. The scene starts with the icecream in a wrapper and
ends when the wrapper drops in the bin. As the icecream will melt fairly quickly, you’ll need to
plan the scene carefully before you start shooting—it could get expensive doing reshoots. And
everyone has a limit on how much they can eat! Think about continuity during the planning of
the shoot.The aim is to show the action without any jump cuts.You’ll need to shoot cutaways
to link the shots together.
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Chapter

6 Videotape and
Data Storage
Producing Videos
Videotape and Data Storage

Videotape is made using a clear plastic polymer as the base. This allows
I the tape to be thin, strong and durable.
On one side, the plastic is coated with very tiny particles which are sensitive to
magnetism. Videotape manufacturers try to make these particles smaller, more uniform
in size and shape, and pack them in more densely. These factors contribute to the quality
of the image which the tape is able to reproduce.
The magnetic particles are suspended in a matrix or binder (if you cook, you can think
of it as a sort of batter) which holds them together and keeps them attached to the tape.
The degree to which the binder adheres to the tape under varying conditions is another
factor in the quality of videotape. Quite simply, if it flakes off, there will be holes in the
picture. These missing parts of the image are called drop-out.
Tape manufacturers also try to get an optimum blend of materials for their particles—
materials which respond more strongly to magnetic fields and which hold that response
more faithfully. Each company’s ‘recipe’ is better guarded than Aunt Milly’s prize-winning
pumpkin scone mix.
When you look at the emulsion side of the tape (the side with the coating of magnetic
particles), the surface is black and shiny because it’s highly polished. Manufacturers aim
to make ever better tapes which will cause less and less wear to the record heads of
cameras and playback machines.
This side is where the video signal is recorded, but it isn’t a ‘picture’ as we know it.
You can’t tell by eye whether a tape has a signal on it or not. You have to play it in a
VCR or camera to find out.
On the other side, the tape has a fine coating of carbon material. Because carbon
does not respond to magnetic fields, this coating helps prevent a bleed-through of the
recorded magnetic signal from one layer of tape to the next as the tape gets rewound
onto the take-up spool. The carbon is also a dry lubricant which buffers the layers of
tape from each other, reduces tape drag and prevents the layers from sticking together.
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Videotape and Data Storage 85

SVHS Tape
In SVHS tape construction, there’s an additional undercoating layer between the polymer
base and the magnetic layer.

High charge magnetic layer

Beridox-SHR 0.5 microns

Undercoating layer
0.3 microns

New smooth tape base

14 microns

New back coating 0.3 microns

SVHS tape construction is designed to reduce modulation noise and tape drop out.(Courtesy of Panasonic)

Digital Tapes
In digital tapes, both the binder and the micro oxide particles have been further improved.
Drop out seems to be much less of a problem with digital tapes.

DLC: Diamond-like
carbon coating

• Improved durability Lubricant

• Protection from • Improved reliability
oxidation • Reduced friction

Hyper-evaticle:
100% cobalt layer

• Increased signal
output

Base film

Back coating

Advanced metal evaporated (AME) tape.(Courtesy of Sony)

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86 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

There are five layers in Sony DV tape.

1. A lubricant (called the surface preparation layer) which acts as a barrier to oxidisation
of the magnetic layer, and reduces friction between the tape and the recording heads
and drum.
2. A diamond-like carbon (DLC) layer, which is an overcoat of evaporated carbon, there
to protect the magnetic layer which is where the recording is stored.
3. Double metal-evaporated magnetic layer. (Yes, this is where the recording resides,
behind the moat of the above two layers.)
4. A base film which is the tape part.
5. Another lubricant, the back coating, to make the tape pass smoothly over the guide
pins.

Changes to Videotape Ingredients

The move at present is from metal particle tape to metal
As good as they are, digital evaporated tape. Metal particle tape has the magnetic
tapes are not infallible.They particles sitting in a mostly non-magnetic binder (matrix),
are still prone to stretch, dirt,
so the layer is about 45 per cent true metal, but Sony
jamming, and can be claims to have eliminated the binder and come up with
Philip accidentally erased. a coating that’s 80 per cent metal.
Elms, Another change is that rather than having the
Media
Resource magnetic cobalt mixed with non-magnetic nickel, the advanced metal evaporated tape
Centre. (AME tape) has a metal grain which is 100 per cent cobalt.

Tape Sizes
Videotape comes in several sizes, which are named in reference to the actual width of
the tape:

1 inch has been used in the high quality, non-portable

equipment of broadcast stations and postproduction
houses.
3⁄ inch has been used in both lowband Umatic and highband
4
Umatic (BVU). Though many current video teachers
learned on this format, and may remember it fondly, it’s
pretty hard to get ahold of anymore.
1⁄ inch is the size of the tape used in VHS, SVHS, Betacam
2
and SP Betacam equipment.
1⁄ inch is the also the size for SVHS C (compact) cassettes, but
2
the cassette housing is much smaller. These tapes can play
Requiem for 3/4 inch tape? Vale, dear in ordinary SVHS players by the use of an adaptor.
friend.
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Videotape and Data Storage 87

8 mm is the size tape for Video 8 and Hi-8 equipment.
6 mm (actually 6.35mm or 1⁄4 inch) is the tape width
used in consumer level digital camcorders.

Digital tapes come in a variety of tape widths and

cassette sizes. Are you ready for a rush of information?
Digital Betacam and Betacam SX tapes are the same
size tape (1⁄2 inch) and cassettes as the earlier
Betacam tapes.
JVC digital VHS tapes (D-VHS) are the same size as
normal VHS tapes.
Digital-S, JVC’s competitor to DVCPRO and Betacam
SP, also uses VHS size tapes.
Digital 8 tapes are the same size as those that the Hi-8 A size comparison of the smaller videotapes: SVHS-C,
cameras take. Backward compatibility means that miniDV, Hi-8 and DVCAM.
Digital 8 cameras will also play Hi-8 tapes.
The standard DV cassette, which is used in the DVCR (desktop player) and can play up
to 4.5 hours, is about the size of an audio Compact Cassette.
The mini DV cassette, which is used in DV camcorders, is much smaller and can play for
either 30 minutes or 1 hour.

DVCAM takes standard DV tapes but runs them Philip Elms,

Using mini DV tapes in a
through faster and it uses a wider track size, so it Media
DVCAM recorder or camera Resource
records 40 minutes on the 60-minute DV tape and
will provide greater quality but Centre.
184 minutes on the large cassette.
a shorter record duration.
The DVCPRO M field tape cassettes are larger
than the mini DV tapes, though mini DV tapes can
be played in DVCPRO equipment by using an adaptor.
And now for the mind boggling statistic:
By the defined DV standard, one hour of
DV video requires 13 gigabytes (13 GB) of
storage. So each little 60-minute mini-DV
cassette holds 13 billion bytes of data!
The size of the videotape does not necessarily
determine the quality of the recording which
will be made on it. For example, the Betacam
system emerged using a narrow gauge tape,
which at a glance looked like the ordinary
Betamax, but it passed the tape through the
recorder at a much higher speed (six times
faster), allowing for a far superior recording
to be made. And the Betacam tape itself is a
higher quality than Betamax or VHS tape.

From the Sony stable of videotapes

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88 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Bigger’s Not Always Better

Although tape size isn’t strictly linked to quality of recording, the smaller size of DV
tape, combined with its smoother transport mechanism, means that DV camcorders use
less battery power rolling it through the system, and having more battery power is one
very definite form of higher quality for anyone doing field work!

Compatibility
A signal recorded on any videotape format (size) can be converted to any other format.
It’s quite common, for example, to record field material on SVHS or Betacam and
then edit it to 1-inch tape.
Signals recorded on home video cameras can even be ‘bumped up’ to 1-inch and
then broadcast, when the TV stations decide the content is sufficiently important.

Broadcast Quality
When people are told their video is not broadcast quality, it means that the technical
requirements for legal broadcast transmission are not met by that particular tape format.
It has to do with the reliability of the timing pulses, for one thing.
For example, VHS is not technically broadcast quality.
But VHS tape can be bumped up, if the decision is made to do so, and the bumped
up signal is broadcast quality.
In the USA, SVHS and even VHS tape recordings are used in the cable television
system, which sends its signal along cables rather than through the air. This signal is
therefore subject to less disturbance enroute to the receiving TVs, so it doesn’t have to
start out with such high standards.
SVHS tape is routinely broadcast through the air
in some Pacific Island nations and was used by country
Always keep a spare tape
TV stations in Australia.
hidden in your car.You never
Sometimes it seems the broadcast quality argument
know when you’ll come across
is used to protect the major broadcast players and keep
some great video!
people with less access to high quality gear out of the
Andrew broadcasting system. There’s no doubt that tape
Abernathy,
Channel footage with a high market value (plane crashes, spectacular fires, crime scenes) becomes
Seven TV. broadcast quality quickly enough.

The Videotape Cassette

Videotape is housed in a hard, rectangular plastic cassette, except for some 1-inch tape
which is still kept on large open spools.
The cassette has either one or two clear plastic windows on one of its large flat sides.
This is the ‘top’ side when you insert a video into a home VCR. The windows let you
see the tape wound neatly around the spools inside, and allow you to judge how much
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Videotape and Data Storage 89

tape you have used up during your recording session, or whether the tape has been
rewound to the beginning or is still at its far end.
A word of caution here: VHS, SVHS, Video 8, Hi-8 and Betacam videotape run
through VCRs from the left spool to the right one, if you’re looking at the tape as you
hold it in your hand to insert it into the VCR. But with Umatic tape, the direction of
tape travel is the reverse! It runs through the recorder from the right spool to the left one.
Misjudging ‘where’ the tape is in relation to what’s been recorded on it can lead to
accidentally erasing something you wanted to keep, or running out of tape partway
through your next recording session!
When in doubt, it’s safest to rewind the videotape to the beginning and then play it
forward in fast search mode so you can see where the
recorded material ends and the ‘snow’ begins. Then
you can be sure just how much unrecorded tape
is left.
Snow is the term used for the random, shifting,
black and white dotty image you see on the monitor
screen when you’re playing a portion of tape which
has no recording on it. It’s also called video noise.
Looking again at the videotape cassette: the
‘bottom’ side has holes which allow the VCR’s tape
drive system to spin the tape spools forward or
backward in order to move the tape through the
machine for recording or playback. This is snow.
Three of the four narrow standing sides are solid
plastic, and the fourth side (the front) is a bit wobbly. This fourth side is the door, which
opens when the cassette is loaded into a VCR or camcorder, and through which the tape
is drawn out and threaded across the video and audio heads.
At first the door seems unopenable, but that’s just to protect the tape from ill-
considered prodding.
(Now begins your initiation into the secrets of video.)
Near every door is a little button which pushes in or slides sideways, thus unlocking
the door and allowing it to swing upward and reveal the videotape.

Pressing the little button unlocks the door. Have a look at your tape if you suspect it’s
damaged.
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90 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Umatic retains its quirks, and has a tiny lever in a hole which you can move sideways
with the tip of a pencil or whatever other slim device you have at hand.
The reason you’d want to open up the cassette in the first place is to check if the
tape itself is damaged. You might suspect damage if the playback of your recording goes
weird, or if you hear unusual (terrifying) sounds when you load the tape into a machine.
It’s important not to touch the tape with your fingers, because natural skin oil and
dirt will stick to the tape and then get conveyed into your video equipment, generally
gumming up the works and possibly leading to dirty heads or even head damage.
If you do find a scratch along the tape, or the bottom or top edge is ruffled, or the
tape is wrinkled, you’ve got problems. Whatever was recorded on that section won’t
play back properly again.
It’s not a good idea to put a damaged tape into a camcorder or VCR. A new tape
will cost you less than $20, but repairing fragile heads that got yanked by a wrinkle could
cost you hundreds. If the tape is damaged, throw it away.

Retrieving Material From a Damaged Tape

If the tape contains critical recorded material that you can’t do without, you can make
a copy on some machines using this method:
1. Start your dub of the valuable recording by cuing up the damaged tape on the source
machine to a section of tape before the wrinkle, ruffle, scratch or whatever occurs.
Then put the source machine into play and the record machine into record.
2. Press stop on your source machine just before you get to the damaged section, and
pause the record machine.
3. Press stop, then fast forward the source machine till you’re sure you’ve passed the
damaged part. In fast forward mode the damaged tape will not be in contact with the
heads. DO NOT use search mode! If you can see the image on the player monitor,
you’re in search mode, and using this drags the damaged tape even faster across the
fragile heads, increasing the likelihood of damage.
4. Return the source machine to play mode when it’s reached good tape again, and put
the record machine back into record mode to copy the rest of the footage to the end
of your video.
5. Then throw the damaged tape away. Or if you’re into the unusual, use it for streamers
at your next party.
Warning: Some of the newer machines do keep contact with the heads in fast forward
and rewind modes—so check out your VCR before you begin this process.

The Smart Cassette

Sony DVCAM cassettes have a new feature. The cassette itself has a memory chip which
allows a person to mark shots while out in the field shooting. There’s enough memory
to mark OK/NG (for okay/no good ) along with the timecode in and outs, the reel number,
scene number, and take number for 198 scenes.
Why? Because when the tape goes back to the edit suite, the computer edit system
will then only copy into itself the ones marked good, so no time is wasted in transferring
unusable material.
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Videotape and Data Storage 91

Caring for Your Videotapes

Try Not to Drop Them
Especially onto concrete or other hard surfaces. They’re surprisingly slippery little things,
especially if you’re carrying a stack of them around and they’re not in their cases.

Scenario: It’s late at night, you’re trundling out of the edit room, bleary-eyed and
brain-fried.A tape in the middle of your armload enters another reality,suddenly
auto-ejecting, like an air force prototype, and all the others follow like lemmings
in a spasm of catapulting black plastic.

No, Virginia, this is not drop-out.

Though videotapes are made from quite durable plastic, if they land smack on a
corner, the corner can sometimes break off.
Trying to salvage the situation by putting your videotape into another cassette housing
is a nightmare of flying springs and little metal bits, and can most gently be described
as utter insanity.
You don’t need that aggravation, nor do you want to risk losing your recorded
material.

Keep Them Away From Magnets

The recorded video signal is merely an arrangement of magnetic particles which was
caused by passing the tape rapidly through a magnetic field in the recorder. Any other
strong magnetic field will erase that signal by pulling the magnetic particles into a different
alignment.
You may not have horseshoe magnets lying around on your coffee table, but don’t
forget that televisions, VCRs, speakers, electric motors, power transformers, computers,
and other household items generate magnetic fields and might erase your tapes without
giving you any warning. Though most home equipment has shielding to keep its
magnetic fields from affecting other things, sometimes there is leakage.
Hey, what are those tapes doing on top of your TV?

Keep Them Clean

Dust, cat fur, carpet fluff, pollen, human hair, saw-
dust, cigarette smoke and ash—think of all the
airborne particles that could stick onto a videotape.
Wherever something has stuck onto the tape, it
prevents the playback heads from reading the video
signal properly, causing drop-out to occur. Drop-out
shows up on your monitor screen as a white spot
or line where there should be signal information.
The more drop-out there is, the more degraded the
image is.
This is drop-out.
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92 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Drop-out also occurs with old tapes which are flecking off bits of their magnetic
coating layer (emulsion). This sloughed-off magnetic material gets deposited inside your
VCR and makes a mess.
The dirtier the tape is, the dirtier it will make your VCR. Soon you’ll be unlucky and
some little particle will get caught in the gap at the heads. This is called a head clog.
Occasionally you can fix a head clog by running the tape forward and backward a
few times in search mode. This can sometimes dislodge the offending particle and send
it on its way.
If it doesn’t, you’ll need to get the heads cleaned. That costs.
Another thing is that clean tapes used after a dirty tape can pick up residues waiting
to ambush them along the tape path in your VCR, so you could end up damaging a
prize tape by being careless about what you played before it.
One of the hazards of video rental tapes is you never know how dirty they are, or
‘where they’ve been’.
Grit and sand, due to their size and sharpness, can actually slice into a videotape as
it runs through a machine.
So don’t set your unprotected tapes down on grass, dirt, sand, shedding carpets, and
so forth. Don’t put one down on a counter where there was a sugar doughnut a minute
ago, or where someone was just spooning out the coffee.

Keep Them Cool

Heat can damage tapes. The temperature in a closed
car in the sun can reach over 50°C (120°F).
A risky place to put videotapes is on the shelf
beneath the rear window of a car. If it’s not hot that
day, it may be the next, and what if you forget them
there?

Keep Them Upright

Thank goodness this was just a dub and not the
master! Have you ever seen what happens to a roll of
cellophane tape which has been left on its side for a
long time? Gradually the tape droops downward from the spool, morphing from a flat
reel to a cone shape.
A videotape left on its side can suffer from tape droop, too. Then when you put it
into a VCR to play it, the tape isn’t lined up right for the tape path and it can get edge
damage, which will knock out your sound track or more.
So videotapes should be stored standing upright, like books on a shelf, or stored on
their spines (which makes it easy to read their labels if they’re kept in a drawer) but never
lying flat on their large surfaces—or gravity may take them to an altered state.

Rewind Them After Use

Always rewind the tape after use, as this prevents it from getting a bend in the middle
of the program material.
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Videotape and Data Storage 93

The Quality of a Videotape

Tape is sold for wildly different prices from one store to the next. In some cases this is
because large businesses can buy in bulk and pass on the discounts to their customers.
But other times it’s just plain baffling to the beginner—why pay more, when you can
get it for less?
The answer is that tape is marketed according to the quality of the tape itself, and
also the quality of its cassette housing.
There are some extremely cheap videotapes—no-name brands which show up in
bargain basements—which have cassettes of such poor construction that the reels don’t
turn properly. These can make terrible noises when loaded into a VCR, and you can use
your imagination about how smoothly their tape would travel through your equipment.
If you ever get one of these, take it as a lesson in life, make a note of what it was called,
throw it out, and never buy one of them again.
With the better known and established brands of tape, the main thing that enters
into the manufacturer’s quality control of any particular format is the reliability of the
coating. No tape coating is absolutely perfect, but some tape is coated more smoothly
and successfully than other tape.
Wherever there are irregularities in the coating, there may be drop-out. So tape is
graded according to drop-outs per metre. Cheap tape has more drop-out than tape of a
higher grade.
But grasping the true meaning of a tape’s grading can be hard at first because tapes
are labelled with a confusing array of names. A basic rule of thumb is this: if the tape
has the word ‘standard’ in it, it’s a lower grade tape.
Even if it’s called ‘Super High Grade Standard’, it’s
still in the standard category. That brand of tape is Please use quality videotapes!
economical and satisfactory for taping programs off- Not rubbish from the
air for once-only viewing. supermarket.
But if you’re putting the effort into going out
and taping material for an edited program, you should use a high quality tape. Peter
Your best image will always be your field footage, i.e. your original recording. Watkins,
Educational
Everything after that, any copy or edited version, will be less good because it will be Media
down at least one generation, maybe two or more. Services,
One frustrating part of videomaking is that you can’t make a poor image better. So University of
Western
you should be sure you start with the best possible tape quality so you’ll have the best Sydney.
possible originals (masters) you can get.
When you’re editing your rough cuts (your various trial versions in which you
experiment with different edited sequences to see what works best) you can economise
by using cheaper or recycled tapes.
But of course when you do your final version, your fine cut, you should always use
a high quality tape.

Going Down a Generation in Video

When you record an image with your camera, this recording is called first generation.
When you make a copy of this first generation image, the copy is called second
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94 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

generation. If you make a copy of the copy, the new recording is called third generation.
And so on.
Have you ever had much to do with a photocopier? You know how when you make
a copy of a copy, it’s never as good as the original? And if you make copies of copies
of copies, straight lines start to go curvy and the image bears less and less resemblance
to the first one?
Well, with video it’s similar but worse—each generation is less good than the one
which came before. With formats like VHS, third generation is visibly degenerated from
first generation.
If you think of the normal process of making an edited project, you’ll see how
important thinking about generations is.
1. First generation is the tape you recorded your location shoot on.
2. Second generation is the version you produced through the editing process—it’s your
edit master. But after 30 or so hours of editing, you’d be mad to give away your edit
master. So you make copies of it.
3. Third generation is your distribution copy.
Now if third generation is noticeably less good than first generation, how smart would
it be to edit something into your program which was from a dub (copy)? It would be
fourth generation video by the time it got to your distribution copy. Fourth generation
VHS video is a wretched excuse for a signal.
Other tape formats hold their quality longer through the generations. Umatic is better
than VHS, Betacam and 1-inch are even better.
The utopia for video editors is the video which is absolutely transparent through the
generations. This is one of the many halos around digital technology.

Protecting your Recordings

Once you’ve made your recording, whether it’s your field footage (otherwise known as
your camera originals) or your final edited tape, you won’t want it to be accidentally erased.
This is where the infamous red button comes in! With Umatic tape ( 3⁄4 inch), if you
turn the tape cassette over, you’ll see a little red button. It’s removable. If you take the
button out, the tape cannot be recorded on again. VCRs just won’t be able to go into
record if the red button is missing. So always remove the red button at the end of a
recording session.
If you later want to record on that tape, just pop the red button back in, and the
tape is no longer record-protected.
The obnoxious thing is that if you go to do an edit session, or use a recycled tape,
you may find that the cassette has no red button. Then you’re stuck. It’s a good idea to
always keep a spare red button in your wallet for just those times like when you drive
100 km to a shoot, and then find out that the red button isn’t in the tape.
If you’re working with VHS and SVHS, there’s a little plastic tab at the back of the
cassette. If you break off the tab, the recording is protected. To reuse the videotape, put
a piece of masking tape across the gap.
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Videotape and Data Storage 95

Sometimes the bit of tape falls off when it gets old, and finds a new home in the
guts of the camera or edit system. So it’s a good idea to check if it’s about to drop off
before you put the videotape into a machine. If the tape patch is on the verge, replace it.

Emerging Formats
DV25 is the current standard, which records 25 megabits of data per second (25
Mbits/sec).
Emerging standards include:
• DV50 which records 50 Mbits/sec. Its quality is very high. It uses 4:2:2 colour
sampling and a lower compression rate of 3:3:1.
• DV100 which records 100Mbits/sec. This is the standard which is expected to be
used for HDTV (High Definition Television).

Data Storage Systems

CDs (Compact Discs)
Video can be stored as digital data on a CD. One of
the problems with CDs is that they don’t play back
the same way on different computers.
A CD has 525, 650 or 700 megabytes of memory.
It can hold only seconds of uncompressed video, so
CDs use a significant compression rate in order to
deliver an effective amount of video.
CDs are likely to phase out because DVDs can
hold so much more information.

DVDs (Digital Versatile Discs)

DVDs hold much more bandwidth than CDs.
Current DVDs hold 4.7 gigabytes, which is roughly
seven times what a CD can hold.
New DVDs will hold 27 gigabytes, and probably A DVD can hold more than seven times the data that
more as time goes on. a CD can.
DVDs also can stream video out faster than
CDs can. There’s no standard in DVD. As
In order to output your digitally edited video to long as you stay within one
a DVD, you need the right software. IDVD does platform it’s fine, but go to
this at a basic level, and DVDPro does it at a more another and it won’t always
professional level. play. Rob Davis,
Editor,Digital
Dimensions.
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96 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Copy Management
Copy management is the term given to the issue of people making illegal copies of digital
material. What it comes down to, partly, is that movie makers don’t want people copying
movies. So manufacturers of digital equipment have been pressured to develop an
encryption system which prevents copying. There has also been a demand for a
geographical playback restriction, too, so DVDs released in one country can’t be played
back in another.

Getting Technical Information

The Internet is awash with technical information, if you know where to look. Some of the
websites of the major video manufacturers are aimed highly at consumers, and the techo
sites are harder to find. They’re there, but you have to dig a bit. A Sony technician told
me about this one, and I was pleased with all the topics I could read about. Of course
one always has to mentally allow for the advertising embedded in the text!
But if you want to know the latest, which no published book can possibly give, try
looking at sites like:
<<www.sel.sony.com/SEL/rmeg/mediatech/>>
<<www.smap.sony.com/websites/RMETech/index.html>>
A sample of topics available on one day:
Data Media No.1 Top Ten Reasons to Back Up. Backup Basics: Your OS. The
Affordable Backup Solution. Helpful Hints.
Data Media No.2 The Clear Facts on CD-R. The Optical Road Ahead.
Professional Media No.1 DVCAM Tape: The Foundation of the Format. DV
versus DVCAM Tape: Is There Really a Difference?
Professional Media No.2 The Clean Machine: Your Key to High-performance
Audio/Video. The Chemistry is Just Right: Sony’s CLQ-30K.
Professional Media No.3 Take Special Care When Shipping D-1 and D-2 Large
Cassettes. Helpful Hint: Watch Out for the Terminator! Don’t Forget Sony’s
Recommendations. Here Comes HDCAM™!
Professional Media No.4 MD Data Goes Multitrack. A Sneak Peek at MD Data’s
Future. ADAT ™ and DTRS Meet Their Match. Helpful Hints.
Professional Media No.5 New Alternatives in DVCAM™ tape.
MSC Training Center Issue No. 8 MagicGate™ Memory Stick Media®: The
Versatility of Flash Memory.
MSC Training Center Issue No. 9 MPEG IMX™ Recording. Entry Into the World
of MPEG.

You can also contact Sony with your technical questions using their MEDIAFAX ™
PROGRAM, which is a fax-back system for quick answers to routine questions.
Bh0654M07-PressProofs.QXD 25/3/04 9:54 AM Page 97

Chapter

7 The Video
Signal
Producing Videos
The Video Signal

The video signal makes use of certain characteristics of the human eye.
I One of these is persistence of vision.
When light enters the eye, the lens focuses the light onto the retina, which is a light-
sensitive surface on the inside of the back wall of the eye. The retina has many light
receptors, called rods and cones, which are excited
by the incoming light. These rods and cones send a Lens Retina
message about the incoming image to the brain, via
the optic nerve.
Because the rods and cones stay excited for a Optic nerve sends
small amount of time after they’ve been triggered off, signals to the
a new image presented to the eye will activate the brain
retina before the old image has disappeared from it.
If several images, each slightly different from the
one before, are presented rapidly enough, the eye Light information registered upon the retina is sent
will blend the still images together in such a way that to the brain.
the brain believes it’s seeing a smooth and continuous
change from one to the next. It will believe it’s seeing
motion.
Both film and television make use of this per-
sistence of vision to give the viewer the impression
of moving pictures.
In film, the viewer is shown 24 frames (complete
pictures) per second. In video, the frame rate is
slightly faster. In the PAL video system (used in
Australia, New Zealand, the UK, China, and much
of western Europe) the frame rate is 25 frames per
second, as it is with SECAM (France, Russia, and the
former Eastern Bloc countries). NTSC (used in North
America, Japan and much of South America) is 30 Television is a sequential image transmission system.
frames per second.
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98 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

What is a Frame?
A frame is one complete picture.
The term comes from film, where you can actually see each separate and complete
frame (picture) by holding a strip of processed film up to the light.
But with video, though the word still means one complete picture, the technology
is different, and the picture is composed quite differently.

The Video Frame

Each video frame is actually made up of many horizontal lines of picture information.
In the PAL and SECAM video systems, it takes 625 horizontal lines of picture information
to make up one single frame of video. In NTSC it takes 525 lines.

AFTRS
Produced by

The Australian Film, Television & Radio School

© AFTRS

The video image is made up of a series of horizontal lines of picture information. Enlargement of detail

The line structure of the video image relies on a second characteristic of our eyes, a
phenomenon called geometrical integration. This is the inability of our eyes to resolve (see
separately) extremely small details. So we don’t see 625 (or 525) separate lines. Instead,
our eyes blend the tiny lines together and we think we’re viewing one whole, unified
picture.
So with many lines in each frame, and many frames in each second, we’re tricked
into thinking we’re seeing whole images actually in motion. (In a way, video is a
double con.)

The Making of the Video Signal

With video, light is reflected off the objects in front of the camera and it enters the lens
barrel. It passes through the lenses and is focused on the CCD (charge coupled device)
which is the light-gathering surface of the camera. This surface is photosensitive, which
means it responds to the light which comes into contact with it.
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The Video Signal 99

Light travels through the lens system to the image-gathering surface of the CCD. It’s
at the light-gathering surface that the light is converted into a video (electrical) signal.

In the CCD, the picture is imaged lens

on the ‘A’register.At each vertical image area
interval, the entire charge image is (register) A
transferred to the ‘B’register.
During the next field, the image is
clocked out line by line through
image area
the ‘C’register.To avoid smearing
(register) B
during the charge transfer, a
shutter is used.

Output C

The CCD is often referred to as a chip. Some cameras have only one CCD, and
others are three-chip cameras. In this case, more IS better.

The Horizontal Scanning System

A scanning system allows the camera to electronically survey the image on the light-
gathering surface, and produce a stream of electrical information about it, structured into
a series of horizontal lines. Each line captures a different horizontal sweep of the image,
and holds information about the brightness and darkness, and the colour, of that section
of the image.
Bright areas cause more electricity to flow, and darker areas cause less electricity to
flow.
Though at first this may seem a strange way to assemble a picture, you may find it
easier to grasp this scanning process by comparing it to the way our eyes read words
on a printed page. We can’t take in all the information typed on a page at once, so our
eyes move from the left side to the right side of the page along a line of type, then return
to the left side, shift slightly downward, and travel from the left side to the right side
again, and so on till all the lines on the page have been scanned.
In the same way, the video image is constructed of 625 (or 525) horizontal scan lines,
which, all put together, make one complete picture.
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100 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Fields
Each frame of video is divided in half, into what are called fields. So there are two fields
in each frame. Each field is made up of half the horizontal scan lines—but not the top
half or the bottom half.
The first field is made up of all the odd-numbered lines of the frame (lines 1, 3, 5, 7,
and so on) and for this reason it’s known as the odd field.
The second field is made up of all the even-numbered lines of the frame (lines 2, 4,
6, 8, and so on), so it’s called the even field.

AFTRS AFTRS
Two fields make one complete frame of video.

Video uses a line interlace system, which means that when the frame is reassembled, a
line from the first field is followed by a line from the second field, and that’s followed
by a line from the first field, and so on.
You may wonder why anyone would
bother inventing such a silly-seeming system.
But by presenting each video frame as two
separate fields, this doubles the apparent image
presentation rate. So instead of seeing 25 (or
30) complete frames in a second, we see 50
fields (or 60 fields) which are half frames, in a
second. Again our eyes are tricked, and the
prize for this effort is that the image doesn’t
seem to flicker.
So video is all based on visual tricks, if not
smoke and mirrors.
That steady steady image is:
Motion from stillness;
The lines of the two fields interlace, like these fingers, to Wholeness from stripes;
form one complete frame of video. And all done without flicker.
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The Video Signal 101

Horizontal Retrace (Blanking)
After each horizontal line is scanned, there’s a brief period in the video signal which is
called horizontal blanking. The blanking period is needed to allow the scanning beam to
fly back across the screen to the starting point of the next horizontal line. During
horizontal blanking the scanning beam is visually suppressed, which means the viewer
can’t see any trace of light from the scanning beam while this happens during replay.

Horizontal Synchronising Pulse

The horizontal synchronising pulse (or h.sync pulse) is
what keeps the time for all this horizontal scanning.
Horizontal scan line
Each line has to be scanned at exactly the same
speed, in exactly the same amount of time. So this
little pulse effectively tells the horizontal scanning Horizontal retrace
system, go NOW, go NOW, go NOW.

Vertical Retrace
At the end of each field, there’s a different brief period of time in the video signal, which
is called the vertical retrace. This is when the scanner quickly returns to the top of the frame
to begin the first horizontal line of the next field. The vertical retrace is also visually suppressed.

Vertical Synchronising Pulse

Just as with the horizontal scanning, there has to be another electronic ‘drummer’ which
keeps the beat for the start of each field of video. Every field has to be exactly the same
length of time as every other one, or the image couldn’t be replayed properly. This pulse is
known as the vertical synchronising pulse (or the v.sync pulse). I bet you guessed that one!

odd field even field Now you detectives can see the
1 solution to the horizontal
3
5 625 scanning problem caused by
7 2
. 4 the very minor sloping of the
. 6 horizontal scan lines: The
. .
. . missing half line at the bottom
. .
. . of the odd field occurs at the
. .
625 . top of the even field.
.
624
Vertical retrace Vertical retrace
in odd field in even field

One frame complete

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102 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

red
red RED red BLUE blue
blue Colour
red red red blue blue blue The three primary colours in video are red, green and
RED red red M blue BLUE blue
red Red
red redRED
red red
blue blue Blue
blue
blue BLUE
blue, not red, yellow and blue, as you learned about
the primary colours of pigments in preschool.
red
red RED
red W blue BLUE
blue
Sometimes you may hear people refer to the
red Y C blue RGB—well, they’re talking about the components of
green BLUE the colour video signal—Red, Green and Blue.
green green green
Green
green greengreen
green green
green green
GREEN

Additive Colour Mixing

green green GREEN Video colour is the result of additive colour mixing.
green
This means that the three primary colours (red, green
and blue) can be combined in various percentages to
produce all the other colours. Surprisingly enough,
green and red produce yellow!

Colour Bars
You may have noticed that these primary and
secondary colours are the same as appear in colour
bars, the test signal used for lining up a signal in
preparation for recording or broadcast.
From left to right: White, yellow, cyan, green,
magenta, red, blue. Black is at the bottom.

Colour Variables
The three variable characteristics of the colour signal are referred to as luminance, hue
and saturation.

Luminance
The term luminance refers to brightness. When a colour is very luminous, it approaches
peak signal level (it can appear white). When it’s very non-luminous, or dark, it approaches
the black level of the signal.

Hue
The term hue has the meaning which we generally understand for the word ‘colour’.
That is, red, green, blue, yellow, and so forth.

Saturation
The term saturation refers to the richness of the colour present. Pastel colours are less
saturated than vivid colours.
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The Video Signal 103

Lines of Resolution
Lines of resolution is a term which is easy to confuse because of the other use of the word
‘lines’ in the phrase horizontal scan lines.
But lines of resolution refers to the number of vertical lines (black lines on a white
background) which the camera can show distinctly. Because the scanning action of the
camera’s picture sensor goes horizontally across the frame, this measurement is referred
to as horizontal lines of resolution. No wonder people get confused! It just means how many
vertical lines can be resolved (clearly shown) in the horizontal sweep of the scanner.
The term is used to designate the degree of sharpness of the video image, the amount
of fine detail which can be seen, and one of the ways cameras are rated is by their lines
of resolution.
If all this seems like gobbledygook to you, just remember that yet again in this case,
more is better. (In life, this is not always true.)
Hi-8 and SVHS formats are said to have about 400 lines of resolution. Digital
camcorders claim about 500 lines of resolution. (They also have better colour accuracy.)

Resolution
More recently, because of the change to digital, the capacity for fine detail in a screen is
measured by resolution. This concept is pretty similar to the lines of resolution idea used in
analog.
Because digital images are produced by the glowing of picture elements (or pixels) in
horizontal rows, the potential quality of an image is measured by how many pixels are
there. It makes sense that the system can’t produce more detail than its total number of
pixels, since each pixel can only do one thing at a time.
So resolution is figured by listing the number of pixels in the horizontal sweep, times
the number of horizontal lines there are altogether (or the vertical measurement, if you
will). This method produces figures like 640 × 480 and 720 × 480. Got the idea? (Again,
the more is better theory is alive and well.)

World Television Standards

There are three major television standards in use around the world and, wouldn’t you
guess it, they’re incompatible with each other. A PAL tape won’t play on an NTSC
recorder or monitor and vice versa, although there are now dual standard VCRs and
monitors which can play back both PAL and NTSC. Multistandard VCRs and monitors
play PAL/NTSC/SECAM. They don’t record in more than one signal form, though.
This has hindered our ability to send video to friends overseas, and has been very
frustrating.
To change video from one standard to another has involved a signal conversion,
which has been costly to buy and results in some loss of quality.
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104 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

The end results are noticeably better when going from PAL to NTSC than when
going from NTSC to PAL. You can easily see why. PAL to NTSC means shrinking from
625 horizontal scan lines per frame to 525 h.s. lines per frame, but when you go the
other way, how can the system invent 100 more lines?
Because colour is handled differently in the three systems, and is far less stable in
NTSC, some very weird results show on PAL TV screens from video imported from NTSC
sources.

Budget Standards Conversion

For non-professional use, people sometimes record the picture off a monitor, using a
camera of the desired standard. Though this method yields a flickering picture, it’s the
low cost way to make personal tapes playable for friends and family overseas.
The audio part of the signal can actually be copied directly from the source, by
connecting audio out from the player VCR to audio in of the recording camera. By doing
a direct line copy, you’ll get a better quality sound transfer than you would by taping it
from the monitor speakers, and you won’t pick up noises from the room in which you’re
recording.
But be aware that you’re likely to have to cut the audio signal level down, because
audio out is a line level signal and the camera’s input is likely to be a mic level input. You
can convert the audio signal from line level to mic level by using an audio pad or running
your sound through a portable mixer.

Commercial Standards Conversion

If you’re sending a tape overseas for commercial use, you need to get it transferred to
the appropriate signal using proper standards conversion equipment. The bigger video
duplicating houses often can do standards conversions. The price for these is coming
down, but it’s still expensive. The first tape costs the most, but if you’re getting several
dubs (copies) made, the unit price goes down.
However, digitising the signal and exporting it as a Quicktime file, or as an MPEG2
file, has made international video sharing much easier and much better viewing, too.
Although many countries will be converting to
There are many different forms broadcasting digital signals in the upcoming few
of HDTV, but it’s only the years, the transition will take time and countries
progressive scan format that won’t always prioritise changing their TV standard
allows full backward in the light of far graver health and nutrition
compatibility with other HD problems.
Richard
Fitzpatrick, formats and standard definition So for the indeterminable future, you may find
Camera formats like PAL and NTSC, both the following list to be still applicable. This infor-
Operator, mation was supplied by the wall chart distributed
Digital widescreen and 4:3.
Dimensions. by Video 8 Broadcast in Artarmon, NSW, Australia.
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The Video Signal 105

PAL (Phase Alternate Line)
The PAL signal’s frame is composed of 625 lines, and the signal runs at 50 Hz, which is
50 fields per second, 25 frames per second.
PAL is used in Afghanistan, Algeria, Andorra, Angola, Argentina, Australia, Austria,
Azores, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzogovina, Brazil, Brunei,
Cameroon, China, Cook Islands, Croatia, Denmark, Ethiopia, Finland, Gambia, Germany,
Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, North
Korea, Kuwait, Laos, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Macedonia, Malaysia, Maldives, Malta,
Mozambique, Namibia, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Oman,
Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, San Marino,
Montenegro, Serbia, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Slovenia, Somalia, South Africa,
Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Tanzania, Thailand, Tonga,
Turkey, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Vanuatu, Vietnam,
Yemen, Yugoslavia, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

SECAM (Système Electronique Couleur Avec Memoire)

The SECAM signal’s frame is also composed of 625 lines and the signal runs at 50 Hz,
which is 50 fields per second, 25 frames per second.
SECAM is used in Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Benin, Botswana, Bulgaria, Burkina
Faso, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt,
Equatorial Guinea, France, Gabon, Georgia, Greece, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Latvia, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mongolia, Morocco, New Caledonia,
Niger, Russia, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Togo, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Ukraine,
Uzbekistan.

Both PAL and SECAM

Cyprus, Czech Republic, Djibouti, Estonia, Ghana, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Monaco,
Senegal, Slovakia, Syria.

NTSC (National Television Standards Committee)

The NTSC signal’s frame is composed of 525 lines and the signal runs at 60 Hz, which
is 60 fields per second, 30 frames per second.
NTSC is used in Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Burma,
Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Fiji,
Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Japan, South
Korea, Marshall Islands, Mexico, Micronesia, Nicaragua, Palau, Peru, Philippines, Puerto
Rico, Suriname, Trinidad, United States of America, Venezuala.

Why Are There Different Television Standards?

The history of this variation in television standards goes back to the politics and trading
patterns of the immediate post-WWII era, when television broadcast stations were first
being set up around the world. Unfortunately, those patterns (divisions) deeply affected
the ability of the world’s people to communicate with each other via television.
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106 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

NTSC was developed in the USA and, as you can see, was the system purchased
by many of the countries within the USA’s post-WWII political sphere of influence.
PAL was developed in Germany, SECAM was developed by the French. Both are
better signals than NTSC because they have more lines in the frame (thus more
information in the image) and the colour is more stable. The PAL system was adopted
by most countries, with the exception of France, the former USSR, many of the other
countries in the former Eastern Bloc and some Arab countries, which adopted SECAM.

The principles of television production presented in this book can be

applied to all the television systems listed above.

Monitors
A video monitor looks like an ordinary television set, but it’s unable to receive the signals
broadcast through the air by television stations. It can only receive video and audio
signals directly through cables, as from a camera or VCR. These signals enter connection
points at the back called line in, or video in and audio in.
A receiver/monitor is a more flexible piece of equipment which can receive both
types of signals. A switch allows you to select for viewing either broadcast television
signals (RF, which means radio frequency) or direct-line video and audio signals.
Monitors and receiver/monitors are most commonly used in video and television
production sites.
As you probably know from your home experience, it’s also possible to replay a
videotape through an ordinary television receiver, when the VCR is fitted with an RF
converter. Home models normally have these, though for industrial models they can be
an optional extra.
The RF converter changes the video signal into a radio frequency (RF), and it can travel
out of the VCR from a connection point labelled RF out and into the TV at a terminal
labelled RF in or antenna in, or via the TV aerial terminals labelled VHF.
The RF unit usually sends a signal which can be received on channel 0 or channel 1
on your TV. If you select one of these channels and the signal appears there but it isn’t
clear, adjust the fine tuning control on your television.
If you’re having problems when trying to play a tape back through a monitor, check
the connections between the VCR and the monitor to see if they’ve been made to the
right connecting points. Misconnections are often the problem—and it’s not always easy
to read the labels on connecting points which are at the back of bulky, hard-to-shift
pieces of equipment.
If misconnection isn’t the reason, check whether the connections are loose and
whether the leads (cables) are damaged. Leads are most likely to be faulty at the point
where the flexible cable attaches to the metal connector. Sometimes you’ll have an
intermittent fault, which is caused by a lead which isn’t fully broken so it works in one
position and not in another. That’s where tape or clever propping techniques come in
handy! (At least in the short term.)
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The Video Signal 107

With a receiver/monitor the problem can be simply that the TV/VCR switch is in
the wrong position. Make sure it’s on TV if you’re connected to RF in, and on VCR if
you’re using video in and audio in.

Video and Film

Do you remember that film is shown at 24 frames
per second?
Because of the difference in frame rates, film and
video aren’t perfectly compatible.
Sometimes people transfer film to PAL video
using variable speed projectors and speeding the film
projection up to 25 frames per second. This works
fairly well, though it causes a minor shift in the audio.
In NTSC, with its 30 frames per second, the
difference between video and film is greater, so trying
to speed up the projector yields a more drastically
altered screen product. Craig Dingwall, Jim Spencer and Christina Sparrow
Transfers from film to television are made using with the telecine machine used at ScreenSound
a device called telecine. Telecine equipment corrects for Australia, the National Screen and Sound Archive,
the difference in frame rate between film and video. Canberra, ACT, Australia.

Thanks to Ernst Hadenfeld for his help in the preparation of this chapter.
Bh0654M08-PressProofs.QXD 25/3/04 9:34 AM Page 108

Chapter

8 Recording the
Video Signal
Producing Videos
Recording the Video Signal

How Does Video Recording Happen?

The beginning of the process is the same as for television transmission. The video camera’s
image-sensing mechanism scans across the incoming image in a series of horizontal
sweeps, and translates this image into a stream of electricity.
It represents the brighter areas with a higher voltage of electricity and the darker areas
with a lower voltage.
This stream of electricity travels through the camera’s signal processing circuits and
then is output to the recording mechanism which resides within the camera’s housing,
in the case of a video camcorder, or
through a camera cable or a BNC cable,
in the case of a studio record machine.

The Head Drum

The record heads are very small and
mounted on the outer edge of a circular,
polished metal head drum. This drum
spins rapidly during the recording
process. In digital video the drum spins
at exactly 9000 rpm for PAL and
SECAM, and roughly that for NTSC.
In record mode, the videotape is
laced up tight against the head drum as
Alistair Jackson,Technical Training Officer, with Broadcast
Engineering Trainees, ABC, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
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Recording the Video Signal 109

it travels along the recording pathway in its journey from one reel of its cassette to the
other reel.
Because the videotape is moved across the head drum in the opposite direction from
the spin of the head drum, this produces a very high tape-to-head speed.

The video head drum spins in the opposite direction The tiny video head is mounted at the base of the head
to the tape travel. drum.

The Record Head

Electromagnetic signal
Each record head has a tiny gap in it. Across this gap,
an electromagnetic field forms, which fluctuates
according to the video signal being sent to the head.
It all happens at the gap
Getting the Signal Onto the Tape
Remember how the tape is coated with tiny particles
that are sensitive to magnetism? What happened
when your primary school teacher brought out the
horseshoe magnet and the jar of iron filings? (It
was your teacher’s finest hour in science.) After dra-
matically sprinkling a pile of iron filings onto a sheet
of white card, the large magnet was placed under-
neath the card and moved this way and that. Record head
Wherever it was, the iron filings stood up like the
hairs on a frightened cat, and if the magnet was
moved around, the filings went too.
Video recording happens in much the same way.
As the videotape is drawn across the record
heads, the tape moves through the electromagnetic field at the head gap and the sensi-
tive particles on the tape respond to the magnetism present. They get realigned into a
distinct pattern, according to whatever is happening at the heads at that microsecond.
That pattern is the picture information.
Once the tape has passed away from the record heads, the particles are outside the
range of the magnetic field, so they stay put in their new pattern. That new pattern is
the recording.
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110 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Are Two Heads Better Than One?

In video, two heads are essential!
In the basic recording system, there are two video heads, mounted exactly opposite
each other on either side of the head drum. One head records the odd field and the other
head records the even field.
So it takes one complete rotation of the head drum to record a single frame of video.
The tape is held in place against the head drum assembly by tape guides, and one
or the other of the record heads is in contact with the tape at any given time.

Head for odd field Head for even field

The two heads are mounted on opposite sides

of the head drum.

SP and LP
If the recorder you’re using has four heads, it’s most likely that it has two different
recording speeds: SP (standard play) and LP (long play).
One pair of heads is active during the recording of the signal at the standard play
speed (in which you’ll get an hour of recording on a one-hour videotape), and the other
two heads are used for the long play speed (in which
Avoid shooting in Long Play you can get double—or more—the recording time onto
mode. It’s really a false economy the same sized tape).
as it sacrifices quality and may LP is a great speed for taping long programs, where
reduce editing possibilities. the quality of the recording isn’t too critical.
Many people like to use LP for taping full length
Philip Elms,
Media feature films off-air, because they can get the whole
Resource film on one tape, and quality isn’t an issue because they know they’re going to erase it
Centre. after one viewing anyway. They’re not planning to ever use the material in a video
production.
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Recording the Video Signal 111

But it’s quite different if you’re taping material for your video project. You see, the
edit systems only work in standard play speed (SP). So if you tape in LP, you’ll find that
the serious interview with your school’s top administrator plays back much faster on
the edit system than it happened in real life, and he’s sounding like Donald Duck. Now
regardless of how funny this seems, perhaps because of what you think of the person,
such a recording is a problem because the only way you can edit the material is if it’s
in SP.
If you do discover one day that you have this problem, you can either reshoot the
interview (not always possible, or politically advisable) or you can copy the footage onto
another player, into SP. But that puts you down a generation with your edit source tape,
and the original LP recording was a lower quality one to start with.
It’s easy to get trapped by not noticing that the recorder was left in LP, so teach
yourself to check the record speed indicator on the VCR as part of your set-up procedure.

Flying Erase Heads

Another type of head mounted on the head drum is
the flying erase heads. They can’t record anything,
though. They’re positioned right beside each of the
video record heads, and their job is to erase, field by
field, each diagonal track of video information when
the recorder is put into insert edit mode.
DVCPRO is the Hydra of video cameras, with
six heads, two for recording, two for erasing and two
for playback.
Panasonic DVCPRO
Helical Scanning
The tape travels along a pathway which is at a slant in relation to the head drum, so the
video heads inscribe each field as a diagonal track of magnetised particles. This method
of recording video in diagonal lines of information is called helical scanning.
Helical scanning allows the recording of lots of video information in a more compact
space of tape than was possible with the earlier quadruplex recording system.

Tape guide Video record head

As the tape is drawn across the head drum, the video heads pass across the tape at a high speed,
magnetising the magnetic particles on the tape into a pattern of diagonal tracks.
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112 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

The Tracks on the Videotape

With VHS and SVHS, there are four signal tracks recorded on the videotape.

The Video Track

The video track takes up most of the width of the videotape. It needs to because there’s
so much information involved in reproducing the picture signal. The video is recorded
in diagonal stripes across the width of the video track, one stripe for each field of video
in analog tape. These stripes are also called tracks, so here’s another instance of a word
being used in two ways.

Audio 1 (left) Audio 2 (right) Audio (mono)

Video head track for

Video head odd field
motion
Video head track for
even field
Tape motion

With VHS, channel 1 (also called the left channel ) is the inside audio track.

Normal Audio Tracks

The normal audio signal is recorded in two slim tracks along one edge of the tape. It’s
recorded by fixed audio heads (stationary heads), which means the heads don’t move. The
audio heads are positioned further along the tape path, past the video heads.
The normal audio signal track is longitudinal. This means it’s recorded in one straight
path, not in diagonal sections like the video signal. This works because the audio signal
needs less space for its information.

Audio on Video 8 and Hi-8

Video 8 and Hi-8 both record audio within the video track space. They have either one
or two types of audio, depending on the model. Some models have mono or stereo
AFM audio, which is recorded along with the video signal. Other models also have PCM
audio (which is digital sound) which is recorded in the bottom 1/5th of the track space
allocated to the video signal.
So with Video 8 and Hi-8, you never have to worry about which is the inside track!
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Recording the Video Signal 113

The Control Track

The control track is video timing information that ensures that the video signal is replayed
correctly. It’s a series of electronic pulses recorded by a fixed head located next to the
audio heads, at the rate of one pulse per field of video.
The control track also allows the edit system to count the frames on a tape as they
pass by, thereby enabling the edit machine to return to your specified edit points when
you ask it to do a preview or an edit.
Digital video doesn’t use a conventional control track, but has pilot tones imbedded
in the data tracks.

Cue track
(not used)
Video head 1
Video, AFM
Video head Video head 2
and pilot
motion

PCM Pilot
Stationary head
audio track
Tape motion (not used)

The Video 8 format uses ATF instead of the usual control track.

Automatic Track Finding (ATF)

Video 8 and Hi-8 don’t have a longitudinal control track like the other formats do. These
formats use a system called automatic track finding. ATF records a repeating sequence of
four pilot tones within the video track. These tones identify the video signal position to
the playback equipment.

Hi-Fi Audio
Some video equipment records hi-fi audio in addition to normal audio. Hi-fi audio is a
more recent form of audio recording for videotape. It’s recorded in the same track space
as the video signal, and it’s recorded at a much higher speed than longitudinal audio is.
Therefore it can record a better quality audio signal.
Hi-fi audio is recorded as an FM signal within the video track space. It’s recorded in
diagonal tracks, like the video signal is, but the tracks are at a different azimuth (angle)
than the video tracks, to prevent interference between the two signals. They’re also
recorded at a different tape depth (a different level in the magnetic coating) than the video
signal.
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114 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Timecode Track
Another track which can be recorded on the videotape is a timecode track.
It sometimes has an address track dedicated to it. Other times, time code is recorded
in one of the longitudinal (normal) audio tracks, or incorporated within part of the video
signal.

A Video and audio (hi-fi stereo)

B
B Index, RC time code and data code
C PCM audio (stereo) C

Some models of Video 8 and Hi-8 record both time code and index pulses in a segment between the
video recording and the PCM (digital) sound recording.

Audio 2
Audio 1

Luminance tracks
Video head
motion
Chrominance tracks

Tape motion
Control track
Time code

On Betacam, the time code track is next to the control track.

Tracks on a Digital Recording

In a digital recording, the tracks are much thinner and closer together. Instead of tracks
which are 58 microns wide, as in VHS, the tracks in a digital recording are 10 microns
wide. As a reference, the width of an average human hair is 100 microns. This example
is intended to help you visualise the tininess of the size of the tracks.
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Recording the Video Signal 115

In digital recordings, the tracks are still inscribed using the helical scanning method,
but the angle (azimuth) of the diagonal tracks is much steeper. This allows increased
head-to-tape speed.
In digital formats, in an effort to increase commonality between NTSC and
PAL/SECAM, the track (stripe) laying has been altered. NTSC uses 10 tracks (diagonal
stripes) to make one frame, and PAL/SECAM use 12 tracks to make one frame.

Subcode

Video

Audio
Tape motion Insert and track
information (ITI)
10 tracks/frame (NTSC)
Frame sequence for digital recording in NTSC.

There are 10 tracks per frame in NTSC, this is known as the frame sequence. PAL/
SECAM use 12 tracks per frame.

Helical Track Sectors

In digital recording the helical tracks (or diagonal stripes, as I have called them) are divided
into four sectors (which means sections). These are:
The insert and track information sector (ITI) In this section of the helical track there’s
information on track status, and it also functions like a conventional control track
during video insert editing because the pilot tones aren’t accessible when in overwrite
mode.
The audio sector The audio sector contains both audio and auxiliary data (AAUX). DV
allows either two 12-bit (nonlinear) stereo channels or one 16-bit stereo channel.
The video sector The video sector contains both video data and auxiliary video data
(VAUX). The video data is compressed at about a 5:1 ratio. The auxiliary data recorded
is information about the camera settings, like lens aperture, shutter speed, date and
time, and colour balance.
The subcode sector This is where the timecode goes, and lots of other things you might
never imagine, like teletext, closed captioning in several languages, program
identification, subtitles and karaoke lyrics in many languages!

The Digital Recording

It is claimed that DV systems mask drop-outs, and eliminate tape noise and chroma
artefacts. These have all been signal blemishes with VHS, SVHS, Video 8 and Hi-8. The
digital Cinderella is expected to eventually vanquish her older-format stepsisters.
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116 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

An international specification was developed to define just what consumer-use digital

video was. It was defined as recording at a fixed compression rate of 5:1, which is similar
to intraframe (within frame) MPEG.
But because manufacturers can decide how their compressor will work within their
cameras and recorders, there’s variation in image quality from one camera to another.
Different camera chips also lead to different results.
So generalisations about digital recording are just that,
Before starting a job, find out
generalisations.
how it will be finished.
It’s claimed that the digital recording format in the
Converting between different
prosumer level video cameras is mounting a challenge
formats can introduce artefacts
to the higher priced traditional ENG (electronic news
Richard which can degrade the image.
gathering) cameras. This may be true, but it must be
Fitzpatrick,
Camera remembered that the quality of the lens on the front
Operator, of the camera is another important determinant of image quality. There has to be some
Digital reason to pay a much higher price!
Dimensions.

Record and Replay

In record, as the tape passes over each of the video heads, magnetic fields generated at
the head gap rearrange the magnetic particles which are impregnated in the videotape.
These new arrangements, or patterns, are the recorded signal.
When the tape is replayed, this pro-
cedure is reversed. The same video heads
read the patterns of oxide on the tape,
convert this information into an electrical
signal and output it to the monitor or
Video signal in television, which reconverts it on the front
screen to a pattern of light and darkness,
producing a viewable picture.
Because video heads can both record
Electron gun and play back, they’re referred to as read/
write heads.
Electron beam The television (or monitor) is like an
inverse camera, with a photosensitive
surface at the screen. The camera’s original
The video signal is changed back to light at the television screen.
scanning process is repeated by the
television to reproduce the horizontal lines
of picture information which are stored on the videotape, this time changing the signal
from electricity back to light at the TV screen.

The Big Picture

The light from the TV screen is sent off across the room and into our eyes. The process
then repeats itself within our eyes—light is focused onto the retina and is changed into
electrochemical impulses which are sent along the optic nerve and received, interpreted
and recorded by the brain.
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Recording the Video Signal 117

Tracking
Tracking simply refers to whether the video heads, in playback, are moving exactly along
the pattern of video signal tracks that are on the videotape.
If the player is tracking correctly, the video reading heads pick up the full strength
of the video signal recorded on the tape, and the VCR sends a strong and accurate signal
to the TV or monitor.
If the player’s heads are tracking slightly to the left or right of the diagonal tracks of
the recorded video signal, the heads can’t pick up a full strength image, and the VCR
sends a flawed signal to the TV or monitor. This is
called a tracking problem, and it looks like there are
ragged white lines across the video image. A mild
tracking error causes a slight disturbance of the
picture, a major tracking error makes the picture look
terrible.
Tracking can be corrected using the tracking knob
on the VCR. Just turn it to the left or right until the
image on the monitor looks the best. (This little knob
is often hard to find on home VCRs, to keep people
from moving it without deliberately meaning to.)
Some VCRs have tracking meters which show
when the VCR is tracking the best it can on the A tracking problem can be minor or major.
videotape in question. There’s a normal variation in
tracking from one machine to another. A tracking error doesn’t mean there’s anything
wrong with your video. It just means the playback equipment needs adjusting.
On machines which read hi-fi audio (like SVHS), correcting the tracking also affects
the sound, because hi-fi audio is recorded in diagonal stripes in the video track, and these
require correct tracking as well.
If you’re playing back a tape on which you recorded hi-fi sound, and you can’t hear
a thing, adjust the tracking to hear if the signal’s there or not before you panic.
If you’re playing back a digital tape, you won’t find a tracking knob. There’s no way
an operator can adjust tracking in digital video. That’s in the mysterious province of the
technician’s internal adjustments.

Tracking and Editing

It’s especially important when you’re editing to make sure that the player machine is
tracking the signal on the source tape as well as possible.
The tracking knob could have been adjusted by whoever used the edit system before
you, so it could be in quite a different position from what’s suitable for your tapes. It’s
never a good idea to edit from a signal which is below par from the start.
Because a slight tracking problem isn’t always visible on the playback monitor, be
careful to check the reading on the tracking meter before you begin editing anything
from the player.
The tracking meter is often combined with the audio VU meter for channel 2. A little
button will switch the meter from displaying the audio signal to displaying the tracking
strength. Put your field tape into play mode and then manually adjust the tracking knob
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118 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

so the needle is peaking at its highest possible point. This may take a little fiddling. And
the tracking function needs to be in manual mode for anything to happen.
If your tape is tracking very irregularly, it may be best to set the tracking to auto. If
your tape is this erratic, it could be a good idea to get the camera or VCR that recorded
the signal checked by a technician.

Tracking in Record Mode

By the way, the tracking knob has no effect at all when a VCR is in record mode. This
is because the machine is making the tracks at that stage, rather than trying to read them.

Dirty Heads
If the horizontal white lines or picture disturbances don’t go away when you adjust the
tracking, the problem could be dirty heads. This means that some dirt or fluff or other
material has become lodged in the gap of the video heads. Occasionally you can fix a
head clog by running the tape forward and backward a few times in search mode. This
can dislodge the offending particle and send it on its way. If not, the heads need to be
cleaned to get rid of it.
If one head is completely clogged, the monitor will only be showing one field of
video, which is every other horizontal line of picture information. If both heads are
clogged, the image on the screen will be snow.

Video record head

Cigarette ash

Cotton fibre

Human hair

Dust
Alcohol residue

Plastic tape base

Watch out—lots of little things can clog the video heads.

Because the gap is much smaller on the heads used in digital recording, clogged
heads are much less common, but still possible. Because the digital signal is laid down
with more tracks per completed frame, head clogs show up as bands across the picture,
rather than as a fuzzy or missing picture.
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Recording the Video Signal 119

Head Cleaning Tapes
There are head cleaning tapes available. Technicians
When cleaning video heads, it’s
generally advise people not to use them, because
easy to damage them if the
they’re abrasive and can damage the record heads.
cleaning implement is moved
If you use a commercial head cleaning tape, be
up and down, perpendicular to
sure to follow the directions carefully, and don’t
the direction of the head Ian Clark,
assume that if running it for 10 seconds in your VCR
travel. Hold the cleaning Maintenance
will be good, then 20 seconds will be better. Technician,
material stationary against the
If you have persistently clogged heads, they will AFTRS.
heads and rotate the head
have to be cleaned manually by someone who
drum backward and forward
knows what they’re doing, and who has the right
by hand.
head cleaning fluid and chamois or non-fibrous
cleaning tips to use.
Cotton buds are a bad choice for cleaning video heads because the cotton fibres
themselves can get caught in the head gap, compounding the problem.
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Chapter

9 Analog Video
Editing
Producing Videos
Analog Video Editing

Video editing is a process of electronic copying.

I Analog editing requires two VCRs, linked together. The first one plays
the video signal that’s on the source tape and sends
it through a connecting cable to the second one,
which records the playback signal only when it’s
told to do so.
The first VCR is called the player and the
second one is called the recorder (or sometimes the
editor).
When the editing is finished, the original tape
is still whole and has all the same material on it
that it started with. That’s one of the beauties of
working in video—you can edit material from the
Editing at the Tin Sheds, University of Sydney, same tape again and again, possibly reusing your
Sydney, NSW, Australia.

Player Recorder
monitor monitor

Video out Video in

Player VCR Audio channel 1 out Channel 1 in Recorder VCR
Audio channel 2 out Channel 2 in

Edit contoller

Edit system configuration

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Analog Video Editing 121

great shots in several different programs over a Video editing is not like film.
period of years, and you still have your original tape You can’t cut the tape into
intact. pieces.

Steve
Morrison,

An Overview of the Process University of

Western
Sydney,
Editing is an interplay of two types of tasks. There’s the conceptual and the button Nepean.
pushing.
First you view and log all the source material you’ve gathered to use in your video
project. This might include video from several different tapes, computer generated titles
and images, photos transferred to videotape and possibly even film transferred to tape.
Then you select the shots you’ll use, and decide on the order in which you’ll use them.
At this stage you’re trying to fulfil the needs of your
script. But don’t be too rigid. You may have some
wonderful shots you didn’t anticipate, and more than
likely there will be some shots you’re missing. So
this is a time for flexibility, creative adaptation and
some adventuring, as you try to make the most of
what you’ve got.
The next phase is in the edit suite, doing a rough
cut from your work dubs, the copies you’ve made of
your field material. This is the first edit of your
footage. (It should not be your last! Just like you’d
never submit a first draft in writing as an article for Matthew Gleeson and William Thrupp, SQIT College
publication, you should never expect your first cut of the South West, Roma, Qld, Australia.
in video to be your final cut.)
Once you’ve done your rough cut, have a break, and then you and the rest of your
team should look at this first version as if you’re the intended audience. If
possible, you should also get some other trusted people to view it and comment on it.
Many things will show up in a rough cut. Some
shots won’t work next to each other, some shots just
won’t work at all (be ruthless, get rid of them!), some
points you thought you were making won’t come
across to the audience, and often the pacing of a few
sequences will be wrong. (Pacing is an aspect that’s
especially hard to judge when you’re editing a tough
section for hours, because you’re not seeing it in real
time or in the context of the entire piece.)
After you’ve taken on board what everyone has
had to say, try to improve your product. Rearrange
sequences, get more footage if necessary, adjust the Show the rough cut to your team members and get
voiceover to explain things more clearly. Make the their opinions.Debra Kroon with students at
editing snappier, improve the flow of the sound. You Northern Territory University, Darwin, NT, Australia.
may do one, two, three or more additional cuts, still
working from your work dubs.
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122 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

At last, when you’re satisfied that you’ve got it as right as you can get it, then you
edit your fine cut, from your camera originals. This is your edit master—your show piece.
If you have a choice in edit systems, always book the best edit system you can get
your hands on when you do your fine cut. This way you should get the best quality
edit accessible to you, and face the least likelihood of damage to your camera originals.
Another caution: stick to only one system when
doing your fine cut. Different systems have slightly
Three things the editor has to different tracking and if you move between two or
keep in mind about each cut: more edit suites you may end up with a master
1. Content (what’s in the cut). which needs tracking adjustments in the middle.
2. Context (what cut precedes That’s not exactly a good situation for any playback,
Danny this one and what cut will but especially bad for your big screening—the
Sheehy, person doing playback can’t be expected to do
Queensland come after it).
School of 3. Contact (how long to keep it tracking adjustments on the run.
Film and on the screen before the next Once your fine cut is complete, take the red
Television. button out of it (if it’s Umatic) or pull off the plastic
cut).
tab (for VHS or SVHS) so no-one can accidentally
erase it. Then make a copy of your fine cut right
away, and use the copy for showing your project to others.
Keep your fine cut, labelled as such, in a safe place and use it only for screenings
and for generating distribution copies.

Logging
First of all, you need to know what’s on each videotape, and where on the tape it appears,
so you can find it quickly when it’s time to edit.
To do this you make a list of everything usable that you have on tape, recording the
counter number or timecode number for the beginning of each shot, along with a
description of that shot. This is called logging.
A log should also indicate the quality of your visuals and audio, and any other
information which is relevant to you.

Paper Logs
It’s useful to design a log sheet which suits your type of video work, and then make a
stash of photocopies. You only need to give general tape information on the cover page
for each videotape log, the following pages can simply give counter numbers and shot
details. As long as you staple the pages together, you’ll have the extended information
at hand when you need it. If you carefully file away your logs, you can reuse them later
when you’re trying to refind material for another project.
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Analog Video Editing 123

Here’s a sample log sheet:
___________________________________________________________________________
Project: PUPPY LOVE Tape#: 3 (out of 5), SVHS
Produced for: Newtown Animal Shelter
Contact: Tim Chapman
Phone: 2222 9999 Date shot: 26, 28, 30 April 2003
Director: Sky Cooper
Camera Operator: Sarah Lord
Sound: Gareth Jones
Equipment used: JVC X1 camera, Sennheiser 416 microphone
General comments: Very good footage, 3 minutes of snow between 2nd and
3rd day’s shoot, skateboard used for tracking

Counter # Take # Use? Video content Video Quality Channel 1 Channel 2

1:30 — Yes Child enters good none buzz

2:05 1 No Dog jumps on chair poor focus low low
3:10 2 Yes Dog jumps on chair good okay okay
3:50 — *Yes! Child pats dog—zoom
to focus on hand on fur great okay okay

Shotlister
A few media centres have a computer
based data-capture system called
Shotlister, which was developed in
Australia by Digiteyes.
Shotlister allows you to capture
the timecode at the start of each shot on
your source tape by simply tapping
the P or R key on a keyboard. You
type in a description of each shot as
you go, and build up your log as a
computer file which you can then
save to disk, and of course print out
or reuse at any point.
When you do your rough cut,
Shotlister automatically keeps track of
the in and out points of both the Logging on Shotlister from Digiteyes.(Courtesy Digiteyes)
video edits and the sound edits. No
matter how many times you change your shots around, you always have an up-to-date
list and a graphic display of how your video and audio cuts relate to each other.
Later on this computer data can be turned into an EDL (edit decision list), stored on
disk and taken to an on-line suite for use in editing the final cut.
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124 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

The Tracks on the Tape

The signal tracks on a videotape can’t be seen by eye, but they’re quite obvious to the
edit system, and if there’s anything wrong with them you’ll certainly find out about it!
There are four tracks on VHS and Umatic videotapes. The widest is the video track,
which is the middle one. It carries the picture signal in diagonal stripes, one stripe for
each field of video.

Control track

Tape head
motion
Video tracks

Tape motion
Audio 2 track
Audio 1 track

The signal tracks on Umatic tape.

On one edge of the tape, next to the video track, is the control track. You may never
have heard of a control track before, but from now on it will rule your life! Or so it
seems, some days.
The control track is a series of pulses, one for each field of video. The pulses are
identical, and they have no numbers connected to them.
The control track is recorded at the same time as
the video signal, and it has two purposes. It tells the
Think of a control track as the
VCR when each field of video starts, so it can play
foundation of a house. Once
back the signal correctly. And the edit system counts
laid, the rest of the construction
the control track pulses in order to tell where it is
can be added.
on a tape, and to refind edit points after the tape has
Philip Elms, been shuttled to another position.
Media
Resource When editing your project, you’ll need to have a continuous, unbroken control track
Centre. on the tape that is your edit master (see Striping the Tape, later in this chapter).
On the other edge of the tape there are two thin stripes which carry the sound in
longitudinal audio tracks, called channel 1 and channel 2.
On Umatic tape, channel 1 is on the outside and channel 2 is on the inside.
On VHS tapes, channel 1 is the inside track.
On SVHS, channel 1 is the inside track.
On Video 8, no longitudinal tracks are used for audio.
On Hi-8, no longitudinal tracks are used for audio.
On Betacam, channel 1 is the inside track.
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Analog Video Editing 125

Whatever system you’re using, you always record your most important audio on
the inside track, just in case your tape gets edge damaged.
Think about it: it’s less of a catastrophe to lose the recording of your voice asking
the questions than it is to lose the answers given you in that once-in-a-lifetime interview
you scored with a superstar.

Hi-Fi Audio
Besides longitudinal audio tracks, some of the better video formats can also record hi-fi
audio. This high quality audio recording requires more tape space, so, surprising as it
seems, it’s recorded in the same large track as the video signal. It’s recorded in diagonal
strips, at a different azimuth (recording angle) and a different tape depth, so the sound
doesn’t interfere with the video during playback.
There’s no doubt that hi-fi audio is better quality than longitudinal audio.
But there’s a hitch in the system—you can’t edit hi-fi audio without editing the video
as well, since they’re both on the same track.
This causes problems like: you can’t lay down a song in hi-fi audio and then edit
pictures to it. You’re restricted to converting the hi-fi audio to longitudinal audio if you
need to separate pictures from sounds.

Timecode
Timecode is a video frame numbering system. With timecode, every single frame of
video has its own number assigned to it and recorded with it on the tape.
There are two types of timecode:

LONGITUDINAL TIMECODE (LTC)

Longitudinal timecode gets its name because it runs along the length of the videotape,
either in one of the longitudinal audio tracks along the bottom of the videotape
(sometimes called audio timecode) or in a special separate track running along the top
(sometimes called address track timecode).
LTC is inexpensive to generate, record and read, so it’s more likely to be found in
facilities with tighter budget considerations.
LTC can be added to a tape after the video has already been recorded, so it’s often
used in connection with half-inch and Umatic formats. Of course, if you plan to put
timecode onto a source tape, you need to leave one audio track free for that purpose.
If you plan to use timecode, be certain to put all your field audio onto the
other track!
The worst mistake is to record some of your audio on channel 1, and then some
other audio on channel 2. If you’ve done that, you can only put on a continuous timecode
by erasing the audio on one of the channels—never a desirable situation.
On Betacam and Hi Band Umatic, timecode is striped onto a dedicated timecode
track, track 3.
Timecode is read from left to right as hours, minutes, seconds and frames. For
example, a tape with 07:02:30:05 means: hour 7, minute 2, second 30, frame 5.
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126 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

READING THE CODE

The hour of your timecode can be read by your computer off-line system as the reel
number. This coding is only of value up to the 23rd reel, however, as the 24th hour will
revert to 00.

USER BITS
User bits are separate from timecode. They’re a constant value, set at the same time as
the timecode. A computer edit system can automatically read user bits as reel numbers.
User bits are especially useful when you have more than 24 source tapes, because
timecode reel numbers can’t go beyond 24.

VERTICAL INTERVAL TIMECODE (VITC)

Vertical interval timecode is recorded in the video track as an integral part of the video
signal (in that black bar you see between the frames). Therefore, it must be recorded at
the same time as you record your video.
Some cameras, like SVHS, Hi-8 and Betacam have timecode recorders built into
them. Take care to set them correctly at the beginning of your shoot, so you don’t get
two tapes with identical codes on them, and also don’t forget to set the timecode
generator to run during recording.
People can also get timecode inserted into the video signal when they’re ‘bumping
up’ their images to a better quality tape format, like SP Betacam or 1-inch.

Timecode Burn-in
A timecode burn-in is when the timecode is recorded in visible numbers onto the video
image. This, of course, is only done to work dubs. Burn-in numbers can be read no
matter where you’re viewing the tape, rather than just on the timecode reading device
connected to an edit system. So burn-ins are useful
for logging at home, or planning a cut without having
to sit in an edit suite. Burnt-in timecode cannot be
read by a computer. It’s a visual reference only.
Unlike control track, timecode has the benefit that
the number assigned to each frame always remains
the same, which is extremely useful in logging and
in finding the right shot when you’re editing on off-
line systems.
Timecoded tapes are essential when editing in a
Timecode burn-in can be put anywhere on the computer-controlled on-line suite.
picture, but it’s usually put on the bottom.

Edit Modes
There are two edit modes and each has its distinct capabilities and uses. Using the wrong
edit mode can ruin your project and cause you to have to re-edit the whole thing.
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Analog Video Editing 127

Assemble Edit Mode
An assemble edit can do only one thing: it erases all signal tracks and replaces them all
with new video, audio and control tracks. Assemble edits are useful for three jobs:
1. Copying an already edited tape (called making a dub).
2. Making a compilation tape composed of a series of finished segments which require
no further editing.
3. Striping a tape.
The thing to remember about assemble edits is that they always end in snow!

Insert Edit Mode

An insert edit can do many different things: it erases and replaces any combination of
tracks except the control track. Insert edits allow you to:
1. Record just one audio track.
2. Record two audio tracks, but not the video.
3. Record a video track without affecting the audio tracks.
4. Record a video and an audio track, while leaving the other audio track alone.
It is the insert edit mode which you’ll use to edit your project.
The thing to remember is that an insert edit can’t record a control track. It
relies on a control track being already on the tape so it can align the new video signal
to it.
So the confusing bit is: an insert edit can’t record a control track, but it requires one
in order to do its thing. The solution is striping the tape, and you need to use assemble
edit mode to do this, because only in assemble edit mode can you record a control track.

Striping the Tape

To prepare a tape for insert editing, you need to record a control track onto it. This is
called striping the tape. You can’t see the stripe of electronic pulses, but the edit machine
can. In fact, if there’s the slightest irregularity in that
stream of pulses, the edit system will refuse to do
When it comes to video
the edit.
editing, be warned that the
So you need a perfect, continuous control track
control track will rule your life.
from the start of your tape to past the point where
your edited project will end. It’s a good idea to make
the stripe a few minutes longer than you expect your project to be—then you don’t get Kevin
Bowley,
caught trying to edit past the end of the control track if your project runs a bit overtime. University of
You stripe a tape by putting the edit system into assemble edit mode, putting your Wollongong.
tape into the recorder and copying a continuous video signal onto it. Any continuous
signal will work—colour bars, a plain colour, video from a powered-up camera—but
the usual practice is to stripe a tape with black. (Some people call it ‘blacking’ the tape.)
Some studios and edit suites have black generators which can be used for this purpose.
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128 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

A used tape which has a recording on it may seem like it has a control track—and
it does—but the question is whether it’s continuous. If the recorder went into stop at
any point while the recording was being made, the control track will be discontinuous,
and an insert edit will not be possible over that point on the tape.
New tapes have no signal on them at all. Their magnetic particles are entirely random;
if you play them you see snow. They obviously need to be striped. Once you stripe
them they should look black.
Warning: True video black with control track looks the same as the black you see on
the monitor if there’s no signal getting to the record machine.
Don’t despair! You can tell that you’re successfully striping the tape if the counter
numbers on the record machine are running. If the counter is still, the monitor may look
black, but there’s no control track happening, so there’s nothing to count. A tape with
no control track is useless to you, so you’ll have to start again.
Another warning: When striping a tape, always do a 30-second test recording, then
wind the tape back and view it to check that you’re getting a good recording. If you are,
great. Wind it back again to the head of the tape and start striping.
If not, now’s the time to troubleshoot why striping the tape isn’t working. You don’t
want to discover a problem with the signal in an
hour’s time when you’ve got to start editing!
Striping your tape can involve
striping timecode onto your Yet another warning: Once you start recording
tape as well.This is generally your control track, don’t stop the record machine
done using a machine which until you have more than enough stripe for the
has a timecode reader/generator duration of your project. If you stop and start again,
Fiona Strain,
Editing installed, or by getting a facility the edit system will see it as a broken control track
Department, to do it for you. It’s also and it won’t edit over it.
AFTRS. Because control track can only be laid in real
advisable to get user bits
striped with coding to indicate time, you may feel the urge to leave the edit suite
the edit you’re up to.The ‘900’ for a coffee or some other stimulant while your tape
series is usually allocated to edit is being striped. If you do leave, put a sign on the
masters, 901 being the first equipment so the next person will know what’s
rough cut, 902 the second happening. Otherwise it’s so easy for someone to
version, and so on. just pop in to do a quick edit, stop the machine and
cause you to have to start all over again.

Breaking the Control Track

Once you’ve striped a tape, you should do only insert edits on it. If you do an assemble
edit on a striped tape, you’ll put a break in your control track—remember, an assemble
edit always ends in snow.
Why? In assemble edit mode, the main erase head is activated, to erase all tracks
that might previously have been recorded on the tape. Of course, this includes the control
track.
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Analog Video Editing 129

The erase head is mounted so that it erases the tape a few centimetres before the
tape reaches the recording heads. So when an assemble edit ends, there’s always a length
of tape which has been erased but has not yet had a new control track recorded on it.
That bit of tape is the snow that you see.
Now, the only type of edit that can cover snow (i.e. record control track pulses) is
an assemble edit—which always ends in snow. So once you break your control track
you’re in a terrible bind: every edit you do to cover the previous snow ends in snow . . .

Video Control track

record head and
heads audio record
Erase head head

Video tape Video tape

This section of tape will have

been erased and shows snow

The snow is the erased section of tape.

The Classic Editing Disaster Scenario

After enormous effort, much more than you bargained for, your video project is
finished, very late on the night before it’s due. On the last morning, a couple of
hours before screening time, you rush to the edit suite to do one last tiny edit:
the opening graphic for the show.In your nervousness and haste you fail to notice
that the edit system is now in assemble mode.You set up the edit and it previews
perfectly. But when it records, a terrible snowy glitch occurs just where your host
used to be saying ‘hello’.
You think you will die, right there, right then.
But suddenly your feverish brain recalls that you can cover snow with an
assemble edit, so you grab your source tape out of your backpack and edit the
host in again.Then you see to your horror that the second edit has ended in snow
and now you’re missing your guest. So you do another edit, and so on . . .

Do you have 30 hours free to re-edit the whole tape?

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130 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Flying Erase Heads

In insert edit mode, flying erase heads, mounted on the head drum next to the video head,
erase the video just one field at a time ahead of the new recording, so when an insert
edit is stopped, there’s no snow on the tape.

Getting the Settings Right

Make sure you check the switch settings on the edit system before you begin, so it ends
up doing what you want it to do, and not something unexpected.
Although the buttons vary slightly from one edit
All equipment of an edit suite controller to another, the concepts remain the same
should be plugged into the for each system.
same power circuit. If you use At first all these settings will seem boggling, but
two circuits, you’re much more in time they’ll fall into place.
Ian Andrews, likely to get a hum in the
Metro system. On the System
Television.
If the edit system allows you to play tapes from
more than one source VCR, select for the particular source you’ll be using. For example,
the system may allow you to use either a Umatic or SVHS player, so you have to tell it
which one you want to use.
If the edit system incorporates an audio mixer, raise the faders which control the
audio from the source VCR you’ll be using, and raise the output fader which controls
the level of sound being sent to the recorder. If you don’t, no sound will get to the
recorder.

Panasonic A67650
Player

Tracking Audio monitor Hi-fi/normal Memory Control Sync select Hi-fi/normal

ch1/ch2/mix meter and remote/normal audio out
monitor
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Analog Video Editing 131

On the Player
1. Set the mode select (or sync select) switch to normal.
2. Make sure the memory switch is set to off.
3. Choose whether you want to use hi-fi or normal (longitudinal) audio.
4. Set the audio monitor switch to mix, unless you want to hear only one track.
5. Insert your source tape into the player and play it so you can adjust the tracking to get
the best possible picture.

Panasonic
A67750
Recorder
Video level

Tracking

Memory

Audio monitor Hi-fi/normal Input SVHS Mode Control Hi-fi rec

ch1/ch2/mix Meter and Line/S video on/off play/edit remote/normal on/off
audio monitor

On the Recorder
1. Choose hi-fi or normal audio, whichever you plan to record.
2. The audio monitor switch is usually set to mix.
3. Set the input select switch to dub if you’re doing straight-cut editing between the two
VCRs. If you’re using a vision mixer, set the input select switch to line.
4. Set the mode switch to edit.
5. Set the memory switch to off.
6. Set the audio record levels by leaving the recorder
in stop and playing the source tape in the player.
On timecoded tapes, always
The audio signal will then be sent straight
start your first edit at
through to the record VCR and its level will
00:01:30:00 (one minute, 30
register on the recorder’s VU meters (channel 1
seconds). Why? Damage can
and/or channel 2) and the input levels can be
occur at the head of the tape Fiona Strain,
correctly adjusted on the knobs below the VU
on rewind, and if your tape has Editing
meters before editing begins. Before setting the Department,
any professional finish, there’s
levels, switch the audio limiter off. After setting the AFTRS.
usually an ident board, tone
levels, you may turn the audio limiter back on,
and colour bars (one minute)
if you choose to use it.
and countdown prior to your
7. Load your pre-striped record tape into the
first frame of image.
recorder. Play it for at least 30 seconds, then stop
the tape and reset the record tape counter to zero.
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132 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Au ut Au
ut Aud dio
1 o 2 out Aud dio 1 o 2 out io
io

dio
o

dio
o

1i
1i

di
di

2i
o out Video in

2i

Au

n
Au

Au
Au
ide

n
n
V

Player Audio mixer Recorder

Video in Video out

Vision mixer

Edit contoller

When using a video signal through a vision mixer, the recorder input mode must be on line, not on dub.

Be sure to label your edit master tape (not just the case) even before you begin
editing on it—what a nightmare if someone thinks your tape is blank and uses it to
record something else!

Panasonic A770
Edit Controller.
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Analog Video Editing 133

On the Edit Controller
1. Select insert edit mode.
2. Select the tracks you’ll be editing. ( Video and channel 1 audio? Whatever you need
for this cut.)
3. Choose the longest pre-roll time available, so the system has the best chance of
getting both VCRs in sync before the edit occurs.
Insert mode

Video/ Hi-fi audio Channel 1 audio

Assemble mode

Channel 2 audio

Mark in

Choose insert mode, and

select the tracks you’ll be
editing.

Doing the Edit

Though different edit system controllers have slightly different placement of buttons,
the functions are the same from one to the next.

Register the Edit-in Points

1. Find the beginning of your shot on the source
tape. Pause the tape.
2. Simultaneously press the in and entry buttons on
the player section of the edit controller or the
mark in button—whichever is displayed on your
model. The in lamp will stop blinking and light
continuously. This means the edit-in point has
been registered for the player.
3. Find the spot for your shot to be put on the
record tape. Pause the tape.
4. Simultaneously press the in and entry buttons on First you find the shot you want.Safina Uberoi,
the recorder section of the edit controller. The in Australian Film Television and Radio School.
lamp will stop blinking and light continuously.
This means the edit-in point has been registered for the recorder.
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134 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Register an Edit-out Point, Only if You Choose To

Either:
1. Find the end of your shot on the source tape, and
2. Simultaneously press the out and entry buttons or mark out on the player section of
the edit controller. The out lamp will stop blinking and light continuously. This means
the edit-out point has been registered for the player.
Or:
1. Find the place where your shot should end on the record tape, and
2. Simultaneously press the out and entry buttons or mark out on the recorder section of
the edit controller. The out lamp will stop blinking and light continuously. This means
the edit-out point has been registered for the recorder.
There’s no need to enter a second edit-out point, because the edit controller will compute
that point automatically. In fact, if you enter a second one yourself, and it doesn’t make
the two shot lengths exactly the same, the two out-point lights will start to carry on,
blinking back and forth, and the system won’t do the edit until you correct the
contradiction.
On some systems, the second out-point will automatically replace the first. With
some experience, you’ll learn the particulars of your edit system.
It makes no difference to the edit system which in-point or out-point you enter first,
so do it in the order which suits you best.

Edit Point Errors

If the in and out lamps blink alternately:

Either the same point on the tape is entered as both the edit-in point and
the edit-out point, or the time of the edit-out point is before that of the edit-
in point.

In these cases, the system won’t attempt the edit. You need to re-enter the edit-in and
edit-out points correctly.
If you’re unsure of where your edit points are, press in (or out) and the time counter
of the edit controller will display your registered edit point.

Preview
This is where things start to get confusing. The
preview function shows you what the edit will look
like if you do it. Preview does not do the edit. To
initiate a preview, press the preview button on the edit
controller.
The normal next reaction for people is to panic—
because both VCRs will start to go backwards, and
you may feel that things are going out of control.
Always check your edit points by doing a preview. They’re not. This is just the pre-roll happening.
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Analog Video Editing 135

You see, the edit can’t be previewed or done without the two VCRs being up to the
right speed. And just like your car can’t go from zero to 80 km/per hour instantly from
the red light, the VCRs need time to get up to speed too. So they roll backwards a few
seconds, then they stop, hesitate, then they go forward, getting to the right speed, then
you see the preview.
Here’s another confusing bit. Though things will be happening on both monitors,
the preview will be happening only on the record monitor. Watch that one by itself, so
you don’t get mixed up.
If you didn’t already set an out-point for your edit, you do it when you preview.
Watch carefully, and when your shot has passed the desired out-point, press the end
button on the controller. You’ll see the out lamp light up on the edit controller, confirming
that the system got the message.
If you don’t want to set an out-point yet, on some systems you can press all stop
and no out-point will be entered.
After the preview ends, the VCRs will still be rolling. Now they’re decelerating and
after a few seconds they’ll stop. Then they’ll roll back to the out-points on both VCRs.
Perhaps this should be called the ‘post-roll’, but no-one calls it anything.
Once you’ve previewed the edit, decide if it looked right or not. If you’re not sure,
if you looked away, talked to your editing partner, or thought about something else
while it happened, preview it again. You can preview an unlimited number of times.
Sometimes preview will cause your edit point to slip a frame or two. If this occurs,
use your go to in and go to out buttons to take you back to your edit points. Re-establish
them by pressing the entry in or entry out buttons, after you’ve got to your edit points.
If you didn’t like the preview, reset your edit points to the places you think will be
right and preview again.
For major adjustments, run the tape (on either machine) to find the new edit point.
Then press in and entry simultaneously to cancel the old point and register the new one.

Trim
If you wish to make a slight adjustment, use the trim mode. Press down the in button
and at the same time press trim+ or trim–. The edit-in point will change by one frame,
either forward (+) or backward
(–) each time you press the trim
button.
Keep adjusting and pre-
viewing until you see exactly Trim buttons
the cut you want.
Once the preview is right, In & out point buttons
do the edit. Don’t preview it
again because you love it so Preview
much, because the edit points
may slip, and you may have to
reset them again.
Review Each time you press In and Trim+ or In and Trim–
the edit point changes by one frame.Pressing In or
Out alone will give you your current registered
point.
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136 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Edit
Doing the edit is the easiest part of all. You just push the auto edit button on the edit
controller and sit back while the VCRs go into pre-roll and then execute the edit.
Try not to end the edit too tightly at the finish of your shot. It’s a good idea to record
a second or two more than you need at the end of an edit (unless you’re inserting a
piece into an already edited sequence). This gives you a video buffer area in case the
edit system slips a few frames at the beginning of the next edit. If you cut at the exact
frame where you want the edit to end, and the next edit slips forward or back a few
frames, you’ll either have a few frames of black showing at the edit point, or you’ll cut
off the end of your shot and have to go back and edit it in again.

Review
Now this is the bit some people mistakenly skip.
After you’ve done the edit, press the review button on the edit controller.
The edit system will show you the edit it’s just done. Watch this very carefully,
especially at the in-and out-points. Sometimes an edit looks right in both preview and
edit, but it doesn’t play back right. If the edit points are wrong, or if the edit flips at the
beginning or the end, you must do it again. Or live with the mistake. Which will look
bigger and more obvious every time you view the tape.
Again, you should watch only the record monitor. In fact, the image on the player
monitor should be still, which is one proof that the edit really is on the record tape now.
Sometimes people believe they’ve done an edit when they’ve really just previewed
it again for the millionth time. Review assures you that it’s there on the record tape. If
it isn’t, but you move on to do the next edit, and the next, at some point (three hours
of editing later?) you’ll discover the mistake and you’ll be forced to re-edit them all.
That’s a real waste.

Return/Jump
If you’re reviewing a very long edit (say a three-minute song) your concern will be
whether it began and ended correctly. Once you’ve pressed review and watched the
beginning, you can skip over to the end to check it out by pressing the return/jump button.
This will cause the recorder to fast forward in search mode till just before the edit-
out point and then play normally again, so you can see how it ends.
It will save you minutes, which all add up, whether you’re paying cash for the edit
system or using your four-hour edit time allotment at a university media centre.

Editing Audio
It’s usual to put dialogue on the inside audio track, leaving the outer track free for any
additional sound, such as voiceover, music or sound effects.
This protects your valuable field audio, which is nicely in sync with your video, in
the event of edge damage to your tape. Because the M&E (music and effects track) is a
later add-on anyway, it’s easier to redo that than resync all the field audio.
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Analog Video Editing 137

Warning: When you record your M&E track, make sure that the video insert and inner
channel audio insert switches are turned off to prevent the erasure of these signals.

Time Needed for Editing

Editing always takes much longer than you’d expect. As a rule of thumb, people say an
hour of editing time is needed to cut one minute of tape. This ratio helps get a perspective
on things, though there will be some minutes which may take you three hours (and
leave you wondering where the time—and your sanity—went) and other segments
which will flow smoothly and quickly.
It’s usually a timesaver to edit with a partner at first, because the button that one
person forgets, the other person might remember.
Tip: don’t promise anyone you’ll be home from editing before midnight.

Human Care
Editing is exhausting, especially when you’re a
Always label your tapes. Any
beginner. If you stay in the edit room too long,
unlabelled tape is in danger of
you’re likely to start feeling weird effects, like head-
being reused.
ache, nausea and the sense that your brain has been
scrambled.
Four-hour editing sessions are long enough, until your system gets used to it. For Penny
McDonald,
some people, four hours will always be pushing the limits of what they can stand. Plan Freelance
your editing sessions according to what your body tells you, and not just what the facility Film and
will allow. Videomaker.

Also, take care to sit as far from the monitors as you can, so you don’t get a dose
of radiation.

Erase Protection
Having put so much effort and so many hours into editing your tape, you’ll want to
make sure no-one erases it by mistake! There are two essential things to do. First, erase-
protect the tape, and second, label it clearly as a master tape.
If you’ve edited onto Umatic tape, pull the red button out of the back of the tape
cassette. If you’ve edited onto VHS or SVHS, there’s a plastic tab at the back of the tape
cassette which you break off, and then the tape is record protected.
A mistake some people make is that they carefully label the plastic case that the tape
goes in—that’s good as far as it goes—but they don’t label the video cassette itself. But
once the tape is removed from its case, no-one can tell what’s on it, and they can easily
mistake it for a blank one.
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138 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Now it’s true there are people who manage to keep track of several unlabelled tapes
and know what’s on them by various scratches and nicks, or they can somehow divine
the contents by a sort of laying on of hands. But for people without such powers, unless
the tape is clearly labelled, it risks being reused by someone else, or even yourself.
‘Clearly’ is the operative word here. If you’re editing onto recycled Umatic tapes
from the local TV station or postproduction house, the tape will already have a typed
label on it. If you’ve used it after other students have, the original neat label will be
crossed out with a marking pen and something else written there—say, ‘Fiona, Peter,
and Daphne, Exploratory Exercise, Autumn 02’. If you then squeeze your video’s title
somewhere onto this bodgy label, it could well be overlooked and grabbed by someone
else in a hurry to transfer their own rushes.
So: Erase-protect and label.

Postproduction with Commercial

Assistance
In an analog world, the normal procedure is for a program to be rough cut using an off-
line edit system. It may be Umatic, SVHS or VHS. Several rough cuts are usually done,
but eventually the program is considered finished and all the final edit decisions have
been made.
The list of these edit decisions, for video and audio and any special effects, is stored
on a floppy disk. This list is called the EDL—the edit decision list.
This EDL, on disk, is then taken to the commercial postproduction house, so it can
instruct the computerised edit system. There the program is on-lined. This means it’s
edited onto 1-inch tape, or sometimes onto Betacam.
The on-line product is the master edit and it’s considered to be broadcast quality, which
means it meets the technical standards required by federal communications regulations
for it to be transmitted through the air as an RF television signal.
On-line time can cost several hundred dollars an hour, so the on-line suite is not the
place to make any new decisions or to try out different program sequences.
Most postproduction houses have a myriad special effects which can be added into
your program, for a price, during the on-line sessions.
Slow motion is possible, as well as the full array of
wipes, dissolves, fades and colour mattes.
Spinning, glistening graphics can be purchased,
by the second, and all manner of image manipu-
lations can be custom designed, or purchased from
a range of stock effects.
3-D computer animations can also be generated
and inserted into the video. But these may take days
to program, so they should be completed before the
on-line session begins.
Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE, Collingwood,
Vic, Australia.
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Chapter

10 Going
Digital
Producing Videos
Going Digital

I For those of us who have been doing video for many years (which
includes many current teachers of video), the prospect of going digital is
a spectre which began looming on the horizon in about the mid-nineties.
I say spectre because going digital is tied up with using computers, and it’s an
understatement to say that people hold
different opinions of computers and
have had the whole range of experiences
with them. For some people, going
digital has glowed like the Northern
Lights in the winter sky. It’s offered the
promise of release from the straightjacket
of editing every shot in order, one after
the other, and an escape from the
nightmare of trying to change a shot
once the final cut has been completed.
For other people, just the mention of
going digital has deluged them with bad
memories associated with all those other Students learn to use Final Cut Pro on iMac computers, digital
struggles they’ve already had with video production lab, Charles Sturt University, Bathurst, NSW,
computers (lost files, system crashes, Australia.
esoteric and innumerable commands to
learn) and their knee-jerk reaction is to want to stay with the system they know (analog).
In many places highly skilled editors are still working with analog systems. Some
people and organisations have invested so heavily in top-end analog equipment that
going digital isn’t economically feasible, and won’t be for some time yet.
And many of the rest of us in school systems scrabble along in a budgetary
environment which makes buying a chocolate bar look like a major purchase.
For those who are still hesitating on the brink, I’m reminded of a remark in a lecture
I attended recently. Addressing a hall full of people engaged in literacy training, the
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140 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

speaker announced, ‘We’re getting very good at teaching people how to live in the 1980s.’
It made me swallow hard. A survey of who’s teaching video in schools at present doesn’t
read like a who’s who of the under thirties.
Although I think it’s fair to assume that most of us will go digital over the next few
years, we’ll go at different speeds and with different levels of ease.
In a positive view, this time of transition gives us
a great opportunity to link up with each other, to
share knowledge on both new procedures and new
products, and weave together a web of support
which can enhance all of our teaching efforts from
now on.
A crucial site for you to know about and access
is: <<www.wwug.com>>. The abbreviation wwug
means ‘world wide user group’. This is a ‘digital
media net community’, and on it you can get answers
to nearly anything you can ask about digital
equipment and editing processes. You can post your
Norwegian student Lina Leth-Olsen at the controls irksome question and then quickly receive one or
of a digital editing suite.Edith Cowan University, more replies from people who’ve already tackled that
Perth,WA, Australia.(Photo by Keith Smith) issue. It’s a great help!
Other websites to check out are:
<<www.creativecow.net>>
<<www.greatdv.com>>

Various Models for

Everything’s on-line now.There
are complete manuals. Read
Going Digital
whatever you can, don’t waste People go digital via many pathways. Their choices
your time on games. depend partly on their finances, but they’re also
Rob Davis, influenced by what other people they know have
Editor,Digital
done, other systems they’ve had the good fortune
Dimensions.
to see, and also what sales representatives persuade
them would be best.
Digital is being confused for It might help to realise that you don’t have to
quality, and it’s not.You still can’t go digital all at once. Many people shift to digital
make a good image out of a editing as their first move. That’s not hard to
bad image. understand, because anyone who’s struggled with
Neil Smith, analog editing can immediately see the merits of
t.a.v. being able to move shots around at will.
productions.
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Going Digital 141

Starting with Digital Editing

If you have a computer at home, getting started with Rob Davis,
When setting up an edit
digital editing is fairly simple. Most likely you’ll need Editor,Digital
system, making sure you Dimensions.
to do three things:
consider ergonomics. A monitor
1. Purchase an editing software program. should be at your comfortable
2. Add more memory to your computer. eye level.You shouldn’t be
3. Find a way to digitise your analog video so you tilting your head up or down
can send it into the computer. to see it, or your neck will
revolt.
Purchasing an editing software program
There are many brands of editing software. For up-to-date information on some of the
well-known editing programs contact:

Adobe Premier 6 <<www.adobe.com>>

AVID and AVID Xpress DV2 <<www.avid.com>>
Edit Studio 3 <<www.puremotion.com>>
FASTstudio.DV 3 <<www.fastmultimedia.com>>
Final Cut Pro 3 <<www.apple.com/finalcutpro/>>
iMovie 2 <<www.apple.com/imovie/>>
iFinish <<www.media100.com/Dualstream.asp>>
Media 100 <<www.media100.com/Dualstream.asp>>
Media Studio Pro 6.5 <<www.ulead.co.uk>>
MoviePack 3 <<www.hisoft.co.uk>>
Speed Razor 2000X <<www.in-sync.com>>
Vegas Video 3.0 <<www.sonicfoundry.com>>

Needless to say, editing packages are changing and Rob Davis,

There are dozens of so-called
developing at a meteoric rate, so I know as I write Editor,Digital
editing software applications;
this that the information will be old before it’s Dimensions.
many come bundled with
printed. And tempting as it would be to make
computer magazines. Be wary,
some judgemental statements on the above-listed
they can be less than user-
programs, I will resist that ill-conceived urge.
friendly, and they may be
You have a role here, which you may savour or
incompatible with everyone
find unpalatable, and that is to check the websites
else’s system.
listed above for the latest information on editing
programs, and also ask other people, because that
way you’ll get truthful answers to your own specific questions.
However, I can give you a list of considerations which you could mull over when
trying to decide which program to go for.
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142 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Considerations When Choosing Editing

Software
Is the Interface Easy to Learn for You or for Your Students?
How hard will it be to get people up to speed on the basic operations of the program?
How clearly written is the manual?
Do any other training devices come with it, like handouts? A tutorial on a CD?
Can you make editing changes directly on the timeline?

What Will You be Doing with Your Edited Footage?

Will it just be shown from your computer screen?
Will you want to make VHS dubs?
Will you send it over the Internet? If you’re planning to be webcasting, look for editing
software which is bundled with an encoder, to put your final product into a format
which can go on the Web.
Will it be part of your website?
Will you be burning it to CD? DVD?
Once you work out the answers about your intended usage, then it will be obvious why
you should ask the next question.

What Does it Output?

A standard digital signal?
Quicktime files?
MPEG1?
MPEG2?
Composite video?
Component video?
Hard as it may be to believe, some systems don’t output any of these! They’re fun and
games on your PC, but they get your edited video nowhere.

Will it Work on Your Brand of Computer?

Currently iMovie and Final Cut Pro 3 will only work on
Macintosh computers. This is not a dissuading factor for a
Mac owner or groupie. Of course both programs output
a standard digital signal, Quicktime files, MPEG and
composite video, so your end product is compatible with
standard usage.

Final Cut Pro 3

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Going Digital 143

Will the Editing Program Work with Your OS (Operating System)?
Although it works with your computer (hardware), you may need to
upgrade your operating system (software) so you have enough power
to run the editing program.
Some editing programs are extremely specific about minimum
operating systems. For example, for Final Cut Pro 3, OS 9.2 is not
good enough, you need 9.2.2 (which can be downloaded for free
from the Web if you already have 9.2).
The difference in the numbers may seem insignificant to a
beginner, but it’s definitely important to be exact in matching the
specifications for the editing program with the reality of your
computer, or you may have many frustrated hours unsuccessfully
trying to get your program up and running. Adobe Premiere 6

What Effects and Transitions are Part of the Editing Program?

Does the program offer you anything beyond basic wipes and dissolves?
Does it allow you to invent your own transitions?

What Kind of Image Manipulation is Possible?

Is there a strong paint program?
Rotoscope?
Animation possibilities?
2-D motion tracking? The only thing that’s easy
3-D effects? about digital editing, is that
Distortion? you can manipulate your
Movements of video around the screen? material in ways that you
Blue screen and chroma key? couldn’t before. Christine Togo-
Slow motion? Smallwood,
Entrepreneurial
Unit,School of
How Does the Program Handle Audio? Indigenous
Australian
Is there an inbuilt audio mixer? Studies,James
Cook University.
Does it have a graphic equaliser?
Can you record live sound with this program?
Is there adequate noise reduction?

What Capacity for Titles Does the Program Have?

Is the range of fonts adequate for your needs?
Are there pre-programmed scrolling effects so you can just type in your credits and go?
Can you work on multi-layered compositions?
Are you able to use an edited timeline from one program as a clip in a larger project?
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144 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

It’s possible to be doing basic Does the Program Render Transitions and
cut-and-paste editing in a few Effects Quickly or in Real Time?
minutes, but if you don’t know
How long do you have to wait to see simple effects?
the structure of the data
Complex effects?
Rob Davis, management in the computer
Can it render in the background while you carry on
Editor,Digital (i.e. where rendered files,
Dimensions. with your edit?
master clips, etc. reside) it’s
possible to delete the wrong
information and something What Other Software Packages are Bundled
you’ve spent ages on can with the Editing Package?
disappear at a keystroke.
Is there an audio mixer bundled with the package?
Is there a special effects program packaged with it,
like After Effects?
Is there software for outputting media to the web,
like Media Cleaner EZ 5?
Peak DV (for audio)?
Boris Script Ltd (a titler)?
Commotion DV (for animation)?
Cinema 4D GO (for 3-D objects)?
Does it come with a free capture card?

Can You Add Web Interactivity to Your

Media Files?
Check if you can create URL flips, hotspots and
chapters, so if your video is going to be viewed on
Becky Furniss edits with Media 100, Deakin the Web, your audience can connect directly to other
University, Clayton,Vic, Australia. websites.

Does the Program Accept Plug-ins?

How many?
Which ones?
Are they desirable to you?
Can you build your media centre’s editing capacity by purchasing compatible software
top-ups in next year’s budget?
If you later decide to upgrade, will your current files (and skills!) work on the next version
up?

What Else Do You Need?

Does it only work well with two monitors?

And, of Course:
How much does the editing program software cost?
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Going Digital 145

Adding More Memory to Your Computer

Check the requirements of your editing program
We bought a system about
carefully. You’ll probably find that your computer
two years ago and nobody has
will operate more efficiently if you upgrade its
mastered it.They’d get partway
memory capacity. You can do this by adding
through their edit and the
memory either internally or by attaching an external
system would crash. Barbara
drive, like a firewire drive.
Would you believe that in Bishop,
For information on increasing your computer’s Video
this country and state, with
storage capacity, see the Chapter 11, Thanks for the Producer,
all the consumer protection Winthrop
Memory!
laws, there is not much Community
protection in the area of Access TV.

software? A company can

Digitising Your Analog sell knowingly untested or

flawed software to a customer,

Video and there’s not much recourse.

I guess it happens all the time
when new software is
The tapes you take, or have taken, on your analog
introduced.
camera are not a lost cause. You just have to change
Apparently that’s what
their signal into a digital one. The only disappoint-
happened to us with the non-
ment is that there will be some loss of quality in the
linear editing software we
process, because when you change an analog signal
bought as part of a package
into a digital data stream, and then change it back
with two monitors and the
to an analog signal, there is some decrease to your
whole works. We were
signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).
anxiously waiting for the
But the gains most likely outweigh this small
release of a new product and
loss, as there are always losses in editing analog
in the rush to get it out, it was
footage anyway, by being forced to go down a
either not tested, or perhaps it
generation or two.
was tested and the
Basically, you have to get your current analog
manufacturer knew there were
signal converted into a digital signal, and get it into
problems with it. Much later,
the computer.
they upgraded the
You have three options here. (Oh, isn’t it nice
software. So to date there’s
to have options in life!)
only one person in our public
1. First check the back of your computer. If your access centre who has learned
computer has an external connection point for digital editing, and he does it
a video signal, but that input currently goes to on his computer at home.
nothing inside the computer, you can buy a
video digitising board, usually called a video-
capture card, which will enable your computer to Buy only what you
handle video signals. Modern (post modern?) immediately need. Just buy
computers which don’t already have video what the job you’re doing can
capacity come with an aching vacancy inside, pay for.
just waiting for you to fill it. The internal Ben Lay,
connection points are all there—installing a videocapture card is not much harder Editing
Department,
than putting a slice of bread in a toaster. AFTRS.
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146 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Just make sure you get the right one! Some

video capture cards do handle analog signals, but
some don’t. Some only work as a conduit for
already-digitised signals to come and go.
2. Alternatively, you can get a little conversion box
which will take your analog video in and convert
it to a digital signal, which it then can supply to
your computer through a cable known as a
firewire.
To do this your computer must have a
This Matrox handles both analog and digital signals
connection point which can accept a digital
in and out of the computer.
video signal.
3. If you’re a home user, it could work to borrow
a digital camera from a friend and send your
signal through the borrowed camera and along
its firewire into your computer.
This third option works best if the digital
camera is able to instantly convert the signal
from analog to digital.
Some cameras can take in an analog signal
and record it in digital, but can’t simultaneously
output a digital signal.
So check carefully. If the camera you’ve
borrowed is limited, you’ll need to record your
video to a digital tape inside the borrowed
camera, then play back the signal from the tape
inside the camera and send it down the firewire
to your computer.
This is time consuming, but some people have
more time than money for working on their videos,
and everybody has a story to tell.

To get a digital signal into your computer, there must

be an appropriate and functioning input.The input
might be there, but it may be attached to nothing If you’re working on longer
inside the computer. projects, the time it takes to
actually digitise the video as part
of the on-line and then copying
Peter Giles, back out from hard disk to tape is
Head of prohibitive.
Digital Media,
AFTRS.
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Going Digital 147

Digital Shooting
The first question: What camera to buy?
Again, I don’t mean to be tedious, but it comes down to the basics like:
Who’s going to use it?
What size and weight do you need for the carrying you’ll be doing?
What style do you like? Shoulder mounted? Handheld? Palm size?
How much use will it get overall?
And, of course, what can the budget afford this year?
There are plenty of digital cameras out there, and the happy news is, they’re mostly
quite good. So this is not a life and death decision. In many ways, it’s easier than choosing
the edit system, as there’s less to consider.
But there are some aspects which can be specific to your needs, which you should
consider before signing that purchase requisition or handing your credit card across the
glass counter.
Just to orient you, camera manufacturers design their cameras and market them to
at least three levels of buyers:
1. The consumer—This can be either the home
user or the school which is teaching entry
level video skills. These cameras usually cost If you’ve got a good eye and
$1000–3000. the right skills, you’ll get a
2. The prosumer—This is the person who’s doing good result regardless of
video work commercially, probably working whether you use a top of the
from home or a small production house. It can line digital Betacam or a much John Fidler,
also be the university media centre which wants more modest camera. If you Reel Image
don’t have the skills, you’ll get Video
its students to be able to produce résumé tapes Productions.
of a high standard or to do entry level projects a poor result regardless of the
for commercial sale. These cameras generally camera you use.
don’t cost more than $10 000.
3. The broadcaster—These are the high-end
people who are working in broadcast TV stations or for advertising firms. $80 000
wouldn’t be too much for their budgets, and with additional specialist lenses—well,
it hardly bears thinking about.
Some models available at the time of writing include the Sony DVCAM, Panasonic
DVCPro and Canon XM2 3CCD.

Sony DVCAM Panasonic DVCPro

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148 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Choose the camera that fits both your body and Canon XM2 3CCD
your budget.

With broadcast gear, all the

The Audio Input
cameras are laid out the same, Think about audio input.
all the buttons are in the same I’m listing this first because most of the
places, no matter what the promotional material on cameras deals with the
Richard manufacturer. picture. This is no accident, because it seems that’s
Fitzpatrick, where most of the effort has gone in developing
Camera the cameras. But videomakers quickly learn that
Operator,
Digital sound quality is the make-or-break factor in TV.
Dimensions. Many digital cameras have only one input for sound, and that’s limited to a little
mini socket.
So I ask you, what happens when you do a simple interview? Are you stuck with
your offsider hand-holding a cardioid mic and trusting that s/he can handle this properly,
always remembering to point it at the person who’s speaking at the time?
To do a two-mic interview, you need to have either an audio adaptor which has two
mic inputs and plugs into the
camera’s single mic input, or a
separate portable audio mixer, or
try to make do by pinning a lav
mic on the person with the weaker
voice, or on the interviewee.

You can’t do anything without

good audio, it’s the most
important thing and it’s the
hardest part.
Charlie If you can hear it, but you
Tesch, can’t see it, it still works.
Somerville If you can see it, but you
Producers The Canon DV camera has an adaptor which allows two
Group. can’t hear it, it’s useless.
XLR audio inputs at the back.
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Going Digital 149

It’s possible to get an adaptor which will allow you to use two microphones on your
single audio input.

The Lens Quality

It’s the lens which focuses the light to form the image. The higher the quality of lens,
the better the image.
If you’re shooting home movies, a standard lens may be just fine. But if you’re
shooting for professional release, make sure you put your (however limited) money into
the best lens system you can buy.

The Zoom Ratio of the Lens

A 6X zoom lens is fine for family events, because Richard
For specialist work, make sure Fitzpatrick,
presumably your family will let you get fairly close
you have the right lens for the Digital
to them. Dimensions.
job.
But if you’re taping sea eagles or other distant
creatures or objects, go for 10X or higher.
Don’t be tricked by outrageous claims about digital zoom rates. If you zoom way
in with them, you often get a fractured, mosaic type image. When in doubt, do a test
taping in the store while you’re surveying what’s out there.

Interchangeability of Lenses
If your work is varied, you may need to swap lenses
from time to time. Perhaps you’ll need both a very
wide angle lens and an extreme telephoto lens.
Or if you’re buying for a media centre, you may
want your students to be able to experiment with,
and then employ, a variety of lenses.
In either case, check that the camera you’re
looking at allows lenses to be interchanged easily. A prominent feature of the Canon XM2 is that it has
And check what lenses the camera can accept. interchangeable lenses.

Can It Digitise a Composite Video Signal?

Be wary! Not all digital cameras can digitise an
incoming VHS or SVHS signal. If you have shelves
full of analog tapes, you most likely still want to have
access to that footage for future edit projects.
Don’t get caught out with a cheaper camera
which can’t digitise your older stock shots or the
videos of when the kids were young. Remember,
when your baby turns 21, you’ll probably want to
use all that old stuff again, for the big screen at the
megaparty.
Cute as a baby, cuter at 21.
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150 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Does It Have Firewire In and Out?

It probably does, but like a mother holding her newborn and counting all the fingers
and toes, there’s no harm in checking. There’s always the exception, and the lack of a
firewire output was a serious flaw in some of the early digital camcorders.

Does It Have Composite Video In and Out?

You will need this if you want to run off a dub of your footage for someone else, or if
you’re given video that you want to make a copy of.

Digital Production Studio

If your aim is to set yourself up as a working video production studio, one of the joys
of going digital is that there are far fewer pieces of equipment to buy, to try to squeeze
into your space, to connect up with a tangle of cables, to have to learn how to operate,
and to maintain and repair.
If you purchase the right video editing system, you’ll find that the vision mixer, the
audio mixer, the time base corrector, the FX generator, the character generator, the
animator, the player and record machines, and the dubbing suite are all rolled into one!
If your system can burn CDs and DVDs, and
output composite video, what else could you need?
I’m constantly managing media.
Labels! But your edit program will usually have
You can’t just have all your
a graphics capacity, and a freeze frame capacity, so
material there, like we did with
you can make the labels and CD/DVD covers
tapes.You have to be sensible
yourself.
Christine about what you digitise
Production houses have to be flexible and work
Togo- because storage is still a huge
Smallwood, to deadlines, some projects are done in a short time
issue. Storage controls the
Entrepreneurial and some take months or even years to complete.
Unit,School of logging and capturing process
So that you never have to be dumping one lot of
Indigenous [digitising].
Australian digitised material to work on another project, buy
Studies,James up big on storage devices. Firewire drives can be
Cook plugged in and unplugged with ease, and carried to other places as well.
University.
For the most clarity of all, and the least possibility of errors, some people have a rule
of ‘one firewire drive per project’.
A website which lists lots of production gear suitable for setting up studios is
<<www.pinnaclesys.com>>

Media Centre Edit Labs

If you’re buying for an entire media centre, which services scores or hundreds of students,
going digital is likely to take careful planning over several years.
One of the main things to be careful about when planning the purchase of equipment
is compatibility.
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Going Digital 151

Even at this late stage of video development, You always have to know
incompatibility rears its ugly head. There’s still to where the market’s going
be a true marriage of video technologies. Although because it has downstream
it may not surprise you when a no-frills brand effects. A lot of people have
camera doesn’t mesh in well with the standard big been caught out buying the Richard
name companies’ products, you might not expect wrong gear. It’s no use buying Fitzpatrick,
that you can get caught out even when buying very something unless people want Camera
expensive gear. For example, one expensive digital Operator,
to hire it off you as well. Digital
camera could read consumer level DV tapes, but Dimensions.
couldn’t read another company’s expensive camera
recordings.
Whether this is smart marketing or the continuation of corporate schoolyard grudges
can be debated. But whatever it is, it won’t get your tape played if you’ve mixed and
matched without considerable forethought or straight-out good luck.

Outputting the End Product

Home computers and small production houses with only one or two edit systems will
probably go for outputting the signal directly from the computer to a record machine
(or dubbing rack) close by.
But in a media centre where there may be 6, 10, 20, or more edit systems, it makes
no sense economically to have record machines for every edit system. There may be 60
students who need to be editing their material, but each one may only output three
projects in a semester.
In a media centre situation, it makes sense to hardwire all the edit systems in a given
computer lab to one or two output stations. Or to have the students carry their projects,
on their portable drives, to an output station. If a facility is buying only one or two
output stations, it can afford to have a good variety of formats available, like VHS, SVHS,
DV tape, CD and DVD.

Peter
Actually we do work often in groups in the big open lab, and the group or team will cluster Chvany,
around their work station.They usually use the speakers when in groups since we don’t Facilities
Manager,
provide a bridge for three or four headphone outputs. We’ve found that students relating Emerson
to their work, engaged by their efforts, tune out the rest of the room.Their ability to College.
concentrate and focus solves what would appear to be an issue.They debate, argue,
resolve conflicts as a team, or at other times as individuals working on a solo project. No-
one complains, but my lab assistants, when simply walking around, are always impressed
at how much order there actually is.
We have six rooms which are isolatable (is that a word?). We call them ‘suites’, and they
were designed for isolation and group work. In practice they are most frequently used by
grad students or advanced students working on major projects for longer blocks of time.
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152 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

The Fully Networked Facility

The model which some people are now moving towards is the fully networked digital
production facility.
In this model the computer has taken over nearly all of the functions of the facility,
and the individual edit rooms are like satellites connecting in to the central storage hub.
With a fully networked facility, field footage can be stored directly to the central
server, and then can be extracted from there by any edit suite which is on the network.
This means that several people can be accessing the same footage and making their own
edits from it, without having to pass tapes around or wait for additional work dubs to
be made.
This is a very handy scenario for students who’ve been challenged to all cut a video
piece from the same material.
It’s also one solution to the age-old problem of internal strife within an edit team,
where two hard heads each want their own cut and won’t compromise. This makes it
possible for each of them to see the logical (or illogical) end of their edit choice preferences,
and for the whole class to view a variety of cuts and constructively analyse the end products.
Can you visualise the set-up? Each edit suite is basically a workstation which can
receive video footage from the central server and store edited programs back to the central
server. The workstations may all be in one big lab or they may each have their own little
edit room. Money and space will probably determine this.
Of course, the workstation computer could also have the normal outputs, so it’s
possible to attach a VHS or SVHS record machine to an edit suite, so editors can run
off tape editions of their work for home viewing or for showing to clients.
The hub of this facility is a very powerful computer called a server. You may need
more than one server, depending on the media traffic it will need to handle. You may
also need to have a separate server dedicated to the work being generated in the
multicamera video studio.
As usual, you’ll need to keep archives of stock footage, but this can be done on
DVDs, which will save lots of space and make accessing footage much easier. But there
will always be a need for useful logs to be stored somehow in relation to the file footage!
So, there’s a server with a large storage capacity in a central room. It has fibre optic
wiring to a bank of edit suites and to the studio control room.
There are shelves of DVDs with archived footage.
There’s a patchbay which outputs to the dubbing racks.

Laptops and Ethernet

One media centre sees the future like this:
Upon arrival every student will be issued with a laptop computer which has
all the appropriate software loaded on it.They will do their editing wherever
they choose, and when they come back to the college will be able to connect
their laptop to any Ethernet port in the building (the building is already wired
for this) and play their video on any monitor or video display system they
choose.
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Going Digital 153

Is the Future Wireless?

Some people are saying that in the future everything
When buying a computer for
will be wireless.
digital video work, always get
It would certainly seem more convenient to get
at least two hard drives—the
rid of all the wires, and allow people to work from
faster the better.This way you
the surroundings they choose, than to link them in
can separate your system data Lindsay Ward,
to edit labs or rooms which they find distracting or
(operating system) from your School of
claustrophobic, or hard to get home from late at Information
video work, and you can also
night. And what about being able to have that Technology,
improve performance. Because James Cook
doughnut and coffee fairly close at hand?
each hard drive only has one University.
There’s little doubt that wireless technology
read/write head, it can only do
appeals particularly to consumers.
one thing at a time. So with
But at present wireless technology is still slower
two separate hard drives, the
than cable-based systems. Another problem is that
computer can be reading or
the current equipment has less memory capacity.
writing the two drives at
But who knows what will be available in the
once—e.g. capturing video
next few years?
(writing) to the video disk, and
doing system work (like
memory paging) on the other
hard disk. If you’re using Adobe
Premiere, the manual will give
you some instructions about
how to set up your scratch
disks for best performance.
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Chapter

11 Thanks for the

Memory
Producing Videos
Thanks for the Memory

In the beginning years of television,

I programs could be broadcast but
couldn’t be recorded electronically. The only early
programs which were recorded were shot on film,
which was very expensive, so not frequently done.
Those I Love Lucy shows you’ve seen from the fifties?
Lucille Ball paid for the filming herself. Other shows
just passed out into the universe . . .
Early experiments in magnetic recording were
happening in 1951 at places like Bing Crosby Labs,
RCA and Ampex. But in the early 1950s, news stories
were still shot on film. This meant, of course, that
the film had to be processed and edited into story
form, which took time. But even then, because the Craig Dingwell threads film onto a telecine machine.
frame rate of film is different from that of video, the (Courtesy of ScreenSound Australia)
film stories had to be converted to video before they
could be broadcast on TV.
The conversion from film to video was done
through a process called telecine. Telecine is still used
to convert film to video.
News then was a far cry from today’s reporter
on the scene! Now either an experienced reporter on
a live link, or a story edited on a portable edit system,
can be beamed back by microwave link and satellite
so that the story can be broadcast from the home
station at once, or within minutes.
Finding the way to capture the TV signal and Telecine transfer in progress at ScreenSound
store it for later use was a big challenge, and it took Australia, the National Screen and Sound Archive,
years to solve. Canberra, ACT, Australia.(Courtesy of ScreenSound
Australia)
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Thanks for the Memory 155

In the first days of electronic recording, the video
image was recorded on 2-inch magnetic tape, which
was spooled on large reels and played on a gigantic
quadruplex recorder. Although it was a breakthrough
for its time, the size and weight of the quadruplex
recorder meant that only studio-based recording was
feasible.
Portable black and white reel-to-reel recordings
became available in the late 1960s, and enthusiasts
embraced field production, despite the difficulties of
editing by cutting and splicing the tape.
Sony produced the first Umatic videocassettes in Wherever you are, your report can be sent back to
the early 1970s: the KC-60 in 1971 and the KC-20 in the studio and broadcast quickly. Liz Kravitz on
1972. They then produced the half-inch video- location filing the news for WEBN.Nick Spinetto on
cassette, the Betamax, in 1975. This was quickly camera.Emerson College, Boston, MA, USA.
followed by JVC with the VHS (video home system)
half-inch video cassette in 1976.
After a battle of the tape formats waged in consumerland, VHS finally tipped the
scales as the more often purchased tape, and Betamax was discontinued. However,
Betacam, also a half-inch format produced by Sony, became the standard for ENG
(electronic news gathering) at TV stations.
With videocassette recording available, and supported by analog editing systems
which didn’t cost the earth (just close to it), the use of video technology by non-
professionals exploded. Video access centres were opened by government and education

Christina Sparrow threads a quarter-inch J-format A quadruplex recorder.(Courtesy of ScreenSound Australia,

reel-to-reel videoplayer.(Courtesy of ScreenSound National Screen and Sound Archive, Canberra, ACT, Australia)
Australia, National Screen and Sound Archive,
Canberra, ACT, Australia)
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156 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

For access to historical groups, and also by cable TV companies. Lots of

information on the people began to use video for their own purposes.
development of video, check Unassuming and old-fashioned as it may seem,
out the Internet. Sites like the videotape is still stunning in its capacity to store video
web-based Sony Museum data.
Bruce
McCallum, <<www.sony.net/Fun/the- Technology developers had a long struggle to
Technician, museum/>> can be very improve on magnetic tape as a video data storage
Sony device.
Australia. informative.
The question was, how could such a huge file
size as a single video frame (1 megabyte in size) be
handled by computers?
Which leads us to one of the key ideas in digital video storage: compression.

Compression
In any video picture, there are many tiny bits of picture information, some of which are
repetitive.
To understand this, imagine a scene with a little pond surrounded by trees in full
leaf. The surface of the pond is mostly blue, the trees are mostly green. When this image
is electronically scanned, the data produced says, in effect:

Blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue,

blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, for a horizontal
scan line traced across the pond.
And green, green, green, green, green,
green, green, green, green, green, green, for a
similar horizontal scan line drawn across the
wooded area.

Of course, the trees have trunks which are also

evident, and there may be ducks on the pond. But
still, much of the additional picture information, on
This pretty scene can be greatly compressed any given scan line, is a repeat of the same.
without any noticeable loss for the viewer. So, instead of wasting storage space by repeating
so much of the data, there’s a way to electronically
say ditto (compressing the data) when storing the picture information, and a corresponding
way to uncompress the picture correctly when it has to be displayed.

This: green In effect becomes this: green

green “
green “
green “
green “

In a way, compression is like a ditto formula, which saves lots of storage space.
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Thanks for the Memory 157

Digital videocameras compress video as they record it. The standard compression
rate for DV is 5:1. You may also hear the expression ‘DV25’. This comes from the fact
that DV compression is at a fixed rate of 25 megabits per second.
So right from the start with digital video you’re dealing with a compressed image.
When the signal is passed into a computer it can be compressed even further, in order
to reduce the file size and save on the use of the hard drive’s memory.

What is a CODEC?
A codec is what compresses and decompresses video signals. Get it? Compresses and
decompresses. A codec can be a piece of hardware which can be purchased on its own.
It’s sometimes inbuilt in equipment, like DV camcorders and capture cards.
A codec can also be software.
Some codecs operate with a fixed compression rate, and some have the ability for
the compression rate to be varied, and set as needed by the operator.
With a variable codec, you can choose whatever compression rate you want to work
with during your rough cut, when you need to enter large amounts of footage into the
computer as possible source material.
But in the end, you can do your fine cut from files which are entered into the
computer as less compressed video. This way, your final product can be put together,
stored and output at the best quality your system can deliver.

Changing Video File Sizes

Computer editing programs allow the editor several choices. Originally uncompressed
video can be stored in the computer uncompressed or at various different compression
levels.
One single frame of uncompressed NTSC video takes about 1 megabyte (MB) to
store it.
This figure is reached by multiplying the horizontal resolution (720 pixels) by the
vertical resolution (486 pixels), then multiplying × 3 bytes for the RGB colour information.
At the rate of 29.97 frames per second, this results in the use of about 30MB storage for
every second of uncompressed video! (These, and the following statistics as well, were
taken from A Digital Video Primer, from the Adobe Dynamic Media Group. For great
information, check out <<www.adobe.com/support/techguides/>>)
Who’s got that level of memory available? I imagine you can see the need for
compression now.
Compression, like much in life, is a bit of a juggling act. You want to keep the highest
possible quality at the lowest memory cost. The reality is, the bigger the file size, the
higher the quality. The trick is to wind back the file size to the point where the loss of
quality is invisible to the viewer.
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158 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Knowing what level of compression to use is connected with knowing how your
viewer will see your product. Anything viewed on a full screen TV will need bigger file
sizes than something viewed in a tiny window on a website.
Video on the Web can be compressed 50:1 or more.

Different Methods of Compression

Reducing Frame Size
One method of compression is to reduce the size of each frame. This achieves quite
dramatic results. A 320 × 240 image uses only a quarter the number of pixels as a 640
× 480 picture. So if you’re authoring for the Web, it’s very smart to send smaller frames.
People are used to accepting pictures which don’t fill their computer screens.
Always ask how your product will be delivered. On videotape? Via CD? Or DVD?

Reducing Frame Rate

Another method of compression is to reduce the frame rate of the video. Video with a
frame rate of 15 frames per second will look fairly smooth to the eye, but it will be using
only half the storage rate of the normal (NTSC) signal. The same system can be applied
to PAL video, of course.

Reducing the Colour Information

Another factor that the compression inventers have taken into consideration is that the
human eye is less sensitive to changes in colour than it is to changes in brightness. So
lots of colour information can be discarded before the compression becomes noticeable
to the viewer.
Colour compression does produce some artefacts (visible degradations of the image),
however. These show up most on sharp colour boundaries, like white text on a dark
background.

Lossy vs Lossless Methods

When a signal is compressed, then decompressed, then compressed again, repeatedly,
it does begin to degrade. But most editing processes don’t require repeated conversions.
However, when a DV signal is transmitted from generation to generation, the process
is transparent—that is, there is no loss of signal quality.

Intra-frame Compression
With intra-frame compression, each single video frame is compressed separately. Intra-frame
compression is used by these codecs:
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Thanks for the Memory 159

MJPEG Used for general applications
MPEG1 Used for CD-Rom and Web
MPEG2 Used for DVD and Satellite TV
DV Used for Consumer, Industrial and Broadcast

Inter-frame Compression
Inter-frame compression operates differently. It works on the fact that much of the data from
one video frame to the next is the same. Inter-frame compression just stores the differences
from one frame to the next.
Inter-frame compression is used only in MPEG2, which is also the only format which
uses both modes of compression.
MPEG-2 is used for DVD and satellite TV. It’s also the format that has been chosen
for future broadcast TV in the United States.
In fact, there are three kinds of frames in MPEG2. (Just skip this bit if your brain is
in overload, but hang in there if you like knowing the nitty gritty of the tech stuff.)
First, there’s the I frame. This means intra-frame, which is just like the normal DV
frame. This type of frame has the largest amount of data.
Then there’s the P frame, standing for predicted frame. It’s arrived at by referencing it
to the frames which came before it. A P frame can be less than a tenth of the size of the
frame that came before it.
And there’s the B frame. The B stands for bi-directional. B frames are calculated from
the frames that come before them and after them.
So MPEG2 is said to have an IPB format. (I’m SURE I don’t have to explain why this
is so.) A compressed IPB video signal could look something like this:
I-P-P-P-P-B-B-B-B-P-B-B-B-I-P-P-P-P-B-B-B-B-P-I-P-P-P-B-B
The I frames have to recur every now and then so there isn’t a problem with
accumulated error, which could cause unacceptable distortion of the original signal.

D1 Video
If anyone says to you, ‘Well if you’re so smart, what’s the compression type for D1?’,
look at them coolly and say, ‘The D1 format is uncompressed.’

A Quick Review
So you can reduce your video file sizes in several ways:
• Make the playback frames smaller (reduce frame size).
• Play back fewer frames per second (reducing frame rate).
• Cut back on colour information (colour compression).
And this compression can be done in two ways:
• Intra-frame—that is, each frame by itself.
• Inter-frame—that is, generating only the changes in data from one frame to the next.
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160 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Have You Been Told About Your Over-byte?

To ensure the next few pages make sense to you, you need to understand how quantities
of computer data are measured. Here goes:
A bit is the basic unit of measurement. A bit stores just one value, either a 1 or a 0,
which are the only numbers in the binary system computers use (1 = on and 0 = off).
A byte is made up of 8 bits, so depending on the way the bits are arranged in it, it
can store any one of 256 values (2 to the power of 8).
(A nibble is 4 bits—you don’t need to know this, but I like the word myself.)
A kilobyte (KB) is roughly 1000 bytes. Technically it’s a bit over that amount, it’s
1024. This is arrived at by taking 2 to the power of 10, but for our purposes 1000 is
close enough. Kilobytes are often referred to as Ks.
By the same token, a megabyte (MB) is roughly a million bytes. (People talk about
megs meaning megabytes.)
And a gigabyte (GB) is roughly what the Americans call a billion, and what the
Australians call a thousand million. So that’s what people mean when they say gigs
(unless they’re musicians!).
You can follow all the rest of the chapter by remembering that a meg is a lot bigger
than a K and a gig is really huge.
Despite significant compression, video files are still large files for a computer to
handle. Run-of-the-mill word processing generates files measured in kilobytes, but video
files run to megabytes and even gigabytes in length. One hour of DV video (which by
definition has already has been compressed in a 5:1 ratio) takes about 13Gb to store.

Solving the Memory Dilemma

There are many different strategies for supplying a computer edit system with enough
memory to work well.

Two Kinds of Memory

There are two kinds of memory in computers: RAM
and ROM.
RAM is the memory that allows your computer
to run its programs, to process data. So it’s processing
power for activities like real-time video playback and
for rendering.
ROM is storage capacity. So it’s space for storing
your data, like your video files.
For video editing, you need lots of both kinds of
memory, and not having enough of one or the other
can be the cause of many problems.
Some current systems require 500 MB of RAM,
and if you have 750–1000 MB it won’t go astray.
The Macintosh G4 tower with a LaCie firewire drive.
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Thanks for the Memory 161

If you’re in a position to buy new equipment, large amounts of memory are possible
in storage towers, like those used for servers, and in later models like the Macintosh G4.
You can hook additional drives to these for even larger storage capacity.
Fortunately, for those needing to add on to the computer they already have, the price
of additional memory continues to fall.
For a single operator with a home computer, boosting the memory can be done by
adding boards to the inside of the computer box itself, or attaching plug-in memory, like
an external hard drive, which can be positioned beside the computer.

Many Users, Portable Memory

In schools and other facilities where many users
At some public access sites in
need to edit on the same computers, it just doesn’t
the States, they encourage
work for one person to tie up most of the ROM in
people to use their own home
the hard drive of a single computer. So facilities
computers for editing, so they
managers find ways that students can have portable
sign out a portable 40-gig hard Barbara
memory, in other words, be able to take their project
drive for a month or so at a Bishop,
out of the computer and away with them at the end Independent
time, and expect the finished
of each editing session. Producer.
project to be turned in on that!
With portable memory, students can sit at
whatever work station is available to them at any
point in time and still be able to work on their
projects. It also means that no-one else can delete,
alter or corrupt footage from their project. Back it all up, and back up the Peter
Early editing systems involved devices which Chvany,
back up. Facilities
plugged into the computer and sat next to them on Manager,
the bench or rested on top of them. Students could Emerson
save small amounts of video and then take it away with them. In those days, to be able College.

to edit a five-minute piece might have tested the limits of the computers.
Unfortunately for many students (and the technicians! and the teachers! and everyone
else who lived within the students’ sphere of influence!), some of the early systems were
not reliable. People would get partway through, or even finish their edit and the storage
device would fail. One head technician told of a device which had about a 40 per cent
failure rate. No need to name the ones no-one would want . . .

Possible Memory Storage Devices

Zip Drive
A zip drive is great for additional memory for text-based work, but in a production set-
up it’s only good for storing graphics. It’s too slow for video because of the problem of
how quickly the frame can be repeated.
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162 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Orb Cartridge
An orb cartridge works well when students are doing small assignments. It could be a
good idea for the computer lab where the Level One students are working on short,
beginners’ projects.
An orb cartridge is almost the same size as a floppy disk, but it’s thicker. It inserts
into a device which plugs into the computer. Because it’s so small and lightweight, it’s
convenient for students to tote around in their bags, and it’s very inexpensive. It’s quite
reliable and holds 2.2 gigs.

Brick
A brick is a portable hard drive with a carrying handle and a SCSI connection. Emerson
College in Boston loans them out to students from their storeroom, just as they loan
out any other production equipment. There’s usually enough memory on a brick for
students to save all their work for the whole semester on it.
The computer editing lab is set up so the brick can be plugged in at any computer.
It’s a much more expensive item than an orb, and bulkier, so harder for students to carry
around, but it provides 16 gigabytes of memory.
Two bricks can be mounted side by side (32 gigs), or several can be mounted in an
array (6 or 8 bricks together).

Firewire Drive
A firewire drive is another step up in memory. It can
hold 80 gigs, which is five hours of uncompressed
video. This should be plenty for most students
working on a project of a half hour or less.
A firewire drive is a smallish flat box, which
attaches to the computer. It costs more than a brick.
A firewire drive is light in weight and easy to carry
around.
Firewire drive for increased storage capacity. For cost and efficiency, this is a good option for
upper level students doing longer projects.

Be very wary of how many Ice Cube

devices you attach to your
computer editing system. The The Ice Cube is an external drive holder, which
computer will be phantom- allows you to add extra storage space to your
powering them. It can handle a computer.
Bill
O’Donnell, moderate load, but it can’t run Because the Ice Cube is made of clear plastic,
Video your refrigerator. with inner metal walls, it looks a bit icy. But it’s cool
Consultant. for more than that reason. With it you can add on
pretty much whatever amount of additional
memory you want. You just insert your hard drive (40 gigs? 80 gigs? 120 gigs?) into
the plastic housing and the Ice Cube then connects to the computer via the firewire
input.
The Ice Cube can be carried around easily, so if you need to work on your edit
somewhere else, you can just take the Ice Cube with you.
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Thanks for the Memory 163

You can also daisy chain Ice Cubes, which means
you can attach two or more together via the firewire
in and out connection points on them, and have a
string of them all connected to your computer at
once.
Just remember, if you insert a drive higher than
40 gigs you need to externally power the Ice Cube.
But for smaller drives the computer can phantom
power it.
The Ice Cube is also hot swappable, which means
The Ice Cube can be loaded with whatever drive size
you can disconnect one and connect another while
you choose.
your edit session is running, without any problem
for the computer in recognising the new drive.
The Clearlight is a smaller version of the Ice Cube
and is handy for use with laptops.
You can get the latest information on data storage
devices by searching the Internet. One URL that in-
cludes Ice Cube and Clearlight is
<<www.siliconmemory.com.au>>

Hard Drive Array

A hard drive array can hold 120 gigs and is significantly
faster than a firewire. But it costs much more. A hard
drive array would work well for people doing quite
long projects, or for well-trained users who would
leave each other’s stored material alone. A hard drive
array could be a good resource in a small production
house, where two or three people share one
computer in different time slots.
The Ice Cube attaches easily to your computer via
the firewire input.

You know how the saying

goes—the amount of data we
want to store is always just that
little bit more than the amount
of storage space available. Lindsay Ward,
School of
Information
Technology,
James Cook
University.

Thanks to Peter Chvany, Bill O’Donnell, Bruce McCallum and Lindsay Ward
for their help in the preparation of this chapter.
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Chapter

12 Digital
Editing
Producing Videos
Digital Editing

Linear vs Non-linear
The use of jargon can lock people out of feeling comfortable at their work, so let’s spend
a little time getting straight on the meaning of some words.
The process of editing a video signal from one tape to another tape is called linear
editing.
This is because the method used is one of editing one shot after another, like
systematically moving along a line. You edit the first shot, then the second, then the third
and so forth, going step by step, in the prearranged order, all the way through the
requirements of the edit script.
In linear editing, you can’t go back!
In linear editing, there’s no way to rearrange shots in the middle of an edited section,
unless the new sequence takes up exactly the same number of frames as the material
it’s replacing.
If the new sequence is longer, you have to choose between losing some video on
the end of the earlier shot or some video at the beginning of the shot which follows the
new sequence. Or you have to re-edit everything that comes after the new sequence.
If the new sequence is shorter than the material you’re replacing, there will be a few
spare frames of unwanted video from the previous edit lurking at the beginning or end
(or both) of the new sequence.
The already-recorded images just won’t obligingly slide up or down the tape to make
room, or eliminate a gap which has appeared.
Lengthening or shortening a shot can mean you have to edit in the new image, and
then re-do all the shots that come after it.
This is an aspect of video which has been extremely frustrating. (The handfuls of
ripped-out editor’s hair on the floor of edit suites attest to this!)
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Digital Editing 165

Although it’s true that in a rough cut you can A few things have also been
change a sequence by rearranging sections of it onto lost with the passing of linear
another tape, you can only disregard the resulting editing. Students don’t have to
drop in quality from going down a generation because take such care ordering their
anyone viewing it mentally allows for the fact that material going into the edit, Tom
it’s a practice run and not the completed project. which means they can get Kingdon,
But in the final cut, it has to be linear all the way. sloppy and waste time. Emerson
Now that’s a sweaty palms experience! College.

Non-linear Editing—It Started with Film

When people edit film—which they’ve been doing for a lot longer than anyone’s been
editing videotape—they literally cut it. They take the bits they like and stick them together
in an order which they think will work. If it doesn’t
work, they unstick the bits, reassemble them in a
Sprocket holes, the original
new order, add new shots, throw some out,
non-linear editing system, a
lengthen or shorten shots here and there, and have
system advanced enough to
another look to see if it works this time.
require you to think.
Because the editor can work on any shot at any
time, without affecting the others, the process is Francis
Treacey,
called non-linear editing (NLE, for those of you who like unpronounceable acronyms). Deakin
In other words, the editor is not working strictly down a line of shots, but working University.
at any point along that line, as needed.
If you’ve used your computer for word processing, the process is much the same.
You can cut and paste, add and delete, as you need to. You can start anywhere in the
file and then move on to anywhere else. No need to think or work in step-after-step
order.

Heidi Crawford and Tom

McEvoy learn the classic art of
film editing, Deakin University,
Clayton,Vic, Australia.
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166 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Non-linear (Digital) Video Editing

Non-linear editing in video is possible through the
use of computers. This is an example of convergence,
where two technologies come together to accomplish
a new task, or an old task in a new way.
But there was a major hurdle to be overcome
before this could happen. The video signal was an
analog signal, but computers work only with digital
information.

Media students using a digital edit system, Northern

Analog vs Digital
Melbourne Institute of TAFE. A good way to understand the difference between
analog and digital is to consider wrist watches.
I don’t think I know a single
editor who doesn’t prefer non- The Analog Signal
linear editing.
The old-style watch has a second hand which travels
smoothly around and around the face of the watch.
Phillippa It gives a constant readout of the time. You can see that time is always changing, in a
Harvey,
Editing smooth, unbroken, regular motion. It’s possible to observe (or grasp) that time is always
Department, happening; that, for example, there’s time in between three seconds and four seconds
AFTRS. past eight.
Now one could discuss concepts of time for the length of many books. But what
concerns us here is the impression (illusion?) of time which the analog watch is giving
us. The analog watch signal is continuous: it displays its entire travel from one position
on the watch face to the next.
Another way to think of the analog signal is to compare it to the motion of an ocean
wave. A wave has a continuous rising and falling motion. You can see the entire smooth
movement from trough to crest to trough.
Analog signals are made up of waveforms which are continuously varying.

The Digital Signal

The digital watch is quite different. Digital information operates on a binary system.
A binary system is one which is based on only two numbers, which are 0 and 1.
Electricity is binary—electricity is either on or off. There are only two possibilities.
Computers are also binary. They use the on/off of electricity as the basis of their
languages.
The digital watch displays its information about time as a series of pulses. Its readout
is a sample of time. A new sample is taken every second. So with a digital watch we’re
told that it’s three seconds past eight for a whole second, then instantly it’s four seconds
past eight. And that ‘time’ lasts for a whole second, too. And so on.
(In this description, the word ‘digital’ refers to the sampling process, not to the digits
on the watch face.)
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Digital Editing 167

Although our experience of lived life is analog, we can accept this digital
representation of it because the pulses are sufficiently close together. If the smallest
segments the watch could register were hours, the readout would seem too fractured
for us.
Now think about video. The video signal is gathered by the scanning device of the
camera making horizontal sweeps across the image and assigning variations in electrical
voltage to represent brightness and darkness. The motion of the electron beam in a video
tube is analog—it moves in a continuous flow.
Digital information about the horizontal line of
It’s useful to have both linear
video gives a series of separate brightness and colour
and non-linear edit systems
values to specific spots (pixels) along the horizontal
because they both have good
line. There’s no information between these spots.
qualities and they both have
But because the spots are close enough together, it
downfalls. For some things, it’s Kimberley
doesn’t matter. Our eyes can integrate a whole
better to use linear, but for Brown,
picture from the discrete bits of information given Editor/
editing the final version of
in the digital readout. Camera
shows, non-linear is the best. Operator,
In fact, we do this all the time when we look at
Canada.
photographs in the newspaper or in magazines.
They’re also made up of tiny dots, but our eyes see an integrated image.

Copying the Signals

So this is what to understand:

Analog information is continuous, and digital information is in separate

bits.

When a copy is made of an

analog signal, the copy is never
perfect. Slight imperfections are
introduced in the copying
011000111110010100
process.
This is why there’s always a
loss in quality when you go down
a generation with an analog signal.
(That is, when you copy the
signal from one tape to another,
in other words, make a dub.)
However, when a copy is 011000111110010100
made of a digital signal, the copy
is identical to the original. So
there’s no need to worry about
generations when working with
digital signals. Analog to analog is never a Digital to digital is a perfect copy.
perfect copy.
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168 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Moving from Analog to Digital

In order to do computer based, non-linear editing,
the video signal has to be in binary code.
Video which has been recorded as an analog
signal has to be digitised. That means it has to be
changed (converted) into a digital signal. Some
computer editing systems can do this for you.
Or if you have a digital video camera, you can
record your video as a digital signal right from the
start. Then, though you’ll still need to capture the
signal into the non-linear editing program, you may
First, you have to digitise the video signal.Julia be able to capture it much faster because the signal
Melvin captures Hi-8 footage to the Media 100, is already a stream of binary data, rather than an
AFTRS. analog signal.

Phillippa Harvey—Comparisons
Phillippa Harvey is an editing mentor at the Australian Film Television and Radio School.
She makes these comments about digital editing.

ADVANTAGES
Digital editing gives you random access to any footage you have.
You can make edit changes rapidly, you no longer have to work in real time.
You can try out different digital effects quickly and easily, create titles, online, colour
grade and mix your project.
You can keep several versions of the same program—for example, the director’s cut,
the editor’s cut.
You can do sophisticated sound mixes for screenings because there are up to 24
audio tracks to work with. But of course you have to mix them down to play out the
sound track for a screening.
You can crop and redefine or reposition or blow up frames, if you don’t want to use
the whole frame as it was shot.

DISADVANTAGES
The rough cut process seems to have disappeared as people try to go directly for the
fine cut.
People are less disciplined about preparing their material before they begin to edit.
People want to see every effect, just because they can. This can waste a lot of time
on things that will never be used in the final edit.
People start fine cutting without an overview of the pacing of the whole program.

Different Uses of Time

Analog and digital editing use up your time differently.
With analog editing, you can start viewing and editing your tapes as soon as you get
to the edit system.
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Digital Editing 169

The editing process itself can take quite a while because each shot must be copied
to the record tape in real time (and, in fact, the previews are done one or more times in
real time, too). However, at the end of editing, the tape can be taken out of the record
machine and shown straight away.
With digital editing, the holdups are at the beginning and the end.
Before you can start editing, you must log and capture all your shots. Capturing is
done in real time.
While you’re editing, you’re previewing in real time, but when it comes to actually
moving a shot to the timeline, this is done in a blink, by just clicking and dragging the
shot icon. No copying time here. However, once the edit is finished, the program is still
sitting inside the computer, and it must be copied back out onto videotape. Again, this
is done in real time.
With both systems, there are aspects of ‘Hurry up and wait’. The waiting just happens
at different points in the process.

An Overview of the Process

The process of non-linear editing can best be paralleled with using your favourite word
processing program on your computer.
If you haven’t learned to use a word processing
Get computer literate now!
program yet, then learning non-linear editing will
Convergent technology means
be a steeper learning curve, but don’t despair, you’ll
it’s a digital world.
get there.

John Carroll,
The Basic Steps Charles Sturt
University.
1. Log your original footage and decide which shots you’ll digitise.
2. Create a project folder for your work in the non-linear edit system.
3. Capture the relevant and useable video shots into the computer’s storage (hard
drive).
4. Sort your video shots (clips) into bins, by whatever categories are useful to you
(‘exterior shots’, or ‘close-ups’, or ‘shots of people working’).
5. Label your captured shots.
6. Cut and paste the chosen shots (clips). Drop the shots onto the timeline and then
trim and manipulate them there till you have an
edit you’re happy with.
7. After you have locked off (finished) your cut, save First thing to do when you
your EDL (edit decision list) to a computer start a non-linear edit is to
floppy disk, and take it to the on-line suite for look at the tapes. Second thing
finishing, or do your finishing (up-resing) on the to do is log them.Third thing,
non-linear system where you are. look at them again. Fourth Francis
thing is a paper-edit. Fifth and Treacey,
final thing, turn on the Deakin
University.
computer.
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170 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Logging
Logging and capturing takes up It’s important to take the time to create accurate logs
half the editing time. Capturing of your original footage. This is true whether you’ve
has to be done in real time. shot in analog or digital.
Anything in real time slows Shots which are clearly unusable should be
Christine Togo- you up. labelled NG (no good). Shots which are good in
Smallwood, themselves, but not useful for your current project,
Entrepreneurial should be labelled accordingly.
Unit,School of
Indigenous
Be sure to keep accurate records of which tape each clip came from. And your tape
Australian numbering system needs to be compatible with the one used at the on-line suite you’ll
Studies,James finish your project on.
Cook University.

Log your tapes before you go Capturing

into the editing room! Capturing means recording your original images and
sounds onto the computer’s hard drive—that is, its
memory storage place. This process is also known
Peter Giles, as digitising, because it can involve converting analog video to digital. Even some digital
Head of cameras still need to have their signal digitised to be compatible with the edit system
Digital Media,
AFTRS. being used.
You may find that capturing is the longest part of the process for you, because you
have to capture the video in real time—that is, an hour of analog video will take an hour
to capture.
Capture only the material that you might need for your edit. Anything labelled on
your log as NG will only take up valuable storage space if it’s transferred and not used.
As much as possible, break your material into
small segments as you capture it. For instance, you
Continuous timecode on your
might capture each take separately. That way, you
DV tape will save a lot of
can easily delete the material you decide not to use,
headaches when digitising your
to make more room in the computer storage. If you
material during post
capture in big slabs of video, you have to either keep
Harry production.
it all on the hard disk or throw it all out.
Kirchner,
La Trobe
University. BATCH CAPTURING
To capture many shots at once, you log a bunch of
As with the linear edit,
them and then do a batch capture.
familiarity with the footage is
As with anything else to do with computers, it’s
always helpful. If tapes are
advisable to batch capture fairly frequently, say
digitised in their entirety, then
every 20 or 30 minutes. After all, what if you log
knowing the shot order via
Philip Elms, shots for two hours and then the computer freezes?
Media timecode logs and visually
Resource
You will have lost all your work! Believe me, it
allows you to quickly locate
Centre. happens.
them using the play head tool.
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Digital Editing 171

Memory Requirements for Video
To capture many shots at once,
One of the obstacles with the computer interface you can do a batch capture. If
has been the huge memory needed to store video there’s a break in your
images. timecode, you can’t batch
As already discussed, one second of PAL video capture across the break. Rob Davis,
is actually made up of 25 discrete images, called Editor,Digital
frames; and one second of NTSC video is made up Dimensions.
of 30 frames.
Each of these frames, without compression, can
fill just on one megabyte of storage space on a
computer’s hard drive. So 25 megabytes or more of
storage space are needed to save one second of
uncompressed video!
This is why non-linear editing systems may have
120 gigabytes of hard drive storage. More space than
an editor could ever use . . . until the next edit.
Some systems compromise by using only a small
portion of the screen to show the video signal.
Compression is used to reduce the amount of data
needed to convey the information from the frame. Capturing video from a digital camera, using a
This lets you make maximum use of the available firewire.Charles Sturt University, Bathurst, NSW,
storage space on the computer’s hard disk. Australia.

COMPRESSION (DATA BIT REDUCTION)

Different non-linear systems use different compression methods to achieve an efficient
use of the hard disk storage. All data compression systems have several things in common
and the one that affects the user most has to do with the quality of images being stored.
Compression decreases the quality of the image being digitised.
The amount of compression can be selected, based on whether you need low quality
video for off-line editing or high quality video for on-line editing.
You can use greatly compressed video for rough cutting, because the quality of the
signal isn’t so important at the rough cut stage. What is important is that you have access
to a broad range of shots, anything that might possibly be useful to you for your project.
For the fine cut, you can re-digitise the required footage at a lower compression rate.

Don’t get confused here—lower

compression means higher level of detail
Find out anything you can to
and a better quality of image.
do with timecode, the
vectorscope and waveform
At this lower compression rate, each frame will
monitor. Learn the difference
require more storage space. But because you’ve
between dropframe and non Kimberley
made your final edit decisions and have eliminated
dropframe. Brown,
the need for many of the shots which were available Editor/
to you for the rough cut, it shouldn’t be a problem. Camera
Digitising all the final shots at a good quality will demand less storage space from your Operator.

computer’s disk drive than was needed for storing all your lower quality captures for the
rough cut.
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172 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

FRAME REDUCTION
Another method used to reduce the storage space required is to adjust the number of
fields or frames that are digitised per second. Some systems allow the editor to digitise
less than the 25 (or 30) frames in each second of video. This method of saving storage
space does not allow the editor to do frame-accurate editing, because some of the frames
that the editor might want to perform a cut on may not be on the hard drive.
Images digitised in this way will also appear to suffer a loss of detail in any motion.
While some editors may find this acceptable in off-line, it would mean some fine tuning
in the on-line edit.
Frame reduction is probably more useful when editing for the Web than for products
which will be finished to tape or DVD.
Generally, this is not really a desirable way to edit.

DEALING WITH STORAGE SPACE SHORTAGE

You either need to be selective about what you digitise—which means having your shots
well logged before you begin, and only capturing shots which may be useful.
Or you need to have a lot of storage space. Buy more hard drives or get bigger ones
than you already have.
If you’ve shot on analog, it can The price of hard drive storage has dropped
make more sense to rough cut dramatically, so memory is far less of an issue than it
in analog. Once you know the once was. (See Chapter 11, Thanks for the Memory)
shots you’ll be using in your
Kimberley show, then you digitise just Labelling Your Material
Brown, those shots.This saves you time
Editor/Camera and computer memory.Then The edit system will allow you to label all your shots
Operator.
you do the final cut in non- and enter some text as a description.
linear. The descriptive words you choose will help you
find your shots later on, so take care about how you
do your labelling. When you’re searching for all the
shots of Vanessa standing next to the tree, the
program will search the text descriptions you used
as labels and highlight all the shots that match your
search criteria.

CLIPS
Each section of video and audio that you’ve
captured and labelled is referred to as a clip.
Once each clip is labelled, it’s available to be
selected and played independently of any other clip.
Each clip can be a video segment or audio segment,
or a combination of both.

BINS
The D-Vision, XED on-line suite at the Academy of You store your clips in bins. So you decide what
Photogenic Arts, Artarmon, NSW, Australia. categories of shots you want to use in relation to
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Digital Editing 173

your project, and you label each bin accord-
ing to a category. For example, you may
want to put all the shots of a certain location
together, and all the shots of a certain activity
together, or group all the shots of a particular
shot size together.
The decision as to which bin to put a
shot in needn’t be agonising. You can store
a clip in more than one bin without making
much of a dent in the computer storage
available. This is because the computer
stores a clip as merely the in and out points
from your videotape, not the actual digitised #1 The clips available for the edit.
picture itself.

THUMBNAILS (OR TILES)

You can assign a thumbnail (a tiny picture) to
represent each of your shots, so you can
have a whole selection of tiny pictures sitting
on your computer screen ready for you to
begin editing the shots they represent into
the order you choose.
Often the editing program will select the
first frame of a clip as the thumbnail to
represent that clip, but you can override this
and use whatever thumbnail you want. It
could well be that the first few frames of a
shot don’t show you the essential content #2 The screen with the timeline to which you do your editing
of the shot.

DIGITISED MEDIA
Digitised media is the term used to refer to the
stored video images.
Sometimes people get confused between
clips and digitised media. The digitised
media is what takes up the huge amount of
storage space. The clips are merely the in and
out points of the various shots in the
digitised media. In a sense, they’re pointers
for the computer to find the images, but not
the images themselves.
So if you’re asked to delete your material
from the computer and you just delete the #3 The video monitor showing composite video, so you can
clips, the computer will still be burdened check your colours and see the playback images on the full
with the huge file which holds your images. screen.
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174 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

When deleting files, make sure On the other hand, if you delete the digitised
you really know what each file media and save the clips, you’ll have no images for
is, or you could be deleting an the computer to go to.
entire timeline sequence, an
Rob Davis, entire edited program. The Digital Editing Process—How is it
Editor,Digital
Dimensions.
Different?
Imagine that you could have a whole postproduction studio in one machine. That’s
pretty much what digital editing offers. In the old analog suite there was the basic 2-
VCR edit set-up, which you could add to till you had lots of pieces of equipment, all
linked into it, all doing different things.
You could add a titler, so you could put credits on your video. You could add a
vision mixer, so you could do shot transitions like fades, wipes and dissolves. If you
wanted true dissolves from moving images you needed to add a second video player,
and for good control you needed to add an AB roll controller. For extra backgrounds
and special effects you added in a computer, to
If editing for 4:3 from 16:9 handle more complex sound tracks you added an
footage, you can ‘pan and scan’ audio mixer, for rolling in sound from various
in the digital edit system, to sources you needed to connect a tape player, a CD
frame the 4:3 shot however you player, even a record player. Then, to make sure the
want it, or you can set the system was using a stable control track, you could
Richard
Fitzpatrick, system to just ‘centre cut’ by add a timebase corrector. It was a bit like a kid’s
Camera default. But I think that to pan connecting-the-pieces game, but each piece was so
Operator, expensive that every move was a serious one.
Digital and scan within a shot is just
Dimensions. sacrilege. It goes against the If your media centre could only afford to
original artistic side of the upgrade one of the edit suites, students fought to
composition. get into the one with the top gear. Some pretty
awesome antagonisms developed at times, when it
was close to the screening date or the end of
During an edit, learn where the semester. Bribing and jockeying for position weren’t
‘save’ button is and use it every unknown, though in general a first come, first served
5 minutes or so. If the worst rule was applied.
happens, at least you will not With digital editing, all of the image and sound
lose too much work. manipulation functions are incorporated within the
Philip Elms,
Media edit program itself. You just need to get the pictures
Resource and sound into the computer, then it’s amazing
Centre. what you can do with the edit system. Even key effects, like chroma keying, can be done.

The Edit—the Rough Cut

The edited piece you’re working on will be represented on your computer screen by a
timeline, on which the separate, or combined, video and audio components of the
program are viewable as you assemble them.
The available shots will be represented by thumbnails for each clip.
You do the editing by using the same sort of cut and paste techniques you use in a
word processor.
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Digital Editing 175

This means you cut the shot from the available Non-linear allows you to
source material by clicking on the drop icon for the shuffle images endlessly; it is
clip you want. Then you drag it across the screen not an intelligent life source, it
to the place on the timeline where you want the does not think, therefore it
shot to occur, and then unclick the mouse to paste does not edit, you do. Francis
the icon to that place. Treacey,
When you’re working out a sequence, you can Deakin
manipulate the shots into a chosen order, and then the computer screen can show you University.

what the sequence would look like. At this point you’re not committing images to tape.
You’re seeing a preview, computer style.
You’re playing back a sequence of shots from your media files in real time. But
nothing is being cut or joined. All the material still remains as it was initially saved on
the hard drive.
As you cut and paste you’re creating a new
version of your edit, in any order you feel is right Figure out what your pain
at that moment, for better or worse. If you find it’s threshold is—how many
for worse, then just dump it. Your original material hours/minutes of work could
is unaffected. you bear to re-do? Then use an
On some systems you have an undo command. alternating back-up system; Jason
Using that will take you back to how your edit was save to disk A, next time to disk Wheatley,
one command previously. If you have multiple undos, B, then to disk A again, so any Educational
Media,AFTRS.
you can keep going back and back till you get to file corruption won’t wipe your
the last place where you were happy with your project out.
work. If your edit system will display a history of the
decisions (commands) you’ve been making, you
don’t have to go back one step at a time, but just
look through the history list till you find where you If you do something you’re
want to get to, and you can go there in one click. really excited about, save it
Breathtaking, eh? immediately.
You can rearrange the images again and again
till you have what you want. Each time you choose Fiona Strain,
a shot, the computer stores the new in-point and out-point data in a file (an EDL or edit Editing
decision list) which can later be used as your cutting script. Department,
AFTRS.
A major advantage with non-linear editing is
that you can see a preview of a whole series of shots,
The thing about Final Cut Pro
whereas on analog video edit systems, you can
editing is that you can have
preview only one shot at a time. This is a big change.
multiple video tracks.You can
If you’re unsure which edited version you like
place various cutaways in the
best, maybe feeling that two or three versions have
same timeline spot, and then Christine Togo-
merit, any number of shot sequences can be saved
play each version till you Smallwood,
to files without affecting the original material. Entrepreneurial
decide which one you want.
Then you can call up your various possibilities Unit,School of
You can even leave several Indigenous
at any time. They’ll be there on tap to show your
there, and by a method of Australian Studies,
editing partners, when they return from that James Cook
locking and unlocking tracks
inexplicably lengthy coffee break. University.
you can have different versions
Non-linear rough cutting makes the shot
simultaneously saved.
assembling side of editing move much faster.
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176 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Digital editing is faster and But like all good software, the output is only
easier, but the creative process as good as the person using it. The creative side
is still the same as working in of the edit is still up to you.
analog. Like all artistic processes,
Christine Togo- it’s still labour intensive.
Smallwood,
Entrepreneurial
Unit,School of
Indigenous
Australian Studies,
James Cook
University.

Non-linear edit suite at Macquarie University, North Ryde, NSW, Australia.(Photo by Mario Bianchino)

Don’t be too hasty to start an Human Care

edit session—check your step Just in case you didn’t read Chapter 9 on analog
preferences before you begin editing, I’ll repeat this one thought:
and save angst later! Editing is exhausting, especially when you’re a
George beginner. If you stay in the edit room too long,
Karpathakis, you’re likely to start feeling weird effects, like
Edith Cowan
University. headache, nausea and the sense that your brain has
been scrambled.
Four-hour editing sessions are long enough,
Take a break! until your system gets used to it. For some people,
four hours will always be pushing the limits of
what they can stand. Plan your editing sessions
according to what your body tells you, and not just
what the facility will allow.
Rob Davis,
Editor,Digital Also, take care to sit as far from the monitors
Dimensions. as you can, so you don’t get a dose of radiation.
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Digital Editing 177

Final Cut
With non-linear editing, the distinction between the
rough cut and the fine cut tends to disappear. You Accurate logging, well-labelled
can use the non-linear system to finalise your edit, tapes and an off-line edit will
complete with music and effects. So if your project assist in saving money and
will be finished on your non-linear system, then the time in an expensive on-line
rough cut simply becomes the fine cut when you suite. Philip Elms,
decide to stop manipulating things. Media
Resource
But if you’re going to use a postproduction Centre.
house for your fine cut, non-linear systems produce
cutting lists and EDLs which are frame perfect.
Some non-linear edit systems will auto capture
your material for the fine cut. You just put each of
your camera original tapes into the connected VCR,
and the computer will take over the motion control
of the playback machine, and extract each specific
segment required by your EDL. Nice, eh?
You would take the EDL to a postproduction
suite if you need effects which your non-linear
system can’t do.
Ben Lay and Serge Golikov operate the online suite
at the Australian Film Television and Radio School.
Making the Process Clear
In order to teach video editing, lecturers and
technicians develop instruction sheets which relate
not just to the editing software the unit has A good tape is a finished tape.
committed to, but also to the little quirks and
idiosyncracies of their media centre. These sheets are laborious to write, as is anything
to do with operating computers. You just can’t miss out a single step, or the process will
founder. Hsing Min
A well-written sheet can help a student through the initial morass of learning editing, Sha,
Independent
and save the trainer some repetitive explanations, as long as the student is willing to Producer.
learn from written words.

With the price of the software going down, the concept of having people buying their
own software and editing at home is catching on.They just turn in their finished product.
This will cut down on the number of people who use the studio for editing, but it will also
reduce the social connections among producers (which I personally think are critical) but it
allows people to edit at any time of the day or night, not just when the access centre is Barbara
open. It’s the next phase of public access television! Bishop,
Independent
Producer.

So in the interests of you spending less time re-inventing the wheel, and more on
quality time with your students or on your own video project, get some help and training
sheets from Harry Kirchner’s site, which is: <<www.latrobe.edu.au/videotips>>
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178 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

How do Edit Systems Vary?

Digital edit systems use the image of a timeline for you to edit to, so you get an actual
graphic representation of where your shot sits in the edit sequence. If you take a shot
out of the sequence, all the other shots can be made to shuttle along to fill up the vacancy
(as we always used to wish they would) or the space can be altered to be larger or smaller
for a new shot to fit in.
To move a shot into the timeline, you just click on it and drag it to the timeline on
the screen, and insert it where you want it to go. It’s all very visual. No more stomach-
lurching pre-rolls, no more slipped frames in editing.
One of the neat things about some digital editing systems is that you can do minor
adjustments to the length of a shot which were never possible before. So say you need
your shot to last just an eensy bit longer, you can stretch it out a bit. You also have the
option of compressing it.
A great feature of Final Cut Pro is that you can have multiple video tracks. Why on
earth would you want that, you ask? After all, you’re only making one visual. But are
you? Imagine you lay down a bedtrack of an interview. That’s fine. That’s the normal
way to start an edit. Then you want to add some cutaways to hide the edit points where
you deleted material from the interview.
Instead of erasing your speaker’s image in order to insert the cutaways, you can put
them on another video track which sits on the screen right above the first one. Then you
can start a third track and put on a different series of cutaways. When your client comes
to view the progress you’ve made, you can lock and unlock the additional video tracks,
allowing you to show the version with the first set of cutaways, the version with the
second set of cutaways, and still have the original bedtrack undisturbed if the client
doesn’t like anything you’ve done. (Sniff!)
Final Cut Pro allows up to 99 video tracks on which you can have all manner of
transitions and alternative sequences. The disadvantage is that all that locking and
unlocking of tracks can get confusing!

Tapeless Storage
Digital storage systems are constantly getting better. If you have access to the equipment
to have your entire video project stored in digital form, you can skip saving it to videotape.
(Still, you’ll probably want to make a copy on tape to play on your home VCR.)
Once you’ve completed your edit, you should
Output more than one master always store your EDL and clip files on floppy disks.
tape on multiple formats from Then you can delete your digitised media files. If
the non-linear edited program. you need to run the video again, you can re-digitise
Each master will be of the the original video footage, and the computer can
highest quality possible and put the program all together again.
Philip Elms,
Media saves dubbing sub masters later However, if you’ve used any composited
Resource if needed. images, graphics or animations, they’ll be lost if you
Centre. dump your digital media files, because they weren’t
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Digital Editing 179

part of your original video footage. In this case, you should store these images on a high
capacity digital back-up system.
If you can burn DVDs, save all your media and your edits that way.

Tapeless Distribution
The most practical way to distribute your product is via DVD. A DVD is lightweight,
it takes up very little space on the shelf, it’s robust and it’s easy to mail.
The only thing is, will your client or audience own a DVD player? If you can’t answer
yes here, you might as well send a pie plate.
Moving to the the ethereal type of distribution, you can post your video to a website,
or send a digitised image along the Internet, and the person who receives it, perhaps on
the other side of the world, can play it back on their computer screen, sound and all.
Though the downloading time for video is still considerable, things are quickly getting
better.
A whole new concept of broadcasting is emerging. It’s no longer just the TV stations
that can send a signal out to millions!

Thanks to Jim Tumeth, Jason Wheatley, Phillippa Harvey and Rob Davis for
their help in the preparation of this chapter.
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Chapter

13 Editing
Techniques
Producing Videos
Editing Techniques

How often have you been watching a TV show when someone has
I exclaimed, ‘The editing is fantastic!’
Probably not very often. Maybe never. People notice great camera work, they get
drawn into a captivating story line, they like exciting soundtracks . . . but good editing,
even great editing, often goes unnoticed.
Good editing, like good sewing, appears seamless. The material flows fluidly before
the eyes, one scene into the next, and the viewer is unconscious of the shot changes,
unless they’re deliberately attention-getting.
A good way to begin noticing shots and shot changes is to turn the sound down
completely on your TV and just watch the visuals. Without the soundtrack propelling
you along, you’ll be able to pay much more attention to the length of the shots, the
types of shots used, the points at which the shots change, and the kind of changes
employed. In fact, you may start to notice the editing for the first time (and you’ll never
be so visually innocent again).

VHS edit suite,

Media Resource
Centre, Adelaide, SA,
Australia.
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Editing Techniques 181

Through editing, time is manipulated to encompass a span of minutes, hours, days
or longer (sometimes millennia in space odysseys!) within a short sequence of shots.
And yet the meaning remains comprehensible and we accept it without question. Why?
There are certain picture signals which over the years have come to have accepted
meanings for audiences. The erudite way to talk about this is to refer to the conventions
of screen language.
No-one needs to tell you that a fade to black, followed by a fade up to another
image, indicates either the passage of time or a change of location. Through repeated
use, the fade has come to mean a break, or disjuncture, in time and space.
Editors make use of the accepted conventions of screen language to assist them in
telling their stories. With the exception of sports and incredibly hot-breaking news stories,
viewers just don’t have time to watch screen stories in real time.
So time shortening is one of the major functions of editing.

Time Manipulation
Jump cuts
If an editor simply chops out sections of footage of an event, the result is a jump cut. The
person on the screen is suddenly in a different position from where he or she was a
milli-second ago. Though what is being said on the soundtrack may make sense, the
viewer will experience a momentary visual disturbance, because in our real-life experience
people don’t make lightning rearrangements of their posture or their position in space.

If you cut from this . . . to this . . . to this, your speaker will appear to
jump through his talk.
Dan Dow discusses a car scene for a film.

If these three shots are edited together, the viewer will see the speaker appear to
jump from one shot to the next.
Now the truth is that with most interviews, the editor must shorten a person’s
responses to a handful of their most relevant sentences. So a half-hour of rambling
becomes two minutes or less of succinct commentary.
The editor does this by removing all the waffle. The best sentences are selected and
assembled into a coherent sequence of thoughts, but this often results in a series of visual
jumps at the edit points.
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182 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Though sometimes jump cuts are allowed to be shown in late breaking news stories,
they’re generally considered to look jarring and unprofessional.

Noddies
It’s acceptable style in news work and current affairs to acknowledge the presence of the
interviewer. This makes the editor’s job easier.
The audience understands the interviewer’s role as twofold: asking the right questions
and reacting to the answers. So the camera operator is instructed to tape the interviewer
asking at least the key questions and then some noddies (reaction shots) showing the
interviewer reacting to the comments of the person being questioned. Reaction shots
usually include smiles, thoughtful expressions, quizzical looks, sometimes sceptical looks
or surprise, and nods which indicate general agreement or a signal to the person to
continue speaking.

Use a noddy to get smoothly from the first shot of your interviewee to the second.Jacqueline Antoinette is interviewed
by Rachael Crinks at AFTRS.

The trick is that for efficiency’s sake, ordinary

When shooting noddies, check
interviews are usually covered with only one
that your eye lines and screen
camera, so the questions and the reaction shots are
direction are correct.
taped after the interview has ended, and often after
the VIP has left the room.
Julie Booras, Until a presenter becomes used to pumping out these visual artefacts, or noddies, it’s
Offspring
Productions. easy to feel silly sitting and smiling and nodding to a camera which has been repositioned
behind the interviewee’s empty chair.
But forced or ridiculous as the process may seem, noddies give the editor a variety
of shots to cover the jump cuts at the necessary edit points, and allow the edited sequence
to flow along rather than to hobble. When the viewer has the experience of looking
away to the interviewer and then looks back at the VIP, it’s no surprise to see a head
tilted at a different angle or an arm in a different position. The jolt is gone.
Note: Directors must make sure that the presenter’s eyeline is correctly oriented to
where the face of the interviewee was during the taping session, or the noddies will be
unconvincing to the audience.
Also, care should be taken that the questions are repeated exactly as they were asked
during the interview, and that any additional questions which were not on the planned
interview script but were thrown in on the spur of the moment, are remembered and
re-asked.
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Editing Techniques 183

Cutaways
A cutaway is any visual which bears some relationship to the sequence being edited.
Cutaways are used to illustrate what the interviewee or commentator is saying, or
to cover an edit point which would otherwise be a jump cut. They’re useful for shortening
the length of a scene because they shift the viewer’s attention to something else, and
when the editor cuts back to the original scene, real time can be accepted to have passed.
Noddies are a particular type of cutaway, but the options seem endless. For example,
in an edit of a person speaking about the environment, cutaways could include shots of
the bush, rivers, the sea, wildlife, traffic, buildings, the sky, and so on.
The more relevant and high quality the cutaways,
the better the edited sequence will look. Steady
camera work (involving the use of a tripod) is
desirable.
Generally, people want to shoot their own
cutaways on location to go with their story. But in a
pinch someone else, or a stock footage supplier, may
have a good usable shot.
Because viewers assume a link between the
soundtrack and the cutaways, there are ethical
considerations in using cutaways. It’s unfair to throw
in a shot which alters the meaning of the story being
told, unless it’s clear to the viewer that the edit is not You’ll need cutaways to edit an interview down to its
a faithful account. This is why TV broadcasters are best points.Michelle Blakeney interviews mothers in
supposed to label and date stock footage when they a schoolyard in Ginghong, China, for Dai Women
drop it into a fresh news story. Speak.(Photo by Gill Moody)

Cut-ins
A cut-in is a closer look at something which is within the scene being shown. It could
be a close-up of an object, a hand performing an action, or a vase of flowers on an
elegant table setting—anything which is a detail from the wider shot.
It’s used in the same way as a cutaway, allowing time to be shortened by focusing
the viewer’s eye on a finer point, while the editor adjusts the scene or removes footage
from the shot material and returns to the story at a different point in time.

If you use a cut-in to a smaller part of the frame, you can cut back out to a different shot.Luke Barrowcliffe teaches how
to mix music, School of Indigenous Australian Studies, James Cook University,Townsville, Qld, Australia.
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184 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Exit and Entrance

Another way to shorten time without a jump cut is to have the actor fully leave the
frame during a shot, then cut to a different scene and have the actor enter the new one.
Almost any amount of time or space can be eradicated, as long as an exit and entrance
are clearly shown.
For example, a surfer lifts her board and walks
The best way to learn how to out of the water and out of frame. In the next shot
shoot is to have to edit your the surfer is getting into a car. Whether she’s leaving
own stuff. a nearby parking lot or has just hiked 300 steep steps
up a cliff, the time is equally gone, yet the story
Martha thread is intact.
Mollison, But, exit and entrance shots work only if the footage was shot that way in the first
Video
Producer. place, and our surfer exits leaving a clean frame or enters into a clean frame. Getting the
screen direction to match is a help too.
So the choices available in the edit suite hark back to the skill of the director.

Parallel Action
When two characters in two different places are shown alternately in an edited sequence,
two aspects of the story can be developed at once and the switching from one to the
other works for the editor the same way that a cutaway does. Great chunks of time and
action can be eliminated through the use of parallel action.
So:
Long Shot (LS): Semi-trailer zipping down the highway on a rainy night, past
the turn-off for Port Hedland.
Dissolve to Close-up (CU): Truck driver rubbing his eye.
Midshot (MS): Young woman tucks small child into bed.
Midshot (MS): Truck driver lifts mug of coffee in roadside cafe in Broome.
Medium Close-up (MCU): Young woman in nightdress stares out window at
blowing trees.

The truck driver has travelled more than 100 km in five shots, and we’ve travelled
the distance between him and his home twice.

Establishing Shots
An establishing shot is a fairly wide shot which shows the viewer the general surroundings
in which the characters find themselves. It can be the very first shot used in an edited
sequence, to let the audience get oriented to the overall setting and understand the action
within its broader context.
Sometimes the establishing shot is used later in a sequence, when the aim is to
tantalise the viewer as to where the action is taking place, or give a jolt or surprise. This
works well with suspense and comedy.
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Editing Techniques 185

Master Shot Coverage

One day in the edit suite you may feel like the old-timer informing the tourist, ‘You can’t
get there from here . . .’
Sometimes there are essential bits of footage
Like good camera work,
which just weren’t shot. Or there’s a continuity
editing should be invisible, so
problem, so the shots which were supposed to go
the viewer can concentrate on
together just can’t be linked. Then it’s handy to have
the story.
a long shot which is a master shot showing the
entire action from the viewpoint of an outside Marc
Tewksbury,
observer. This can be used to bridge the gaps. The Nine
It’s another example of how successful editing relies heavily on well-planned coverage Video School.
on the day of the shoot.

Visual Transitions
A shot transition is the way an editor makes the change
from one shot to the next. The type of shot transition
chosen is related to the style of the piece being cut.

Straight Cut
A cut, as its name implies, is when the picture is
entirely changed from one shot to the next. (It’s a
term from film technique, where editors do literally
cut the film between frames and then attach the next
shot to where the cut was made.) Caroline Gee and Amber Sloan at A/B roll edit suite,
A cut is the transition the camera produces when RMIT, Melbourne,Vic, Australia.
you go in and out of pause mode, and the transition
the edit system makes when you do standard editing. A basic no-frills edit suite, which
can’t do any other shot transitions, is called a straight-cut edit suite. In most productions,
the vast majority of shot transitions are cuts.
If the cut is technically okay it won’t flip at the edit point (flip means roll upward
once, as if there’s a problem with the vertical hold adjustment on the monitor), or flash
or otherwise jump. If it does flip, it will always flip and you should edit it again.
The cut should be fine if both VCRs are able to get into sync with each other before
the edit happens. Some edit systems will self-monitor so if the VCRs aren’t in sync, the
system will pre-roll again, up to two more times, trying to get the timing right. After
three tries, if the VCRs still can’t ‘lock up’ their timing, they’ll just stop. If that happens,
you should try other edit points.
If the change in brightness from one shot to the next is very dramatic, like going
from a really dark scene to a very bright one, the edit point may jolt the viewer. In that
case it’s best to change the edit points if possible to make the change less stark. Unless,
of course, you want to make a point by emphasising the contrast.
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186 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Transitions Using Two Sources

In analog editing, other types of shot transitions require the use of either an effects unit
or an A/B roll set-up, which means that the edit system has two players (source machines).
To do these visual transitions, both shots need to be played simultaneously.

Fade
A fade is when the picture information gradually disappears, leaving a blank screen. Most
often people use a fade to black, but in many systems it’s possible to fade to white, or
any other colour. The fade to black is frequently used at the end of a production.
It’s also possible to fade up from a black, white or coloured screen. One use of this
transition is for opening shots.
The fade to black followed by a fade up to a new shot is understood to mean the
passage of time or a change of place.
Fades can be taped in-camera by using the fade function or by simply closing down
the manual iris or reopening it. Many simple edit controllers will also do a fade to black.

Dissolve (Mix)
A dissolve is when one whole picture fades away while another whole picture is appearing.
At the halfway point, or mid-dissolve, both pictures are visible at half-strength. At the
end point, the first picture is gone and the second one is full-strength on the screen.
A dissolve between two moving shots can only be done on a system which allows
two active video signals to be input at the same time. In analog editing, this requires
two playback VCRs to be in use, one for each tape segment.
This set-up is commonly referred to as A/B roll, meaning that tape A is rolling on one
machine and tape B is rolling on the other.
Many people have two playback VCRs but have only basic-level mixing equipment
and don’t have a controller which can synchronise the two playback VCRs. They manage
to do dissolves by rehearsing the timing on both VCRs, practising till they can get both
tapes rolling in the right relation to each other, and sliding the fader knob on the mixer
at the right point so the dissolve happens at a satisfactory place in the footage.
Another basic-equipment trick is to dissolve between a freeze-frame grabbed from
a tape and a moving image from the same tape.
But for very accurate dissolves (without a
The dissolve is so accessible on psychotic episode) it’s necessary to have an edit
non-linear editing that students controller that controls both the A roll and the B roll
resort to it too frequently and VCRs, so the editor can preview and execute the
have all but lost the sense of edits with precision.
Tom how to make an effective In order to get the highest quality results,
Kingdon, straight cut.The cut is still the dissolves need to be planned before the material is
Emerson strongest and most versatile shot. This is so the shots which will be dissolved
College.
transition and, unless you are together have been originally recorded on different
working with music or want to tapes, so they can both be edited from first
achieve a specific effect (like the generation footage.
passing of time), you should use As a general rule, people put the footage that’s
it 99 per cent of the time. central to the final edited piece on the A roll tape, and
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Editing Techniques 187

the cutaway footage, which is likely to be dissolved An editor is concerned with
to, on the B roll tape. But any other dissolves the the flow of the program, the
editor is planning, possibly from one cutaway to pace, rhythm and timing.
another, should have their shots allocated to specific
record tapes before the shoot, and the camera
Phillippa
operator needs direction about when to change from one tape to another. Harvey,
Dissolves are often done live, in a studio or OB van situation, where it’s possible to Editing
use a vision mixer during the shoot. One of the advantages of recording them live is that Department,
AFTRS.
it’s easier to compare the shots when you can see the framing of both cameras at once,
and the preview monitor lets you check if the dissolve looks right before you commit
it to tape. You also end up with all your footage on one tape.
Dissolves are often used in dance and music pieces and in some transitions in drama.
The speed of the dissolve affects the overall mood and flow of the piece.

Wipe
A wipe is when one full-strength image is progressively replaced by another full-strength
image. The second image may appear at the left of screen or the right, the top, the
bottom, the middle, or in several places at once. It then takes over the screen by following
some geometric pattern. Simple mixers do basic wipes, like left to right (and reverse),
top to bottom (and reverse) and centre out (and reverse). Some mixers allow for over a
hundred different wipe patterns.
Other variations are: the edge of the wipe can be made hard or soft; there can be a
border at the edge, which can have a colour to it, and the border can be wide or thin;
on the fancier mixers the edge can be made to move in waves, and the height and
frequency of the waves can be adjusted.
Wipes are often used on game shows, children’s programs and advertising. Some
people love them, some hate them. It’s a question of style.

Pace
The pace of a piece relates to the speed with which the audience moves through the
material. Some programs benefit from a brisk pace, with short shots, many shot changes
and lots of action on the screen. Other pieces call for a more gentle, even languid pace,
lengthy shots and slow dissolves.
Pace can also change within a piece, and often
that car chase at the end of an action feature has Editing gives your work
much faster cuts than the character development rhythm; this is measured in
scenes at the beginning. heart beats, not frames.
Pace is a feature of editing, but like almost
everything else, it relies on the right footage having Cameron
been shot in the first place. How can an editor produce a one-minute car chase scene, Rose,Video
with a shot change every two seconds (yes, divide two into 60 seconds), unless the field Art Society,
University of
footage includes 30 good shots? Since not all shots are good, and not all good ones will Tasmania.
be usable, considerably more than 30 shots need to be taped. Directors take note.
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188 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Creative Considerations
BY SARA BENNETT
Once you get familiar with the basics of editing, the process will change from being an
activity which is governed by concerns about ‘Which button do I push next?’ and you’ll
feel ready to move on to the next challenge.
With basic cutting experience behind you, and more complex material available to
you, the process can become quite exciting, creative and satisfying. Some people say
that it’s the second chance to ‘write the story’, only this time it’s with pictures and sounds.
And, just as with writing, editing is often a long,
Planning pays off. Don’t be a slow process where a small change of emphasis
bull at the gate.Think before makes a very big difference.
you cut and even then don’t be It’s always revealing when a group of students
surprised if other members of is given the same five shots which contain the same
the creative team can think of two lines of dialogue and see how many variations
Sara
Bennett, other/better ways of doing it. they come up with. Multiply that a few hundred
Editing That’s editing! times and you’ll see why it can take six months to
Department, a year to edit a feature film! So you should never
AFTRS.
think that your first cut, called the rough cut, is the
final cut. It’s always worth trying to think of other ways of using the material, other
ways of telling the story.

Audio Transitions
The audio track often unifies the edited piece, providing the information backbone of
the story to which the pictures refer, or, in the case of MTV, the musical engine on which
the images ride.
Though in the field the sound is recorded along with the picture, the relationship of
the two is often altered during editing. There are various techniques for linking the audio
and the video.

Video Precedes Audio

Video precedes audio means that the picture starts first, and then the related sound begins.
So you could see a shot of a person talking, while you hear the voiceover introducing
who the person is, and then you begin to hear the words the person is actually saying.

Audio Precedes Video

Audio precedes video means that you hear the sound first, and then you see the pictures
related to the sound.
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Editing Techniques 189

So you might be watching a presenter talk about an arts festival, and while she’s still
speaking you begin to hear some music softly playing in the background. As she finishes
the music becomes louder and then the picture changes to the dance piece which she
was introducing.
To have the music begin while the presenter is still speaking, you need to record the
presenter’s words on one audio track and the music on the other track. You can’t mix
music into a track which has already been recorded on—as soon as you go into record
mode, you erase what was there before.
However, with an audio mixer you can combine the voiceover and the music and
then send that mixed signal to the record VCR so it’s all on one track, if that’s what you
want to do. It takes patience and skill to get it all right in a live mix.

Rolling-in the Audio

Of course, the simplest thing is to have the sound
and picture begin together at the edit point. One
good trick to know is about rolling-in the audio.
If the sound is fairly loud on the audio you’re
editing in, sometimes it will sound too abrupt at the
edit-in point or come in slightly distorted at the start
of the edit. So what you do is turn down the audio
record level on the record VCR, let the edit begin and
then rotate the audio record level knob (either quickly
or slowly) till you get to the end level you want, thus
rolling-in the sound.

Fading the Audio In or Out Jessica Gould and Camilla Havmoller at the School of
Other times it works well to have the audio record Film, Media and Cultural Studies, Griffith University,
level on the record VCR set at zero, and then fade Brisbane, Qld, Australia.
the sound up from silence after the cut begins and
the picture is on screen, again by rotating the audio record level knob while in record
mode.
It’s also nice at times to fade the sound out, by turning the audio record level knob
back to zero before the edit ends.
In either case, you must do the audio fade during the edit. You can’t tone the sound
down later.

Shooting Ratios
The shooting ratio is the relationship between how much footage you shoot and how
much footage is used in the final edited product.
With pre-scripted and rehearsed material, like drama or training tapes, the shooting
ratio should be fairly low, like 6:1. This means you may do several takes of a shot, but
you know what shots to do. For a one-hour piece, you shouldn’t have much more than
six hours of raw footage, if that.
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190 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

With less predictable genres, like documentary, the shooting ratio can be as high
as 20:1.
Take care not to wildly overshoot. Having heaps of vaguely conceived footage is a
logging and editing nightmare.

If you are asking me if I think

you should leave a shot out of
Editing Tips
the edit, then you already know • Be ruthless in your edit decisions. Don’t ever
the answer: cut it! edit a poor shot into a final product. It brings
Francis down the tone of your work very quickly. A
Treacey,
Deakin
few wobbly, out-of-focus, or wrongly white-
University. balanced shots will make your product look
amateurish, no matter how good the rest of
That sunrise shot you spent your shots are.
three hours setting up for might • Let go of things. Don’t include a shot because
look fantastic, but if it doesn’t it’s your favourite, or because it took you
end up serving the film as a forever to do. Use it only if it works.
Harry whole, you might have to grit • Cut concisely. Let the shot speak and then
Kirchner, your teeth and be prepared to move to the next one. Shots which drag on
La Trobe leave it on that virtual cutting dull the flow.
University.
room floor. • Don’t cut into or out of a partially completed
pan, tilt or zoom. Let the camera movement
run its full course.
• Don’t put too many camera movements close together unless you’re serving motion
sickness tablets to your audience.
• Take care that the two audio tracks don’t fight each other. Usually a song with words
can’t co-exist with commentary or dialogue. And music which is too loud will easily
drown out the voice track.
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Chapter

14 Digital
Effects
Producing Videos
Digital Effects

Have you ever watched a ‘The Making of . . .’ show on TV and been

I fascinated by how the actors flipped and flew around, or by how things
exploded, or by how creatures morphed and melted into liquid mercury puddles?
The technology to digitise picture information has opened doors to all kinds of
manipulation of the inherent image data. Once converted to a series of ones and zeros,
pictures can be squeezed, expanded, distorted, re-sized, copied and composited with
other pictures. Elements can be extracted from one background and added to another.
A whole medley of individual elements from separate sources can come together within
one frame.
Elements can be produced solely within
From our small Internet
computer graphics programs and then mixed in with
monitors to the huge
others that have been recorded by a camera, so
multiplex cinema screens,
creatures that never were can chase real people
we’re bombarded by fantastic
through landscapes which originated in some
imagery. After you’ve been Rob Davis,
designer’s head.
editing for a while, you wonder Editor,Digital
It’s great to watch, and lots of people think it Dimensions.
if you can do similar things,
would be great to do.
and by experimenting you
Although it’s still pricey, there are computer
succeed in creating Hollywood-
programs available for schools and even home users
style effects in a smaller
to get into digital effects in a pretty substantial way.
way. Soon you realise that
Here’s a bit of a breakdown to help you get your
putting shots in order is only
head around what processes are encompassed in
one part of telling a story.
the overarching term digital effects. This list isn’t
complete and it may become out of date quickly
(ah, the frustration of publishing books in this field!). Still, it may point you in a direction
which will yield some good results down the track—it’s just that you have to do the
hard yards.
The major separation of approach and technology seems to be between 2-D and 3-D.
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192 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

2-D
2-D means two dimensions, which means flat stuff. Height and width only. Well, there’s
nothing new here to video people—we’ve been working in 2-D all along.
There are three general categories of 2-D work: painting, compositing and digital video
effects (DVEs).

Painting
Paint techniques allow you to generate and manipulate flat images on screen. In paint
programs you can work with:

Titles and Graphics

You can do such things as:
1. Generate titles (words) on the screen.
2. Animate titles—make them follow pathways across the screen, in all kinds of
directions, at different speeds and at different rates of acceleration and deceleration.
3. Flip titles around, making them merge together, making them dance.
4. Generate graphics like logos, little flat characters, vehicles, structures . . . line graphics;
animate these line graphics (elements).
5. Import images into your video from other video footage, from digital stills and from
other graphics sources like photographs, artwork and maps; manipulate these images,
add to them, subtract from them, distort them, multiply (clone) them, merge them,
explode them . . . the list goes on.

You need to design titles that Matte Creation

work in both 16:9 and 4:3 This is where a live action character is shot against
aspect ratios, as both ratios are a blue screen and keying is used to create a matte
currently broadcast. so that you can combine this person with a different
Peter Giles, background. (Rotoscoping or rotasplining—
Head of commonly referred to in many software packages— should be mainly used for fine
Digital Media,
AFTRS. touch-up work to clean mattes and edges.)
This also means you can select an element out of a picture, such as removing your
friend from a background, and inserting that person into another background.
You can take a number of people/creatures from various sources and put them all together
in one invented landscape.
Conversely, computer-generated characters can find their way into real environments,
too. You’ve seen those dinosaurs.

Cel Animation
Entire video movies can be constructed frame by frame from 2-D drawings in computer
graphics programs.
First, you do the line work for the key frames, and check that the pictures and motions
you’ve drawn look right and are working correctly.
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Digital Effects 193

There is a range of specialist Peter Giles,

Head of
software for cel animation Digital Media,
which is really designed to AFTRS.
register scans of drawings (so
they all line up) and to
complete various parts of the
animation process. Cel
animation packages include
Retas Pro, Toons and
Animation Stand.

Anna Fraser, digital media student,

uses a Wacom Tablet to control a
graphics program, AFTRS.

Then, you draw the in betweens, which are all those other frames which make up the
25 (or 30) frames per second, so that the characters move smoothly through your invented
world. Then you go back and colour them all in, using ink and paint.
You’d want to have a team working on it!

Paint Programs
There are programs used by the big movie Peter Giles,
Digital video’s all about
production houses, and there are programs which Head of
compression.The more Digital Media,
can be used on fast home computers. These
compression you have, the AFTRS.
programs have digital paint modules:
more image degradation you’ll
• High end get, especially when applying
From Discreet: Flame; Smoke; Inferno digital effects.The more
From Quantel: Henry; Edit Box; QEdit Pro processes you apply to an
image the more artefacts will
• Desktop
appear.
Discreet Combustion
Adobe Photoshop
Procreate Painter
Pinnacle Commotion

Compositing
Compositing has to do with image layering, and the integration of separate images into
a whole picture.
Each image (element) sits on a separate graphics layer—like on clear plastic sheets
in the physical world—and you digitally pile them on top of each other so all the elements
show through to the top and come together to make one final integrated picture.
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194 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Not saving regularly is a

Title Graphics and Promos
guaranteed strategy to make You know how words and images can be
your computer crash. superimposed over video footage. It’s common for
advertisements for large chain stores, for example,
Jeff Bodmer- to have a basic shell (or doughnut) which shows
Turner, their shop or logo, and on top of that the local TV station editor puts in the price of
Manchester groceries and other items for each week.
Memorial
School.
CGI/Live Action Integration
The technology is secondary to
the message. A lot of this is about placing a digital character into
a live action scene.
Of course, care has to be taken to ensure the
actors and their computer-generated companions are all correctly positioned for the
Steven
Parris, composited picture. Simple things like the wrong eyeline or a slightly wrong body
Edmonds- orientation can break the illusion that the invented character is actually in the physical
Woodway space.
High School.
Shadows and lighting effects are used to assist in the impression of substance, so
the viewers can believe that the characters are really within the computer-generated scene.
Even the way a character would break the rays of
light present while moving through a scene has to
You’ll never get a perfect be considered and allowed for. For example, a
chroma key on lower-end person walking through the forest in the filtered rays
systems because of the of the setting sun would be breaking those light rays
compression ratios.You need to as they passed along, in addition to casting a
Richard go to DigiBeta to get really crisp shadow. And wouldn’t soft items, like bushes and
Fitzpatrick, images in chroma key. flowers, move slightly when a character passes
Camera
Operator, them? To say nothing of the whole earth trembling
Digital as a dinosaur walks into a valley!
Dimensions.

Digital Visual Effects

Digital visual effects (DVEs) is the accepted term used for effects which are computer
generated in postproduction, often by compositing. Any effects which are originated
within the camera at the time of shooting are called special effects or SFX.

Sources for software

• High end
Discreet Flame, Inferno
Quantel Henry Infinity
Apple Shake
• Desktop
Adobe After Effects
Discreet Combustion
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Digital Effects 195

Editing
Editing means combining image sequences (video) over time.

Cuts and Dissolves

These are the standard shot transitions which were available in analog editing as well.
A cut is a cut is a cut.
But with dissolves, doing them digitally allows you to try out several speeds, one
after the other, and then you can decide on the one you prefer and execute it.

Other Video Transitions

Edit systems come with a swag of shot transitions, some quite eyecatching. These flash
across our TV screens with every updated software package the broadcasters can get in.
Because of this, some of them tend to date the look of your video product, but choices
in transition effects come down to the overall style of your program and what you and
your client (and audience) want.

Sources for Software

• High end
Softimage DS
Discreet Smoke
AVID
Quantel Editbox
• Desktop
Edit
Media 100
Final Cut Pro
Adobe Premiere Students from the Bachelor of Screen Production in
Digital Media shoot a QuickTime Virtual Reality
Do You Believe in the Power of the Pix-ies? panorama. These panoramas, together with
animation, graphics and linear video, are used to
As you know, digital video is made up of discrete create interactive videospaces. Carolyn Harris,
units of information, and the basic unit is the pixel. Jessica Gould and Camilla Havmoller, Griffith
On normal screens, pixels are so numerous, and University, Brisbane, Qld, Australia.(Photo by
individual pixels so small, that we don’t really notice Bernadette Flynn)
them. They’re below our vision threshold except
when viewed on a very large screen.
Students can draw on ideas of
Whether you can see them individually or not,
docospace, gamespace and
they’re there and doing what they do best—
portrait space to explore the
glowing. As a group, they give us the light, dark and
ideas of the screen as a
colour data which our minds convert into images
navigable exploratory world to Bernadette
with meaning.
be published on CD-R or Flynn,Griffith
Digital video standard CCIR 601 is for rectangular University.
DVD-R.
pixels. The resolution of that image is 720 × 576. This
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196 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

means that the image is made up of a grid that is 720 pixels in width and 576 pixels in
height. The CCIR 601 standard used for Digital Betacam and DV uses rectangular pixels.
But the first generation of digital video PCI cards digitised analog video as square pixels.
Most digital imaging programs, like Photoshop, work in square pixels.
This doesn’t matter if you’re just shooting field footage, but if you’re generating an
image in a 2-D program, you need to be aware of the differences, or you may end up
with unintended visual results, like circles that look like ovals. It’s a good idea to check
on a monitor how your work is coming along before you get too far down the creative
track.

1.78:1 RATIO—Video Widescreen (16:9)

1.85:1 RATIO—Film Widescreen
1.37:1 RATIO—Film Academy
1.33:1 RATIO—Standard Video

PAL VIDEO IK image 2K image

4:3 ASPECT RATIO or 1.33:1 at 1.85:1 at 1.85:1
approx 1.3 MB per frame ASPECT RATIO ASPECT RATIO
approx. 2.3 MB approx. 5.13 MB
NB: Digital Video standard CCIR 601 576
per frame 648 per frame
(Digital Betacam and DV) uses rectangular
pixels. Ratio = 720 × 576 but width
of image is stretched.
972

768
1200

1800
1 K and 2 K aspect ratios are examples only, based on maximum resolution of Solitaire Cinell film recorder.
PAL image resolution is for square pixels.

How to calculate the aspect ratio

width (pixels)
= ratio
height (pixels

for an image of 768 × 576 pixels

768
= 1.33
576
Graphic thanks to Peter Giles, © AFTRS 2002.
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Digital Effects 197

Rendering
You can ask the computer to do all sorts of wonderful things, but for some tasks it takes
time for the computer to calculate the data necessary for all the frames.
In the early days of digital effects, people were designing a sequence (or sometimes
even one shot) during the day, and putting the computer into render mode for the whole
night! Sometimes rendering went on over several weeks. Overnight rendering does still
occur—often several evenings of rendering can be involved, depending on the
sophistication of the calculations the computer has to perform. Some relief has come
because even the desktop computers of today are more powerful than the super-
computers of the early 1990s.
Rendering can mean waiting time. Some effects take only a few seconds to render,
and a few deep breaths or a quick call to a friend gets you through the time with grace.
Other effects and sequences take longer. You may get good at doing something else
while your computer renders. Having a break from looking at the screen is not at all a
bad idea.
For the hardcore screen-eyed, a dual processor computer with two monitors allows
you to render one sequence while working on another.

3-D
When you work in 3-D, you’re creating synthetic
Planning is the heart of
characters and environments.
successful visual effects.
Your characters and objects can be viewed from
all sides, and the illusion (because it’s still a flat
screen) is that the elements have form and substance and can move through these created
spaces with the laws of physics applying or not, as you may decide. Peter Giles,
Head of
The synthesis of imagery in the computer is the basis of 3-D computer graphics and Digital Media,
is different from digital imaging because you are creating virtual objects rather than AFTRS.
manipulating 2-D photographic images.

Virtual Object Creation

You can build all sorts of structures, machines, tools,
Whenever you’re dealing with
vehicles, implements, artefacts—you name it.
a computer, always back up
There’s basically no limit to what you can invent
daily on a disk and take the disk
here. You can build environments with landscapes
home with you!
that have lots of trees and plants, grasses, rocks,
hummocks, waterfalls, and on and on. Depending Fiona Strain,
Editing
on your level of attention to detail you can model each of these items individually, or Department,
you can judiciously clone things and sprinkle the copies through the landscape to save AFTRS.
yourself some time.
3-D programs allow you to assign different attributes to your basic models. So once
you’ve made a prototype model of something, you can cover it with a wide range of
surfaces supplied by the program (or your own custom surfaces). The surfaces can have
different textures, different levels of light reflectivity and different plasticity.
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198 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

The model can be assigned different weights, different bounce-abilities. It can interact
within its environment along whatever set of rules you give to it.
Will it bounce or go splat? Will it distort on impact or remain pretty rigid? Will it
crack or shatter, shudder or blubber? If you’re a person who likes to make the rules, 3-D
animation may be your rightful career choice!

3-D Character Animation

Some people are into spaces, and other people are into characters. In 3-D animation,
huge teams are needed to get through all the work, so on a media project everyone can
get into their preferred niche. If you’re working at home, late at night, on your own
computer, you can invent any Frankenstein or Peter Pan you like.
With character animation there are certain
aspects which come to the fore. It’s important how
3-D computer graphics:
the character moves and it’s important how the
Estimate the time the digital
character expresses emotion.
artist thinks it will take, and then
Characters can be built from scratch, or they can
quadruple it.
be built by having humans or animals move through
Peter Giles, a space, with sensors on their bodies, so that the
Head of
Digital Media, computer can make a model of how they move (motion capture). Then the animator
AFTRS. gets to work with surface aspects, like skin, hair and clothing.

Virtual Sets
When you’re designing a virtual set in 3-D, you assign a virtual camera angle which
matches your live action camera position, so your characters and the sets they’re in will
come together convincingly when you do the compositing.

3-D Effects Systems

Particles
Particles allow you to generate dynamic systems of moving elements.
You position a particle emitter and have it send out a profusion of specified particles.
They can be used to create smoke, fire, hail, sandstorms, dust storms, explosions, debris—
whatever you want.
You define the size and shape of the particles, and their lifespan (how long they last
on the screen before disappearing).
You also define how they respond to other forces, like gravity, wind and objects near
them. Magnetism?
You determine what pathway they take—a raging vortex? a lolly-doddle flow?
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Digital Effects 199

Paint
A few programs have paint in 3-D. This allows you to paint objects all over (grass, trees
and other vegetation, for example) so you can view them from any angle and animate
them, and they’re fully covered with colour.

Sources
• High end
Peter Giles,
Alias Wavefront Maya High end and desktop 3-D Head of
Lightwave graphics have pretty much Digital Media,
AVID Softimage merged—the most widely AFTRS.

Electric Image used software is Alias

Houdini Wavefront Maya and Discreet
3D Studio Max 3-D Studio Max. Costs of these
packages have decreased
• Desktop
radically in the past year.
Alias Wavefront Maya has a version which can
be downloaded free from the Web.
3D Studio Max

On a Final Note
It’s an exhilarating prospect to do 3-D graphics, but
We mustn’t forget we’re telling
they do take a lot of time.
stories.The story’s more
3-D is still the most technically challenging area
important than the visuals.You
of computer graphics and the learning curve is steep.
can watch a movie with
To make things look good is particularly difficult
fantastic effects and come out Rob Davis,
and time consuming.
of the theatre with a lacklustre Editor,Digital
Only you can know if it’s worth it to go this Dimensions.
emotional response.
route.
For up-to-date information, check out the
following sites for yourself:
• Discreet: <<www.discreet.com>>
• Avid: <<www.avid.com>>
• Quantel: <<www.quantel.com>>
• Adobe: <<www.adobe.com>>

Thanks to Peter Giles and Rob Davis for their help in the preparation of this
chapter.
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Chapter

15 Microphones
Producing Videos
Microphones

What people notice first about video is the image. That’s what the
I cameras are designed to do well; that’s what most camera advertise-
ments stress.
But if the soundtrack on your project is poor or annoying, people will turn away
very quickly.
Recording good quality sound requires you to
look beyond the basic camera equipment package.
This is because almost all cameras are equipped with
omnidirectional microphones, and the omni is the least
useful to you for getting clear and controllable sound.
There are many other mics, each designed for
specific recording needs. Their cables can be plugged
into your camera where it says mic in. Sometimes just
plugging the mic in will override your camera mic,
but on some cameras you have to move a switch
from internal mic to external mic in order for the sound
from the auxiliary mic to be recorded. On the Sony DVCAM, you set the audio inputs for
either mic or line level, depending on your source
signal.

Pick-up Patterns
Each microphone is classified by its pick-up pattern, which is the range of directions from
which it’s designed to pick up sound well.

Omnidirectional
Omni means ‘every’. An omnidirectional microphone picks up sound from all directions—
in front of it, behind it, above, below, and from all sides.
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Microphones 201
It’s exactly the type of mic to choose to record ambient sound,
which is the sound coming into a scene from all directions. An
omni would capture the general atmosphere of a street market
day—all the voices mingling, the wind chimes, the poultry
squawking, the buskers, the vehicles passing . . .
It’s the right mic for recording the atmos, which means all the
sounds in the local area—the sound atmosphere.
As a standard practice, you should be sure to record at least a
couple of minutes of atmos at each of your shooting locations, so
this background sound can be mixed into your soundtrack and
reproduce for your viewers the aural feel of the place. It greatly
enriches your soundtrack to have your foreground commentary
supported by true atmos, rather than just the sterility of a blank
background.
Omnis come in a variety of shapes and sizes, including non-
removable camera mics and rugged handheld workhorse versions.
The problem with an omni is it’s entirely undiscriminating. In
The pick-up pattern of the
reproducing everything, it hones in on nothing. Yet most of the
omnidirectional mic.
time we need to focus on the person speaking, the
instrument playing, the sound of the equipment
being handled, and so forth. We don’t want the
presenter’s comments to be drowned out by a
passing truck, or the mood of the music to be ruined
by the dog barking in the background.
So other types of microphones are needed to do
the more focused jobs.

Unidirectional An omni picks up sound equally from all directions.

A unidirectional mic is designed to pick up sound from the front, and

reject sound from the sides and rear. There are ports in the sides
which take in the sounds from the sides and rear, but then cancel
them out.
These mics are also referred to as shotgun mics or gun mics, due
to their long, thin shape.
Unidirectional mics come in quite a range. Some have a pick-
up pattern which is a very narrow-angled cone shape. These are
called super-directional or hyperdirectional. Others have a much broader
angle of receptivity, all the way out to the cardioid pattern.
A unidirectional mic is terrific for picking up very specific
sounds, and can do so from considerable distances. It’s often used
in drama or other situations where the mic needs to be kept out
of frame.
Gun mics are frequently mounted on booms so they can be
moved in as close as possible to the sound source without getting
into the shot. Since they’re very sensitive and susceptible to
This is the pick-up pattern of the
unidirectional mic.
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202 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

handling noise, they need to be in a shock mount to

prevent them from being rubbed or jarred.
The mic handler or boom operator must take care
to point the gun mic exactly at the sound source. A
slight error in pointing will cause the recorded sound
to be off mic. Off mic sound can still be heard, but it’s
dull in tone, because it’s missing the crispness of the
high frequencies present in on mic sound.

A Sennheiser 816 has a very narrow cone-shaped

pick-up pattern.Notice the ports along its side.

On mic

The pick-up pattern of the super-

cardioid mic.

This half-gun has a super-cardioid pick-up pattern. Off mic

Cardioid
The cardioid mic is a unidirectional mic with a very broad pick-up pattern which looks
like an upside-down heart, hence its name. It picks up well from the front and upper
sides, and is biased against picking up sound from the rear.
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Microphones 203

By careful pointing of a cardioid, you can minimise some unwanted noise.

Cardioid mics are frequently used in hand-held, on-the-street The pick-up pattern of a cardioid mic.
style interview situations. This mic needs to be pointed towards
the speaker’s mouth and away from the major noise sources. With skilful positioning
and handling, a cardioid can yield good voice recordings and eliminate much of the
background noise.
One aspect of the cardioid mic you should know about is called the proximity effect.
This is an exaggeration of the bass frequencies (the lower tones) in the sound being
recorded. It happens when the mic is held very close to the mouth. Some people like
the ‘close, intimate sound’ which this particular distortion produces, and deliberately
cause it to happen. If you don’t like it, just move the mic further away from the mouth.

Rick Davey, technician at the University of Technology, Sydney, demonstrates mic handling.A cardioid
mic, held close, will produce a distortion called the proximity effect.

There are two simple tricks to remember when using a cardioid.

First, make sure you don’t nervously rub the mic with your thumb or fingers, because
the mic is hot all over. That means it reproduces grievous handling noise from any rubbing
on it, or movement of its cord.
Second, make sure you don’t get out of sync in your pointing! (This is a surprisingly
common mistake.) If you point to yourself when the interviewee is speaking and to the
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204 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

interviewee when you’re asking the next question, you’ll get worse results than with an
omni, because the mic is made to reject sound from the rear.

Good sound—when pointed towards the Poor sound—when pointed away from the
speaker. speaker.

Bi-directional
The bi-directional mic picks up sounds from its two large opposite sides and rejects sounds
from the other two (thinner) sides, and also from the top and the rear. Its pick-up pattern
is drawn like a figure eight.
A bi-directional mic is good used on either a table mount or a hanging mount for
stationary interviews, so it works well for radio shows which are based on live interviews.

This is the pick-up pattern of the Bi-directional mic.

bi-directional mic.

PZM (pressure zone microphone)

Though the PZM (also called a boundary mic) looks more like an egg-flip than a mic, don’t
dismiss it for its weird appearance. There are times when it’s extremely useful.
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Microphones 205

A PZM will pick up all the sound in a small room.

The microphone head is actually very tiny and

held facing down towards the large, smooth, sound-
gathering surface. When the PZM is mounted on a
wall, floor or table top, all the sounds in a room hit This is the pick-up pattern of the
that large surface and are reflected straight into the PZM mic.
little mic, making it a very efficient reproducer with
a hemispherical (half-dome) shaped pick-up pattern.
It’s a terrific mic for unobtrusively taping a You can make your own
round-table discussion with several participants, in temporary PZM by using a bit
situations when pointing a mic at people would of Blu-Tack to secure a lavalier
intimidate them and limit their comments. mic so it’s facing towards a
It’s so sensitive that it overproduces paper smooth hard surface, like a Barry
rustling and table banging, so for best results people desk top.This trick works well Fernandes,
do need to be asked to be as still as they can and will save you both money Sound
Department,
comfortably be. and packing space. AFTRS.

Reach
Another important aspect of a mic is its reach. This means how far away it can be from
the sound source and still bring in a good quality sound.
Hand-held cardioid mics have a limited reach, and work best if held quite close to
the mouth of the person speaking: 15–20 cm (6–8 inches) works well. Other cardioids,
like the Sennheiser 416, have a longer reach and can be held out of frame in close shots
and still yield a good sound.
The shotgun mic has the longest reach and can be used just out of frame with long
shots.
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206 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Personally Mounted Mics

Lavalier Mic
The lavalier mic (or lav) is a tiny mic which is clipped to a person’s clothing or hung around
the neck on a short cord.
The lav is actually an omnidirectional mic with a bass cut to counteract the resonance
of the chest but, because it has a very limited reach, it excludes most sounds except for
the voice of the person on whom it’s mounted. Because it’s an omni, the speaker can
turn his or her head in any direction and the lav will still pick up a good sound.

Lav mics are very tiny and clip on to clothing.

A lav mic works well for longer interviews, because the speaker tends to forget about
it, relax and speak more naturally. (There’s nothing like a mic thrust in your face to make
your throat tighten.)
Lavs can either be clipped on the shirt front in plain view, or concealed under an
outer layer of clothing, depending on the style of program.
For concealed mics, you can use a little turtle clip or mic cage to put the mic in when
it’s being worn. This device hangs around the neck and holds the mic on the mid-chest,
like a pendant, isolating it from both skin and clothing contact, thus eliminating clothing
rustle sounds.
Mic placement is important with lavs. They should be out of range of necklaces or
other jewellery which could clang against them. For softly spoken people, the mic can
be clipped higher on the shirt or the record level on the camera can be turned up. For
those with louder voices, the mic can be moved lower to achieve the desired recording
level.
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Microphones 207
When the person wearing the lav turns his or her head to the left or right, you can
get changes in the recording level. This fluctuation can be reduced by moving the mic
a little further away from the speaker’s mouth.

Radio Mics
Sometimes you need a very wide shot but also want the mic to be unseen. You can’t
get a boom in close enough, and you don’t want to see cables running across the floor
or ground. In that case, you can use a radio mic, if you’re lucky enough to have access to
one. (They’re very expensive.)
Like lavs, radio mics are tiny and can be pinned to clothing. Instead of sending the
sound signal through a cable to the camera, the radio mic has a tiny transmitter with a
short antenna attached. This is attached to the mic via a slender cable and is fixed onto
the person, somewhere out of sight.
The transmitter sends the sound signal via a radio frequency to a separate receiver,
which is tuned in to the transmitter’s frequency, and which is kept near the camera, Transmitter
Receiver
attached via a cable to the camera’s mic in socket.
A radio mic can allow sound to be recorded
under very difficult conditions. For example, the
dancing, leaping, gyrating, singing performers in Cats
were all wearing radio mics. The mics were concealed
on their foreheads under their cat wigs, and the
transmitters were taped inside their costumes in the
curve of their lower backs, wrapped in plastic bags
to prevent sweating from shorting them out.
Wonderful as radio mics are, they’re notorious
for giving problems. The batteries wear down very
Mic
quickly, for one thing. And they’re prone to picking
up interference, or fizz, from large metal objects The radio mic is clipped to the speaker’s shirt and
nearby, like cars. Many sound recordists avoid them the transmitter can be attached to the speaker’s belt
whenever possible. or put in a pocket.The receiver is plugged into the
ext mic input on the camera recorder.

Sound Concepts
Sound is caused by vibration. The speed of the vibration determines the pitch of the
sound. A very fast vibration produces the high-pitched treble sound. A slow vibration
produces the low-pitched bass sound.
The vibrating material, whether it’s a person’s vocal chords, a violin string or the
surface of a drum, pushes against the air next to it, sending a wave of sound energy out
around it, like the rings in a pool after a stone has been dropped in the water. But whatever
the material, it can only move out just so far, then it swings back to its still position and
then pushes out an equal distance in the opposite direction. (Just imagine how a drum
skin works.)
When this motion is graphed we see a wave form with peaks and troughs equally
distant from the zero position, which represents where the material is at rest.
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208 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Low-frequency waves produce a bass sound.

One positive and negative section put together (one thrust of the material in each
direction) is considered to be one complete wave or cycle.
Sound is measured by the frequency of these complete wave forms—that is, by how
many of them happen in a second. In other words, sound is measured by how many
cycles per second occur.
Another term meaning cycles per second is Hertz. Hertz is usually written in its
abbreviated form Hz.
So when people talk about sound you’ll hear them say things like ‘100 Hz’ (which
is a bass sound) or ‘12 000 Hz’ (which is a treble sound).
The human hearing range is from about 20 Hz to 18 000 Hz, so that’s the range we
want microphones to be able to reproduce.

High frequency waves produce a treble sound.

Microphones pick up these sound waves and change them into electrical energy,
which can then be either transmitted or stored (recorded).
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Microphones 209

First Second Third Fourth Fifth Sixth Seventh Eighth Ninth Tenth
octave octave octave octave octave octave octave octave octave octave

16 Hz 32 Hz 64 Hz 128 Hz 256 Hz 512 Hz 1024 Hz 2048 Hz 4096 Hz 8192 Hz 16384 Hz

BASS MID-RANGE TREBLE

TINNY BRIGHT
FULL SOUND HORNLIKE SOUND SOUND SOUND
PRESENCE

POWER RHYTHM SIBILANT BRILLIANCE

SOUND

Frequencies required for intelligible speech

Frequency ranges of bass, mid-range and treble.

Response Characteristics
Microphones are rated according to their response characteristics—that is, according to how
well they can reproduce sounds of different frequencies. The specifications which come
with a mic tell you how good it is in the different frequency ranges, and from which
directions it handles what sounds best.
The sibilant sounds, likes ‘t’ and ‘s’, occur in the higher frequencies of the human
voice range. These contribute to the crispness and clarity of the voice, and help us
distinguish one word from the next. A mic which is poor in these frequencies yields
muddy sounding recordings which are difficult to understand.
Some mics, often the cheaper ones, exaggerate the high frequencies but are poor at
reproducing the low frequencies. These produce thin sounds which are called toppy
because of the overdose from the top end of the frequency range.
Mics which are very good at the low-frequency end, the bass range, tend to be more
expensive. But they do produce a much fuller, richer sound, especially for those deeper
voices.
Some microphones have filters which allow the operator to decrease the emphasis
of certain frequencies. For example, a bass roll-off filter cuts down on the reproduction
of bass sounds, and can be handy for reducing the impact of low level traffic rumbling.
You have to be careful not to overuse the bass roll-off, though, or the recorded sound
might be too thin.
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210 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Microphone Construction Types

The two major construction types of microphones are the dynamic and the condenser.

Dynamic
Magnets A dynamic mic has a diaphragm (a lightweight
N membrane), which vibrates when it is hit by sound
waves. A coil is attached to the diaphragm and
vibrates within a magnetic field, thus generating a
small electrical current. This electrical signal is then
S output to the record machine.
Output leads Dynamic microphones aren’t the greatest at
reproducing sound subtleties, but they’re robust,
A dynamic mic needs no power supply.
inexpensive, and they don’t require a battery or other
power supply.

Condenser
In the condenser mic, a diaphragm and a fixed metal plate act as the opposite poles of
a capacitor. Sound waves strike the membrane and cause it to vibrate. This causes changes
in the capacitance (stored energy) of the circuit and produces a tiny electrical output.
A condenser microphone requires a power supply to provide electricity for the pre-
amp and the fixed plate.
Sometimes the power supply is a battery inserted within the mic housing—as with
the electret condenser mics.
Sometimes a separate black box, called the power supply, needs to be included in the
connection between the mic and the record machine. The power supply can be either
battery power, or it can be an adaptor which uses AC current from the wall.

Taut Stationary
metalised backplate
diaphragm

Signal output

A condenser mic requires a power supply.

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Microphones 211
And sometimes the condensor mic can use phantom power supplied by the record
machine or audio mixer it’s attached to.
No matter which way the condenser mic takes its power, the key thing to be clear
on is that it just won’t work without it. So always make sure you pick up the battery
or power supply when you borrow a condenser mic, and it’s a good idea to take a spare
battery as well.
Some sound recordists call electret condenser mics cheap and nasties. The electret
condenser already has a fixed charge on the plates, but this charge doesn’t last forever,
so they deteriorate in quality over time, and eventually you should throw them away.
Though the true condensers cost more money, it’s money well spent—if you have it.
Condenser mics are more sensitive than dynamic mics, and are better at reproducing
the subtleties and nuances in sound. They’re less shock resistant, and they cost more to
buy, but they do give a better recording.

Choosing the Right Microphone for the Job

Every recording situation comes with its own set of
sound circumstances. In order to choose the right The saying may be that a
microphone for the job, you need to know as much picture is worth a thousand
as possible about the conditions which will apply words, but a video picture
on the day of the shoot. without good sound can be
It’s a good idea for the sound recordist to check virtually useless if you really Rachel
out the shoot location at the time of day and day need to hear what’s going on. Masters,
of the week when the recording session will occur. Corporate
Certain loud sounds, like those from aeroplane flight Training
Coordinator,
paths, peak hour traffic, construction sites and school playgrounds, vary considerably SBS.
according to the time. You need a mic that can handle the conditions you’ll have to face.
You also need a mic which will give the sound quality and sound breadth you require.
The right mic for an interview wouldn’t be the one you’d use for a broad ambient sound.
A super-sensitive condenser will die in front of a big drum or powerful woofer.
Sound recordists try to narrow the choices down to a couple of likely mics, and take
them both along to listen to how each one performs in the situation. Then they make
their final choice.
By the way, it’s prudent to take along an extra mic cable, too. You never know when
one will be slammed in a door or just go crackly of its own sweet accord. Always take
back-ups.

Powering the Mic

If you’re using a battery-powered mic, it will need a healthy battery to record a strong
signal. If you suspect that the sound you’re getting is weaker than it should be, put in
a fresh battery. It’s pointless to record a wimpy signal with a poor signal-to-noise ratio.
It will never edit well.
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212 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Although some mics take the AA batteries used in a Walkman, many mics take
weirdo batteries which can only be bought from specialist suppliers. So always take
spare batteries with you. The corner store near the shoot just won’t have the right kind.
Needless to say, you always turn a mic off when you’re not using it because it will
just go on responding to the sound around it and draining the battery. When you store
the mic in its case for the night, take the battery out of it.

Suggestions from Rachel Masters

Sound response patterns vary between microphones. It’s a good idea to test the
microphone(s) you have access to, and determine what pattern of sound they will pick
up. Don’t believe what the manufacturer says, test it for yourself.
1. Ask a friend to help you test the sound pattern by talking and walking around the
microphone in a circle while you’re holding the mic pointed in one direction. Play
back the sound and draw a picture of the sound response pattern.
2. Note the variation in quality of sound between different microphones. Assess which
microphone would be best for the following situations:
• A two-person interview.
• Recording music.
• Recording several voices simultaneously.
• One person speaking in a wide shot.

Keep your notes about the results. They’ll help you decide which mic you need for your
various future shoots, and they’ll also guide you about what angle and position each
mic needs to be placed in for it to record sound best.

Training Materials
Microphones and Their Uses, Ross Linton, AFTRS videotape.
Shaping Your Sound With Microphones, Tom Lubin, videotape available from the AFTRS.
Studio Seconds, Tom Lubin, book and videotape, available from the AFTRS.
Audio in Media, Stanley R. Alten, Wadsworth Publishing Co., Belmont, CA.
Bh0654M16-PressProofs.QXD 25/3/04 9:42 AM Page 213

Chapter

16 Having the Right

Connections
Producing Videos
Having the Right Connections

It’s often said that the screen production

I industry works on connections—that
your next job is more likely to come from word-of-mouth
than from answering an ad. There’s a lot of truth in that.
And having the right connections is important on
more than just the personal level!
When it comes to equipment, it doesn’t matter how
good your gear is if you can’t get the signal to flow from
camera to tape or from sound source to tape.
Being able to put the various bits together relies on
your ability to tell one connector from another, and to
make sure that you have the necessary adaptors if you
haven’t got a perfect match.

Great picture, but can’t connect the mic?

Sex Lies in Videotape

(Or near it, anyway.)
For every type of connector, there are two models. Video technicians call these models
male and female.
What it comes down to is that the model of a connector which has a prong or a pin
or some sort of sticking-out bit (or three) is called male, and its partner version, to which
it connects, is called female.
When you go to buy a connector in a shop or ask for it at the media centre, it’s
important to get the right model. If you get the reverse of what you need, it won’t make
the right connection for you.
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214 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

So if you ask for a female mini to male phone adaptor, you should be given the little
adaptor which allows a mic with a mini plug on the end of its cable to connect into the
6.5 mm input on an audio mixer.
An adaptor which could also be called mini to phone would look like an inverted model
of this, with a hefty receiving dock and a tiny male
member. This, called a female phone to male mini, is
exactly the type you’d need to allow a mic with the
larger plug to connect into the mic in on a camera
which has the smaller (3.5 mm) size input.
As a general rule (which indeed has some
exceptions), the signal flow goes from the male
connector to the female connector enroute to its final
destination. So the connector-out of most micro-
phones is male, and that is attached to a female
connector on the mic cable, which has a male
A female mini (3.5 mm) A female phone (6.5 mm) connector on the other end, which attaches into a
to male phone (6.5 mm) to male mini (3.5 mm) female connector on the mixing desk. Got the drift?

Video Connectors
BNC
BNC connectors are the standard video connectors for professional equipment. They’re
used for conveying the composite video signal—that is, the analog signal in which the
luminance and chrominance signals are composited together and travel along one cable.
They’re also used for conveying component video—that is, where the luminance and
chrominance signals are separated and sent along different cables.
BNC connectors are constructed so they lock together and can’t be pulled undone
accidentally.
This is how:
Once the male and female connectors are joined together, the metal collar of the
male BNC is given a half turn so the two little metal nubbins on the outside of the female
connector are drawn in along the spiral grooves of
the outer metal collar until they slip into two little
cut-out sections and the connectors are then locked
together.
To disconnect, the metal collar is pushed forward
to reposition the metal nubbins back into the spiral
grooves and then the collar is untwisted until they’re
released and the two connectors can be pulled apart.
When you’re using a BNC connector, remember
that it won’t lock on unless you turn the metal collar.
L to R: BNC F barrel connector for attaching two BNC Just pushing it straight on will leave the connection
cables together, F BNC, M BNC. susceptible to being pulled off if the equipment is
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Having the Right Connections 215

moved. Then you could lose your signal, and have
to go searching for why.

SVHS Y/C Connector

The Y/C connector conveys the SVHS video signal
which is the analog video signal separated out into
the Y/C components. (Y = luminance and C =
chrominance.) It’s found on SVHS cameras and
SVHS edit systems. This is the connecting cable for SVHS Y/C in an edit
system.
IEEE1394 (FireWire or i.LINK)
The FireWire conveys lots of signals: video, audio,
timecode and device control (allowing your
computer to remotely control your digital camera).
You’ll probably encounter it first as the connection
cable for putting your video signal into your
computer.
It’s a high-speed serial interface. It’s use isn’t
limited to passing video. It can be used for connecting The FireWire connector is used when sending digital
hard drives to your computer, as well as scanners, video into and out of a computer.It’s also used to
and it’s also used for networking. attach other equipment to a computer.

UHF
These are now the dinosaurs of the video connectors,
but if you’re into video palaeontology you never
know when you might unearth a piece of equipment
that has one. They have zigzag edges which fit
together, a thick central pin, and an outer threaded
collar which twists on to lock the plug to the socket.
Female UHF Male UHF

Video/Audio Connectors
RF
The male and female RF connectors look almost the
same. The male RF connector has a round metal
collar surrounding a bare inner wire. The female RF
connector has a similar round metal collar
surrounding a slim connection socket. They’re easy
to use because they just slip together, but they don’t
lock into place. Female RF Male RF
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216 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

The RF connector appears on RF cables which carry both video and audio signals
together, down a single wire. They bring the RF (radio frequency) signal in from your
outdoor TV antenna or from your cable TV feedwire and insert it into your TV set or
VCR. It’s also the connector on the RF cable that runs out of your VCR and into your TV.

RCA
The male RCA connector looks similar to the RF connector, but it can have two or four
slits in its metal collar, and its smooth, rounded metal plug projects out beyond the collar.
The female looks quite different; it’s a stream-
lined, circular receptor.
The RCA connector is commonly used on home
video equipment and on some camcorders. It’s easy
to attach, but can’t be locked into position.
You’ll also recognise the RCA as the connector
on your home stereo equipment cables. And it’s used
for line level audio inputs and outputs on some
Female RCA Male RCA VCRs, mixers and camcorders.

Multi-pin Connectors
l0-pin, 12-pin and l4-pin connectors are used when a single cable is carrying a variety
of signals—video, audio and servo information.
They’re used to connect cameras to separate rec-
orders and cameras to CCUs (camera control units)
in control rooms.
Their pins must be aligned correctly to the socket
pattern before you attempt to connect them together.
Locating pins assist in this. Careless connection
attempts can result in bent pins and very expensive
Female 12-pin Male 12-pin repairs.

8-pin Connectors
8-pin connectors transmit video and audio in both directions between a VCR and a TV
or monitor. The male is found on the end of cables and the female is mounted on the
equipment.

Female 8-pin Male 8-pin

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Having the Right Connections 217

The pins are arranged in groups of 6 and 2, so Always be nice to people on
the connectors can only be attached when they’re the way up . . .‘cause you never
correctly lined up. They snap on and are locked know who you’ll need on the
together. way down! (I know this isn’t
They can be disconnected by pinching in on what you mean by having the Rachel
small metal tabs on the sides of the male connector right connections, but I Masters,
housing and simultaneously pulling it away from thought I’d mention it.) Training
the equipment it’s attached to. Coordinator,
SBS.

Audio Connectors
Mini or 3.5 mm
These carry unbalanced mono or stereo audio signals
from microphones to some cameras. They’re also
used on some headphones.
They’re easy to use, but notorious for breaking,
and they can disconnect easily during a shoot, so
they should be carefully watched.
Female mini Mono male mini
Phone or 6.5 mm
These carry mono and stereo audio signals from
microphones to some VCRs. They’re found on the
end of studio monitoring headphones and intercom
headphones. They also carry line level signals
between pieces of audio equipment.
Female phone Stereo male phone
XLR (Cannon) 3-pin
These are found on good quality microphones. They
convey balanced audio signals. They’re used on good
quality audio cables, as the audio inputs and outputs
on professional camera equipment, on audio mixers
and video edit systems.
The XLR connector clicks when you attach it and
locks into place. To disconnect it, you push a little
metal tab on the outside of the female connector and
simultaneously pull them apart.

Female XLR Male XLR

Electrical Connector (DC)
The DC (direct current) connector looks very much like the XLR, and it’s easy to grab
the wrong one when in a hurry. But there’s no way you can interchange them because
the DC connector has 4 pins (M) or sockets (F) whereas the XLR has only 3.
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218 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

The DC connector (or 4-pin, as it’s called) has a

large silvery metal housing nearly identical to the
XLR, and it can lock into place with a satisfying click.
This is good because you certainly want to be
assured that your electrical connection is secure. Like
the XLR, the connectors have little push tabs to
release them from their locked-on positions.
Female 4-pin Male 4-pin

Computer Connectors
Computers have their own ways of linking up and networking, as do computer people.
In computer talk you don’t usually say connector, you say port. The port is the linking
spot on the computer itself, and the right connector is whatever fits into that particular
port.
Convergence of technologies also means convergence of work cultures, and this is
just the beginning of the synergy.

USB
The USB (Universal Serial Bus) has several uses. It’s
used in digital imaging, multimedia games and PC
telephony. Your computer can have one or several
USB ports, through which you can attach a range of
devices. The USB connector looks quite similar to
the firewire connector—look carefully before you
USB male USB female decide to plug it in.

FireWire
Here it is again, just in case you’re looking for it in
the computer connections section.

Female firewire Male firewire

Cables
Although at first glance all video cables may look to you like a pile of spaghetti, they’re
actually quite different, both in how they’re made and what they do.
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Having the Right Connections 219

They can be categorised according to the type of signal they carry:
• RF signal.
• Video signal.
• Audio signal.
• Multiple signals.

RF Cable
RF stands for radio frequency. This is the type of signal that’s transmitted by television
stations through the atmosphere. It enters the TV antenna on the roof of your home,
then travels along your antenna cable and goes into the tuner inside your TV set.
If your antenna connects directly into a VCR, then a second, short RF cable takes
the signal out of your VCR and into your TV.
The RF signal is also sent through cables in closed circuit TV systems and cablecast
through landlines in cable television systems.
An RF signal contains both picture and sound information, so only one cable is
needed to transmit a TV program as an RF signal.

Video Cable
The video is the picture part of the TV signal. Video is usually transmitted on co-axial
cable (or co-ax). Co-ax cable consists of:
• An inner wire (or bundle of thinner wires twisted together) which carries the main
video signal.
• A surrounding thick wall of high density foam
Outer cover
polythene, called the dielectric, which insulates the
inner wire from the shielding. Shielding
• A plaited mesh of wire, called the shielding, that
Dielectric
surrounds the dielectric and shields the inner
signal-bearing wire from external interference like Signal
radio signals. wire
• A PVC outer covering which protects the cable
A cross-section of co-ax cable.
from water, dirt and other damagers.

Audio Cable
The audio is the sound part of the TV signal. Audio cable is composed of:
• An inner wire to carry the audio signal (unbalanced cable has only one inner wire;
balanced cable has two inner wires).
• A surrounding PVC insulation cover (much thinner and more flexible than the
dielectric in co-ax).
• A mesh of shielding (also known as the ‘ground’) which conducts unwanted
interfering signals to earth.
• A flexible PVC outer covering.
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220 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Unbalanced audio cable Balanced audio cable

Siamese Cables
So-called Siamese cables are two cables which are joined together, although they have
separate connectors on the ends. RCA cables often come in Siamese pairs and even in
Siamese quads. (That’s stretching the image!)
It’s very handy to have Siamese RCAs because instead of having the snarl of two
individual cables, which would normally be used side by side, as in conveying channel 1
and channel 2 audio signals from the same piece of equipment, you have just one double
cable. In a video spaghetti situation, this is a help.
Siamese quads are used when handling a double function which also happens side
by side, like connecting your VCR and TV at home: video and audio out to the TV and
video and audio in from the TV.
If you’re using a Siamese cable and the connecting points at one end are too far apart
from each other for the twins at that end to reach to, the cable is designed so you can
gently tear the two ends apart and lengthen their reach.

DV Breakout Cable
This is a hybrid cable which looks like it’s trying to
be two things at once. On one end there’s a plug
shaped like a mini connector, which gets inserted into
the AV output on a digital videocamera. On the other
end there are three cables, one for video and two for
audio. This breakout cable is used to connect the
The DV breakout cable is a strange looking beast— digital camera to a monitor, a VCR, or another
quite different at each end. camera.

Multiple Signal Cables

Some cables carry an assorted bundle of wires which
convey video signals, audio signals, signals to operate
servos, power signals and grounding. These have
multi-pin connectors on their ends.

Camera cables use multi-pin connectors.

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Having the Right Connections 221

Connector and This equipment room has a

system of shelving units on a
Cable Care floor track which can be pushed
left or right to reveal the
• Connectors can be damaged easily by mis- contents of the shelves on the Barbara Bishop,
handling, so treat them carefully. Re-soldering a units, like bookcases, so only the Independent
plug can be a lengthy and demanding project. solid end shows—it looks much Producer,
• When attaching multi-pin connectors, be sure Winthrop.
neater.Then they just push the
to refer to their locating pins to help you line first unit, for instance, to the left,
them up right. and people can fit between the
• When disconnecting cables from equipment, bookcases to access the
always grasp the connector by the body of the equipment.The system is also good for
plug, and pull firmly and straight out. security. When people pass through that
• Never try to disconnect anything by yanking on room there’s no chance of someone taking
the cable. something off the shelf, a microphone, for
• If a plug is difficult to disconnect, look for a instance, because only the solid ends of the
release mechanism. bookcase show—until someone pushes the
• Avoid kinking cables or slamming them in the shelves apart. I thought it was a good idea
lids of cases or in doors. for saving space and makes the equipment
• Don’t run over cables with dollies or vehicles. room look organised.
• Coil cables after use.
Keep on hand a set of the commonly used
cables and connectors and always take spares with
you on a shoot.

Checking for Faults

A multi-meter will tell you if a cable is faulty. A
soldering iron, and some solder and flux will allow
you to repair it.

Jeremy Reurich, technical trainee, Australian Film Television Coil the cables neatly before putting them away.
and Radio School.
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Chapter

17 Location Sound
Recording
Producing Videos
Location Sound Recording

If your audio sucks, your video

Sound recording is the Achilles’
I
heel of video.
Beginners’ video projects are far more likely to
sucks.

have poor quality sound than poor quality images. Why?

This is due to the overwhelming importance the video image seems to have. Rich Howley,
Video trainer.
There’s no doubt that getting a beautiful, dramatic or grotesque image is an exciting
achievement, and that such images are fascinating
to audiences. But their magnetism is short lived.
Recording sound is easy, but
recording it well takes skill.

Unless a program has the

additional depth the soundtrack Jane
Paterson,
can give, by contributing spoken Sound Editor,
ideas or enhancing the images AFTRS.
with music or sounds, people tire
of it quickly. It soon enters the
realm of ‘video wallpaper’.
Worse still, if the soundtrack
is actively bad, due to buzzes,
hums, crackles, background noise,
muffled speech and distortion,
people will refuse to watch it.
Camera operators practise
hard-to-get clear focus, steady
On location at Banrock Station in South Australia, taping shots, good composition and
Australian Food and Wine television series for ABC Asia Pacific smooth action. Good sound
show Nexus.Audio Rob Stankovich, DOP Gerald Manogue. recording techniques take similar
(Photo by Neil Smith) practice and attention to detail.
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Location Sound Recording 223

Which Microphone Will Do the Job?

Every recording situation comes with its own set of
If you’re stuck using the
sound circumstances. In order to choose the right
camera mic, move in as close
microphone for the job, you need to know as much
as possible to the presenter.
as possible about the conditions which will apply
Favour close-ups over wide
on the day of the shoot.
shots to get decent sound. In Andy Nehl,
Again, it’s a good idea to check out the shoot
noisy locations it’s better to Head of
location ahead of time, at the same time of day, and Television,
have an extreme close-up on
same day of the week, as when the recording AFTRS
someone with the camera six
session will occur. Certain loud sounds like those
inches from their face and hear
from commuter trains, nearby factories, sports
what they’re saying than have
facilities and schoolyards vary considerably according
a perfectly composed shot and
to the time and day, so you need to be sure what
you can’t hear what they’re
you’ll have to allow for.
saying. Most viewers will put
Once you’ve checked out the location, you need
up with crappy pictures a lot
to select (borrow, hire, acquire) a mic that can handle
longer than they’ll put up with
the conditions you’ll have to face during the shoot.
crappy sound.
You also need to choose a mic which will give
the sound quality and sound breadth you require.
The right mic for an on-the-street interview in a
noisy location wouldn’t be the right one for recording
a quiet love scene. As discussed previously, a super-
sensitive condenser mic will just die in front of a big
drum or powerful woofer, and it would be no good
at all for recording gunshots and explosions.
Experienced sound recordists try to narrow the
choices down to a couple of likely mics, and take
them both along to listen to how each one performs
in the situation. Then they make their final choice.
Always take along an extra mic and extra cables When trying new locations, check two or three mics
and audio adaptors. You never know when some- to see which one gives you the sound you like best.
thing will just go crackly of its own sweet accord. Students from University of Western Sydney—
Nepean,Werrington, NSW, Australia.

Don’t Use the Camera Mic Do not rely on your in-camera

mic.Try to use external mics
The camera mic is almost always an omnidirectional (boom, lavalier clip-ons, etc.)
mic. Because it picks up sound equally from all and a separate sound mixer to
directions, it’s terrific for recording a surround sound, keep audio levels balanced Donna
but not much good for anything else. Under most and clean. Kenny,The
circumstances, it’s not the right mic for the job. Video History
You’ll need to use an external microphone— Company
and Center
which just means it’s an additional one which you for Recording
have to plug into the camera. Life Stories.
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224 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

You can’t fix it in the mix! Get You attach the external mic to the input labelled
good sound now! mic in or mic. That input is frequently towards the
front of the camera, even next to the camera mic,
but on some cameras you need to disconnect the
camera mic to reveal the input for attaching the external mic.
Carol
Brands, If you’re out of luck, you’ll find that your camera has no place to attach another mic.
Curtin (That’s one of the reasons it didn’t cost so much.) If you’re deciding on what camera to
University of buy, always make sure it has the capacity to attach an external mic, or you’ll be setting
Technology.
yourself up for poor audio recordings.

For best results, use the same Get In Close

audio bit-rate for recording as
No matter what sound you’re recording, the single
you’ll be using in your edit
most important thing to do is to get the (appropriate)
system.
microphone as close as possible to the sound source.
Martha Your aim is to record the sound you want at a good
Mollison,
Video strong level, without having it be distorted. This can be called having a good signal-to-
Producer. noise ratio.

Signal-to-Noise Ratio
The word ‘noise’ is used in several ways in video production. It can mean the soft
background level of hiss which is generated by any tape during playback, it can mean
surrounding sounds which aren’t being selected during a shoot, it can even mean the
visible graininess which appears in the video part of the signal when the camera is
operated on a high gain setting.
In any of these cases, noise is an undesired part of the signal.
Having a good signal-to-noise ratio means that the desired signal is loud enough to
more than dominate the background noise. Once a sound has been recorded, it can’t be
separated from either the background location noises or the inherent tape noise.
What does this mean for your audio track?
It means that if you record a good strong signal
Always place the microphone as during the shoot, the signal will play back clearly
close as possible to your sound and well on the monitor afterwards, and it will have
source. And be alert to ambient gusto when being sent through the audio path of
noise that may be recorded in an edit system.
Donna the background during an on- If you record a weak sound, you’ll be forced to
Kenny,The camera interview which will be turn the volume of the monitor up during playback,
Video History distracting to viewers. and boost the record machine’s audio level during
Company
and Center editing. This boosting may let you hear the sound
for Recording okay but it also brings up the level of the undesired
Life Stories. background noise, and hiss from the recording system and the tape, and it results in
poor quality audio and a muddy edited sound.

How Much Reach is Needed?

You need to be clear on whether it’s okay for the mic to be visible in the shot or not. If
it’s okay for the mic to be shown, you’ll usually have no problem getting the mic in
close. A lapel mic, or one which is hand-held or on a stand, will all do.
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Location Sound Recording 225

When your framing is wide, you need to have a mic with considerable reach, and a boom pole comes in
handy.Mariano Aupilarjuk plays skin drum at Rankin Inlet, Nunavut.Albert Kimaliakyuk is sound
recordist for Inuit Piqqusingit: Inuit Ways,Inuit Survival.(Photo by Kimberley Brown)

But if the mic must be unseen, you need to choose one which can pull in sound
over a distance, or which is small enough to be hidden, either on the person or in the
set somewhere close to the speaker.

Recording Levels
Not all video cameras allow for adequate operator control of audio recording levels.
Many camcorders have no VU meters (VU = volume unit) to indicate the level (volume)
of sound being received by the camera or to show if the received signal is so overly loud
that distortion is happening in the recording of it.
These cameras rely on their inbuilt ALC circuitry.

Manual
level
controls

Auto/
manual
level
select

Audio
input
select
The sound control buttons are behind a little door on many video cameras,including this Sony DVCAM.
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226 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

ALC
ALC stands for automatic level control. The ALC function in the audio circuitry is supposed
to ensure that a good level of signal is being recorded by the camera.
Like any auto system on the camera, it works well sometimes, but there are certain
circumstances which are too much for it. Overall, it will handle a good signal well, it
will clamp down on an overly loud one, and it will boost a low one.
It gets tricky when you alternate between a
weak signal and a strong one, because when the
Have the headphones over both ALC boosts the low one up to an adequate level, it
ears to check audio quality brings up the background noise with it, so you end
before you shoot, but when up with a sound continuity problem, where the
you’re shooting have the rising and falling of background noise mars the flow
Andy Nehl, headphones over only one ear of the recording.
Head of so you can hear what’s going On some cameras you can choose to use the
Television, into the camera and also hear
AFTRS. ALC or turn it off. It’s often controlled by one of
what’s happening in the world those tiny buttons hidden behind a secret door on
around you. the side of the camera. It pays to snoop over your
camera thoroughly to find all these esoteric
buttons—knowing what they do and how to use
them can make a big difference to your end product.
Always use headphones to listen to the sound coming into the camera. Ideally, you
should use headphones that have leather padding that encloses the ears, rather than foam
ear pads, as foam ear pads allow more external sound into your ears.

Audio Limiter
The audio limiter is another sound control device which can be engaged during recording.
Its function is to keep the record level of the incoming signal from going too high,
into the distortion range.
When setting an incoming signal level, the audio limiter should always be turned
off, so the true (unlimited) strength of the signal can be seen on the VU meter. Then the
record level can be accurately set so the audio will be strong but not distorted.
So first turn the audio limiter off, and begin with the audio input level knobs wound
all the way over to the off position. Then slowly rotate the knobs clockwise, increasing
the incoming volume till the sound is showing at a good level on the VU meter.
After setting the levels, the limiter can then be turned back on and any short, transient
loud sounds will be controlled by the limiter and the main program audio will be at a
strong, but not distorted, level.
Good audio is extremely The main hazard of using an audio limiter
important in video production. occurs if you set the audio input level on the record
Viewers will tolerate shaky machine while the limiter is still switched on. Then
camera work longer than they it’s possible to set the audio record level too high,
will an annoying hum or and even when you check the VU meter, the needle
Donna
Kenny,The background buzz. won’t show any distortion (because the limiter
Video History won’t let the needle go into the red). However,
Company you’ll end up with a very squashed sounding audio.
and Center
for Recording
Life Stories.
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Location Sound Recording 227

Some sound recordists like using a limiter, while Andy Nehl,
If you’re setting sound Head of
others never use them. They prefer to always have recording levels manually, Television,
full knowledge of the incoming audio, and ride the remember that digital sound AFTRS.
levels themselves manually throughout the on a MiniDV camera should
recording session. not peak at 0 dB on the VU
meter. Hitting 0 dB or going
Setting the Audio Input Levels over is likely to give you
distorted sound.The industry
Some camcorders give you no choice on sound
standard is to peak at 18 dB.
levels—the incoming sound is controlled by the
While your camera probably
ALC, and that’s that.
won’t have an 18 dB point
Other cameras allow you to switch off the ALC
marked on the meter, having
and adjust the levels however you like. The ones
the audio peak about halfway
which allow manual adjustment usually have
between 20 dB and 12 dB will
VU meters or PPMs (peak program meters) to
be fine. If there are no dB
guide you.
markings on your DV camera’s
If your camera allows manual adjustment,
meter, have the audio signal
there’s usually a little knob for each channel. You
peak at halfway on the VU
turn the knob till the level of the signal showing on
meter.
the meter is the level you want to record.

Monitor Levels If the volume knob on your

In addition to having controls for the audio input Betacam is turned very low, say
levels, the camera may have a monitor level knob. pointing to the 9 position on
Turning the monitor out knob will raise or lower the clock face, you could have
the volume of the sound you hear through the problems. Investigate! This is a Barry
headphones, but it will in no way affect the level of the sign that the input could be Fernandes,
overloaded. Usually monitoring Sound
audio being recorded by the camera. The monitor level Department,
is merely an adjustment for the comfort of the conditions from the camera’s AFTRS.
operator. speaker monitor and
Don’t let the loudness or softness of the sound headphone-out are so low
in your headphones distract you from setting the level that it can be impossible
audio level by the input meters. to pick up distortion.The
As with flying light planes, you have to learn to normal position for the knob is
trust your meters. between 11 and 1 o’clock.

Normal, Hi-fi and Both

On some cameras you can only record normal audio. That’s the longitudinal type which
goes in the tracks along the edge of the tape.
Other cameras let you record hi-fi audio, which is a better quality audio, and is
recorded in the video track.
On some cameras, you can choose to record both types of audio at the same time.
This is, in fact, a good strategy. Then if anything goes wrong with the hi-fi audio, you
have the normal audio as a back-up.
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228 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

If you choose to record both, make sure you understand how the camera’s metering
system and monitoring system works.
Sometimes the normal audio is connected only to the ALC, and the hi-fi audio is
connected only to the audio input controls. If you intend to use hi-fi audio for your
program but the levels are set wrong, you won’t know it if you’re happily listening to
the normal audio, controlled by the ALC. You could get back to your base and find
you’ve got terrible hi-fi audio because you were actually monitoring the normal audio
all along and didn’t realise it.
If this happens, don’t despair. It’s happened to others, too. Just learn from the mistake
so it doesn’t happen again.

Mic Handling Techniques

It’s easy to think of microphones as being open to sound at their tops, as if they’re a
sort of vessel, and the sound gets put in that end and sent out the other end to run along
the cable to the record machine . . .

Mic Handling Noise

But mics are hot all over. This means that touching a mic anywhere on its surface, or
along its cord for that matter, can cause a sound to be recorded. These sounds aren’t
heard through the air by our ears, but they can be detected through headphones attached
to the recorder, and they can be very loud and obnoxious on a sound recording.
This sort of sound is called mic handling noise, and
it’s unacceptable on a soundtrack. Interestingly
enough, omni mics are less sensitive to handling
noise and to wind.

Shock Mounts
To avoid mic handling noise, microphones can be
attached to a shock mount, a mic-holding device which
separates the surface of the mic from the hands of
The shock mount isolates the mic from handling the operator and buffers the mic against thumps and
noise. other movements. A shock mount is definitely worth
the price you pay for it.

Internal Shock Mounts

Some microphones have inbuilt shock mounts which
invisibly protect their sound recording mechanism
from jolts and handling noise. This is often true of
mics designed for hand-held jobs, like dynamic
Ben Farrawell,TEAME Indigenous TV and Video cardioids, which are frequently used for on-the-street
Training Course, Metro Screen, Paddington, NSW, interviewing. Needless to say, such mics don’t need
Australia. to be put in an external shock mount.
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Location Sound Recording 229

Boom Handling Noise
A boom is a special pole made in sections. When you’re transporting the boom to the
shoot and back, the sections collapse down inside each other to reduce the boom to an
easy carrying size, but on location it can be extended out to quite a length.
The boom is used to get a microphone close in to the action, so good sound can be
recorded, while still keeping the mic out of shot. The boom is manoeuvred and held in
position for each shot by the sound recordist’s
assistant, known as the boom operator.
Though the mic is suspended in a shock mount,
which is screwed on to the end of the boom, the mic
cable is usually looped around the boom a couple of
times to get it back to where the boom operator can
control it when moving the boom about.
Boom handling noise happens if the boom operator
jiggles the cable or twists or rattles the interconnecting
boom sections during recording. Boom handling
noise is unacceptable on a soundtrack.
Let’s face it, you want your mic to record the Get your mic in as close as possible without getting
program sound and not anything else added in by it in the shot.On the set for Ash Wednesday.
accident. Australian Film Television and Radio School.

Checking if the Mic is Working

In a noisy environment, it’s not easy to tell if the
When operating a boom, make
sound you’re hearing is coming to your ears through
sure the mic cable is secured
the headphones from the mic, or simply through
to the boom pole, so it won’t
the air. So how can you tell if the mic is working
cause handling noise when
or not?
you move the pole. Jeremy
The sure-fire way is to test the mic by picking
Reurich,
a sound you know you can’t hear through the air. Technical
This is very easily done. Just rub your finger gently along the top of the mic or the wind Trainee,
gag over the mic. You can’t hear that sound through the air, so if you hear a grating or AFTRS.

rubbing noise when you do this, the mic is surely working.

It’s not necessary to shout ‘Test, test’ into the mic, and it’s downright stupid to bang
it on the side of the table.

Monitor Everything
When using an external mic, many things can go wrong:
1. The mic connection to the camera can come undone. This is most likely to happen
with a non-locking audio connector like a mini (3.5 mm) plug.
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230 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Never run a mic cable parallel to The connector doesn’t have to fall out of the
an electrical cable because it camera socket completely for there to be
can pick up an electrical hum. If problems. The signal-conducting tip of it just
you’re forced to cross a mic needs to be pulled slightly away from the
cable over an electrical cable, contact point inside the socket. Sometimes
Adrian
Rostirolla, cross them at 90° to each other this happens and the mic still looks like it’s
Metro Screen. and separate them if possible. connected.
For example, you might be able 2. The mic battery can run down, so the mic
to run one cable over the seat output gets too weak.
of a chair and the other one on 3. The microphone cable can start crackling when
the floor underneath. the mic is moved back and forth between
speakers.
4. The mic extension cable (you know the one that
got slammed when you closed the boot of the
car?) can ground out and develop a constant
When videotaping an interview
buzz.
indoors be aware of ambient
5. The microphone cable can pick up a 50-cycle
sounds from air conditioners,
electrical hum if it’s too close to an electrical cord
appliances, cuckoo clocks,
or a piece of electrical equipment, like a
Donna telephones, answering
refrigerator or air conditioner.
Kenny,The machines, doorbells and
Video History 6. The mic can also pick up a hum or buzz from
interoffice paging systems.
Company lighting dimmers, especially the cheaper ones.
and Center 7. The extra long mic cable you got for this special
for Recording
Life Stories. job can start acting like an antenna and pick up
a radio station!
Monitor camera audio wherever So you always check your sound before you start
possible. Just checking VU recording. You check it in two ways. First, you listen
meters won’t tell you if there’s to it carefully through the headphones. Then you
mic crackle or distortion. do a 60-second test record of both video and audio,
Philip Elms, play back the test, and again listen carefully through
Media the headphones.
Resource Some problems, like hums and buzzes from nearby equipment or dying fluorescent
Centre.
lights, can only be heard in playback, so unless you do a test recording you won’t know
you have a problem till the shoot is over.
Once you’ve got the sound right, you can begin to shoot, but you can’t be sure that
problems won’t materialise while you’re at work. So make sure someone (not too spacey)
listens on headphones during the whole shoot.

Five Tips for Using a Cardioid

Though good mic handling skills aren’t automatic, they’re also not hard to learn. These
simple suggestions can help you greatly improve your recorded sound, when doing
interviews with a handheld cardioid mic.
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Location Sound Recording 231

1. Keep Your Mic Hand Firm and Still
Make sure you don’t nervously rub the mic with your thumb or fingers, because
the mic is hot all over. That means it reproduces grievous handling noise from any
rubbing on it, or movement of its cord.
A nervous thumb can also find the on/off switch which is on the side of some
cardioids, and turn it on and off. Imagine what that would do to your interview
sound!

2. Always Point the Mic at the Person Who’s Speaking

Make sure you don’t get out of sync in your pointing! (This is a surprisingly common
mistake.) If you point to yourself when the interviewee is speaking and to the
interviewee when you’re asking the next question, you’ll get worse results than with
an omni, because the cardioid mic is made to reject sound from the rear.

3. Maintain a Good Mic-to-mouth Distance

Fifteen to 20 centimetres (6–8 inches) is a good distance to have between the speaker’s
mouth and the mic. You need the mic close enough so the person’s voice will
dominate over the background sound, but not so close that the speaker will feel his
or her personal space is being invaded.
Another problem with putting the mic too close is that you may get ‘popping’
distortions from the force of the speaker’s mouth air physically hitting the mic when
saying those more explosive consonants like ‘b’, ‘p’ and ‘t’.
Interview mics can come with a pop filter which can be used to reduce this form
of distortion.

4. Don’t Relinquish the Mic

You may find that the person you’re interviewing reaches out to take the mic from
you. Be assertive about hanging on to it. This is not karaoke time. An inexperienced
interviewee won’t have developed the handling skills you’ve had to learn, and the
simple act of letting go of the mic may result in sound which is unusable for your
project and add up to wasted effort for everyone involved.
Another hazard is that the person who took the mic from you will pass it to
another person. You could tape a whole series of people saying their bit, but end up
with nothing recorded at all because someone unwittingly switched the mic off
somewhere along the way. (This is a particular hazard at heady events like weddings,
where everyone wants to—and should—get in on the video.)

5. Take Extras
It’s prudent to take along an extra mic and an extra mic cable, too. (Something to
do with Murphy’s Law.)
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232 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Using an Audio Mixer

An audio mixer is a device which allows several sound sources to be combined into one
or two channels of audio.
Mixers come in a range of sizes; the larger ones (with 24 inputs and from 2 to
24 outputs) generally remain fixed in audio control rooms, outside broadcast (OB) vans
and recording studios. But there are smaller, quite portable, ones which are very useful
in location work.

SQN-4S portable mixer. This portable mixer has four inputs and
two outputs.

Using Several Sound Sources

Sometimes you’ll be taping in a situation where you
need to use more than two mics simultaneously. Yet
there are only two mic inputs on your camera. In
fact, sometimes there’s only one.
With a basic level portable audio mixer, you can
use four separate mics, run them through the mixer,
and output two channels (or one channel) of mixed
audio into your camera.
You can also take pre-recorded sound—like
music—directly from a CD player, boom box,
another VCR, or a mixer split or feed from a house
system, input it directly into the mixer, and blend it
with your live program sound.
The volume faders on the mixer allow you to
fade the various sources up and down during the
recording session. So you can open with your
program’s theme, then fade the music down and
bring up the interviewer’s mic for the introduction to
the segment, and then open the mic of the guest.
With a mixer you can input more than two mics at a Having some mics open (their volume faded up)
time.Jason Troutman on location in Xishuangbanna, and some mics closed (their volume faded down) is
Yunnan, China, for Dai Women Speak.(Photo by usually advisable.
Michelle Blakeney)
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Location Sound Recording 233

As an example, consider that you’re taping a short presentation from several speakers,
followed by a discussion. Only the active speaker’s mic should be open, so the extraneous
noise or muttered comments of the others don’t make it onto the soundtrack.

Input 1
Channel 1 output
Input 2
Input 3 Channel 2 output
Input 4

With an audio mixer you can use several sound sources at once, and mix them down to the two audio
tracks which are on videotape.

Of course, an unpredictable speaking arrangement, like the round-table discussion,

requires a sound operator who’s always on headphones. This operator’s responsibility
is to ride the levels, in other words, to make sure that only the right mics are open at each
point during the recording, and that the open mics are faded up loud enough to produce
an adequate program sound.
The camera operator has to concentrate on getting the picture right, so s/he can’t be
responsible for monitoring and controlling the audio of several mics. Don’t let anyone
tell you that you can do this job alone!

Mic Level and Line Level

Mixers often have two connection points for each sound source input, one for a mic level
signal, and the other for a line level signal.
These two signals are quite different in strength. The mic level signal is only
2–5 millivolts, and a line level signal can be a full volt.
A mic level signal, sent into a line level input, will barely be heard. A line level signal,
sent into a mic level input, will be totally blasting and distorted.
So it’s important to make sure that you attach your sound source to the correct
connection point.
Generally speaking, an RCA socket indicates a line level input, and a mini (3.5 mm)
or phone (6.5 mm) socket indicates a mic level input. But they should be clearly labelled,
so you can rely here on your literacy as well as your connector recognition. Some mixers
with XLR input connections can be manually switched between mic and line level.
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234 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

The mixer outputs can also be either mic level or line level. So check your mixer
labels carefully, or read the mixer’s specification sheet, so you know whether to connect
the mixer to the mic level or line level inputs on your camera or record machine.

Using a Mixer for Sound Quality Control

The controls for adjusting audio levels on cameras are often awkwardly placed. Even an
alert sound recordist is hard pressed to tweak knobs which are sandwiched in somewhere
between the camera and the camera operator’s head! And even if you can get your hand
in there, tweaking the knob will often cause the camera to move and put an unwanted
jiggle in the shot.
It’s also impossible for someone who’s holding the mic for an interview to be reaching
back to the camera to make audio level adjustments.
So for better quality control of location sound, the recordist may choose to use a
mixer, even if there will be only one or two mics used during the shoot.
The sound recordist carries the mixer around with a shoulder strap or stashes it
somewhere that s/he can attend to it easily.
During set-up, the sound recordist sends the calibrated tone from the mixer to the
camera and then sets the levels on the camera’s sound inputs so that tone registers at 0.
Then any changes in audio levels which occur during the shoot can be taken care
of at the mixer without disturbing the concentration and smooth work of the camera
operator.

Setting Input Switches on Your Camera

(Some sound advice from Andy Nehl.)
Depending on what kind of DV camera you have, you may have external microphone
switches that have settings for:
• Mic (microphone level).
• Line (Line level).
• ATT (Attenuate).
• +48 v (also known as phantom power).
The Mic setting is for audio signal coming from a microphone.
The Line setting is for audio signals coming in from an audio mixer, CD player, DAT or
some other non-microphone audio source.
The ATT setting is useful for recording audio levels that are really high. It will cut the audio
signal coming from the mic into the camera by a preset amount, usually 20 dB. If you’re
recording normal audio levels, make sure the audio switch is not set to ATT or your levels will
be really low.
The ‘+48 v’ or Phantom Power setting is for use with condenser microphones that do not
have their own internal battery and require 48 volts of power from the camera to operate. It
should be switched to +48 v for the microphone to work.
Some older condenser microphones were built to operate with +12 v (12 volts) of
phantom power.These mics will not work with modern MiniDV cameras.
Make sure you know what kind of microphones you’re using and adjust the settings
appropriately whenever you change mics. If in doubt, check your manual.
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Location Sound Recording 235

Using a Back-up Recorder

Think of using two sound recording systems. As
I would say that it’s better for
well as the tape in the camcorder, you can use DAT,
sound to use DAT as a primary
a Nagra or a cassette recorder. Your second system
recording source and use the
may, in fact, give you even better quality sound than
tape as a back-up in case of
the camera will. But the main reason is that almost
DAT failure. Jane
ANY quality is better than no sound if the first
Paterson,
system fails for some reason. Sound Editor,
AFTRS.

Digital Sound DATs are very fragile.You have

to treat them gently and push
Digital sound recordings can be transmitted very the button softly.
accurately. This is called high fidelity (or literally high
truth). When an analog signal is being transmitted,
Alison
the receiving instrument has no way of distinguishing between the signal itself and any Wotherspoon,
noise that has been introduced during the transmission. Then if that signal, with its Flinders
introduced noise, is retransmitted, more noise is incorporated into the signal by the next University.

receiving instrument. So each successive generation of analog sound gets worse and
worse—like analog video does, as you already
know.
However, with a digital sound signal, the noise With sound, there’s no
is far more easily disassociated from the main signal. headroom in digital. If you get
This allows transparent passage of sound signals a distortion, the sound’s gone.
through many generations of transmission or So we’re back to having
recording. soundmen on crews, which is Richard
good. Fitzpatrick,
Camera
Operator,
Digital

Common Pitfalls in Location Sound Dimensions.

Recording
Wind
Even a slight breeze blowing across a microphone can produce an unpleasant rumbling
noise on a sound recording. Although we don’t hear this wind sound through the air
during the shoot, we can hear it through headphones, which is yet another reason to
constantly monitor sound with headphones during any recording session.
Wind noise can range from being an occasional irritant in an otherwise good
soundtrack, to being so bad that the whole recording is useless.
Wind gags are specially designed devices which shield the surface of the microphone
from contact with moving air, thus eliminating wind noise.
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236 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

In windy areas, you need to use a substantial wind gag over the mic.On location for SA Water’s video
newsletter.Audio Mylene Ludgate, DOP Malcolm Foreman, Producer Amanda Duggan, for t.a.v.
productions, Adelaide, SA, Australia.(Photo by Kathy Nixon)

Wind gags come in many shapes and sizes, and there are wind gags to suit every
sort of mic. Many of them are made out of foam, some are made of more sturdy plastic
or metal. All of them are designed to let sound through quite well, though they can
reduce the high frequencies somewhat.
Unless you’re the person who’s The zeppelin-shaped ones are better than the
going to fix it in post, don’t foam ones, because they preserve a cushion of
assume that it CAN be fixed in undisturbed (wind free) air next to the mic.
post. They also come in different capacities—some
are okay for slight wind, and others are heavy duty,
Jane
Paterson, for the really trying weather conditions. There are
Sound Editor, some like socks, which fit over the zeppelin-shaped plastic wind gags.
AFTRS. For the most extreme conditions, there’s the shaggy dog, which is covered with long
fur, like a soft toy, and also fits over wind gags like a sock. It’s a funny sight because it
has two eyes on it, which go on the end of the mic that you point at the sound source.

Background Waves
Any background sound which has a predictable rhythm to it, like ocean waves, a spinning
garden sprinkler, passing traffic or cicadas, can pose terrible continuity problems in
postproduction.
Although the background sound may seem low level and innocuous—even
pleasant—on the day, when the presenter’s words or the actors’ dialogue are being recut,
a break in the background rhythm leaps to the foreground of the viewer’s consciousness.
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Location Sound Recording 237

The wave which comes halfway in behind a spoken line and then disappears through
a black hole at the edit point, and the wave which seems to be double or triple-crested,
are just two of the oddities editors tear their hair over.
Whenever you’re taping near a rhythmic background, it’s a good idea to use a
directional mic and point it away from that sound. Or move to somewhere else entirely.
If you can’t move, be sure to record a couple of VU meters
good minutes of atmos—nothing but the rhythmic
sound on its own—so the sound editor can smooth
out the rough spots in the background during sound
postproduction.

Over-adjusting the Input Levels

Scenario: You’re taping a drama and didn’t
notice till the shooting started that the boom
swinger isn’t able to get the mic quite close
The VU meters are your guide to the levels you’re
enough to the second actor.The mic’s sound level
recording.Believe the meters, not your headphones.
from this person is low compared to the first actor.
So every time the second person speaks, you assiduously boost
the input level. You feel happy that you’ve managed to record
both actors’ voices at equal strength.

The problem is, that every time you crank up the audio level
for the second actor, you also boost the background noise. So the
sound editor will collapse at the lack of continuity in the
background sound.
What else could you have done?

Scenario: You’re taping a music concert and you notice that

sometimes the needle on the VU meter is reading low and other
times it’s reading very high. You decide to ‘ride the levels’ to get Changes in volume level are part of
a good even sound. the expressiveness of music.Anita
Spring,World Music Festival,
The problem is, that every time you adjust the audio level for Australia.(Photo by Michelle
the fluctuations in the volume of the music, you’re eliminating Blakeney)
one of the expressive elements of the performance.
Music is supposed to get louder and softer at different
points.
One of the beauties of a good recording is that
it can employ the dynamic range of the tape (the usable
range between high and low volumes) to reproduce
the experience of varying sound intensities that the
people present at the concert felt.
What else could you have done?
National Aboriginal and Islander Week celebration,
Woolloomooloo, NSW, Australia.(Photo by Michelle
Blakeney)
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238 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Taping Concerts
If you’ve been asked to videotape a music concert, you should arrange to meet with the
person in charge of the sound as soon as possible.
If the music will be mixed live and sent out via speakers, sometimes the desk operator
will be willing to let you take a feed from an auxiliary output and run it into your camera.
In this case, there are four things to check first:
1. Will you be getting a mono or stereo feed?
2. Precisely what connectors will you need to attach your camera to the mixing desk?
3. Will there be two versions done of the mix—one for the desires of the audience,
which may require only the vocals to be boosted to compete with the room levels
of the bass, and a different one for recording to tape? If there will be two mixes, of
course you want to make sure you get the full mix version.
4. How far away from the mixer’s location will you be setting up your camera? Which
means, how much cable do you need to run from the desk to your set-up?
Then you need to consider:
1. Will this person do a good mix? Can s/he be relied upon to give you an undistorted
output level? If the feed is too hot and overdrives your video recording, you’ll have
worse audio than your camera mic would have given you. Included in this question
is the need to make sure that if it’s a line level output, your camera can handle it. Some
cameras only have a mic level input.
2. Room sound. Though getting a good quality feed from the mixer is a great boon,
nevertheless it will be a rather sterile sound. Your video recording needs to include
the presence of a live audience, their clapping and laughter, their soft rustling
movements, even their coughs or sneezes.

Doing Your Own Mix at the Camera

To get the ambient sound of an audience, two super-cardioids placed close to the house
speakers and aimed away from the speakers and towards the audience will give you
the sound of the live house, without the delay in the music which you’d get if you just
placed an omni in the audience.
If the concert’s soundperson gives you a good quality stereo feed, and you set up
the cardioids near the speakers, then with a small portable mixer and a second person
to help you, you can do a good mix-down of the three or four channels and end up
with a soundtrack worthy of the performance.
If you don’t feel you can rely on the concert’s soundperson, or you’re not able to
get a feed, an omni mic may be your best bet for recording the performance. This is
because it will capture the PA mix as the audience heard it, and it will also include the
ambient sound of the hall.
Though omni mics have only limited uses, this is one case where they can do well.
And don’t forget your camera mic is likely to be an omni.
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Location Sound Recording 239

Tips for Recording Music

To get a good recording of a musical performance,
you need a separate mic for each instrument, and for
each vocalist. In other words, you need a mixer.

Cascading Mixers
Many performances will require the use of a large
mixer. If you can only get your hands on two or three
small portable mixers, you can link them into each
other.
For example, the drum kit alone will need a mic
for each drum. You could use a 6-channel mixer for
the mics coming from the drum kit, and do a
percussion sub-mix on that mixer. Then you could
run the output of that mixer into one of the input
faders on a second mixer. Get the idea?
Make sure you’re clear about mic and line levels, Betty Little performs at the University of Technology
with both the inputs and the outputs. Sydney, NSW, Australia.(Photo by Michelle Blakeney)

Recording an Acoustic Guitar and a Singer

A good trick for recording a full sound from an acoustic guitar is to tape a little omni lav
mic inside the sound chamber of the guitar. You can attach the mic to a small piece of
foam, and attach the foam to the interior of the guitar. Then the full, resonant sound of
the guitar will be the dominant sound into this mic.
You put the singer on a second mic, preferably a directional one which can be pointed
straight at the singer’s mouth. Aiming it correctly can be tricky because you’re trying to
avoid most of the sound from the guitar. A boom or mic stand will be helpful for keeping
this mic stable and noiseless.
The aim is for the singer’s mic to pick up much more of the voice than of the guitar.
Then you adjust the pan control on the audio mixer so the guitar and the singer are
assigned to separate tracks. Or you just run each mic directly into a record machine onto
different channels.
This set-up allows you to later, in sound postproduction, vary the levels of the voice
and the guitar in relation to each other. Sometimes one sound overpowers the other—
this way you can make the blend you need, and not be stuck with having both sounds
on one mic, with no way to separate the sounds from each other.

Use the Best Recording Space

Don’t set yourself up for failure! Before you decide where to record a musician, check
out the possible spaces available to you.
Sound bounces well off hard surfaces. A classroom with a tiled floor, smooth hard
walls and a low ceiling is a very bouncy place. As well as the initial sound signal coming
into your mic straight from the singer’s mouth, you’ll be picking up bounced sound
(echoes) from all those surfaces, and each different bounce will come with its own delay,
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240 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

depending on where it bounced from. So instead of

getting a crisp recording, your sound will be muddied
by all the bounced signals.
Sound recording studios are specially designed
to be dead. (Who thinks up these terms?) This means
that the sound is absorbed into the special coverings
on the walls, floor and ceiling, so only the initial
sound directed to the mic is recorded.
You can reduce bounce a little by using a carpet
and curtains, but if you’re serious about good quality
recording, check into how to make your space more
sound absorbing.
Recording studios often have special acoustic Because we’re used to sound bounce in what we
coverings on the walls to make the recordings hear, listening to yourself speak in a totally deadened
sound better.Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE, space is quite unnerving.
Collingwood,Vic, Australia.

Planning for the Postproduction Mix

As with the picture side of video editing, postproduction actually starts in preproduction,
and is very dependent on the shoot. It comes down to this—you can’t edit what you
don’t have.
So you need to think very carefully about any sounds you might want in the edit,
and plan to record them when you’re on location.

Clean Dialogue
The uppermost aim is usually to get clean dialogue. This means making sure that there
aren’t variations in the background sound which will make rearranging the order of the
shots later on into a continuity nightmare.
A piece of equipment which was rumbling in
When videotaping an interview the background during part of the shoot, say a
outdoors, pay attention to lawnmower in the neighbour’s yard, can yield an
common sounds of traffic, odd result if you have to swap the order of various
sirens, lawnmowers and electric spoken lines. The lawnmower takes on an inex-
Donna hedge-clippers. plicable stop-and-start presence behind the dialogue.
Kenny,The
Video History
Company Sound Effects
and Center
for Recording Although there are some stock sound effects which you can get from sound libraries,
Life Stories. it’s generally best to record, on location, any sounds which could enhance the sound
environment you plan to present on your videotape.
The creak of the sails, and the thud of the rudder, that you record on the boat you’ve
videoed will give your soundtrack a life and authenticity that stock FX CDs are unlikely
to be able to match.
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Location Sound Recording 241

The Buzz Track or Room Tone
A buzz track recording (also known as room tone) captures the general background sound
present at a location. It’s used in sound postproduction to patch and fill those spots
where there are gaps in the edited soundtrack.
These gaps can occur for any number of There’s always time for an
reasons—maybe the director’s voice was heard, so atmos track!
it had to be taken out, or the video image needed
to be extended with a cutaway or reaction shot, but
the next dialogue line couldn’t start quite yet . . . whatever the cause, the buzz track is
Carol Brands,
the sound editor’s spackle. Curtin
So always take the time to record one to two uninterrupted minutes of the ambient University of
sound at each location. Technology.

This buzz track is usually recorded at the end of

the shoot. With a professional crew, everyone is
expected to remain in place and stay completely still
and soundless during the recording of the buzz track.
The sound recordist calls out the start and finish times
of this recording. It can seem very long at the end of
a hard day, but the buzz track is essential to sound
postproduction, and this ‘freeze’ of the crew is part
of the discipline which comes with being committed
to making a good product.
All the bits of staging and the arrangement of
personnel needs to remain the same for the recording
of the buzz track, or the acoustics of the room could
sound different. Also, it’s no good turning the On location for Oral Hygiene for Aged Care for the
portable lights off until it’s finished, because cooling Australian Dental Association.Audio David
lights generate clicks and other noises which will mar McDonald, DOP Gerald Manogue, for t.a.c.
the recording. productions, Adelaide, SA, Australia.
(Photo by Simon Stanbury)
The Atmos Track
The atmos track is a distinct sound entity, though it’s a term often used interchangeably
with buzz track. The atmos track gives an overall sound of the location, and is sometimes
recorded in the same place before or after the shoot, while at other times it’s recorded
somewhere else, if the other place gives the right feel for the sound design of the video.
The atmos track is mixed in to the overall soundtrack during sound postproduction.

Recording Pictures Only

In some video productions, sound and image are combined in the editing process. When
people are out shooting the images, they may take little or no care about the quality of
the sound they’re recording, because they plan to get rid of it in postproduction anyway.
This is the case for some MTV style tapes, or other productions which employ a series
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242 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

of images set to music. It’s also true when people are

out shooting cutaways which will go with a
voiceover.
Some camera operators actually turn off the
sound recording when they’re doing these shoots.
This is unduly reckless, for two reasons. The
plain fact is that you never know what’s going to
happen next, and suddenly wonderful and unre-
peatable sounds can occur when you’re out there
with a camera. If you’re set up for recording sound
and you capture them, you may well be able to use
them, if not on the current project, then on another
one later on.
The other reason is that the soundtrack can be
useful as a guide track for locating shots later on, or
National Aboriginal and Islander Week performance, synching actions (as in dance or music playing) to
Sydney, NSW, Australia.(Photo by Michelle Blakeney) other recordings of the same piece.

Suggestions from Rachel Masters

PAINTING WITH SOUND
Sound often emphasises little details that can make a story more interesting and
creative: the dripping of rain off a roof awning, the school games in a playground, the
grating of an old ferris wheel mechanism.
Record some unusual sounds on location and keep the lens cap on the camera for a
minute before recording an image of what the sound source is.Test your friends—can
they guess the sounds?

ISOLATING THE AUDIO STRANDS

You don’t even need the camera to do this one. Next time you’re waiting for the bus or
train, or you’re in a cafe, at work, out in the bush, at the beach, at your relatives’ place,
close your eyes for a minute. Imagine you’re planning a shoot for this location. What do
you hear that would add interest to your shoot?

LOCATION SOUNDS
Great location sound makes for a great production. An interesting exercise is to record
location sound without the visual images. Listen to the location sounds on playback—
what do they tell you about the location that you didn’t notice when you were there?
Practise recording sound at a few locations:
1. A shopping centre.
2. A fun park.
3. Your own house.
4. Outside a school playground.
On playback, listen very carefully to the sounds. Do you hear new sounds you didn’t
notice before? How can you use these observations in your video making?
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Chapter

18 Sound
Postproduction
Producing Videos
Sound Postproduction

In student projects made just for in-class screenings and assessment by

I teachers and peers, the final audio tracks are often relatively simple and
they’re completed in the video edit suite.
Usually the spoken words are assigned to the
inside audio track of the videotape: that is, channel 2
in Umatic (one never knows where top technicians
have been keeping this old gear running!), channel 1
in SVHS and channel 1 in Betacam. Hi-8 and digital
record the audio in the diagonal tracks, so channel
choice isn’t the concern it once was.
Spoken words are edited in at the same time as
the video images of any visible speakers so lip sync is
retained. This means that all the words heard on the
audio track correspond to the position of the lips of
the on-screen speaker.
Of course, it’s technically possible to edit in the It’s usually best to edit picture and sound together,
words either later or earlier than the video, using so that lip sync is visible.Kevin Noakes hosts
separate insert edits, but re-achieving lip sync is a A Blackcurrent Affair, School of Indigenous Australian
time-consuming and frustrating exercise. Some edit Studies, James Cook University,Townsville, Qld,
systems aren’t ‘frame accurate’ and the in and out Australia.
points may erratically slip, in either direction, from
your assigned edit points.
Talking heads tend to get boring very quickly, though, so you’re likely to want to
include cutaways over some of the spoken passages. No problem. Edit in all the words
the speaker will say, along with the video of them speaking, and then afterwards do
insert edits of any video cutaways you want.
A good method for smoothly shortening an interview, or rearranging the order of
the answers, is to chop and change it the way you want it and then conceal your edit
‘seams’ by putting video ‘patches’ over them—a bit like clever sewing.
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244 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Sometimes this re-assembling of speech can be offensive to the person interviewed.

If you don’t want to thus deceive your audience about exactly how the person answered,
let the cuts remain visible in the video.
A fade to black, or white, and back again, gracefully acknowledges that a cut has
been made.

Recording a Voiceover
You may want to include sections of spoken commentary to link one part of your video
to the next, or to give the viewer an overview of the topic.
If so, record your narration onto a separate videotape, and then edit it onto your
master tape, bit by bit. Having the voiceover on videotape rather
than audiotape gives you more accuracy in editing by allowing
you to control the playback of the voiceover tape with the edit
controller and letting you preview each cut.
Caution: Make sure when you record the voiceover that
you record a control track at the same time. If there’s no control
track on the voiceover videotape, the edit system won’t be able
to align the audio footage for either previews or edits, so you’ll
be no better off than having it on an audiotape player and doing
manual, self-timed roll-ins.
You can record a control track on the voiceover tape by using
assemble edit mode and simultaneously recording either an
image from a camera or a test signal, like colour bars or studio
black, when you’re laying down the commentary.
It can be very helpful later on during editing if you take the
trouble to aim a camera at the narrator when you record the
voiceover. This added vision can help you find the right spots
when you’re editing, especially if you include specific visual
Media student at Batchelor College, markers.
Batchelor, NT, Australia. Trying to find the right take, when there are five versions of
one sentence, can drive you mad if each time you have to find
the first one and then count them out as you spool through the tape in search mode.
Make it easy on yourself! It’s going to be hard enough anyway.
To prevent editing insanity, ask the narrator, or an assistant, to hold up a card which
tells which segment—and which take—is which. Alternatively, you can use a slate or
character generator to mark each take.
The other advantage of using a camera image, rather than a test signal or black, is
that it makes your tape identifiable. Having no visually discernible content can put your
tape at risk, because you (or someone else) might be tricked into thinking it’s an empty
tape, if you can’t see a recording when you spot check it.
Needless to say, any voiceover tapes should be clearly labelled as such.
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Sound Postproduction 245

The M&E Track

Once you’re happy that you have all the words put together
correctly on the inside track, you can start working on the music
and effects (M&E) on the outside audio track.

Atmos
You may find that there are holes in the background sound in
between your dialogue cuts. Silence can be very loud and obvious
at times like this! This is where having recorded one or two
minutes of atmos or buzz track at the shoot will pay off. You can
fill all these gaps using the ambient sound from the location.
It’s best to record the atmos continuously on the outside track,
so it’s heard behind all the speech, and maybe fade it up slightly
in between the speaking sections to accentuate the sound of the
magpies, the playing children, or whatever, to give your tape a
feeling of immediacy and presence in the situation.
Country Ebony—Gus Williams, with
Cyclical Background Sounds Warren Williams (standing) and
Clyde Williams (kneeling), Australia.
There are some background sounds which are nightmares for (Photo by Michelle Blakeney)
sound postproduction.
Beach waves are in this category. Though they may be balm to the spirit when heard
in their full, mind-massaging rhythm, they sound very odd if the crest of one wave sound
is abruptly cut off and replaced by a trough, or if two crests are edited in too close
together, so the natural sound flow is broken.
When rearranging the words of your speaker on the beach, or selecting the very best
drama takes and assembling them, the background rhythm is very likely to be thrown
off kilter.
In post, sometimes laying in some continuous atmos waves on the outside track will
disguise the oddity of sound behind the words on the inside track, providing that the
cyclical sound behind the dialogue was of fairly low volume level in the original recording.
One trick for achieving a minimum of background wave sounds is to use a directional
mic and orient it so that its back is towards the ocean and its front is held in as close as
possible to the speaker.
Other sounds which have to be addressed in
post are the vanishing acts, like the train or aeroplane Never tape dialogue over
which is travelling along in the background of the cicadas.
dialogue, and then drops away suddenly at the end
of the cut. For the audio track to sound right, that
train or plane sound has to be extended beyond the cut and then faded away. Martha
In a perfect world, all dialogue would be clean, free of such annoyances. And care Mollison,
Video
taken by the sound recordist on the day makes a big difference when editing time comes. Producer.
Though the director may have all concentration focused on the quality of the acting
which is happening, and be oblivious to background sounds, the sound recordist should
halt any take before it begins if a plane sound appears on his/her headphones.
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246 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Location Sound Effects

You should have recorded any special sound effects inherent to your locations during
your shoots. These are likely to sound more genuine than effects you do later.
They should be carefully logged so you can find them easily during sound
postproduction. Then you make up a chart which shows exactly where they go in your
M&E track.

Foley
Sometimes there are sound effects needed in the final edit which weren’t shot on location.
Maybe they were forgotten, they were impossible at the time, or they were decided
upon later.
This is where foley comes in. Named after the sound effects artist, Jack Foley from
Universal Studios, foley is now the generic term for studio-recorded sound effects. It can
include footsteps on wood or on various surfaces (e.g. walking in large trays of sand or
gravel). The foley studio has doors for slamming, creaking or knocking on, and the foley
artist uses inventiveness and imagination to produce a myriad of sounds, from kissing
flesh, to punching sides of beef for fight scenes, and stabbing cabbages for stabbing
scenes.
Track Stars is an entertaining short Canadian film (7 minutes) which shows foley
artists at work. (See end of chapter for purchase details.)

Library Sound Effects

You may not have the time to do your own foley.
Or there may be sounds which are too hard or
impossible for you to get.
In that case, there are many records and CDs of
sound effects, from baby cries to animal sounds to
gun shots to boat whistles to . . .
Check with your media centre to see what they
own. The student radio station often has a good
selection of sound effects, too. And some people
decide to purchase an effects library for their own use.
Kimberly Rabe edits music with assistance from Sound effects libraries include copyright with the
Claire Beach, Edmonds-Woodway High School, sale of the recording, so there’s no problem copying
Edmonds,WA, USA. them into your video.

Music
If you want your images to exactly match the music—for example, if you want the
pictures to change with the beat of the music—you should record the music track first,
and then cut the pictures.
But if you will be using music for background or mood, you should cut it in after
the dialogue track is in place. This is so you can tell exactly where to fade it in and out,
so it comes in nicely after the speaking ends and fades down before the next dialogue
segment begins.
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Sound Postproduction 247

A common mistake is to record the music track too loud, and find that it drowns
out the dialogue track. The dialogue should be recorded good and strong, with the VU
meter needle right up near the red (distortion) section, but not in it. Background music,
however, should be recorded at a much lower level, with the needle not rising very high
at all. The best way to tell if the level is right is to listen to both tracks together while
you’re setting the level for the music recording, and to monitor both tracks while you
do the recording.
One major hazard is choosing a music track with words to put under a dialogue
track. No matter how much you like the song, the words connected to the music will
fight with the dialogue, and the end result will be an audio muddle and confusion on
the part of the audience.
Sometimes people like to use an audio wash, which is a music track so low in the
background that it’s barely audible, but it adds to the fullness of the soundtrack, and
contributes to the mood of the piece.
Other people feel that it’s manipulative to use music to set mood, and the soundtrack
should be composed only of sounds which are inherent to the location.
As you can see, there’s both philosophy and craft to the production of soundtracks.

In Digital,You Can See Sound

One of the changes in moving to digital sound editing
is that you get a graphic representation of the sound
on your computer screen while you hear it from your
speakers. You watch a marker pass over the sound
read-out as the sound is played back to you. This is
great fun at first, to see sound. And it’s fascinating to
see how the crisp attack of hard consonants like ‘k’,
shows up, and how a group of words can run
together as nearly continuous sound, while other
words are phrased quite separately from each other.
One benefit is that, with practice, you can see
where to make your edit trims. You can see just The first time you see sound, it may be quite
where the silence is. But of course there’s always different from what you’ve expected.A student from
some silence in natural speech, so you can’t cut it all Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE, Collingwood,
out, or the dialogue you’re editing will sound wrong. Vic, Australia.

The Sound Mix

Once you’ve done a couple of video projects, your ambitions for your soundtrack may
surge, and you’ll find that having only two audio tracks to work with just isn’t enough.
All you need to aspire to is a cross-fade between a sound effect and a piece of music,
and you’ll crave a third track. Then a fourth, and so on.
So the next step is to use an audio mixer.
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248 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

First, you need to make up a track-laying plan,

fully organise all your sound sources and attach them
to the different inputs on the audio mixer, and then
do the mix by raising and lowering a number of input
faders as the recording proceeds.
Doing this sort of mix requires concentration,
patience and practice. Professionals usually do a mix
in segments or runs because of the difficulty of getting
so many things exactly right. A manual mix often
requires the help of one or two other people, to assist
with handling the various faders and playback
machines.
However, some high level mixing desks are
Seriana Lui does sound mix during a studio
computer-linked and can memorise the positions and
production at the School of Indigenous Australian
movements of all the faders.
Studies, James Cook University,Townsville, Qld,
The operator can design a mix and store all the
Australia.
information about it in the computer. At a command,
the audio desk will come to life, rolling through the whole sequence, with 16 or more
faders rising and falling and no hands touching them.
The operator can sit back and critically listen to it, then make a few changes, store
the new mix, play both of them to compare them, and make a choice. Or enter a third
option and listen to all three being played back.
Old-time tracklayers, eat your hearts out!
For a good example of an audio mix happening,
view the videotape The Dub (available from AFTRS).

Operating the Studio

Audio Mixer
If your next step is to learn how to do a sound mix
Operating the mixing desk at Northern Melbourne using an 8-channel (or larger) audio mixer, turn to
Institute of TAFE, Collingwood,Vic, Australia. Chapter 31, Operating the Studio Audio Mixer.

The Digital Audio Workstation

Relatively low-cost digital audio workstations (DAWs), which connect to personal computers,
have produced a revolution in the way people are doing audio postproduction.
Many video training providers throughout Australia have recently purchased DAWs,
and people are beginning to sort out how to use them.
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Sound Postproduction 249

One problem is that each DAW uses a different vocabulary for naming its various
operations, so to shift from one to another requires a process of re-learning. And even
within the same brand names, system design is evolving so quickly that knowing an
earlier model doesn’t mean you know how to operate the new one, which comes out
six months later.
Still, DAWs’ capacity for implementing a precision sound mix is so seductive. The
promise of being able to sliver off the tiniest audio flaw, a syllable here or there, and
make patches and reconstructions—and the ability to work in non-linear style—has
convinced people that it’s worth undergoing a steep learning curve to get there, and the
large cash outlay.

Setting Up a DAW
To get started you need a software package and some hardware.

SOFTWARE
There are many different DAW software packages. Your decision on which one to buy
will be influenced by their minimum system requirements. Be sure to check carefully
that your current computer has the capacity to handle the software you want to install.
Generally speaking, one gigabyte of hard disk memory will store three hours of mono
sound. This would be plenty for a short project. Floppy disks don’t have enough storage
space for this kind of work. Some sound post sites limit work to only one project at a
time, while other places use removable hard disks for purposes of having back-ups of
tracks and to allow switching between work on different projects.
It’s a good idea to take your time when making the software decision. If possible,
visit people near you who have already purchased different systems, and see how easy
(or hard) they are to operate. Get comments from the people who are using them.
Check with your local video training centre to see who has bought what.
The sound department at the AFTRS currently uses ProTools.

HARDWARE
To connect your input sound sources and your recording machine to the DAW software
in your computer, you’ll need a break-out box. This box will have connecting points for
audio in and audio out, both digital and analog.
Some break-out boxes have RCA connections
(for unbalanced audio), and some have XLR connec-
tions (for balanced audio).
The break-out box will also have connections for
timecode in and out. DAWs can only work with
recorded material which has timecode.
The break-out box comes with associated cards,
which are computer circuit boards that slip inside the
housing of your computer. When you purchase a
DAW, the installation of these cards into your
computer can be part of the deal. Media student makes sense of all those buttons,
Griffith University, Brisbane, Qld, Australia.
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250 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

The Process of Sound Postproduction

with a DAW
The digital audio workstation is a new technology for handling sound but the process
and underlying concepts of audio mixing are the same as for the earlier method of sound
postproduction—laying up all the tracks on tape and mixing them through an analog
mixing desk.
In fact, to assist sound post operators with their
A sound editor should keep transition to the new gadgetry, the on-screen display
good communication channels on a DAW includes a graphic representation of a
with the location sound multi-track mixer, complete with faders which can
recordist and the visuals editor be moved up and down.
Jane so s/he can be forewarned of Okay, so what is the process?
Paterson, any upcoming challenges (to Sound postproduction doesn’t happen until the
Sound Editor, put it delicately). fine cut of the video edit is completed.
AFTRS.
Important: The fine cut must have timecode
on it. Even if you recorded your field video wild—
that is, your camera wasn’t assigning timecode to the footage—make sure when you
transfer (bump up) your tapes to Betacam, 1-inch or HiBand Umatic for the final edit,
that you put timecode on your material. The DAW can’t work without it.
Note: Betacam and 1-inch use a third track for timecode, so you don’t risk losing
one of your audio tracks in the transfer, as is the case with some earlier video formats.

Step 1: Layover of Audio Tracks

The vision editor passes over the location sound tracks to the sound editor via an OMF
(open media file interchange). The sound files are usually burnt onto a CD, but they can
also be swapped directly from one hard drive to another.
Another way to pass on sound materials is to give all the tapes and an EDL (edit
decision list on a floppy disk) to the sound editor. ProTools will then assemble the planned
soundtrack according to the EDL. ProTools does this via an additional software program
called Digitranslator.
If you’re working on your own, transfer the two audio tracks from the fine cut of
your video piece onto the hard disk of the DAW.
During this transfer, make sure you keep the two
tracks separate from each other in the DAW by
panning them to the left and right, respectively. While
you’re doing this transfer (layover), listen carefully to
the tracks and mark up a rough log on a track sheet.
(Yes, even in the jaws of DAWs, there’s still need for
paper and pencil work!)
Then transfer in all the other audio material
you have to work with—your voiceovers, atmos
recordings, special effects, music and so forth.
A sound postproduction department will also
Jeremy Ireland uses ProTools, Australian Film have SFX, library music and atmospheres which you
Television and Radio School. can draw upon.
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Sound Postproduction 251

Step 2: Assess Your Material
Replay the audio from the hard disk and listen to it very carefully.
Because you can now stop and start the audio as you like, you can greatly refine
your log, and mark outcues and the times of items which need to be fixed or removed.
Because the computer is locked to the video, you can watch the video program as
you listen. Pausing the video automatically pauses the computer.
At this stage, you’re mainly concerned with fixing the dialogue. You figure out what
needs to be added (like clipped endings on words), replaced (bad quality sound), deleted
(audible director’s cues), extended (that plane flight overhead which ended at the cut),
or masked (this could be anything).

Step 3: Sound Design

Although for many videos sound design would (and should) have started in the project
development stage, now is the time to face the reality of what material is actually at
hand.
The spotting session is held, in which the director, musician and sound postproduction
person meet together. In some cases these are one and the same person, so if you’re a
Renaissance Person get used to holding inner dialogues!
The director says what s/he needs for the completion of the project. Then everyone
discusses ideas and options. The overall aim is to fix up the bad parts, and achieve the
director’s goals for the audio track.
Some things to consider are: will the use of music hide the presence of intended
sound effects? If so, which should be dropped, the music or the effects?

Step 4: Cleaning Up the Tracks

Go over the existing program sound with the equivalent of a fine-toothed comb,
removing any unwanted sounds and putting in niceties, like fading between sound clips
at edit points to make the cuts more subtle.
The sound editor’s job is to fix the messy location dialogue, smooth the transitions,
even out the backgrounds and add in additional material.
The rule of thumb for the editor of the video fine cut is to ‘give more rather than
less’, since it’s easier to delete unwanted bits than to
add in or manufacture missing sounds.

Step 5: Start Adding in the Other Tracks

Efficiently
See how well you can add in the needed sounds,
using as few tracks as possible. The DAW may have
only four available tracks, so if you can manage to
sandwich in the voiceover segments between the
dialogue sections and thereby get both items into one
track, well done.

Keyboard from sound studio at Northern Melbourne

Institute of TAFE, Collingwood,Vic, Australia.
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252 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Step 6a: Lay in the Music Tracks

Some postproduction people prefer to lay in the music next.
The idea is this: once you’ve put the music in, you can tell where the remaining gaps
are. There’s no use spending time putting in sound effects which won’t be heard.

Step 6b: Lay in the Effects and Atmos

A lot of sound post is problem Tracks
solving, and time management
Other sound post people prefer to put in the effects
is very important. As a sound
and atmos next, and leave the music to last. Once
editor you should assume that
it’s clear where the remaining gaps are, music
Jane technical problems beyond
selections can be timed and chosen. Perhaps music
Paterson, your control can just happen, so
Sound Editor, will be specially composed for these gaps.
build enough time into your
AFTRS. The particular project’s style and needs may
editing schedule so you can still
determine whether you put in music or effects first.
complete the project on the
A good spotting session should predict whether
deadline. With enough time
putting in the music or the effects first would be the
anything can be solved.
best route.

Doing a Pre-Mix (Bounce Down)

The four key elements of a soundtrack are:
• Dialogue and voiceover.
• Effects.
• Atmos.
• Music.
Sometimes one or more of these elements requires more than one recording track. For
example, you may have a large number of effects which need to overlap each other. In
this case, you can use the four (sometimes more) tracks of the DAW to lay out the effects
separately, then cross-fade and mix all these effects onto one master FX track. You do
this by using the track bounce function.
Once the tracks have been bounced to the single FX track, the original four (or so)
tracks can be deleted, thus freeing up track space for the other sound elements such as
dialogue/voiceover, atmos and music. You do this freeing-up of tracks by hitting the
command auto replace to erase (blow away) the component tracks.
This process is called doing a bounce down. It basically means reducing the audio
material from many tracks to one track.
In the end you need to get all the elements mixed down to the number of tracks the
DAW can handle for the final mix.
The last sound postmix bounces down the final dialogue/voiceover, music, atmos
and effects tracks to either a mono or a stereo pair, which is then ready to be transferred
to the master edit tape.
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Sound Postproduction 253

The Completed Sound Track

The final objective is to lay back the mono or stereo mix from the DAW to the two audio
tracks on the master video edit.
This must be done locked to timecode so that every sound recurs in the right place.
The end result is that the initial thin and flawed soundtrack from the video edit is
replaced by a richer, deeper and cleaner postproduced soundtrack.
Oh, how satisfying.

Using a Digital Audio Multi-track Recorder

If you’re recording music live, you could need a number of tracks to cover the various
instruments. For example, a drum set alone usually requires several mics to catch the
sound of each drum and cymbal and adequately reproduce their sounds.
In this case you could use a digital audio multi-track recorder to do a sub-mix,
integrating all the mic inputs into one mixed output which can then be laid over into
the DAW.

Mixing for Theatre Sound

Sometimes people want to end up with a much more complicated soundtrack which
will work in a theatre presentation.
They lay up and edit their audio tracks on a DAW, then dub them over onto a digital
multi-track. Sometimes they even need more than one digital audio recorder to hold all
their tracks.
Once they have everything recorded on tape, they take the lot to a posh mixing
studio where their sound track is mixed for left, centre, right and surround sound.

Suggestions from Rachel Masters

1. Changing a soundtrack or re-voicing your favourite TV show can be difficult but very
entertaining. Record a very small section of your favourite show. In the edit suite, record
over the audio tracks only, adding whatever new dialogue or sound effects you choose.
Try turning a sitcom into a serious drama, or a drama into a sitcom.
2. Another challenging exercise is to try to entirely change the genre of your favourite
show.Turn a comedy into a clichéd horror skit, complete with creaky doors and music
of impending doom.
3. Write a short script which is versatile enough to be used in several genres. Working in
pairs, design a soundtrack to work with the script in the following genres: romance,
horror, action, drama, film noir and science fiction.
4. Try creating your own soundtrack from scratch. Make it tell a story which uses only
sound and no dialogue. Listen to a few professional soundscapes or dance music for
inspiration.
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254 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Assessing Production Work

Steve Parris of Edmonds-Woodway High School (Edmonds, WA, USA) has developed
a checklist for students and teachers to assess audio production work. Here it is:

AUDIO PRODUCTION RUBRIC

5 5 4 4 3 3 2 2 1 1 00

Recording
Recording levels levels
LevelsLevels
are are Some Some levels
levels are are Something
Something reallyLevels
really Levels
areare terribly No
terribly Noproject
project
are perfect
are perfect for forappropriate
appropriate too strong
too strong sticks
sticks outout
tootoo unbalanced
unbalanced
each instrument
each instrument and/or
and/or too weakmuch
too weak much

Signal QUALITY
Signal QUALITY SignalSignal
levelslevels
are areSignals
Signals
are are Signal
Signal quality
quality is is Signal
Signal qualityisisa a No
quality Noproject
project
clearclean
clear and and cleanmostly
mostly
clear,clear, uneven
unevenandand major
major distraction
distraction
somesome are muddy distracts the
are muddy distracts the
or distorted listener
or distorted listener
Technical
Technical

Use of effects Effects are Something has a Badly needs Effect use causes No project
Use of is
effects
subtle and Effectsappropriate
are Something has a Badly
distracting needs
effects or less Effect use
major causes No project
distraction
is subtle and
artistic appropriate distracting effects
amount of effects or less
effects major distraction
artistic amount of effects effects
Equalisation EQ is well done Most things use Something has a EQ is a huge No project
Equalisation
is wonderful EQ is well done
and fits MostEQ
recording things
well use Something
major EQhas a EQdistraction
is a huge No project
is wonderful and fits recording EQ well major EQ
problem distraction
problem
Recording is Mastering has Something Mastering in dire No mastering No project
exceptionally
Recording is cleaned
Mastering hasup andSomething
should have need in dire
Mastering No mastering No project
mastered
exceptionally bettered
cleaned up and been
should cleaned inneed
have
mastered recording
bettered beenmastering
cleaned in
recording mastering
5 4 3 2 1 0
5 4 3 2 1 0

A well-balanced Project is well- Something is too Something is Very unbalanced No project

recording, one balanced and strong or missing sticking out or recording
A well-balanced
doesn’t even Project is well-
even Something is too Something is
distracting Very unbalanced No project
recording, one
notice the balanced and strong or missing sticking out or recording
doesn’tproduction
even even distracting
notice the
production
Performances Performances are Performances are Performances are Very amateurish No project
are incredible! solid and clean fine but uneven good but clearly performance
Performances Performances are Performances are Performances are Very amateurish No project
by an amateur
are incredible! solid and clean fine but uneven good but clearly performance
Radio ready— Could be on the Is pretty good, by an amateur
Maybe radio- Not even close to No project
Aesthetic

recording will radio but really isn’t friendly, but ready

draw interest Could be on the
Radio ready— ready
Is pretty for radio
good, pushing
Maybe it
radio- Not even close to No project
Aesthetic

fromwill
recording discerning
radio play isn’t
but really friendly, but ready
listeners
draw interest ready for radio pushing it
from discerning play
listeners
Message Message is clear Message gets a Message is Message almost No project
recording little lost in the largely cannot be
is trying to make translation inconsistent discerned
Message
is very strong Message
and is clear Message gets a Message is Message almost No project
recording
clear little lost in the largely cannot be
is trying to make translation inconsistent discerned
is very strong and
clear Overall gut Strong gut Okay gut Mixed feelings Poor gut reaction No project
reaction reaction reaction about recording to project
is overwhelming
Overall gut Strong gut Okay gut Mixed feelings Poor gut reaction No project
© Steven Parrisreaction
reaction 2002 reaction about recording to project
is overwhelming

© St P i 2002
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Sound Postproduction 255

Suggested Resources
Producing Great Sound for Digital Video, by Jay Rose, CMP Books, 2000.
The Dub, AFTRS videotape about doing the sound mix for a feature film, using The Fringe
Dwellers as its example. Available for purchase from AFTRS: Direct Sales Tel +61 2
9805 6611 or fax +61 2 9887 1030.
Track Stars: The Unseen Heroes of Movie Sound, by Terry Bourke and Andy Malcolm,
distributed by Kinetic Inc, 408 Dundas Street East, Toronto, Ontario, 2022, Canada:
Tel +1 416 963 5979 or fax +1 416 925 0653.
The Art of the Sound Effects Editor, by Marvin Kerner, Focal Press, 1989. Available within
Australia on interlibrary loan from the Jerzy Toplitz Library at AFTRS, North Ryde,
NSW: Tel +61 2 9805 6440 or fax +61 2 9805 6652; email [email protected]
Digital, an Australian magazine which covers the latest in home audio.
Explore websites, such as the Audio Engineering Society’s <<http://www.aes.org/>>

Thanks to Barry Fernandes and Jane Paterson for their contributions to this
chapter.
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Chapter

19 Safety on
the Set
By Don
Bethel Producing Videos
Safety on the Set

Safety should be a state of mind—a top priority state of mind.

I Fortunately, most people are safety conscious, yet accidents still happen;
or, rather, are caused.
From the beginning of your training it is
essential that you pursue an awareness of
safety codes and practices which will keep
pace with your expanding knowledge of video
techniques and your developing craft skills.

Work Environments
Video, television, film, theatre and concert
presentation all share a common factor. There
is a continuous state of change during
production. The manufacturing environment
can easily alter from safe to high risk.
Our work is considered as an artistic
endeavour—but the production process is
Tanya Andrea and Sebastion Craig haul gear for a definitely industrial.
production, Australian Film Television and Radio
School.

Industrial Safety Standards

Industrial means:
• Working as a team member.
• Using specialised equipment (tools).
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Safety on the Set 257

• Being in the process of manufacturing a product (for further use/distribution).
• Being in a temporary, selective, work environment.
Warning: There’s a subtle shift from regarding video as a home craft to regarding it as
an industrial activity.
At first, video production may not seem industrial. After all, domestic camcorders
are routinely used at home. But no matter how simply you start out in video production,
as your skills develop, your projects will become more ambitious. You’ll soon be involved
in productions which require a professional level of organisation and craft skills, and an
appropriate assessment of health and safety factors.

General Conditions
We work under time-related pressure. We accept around-the-clock rostering and mixed
day and night shifts as normal.
Work routines are variable and performed in all weather conditions, often for long
hours.
We create our own environment, then change it continuously—the location, casts,
sets, crews . . . all temporary.
On location shoots the workplace is the world! Not only do we have to operate
within our own industry’s safety standards, but we ‘inherit’ all the other environments—
where often no standards exist.
Obviously, in this industry an individual’s health and safety are at some risk.

A Safety Choice
We can minimise the risk to ourselves by:
Never work with a director
1. Increasing the intensity of our safety first or presenter who’s braver
attitude. than you.
2. Treating safety as a craft skill. In other words,
we should study survival needs. Richard
Fitzpatrick,
Camera
Operator,
Digital
Dimensions.

This croc had his jaws tied shut

with fishing line—but it was
discovered at the end of the
shoot that the fishing line had
broken sometime earlier! Richard
Fitzpatrick with watery mate,
Digital Dimensions,Townsville,
Qld, Australia.
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258 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Accidents
The human body is equipped with a wonderful array of healing and repairing
mechanisms—reflect on your childhood accidents and how you have survived!
But irrespective of the type of injury, the sequence was common:
• It hurt.
• Patching and healing was an unpleasant experience.
• It often stopped us from doing what we wanted to do.
As adults, injuries are even more annoying—especially if the accident was the result of
carrying out a routine task:
• A knife cut from peeling an apple.
• A burn from serving hot food.
• A fall over a small stray object.
• A splinter from handling a wooden or metal utensil.

Slack Concentration
As adults, we know the everyday risks. So what happened?
Were we distracted at the time? Operating on remote?
We tend to leave our personal safety awareness on ‘automatic pilot’, allowing our
senses and past painful experiences to remind us. But usually this is at the last moment,
perhaps too late, and we may end up repeating the whole painful episode.

Anticipation and the ‘Safety Scan’

We can’t expect better results until we increase our intensity of safety awareness.
In new or unusual circumstances the antici-
Whenever you do helicopter pation of danger is the respect we give to our
shoots, double check that you’re common sense.
strapped in. And make sure you Learn to trust your judgements.
can get out of the harness Use all your senses:
Richard quickly if you crash. If it looks unsafe . . . it probably is . . .
Fitzpatrick, If it feels unstable . . . it definitely is . . .
Camera If it sounds odd, loose . . . it usually is . . .
Operator,
Digital If it smells hot, burning . . . Quick! Switch it off! . . .
Dimensions. And if it tastes terrible . . . you’ve booked the wrong caterers.

Workplace Conditions
We do get bumps and bruises—no matter how carefully we move around. We assemble
boxes of gear, load, unload, stack, unpack, tidy up, rehearse, shoot, de-rig, stack, pack,
travel and start all over again. There are many opportunities for body contact with
equipment.
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Safety on the Set 259

Lifting
We also do a lot of lifting.
Thanks to recent technology, many electronic items have been
reduced in size and weight. The equipment now used for EFP
(electronic field production) is certainly more compact than it was
in the past!
But cables, lights, stands, sandbags and other ballast remain
the same—heavy, or awkward to lift.

HEAVY WEIGHTS
So let’s define heavy.
Heavy is any weight which you find needs maximum effort
for you to move or lift.
Your ability to perform is due to factors of fitness and size—
muscle tone, physical build and prior experience. Rob Stewart, Coordinator of
Don’t try to match others who display ease in shifting heavy Television Training Unit, Northern
equipment. Melbourne Institute of TAFE,
Collingwood,Vic, Australia.
AN ACTION PLAN
Take time to plan the lift. Approach the task methodically—start gently, observe
techniques, don’t struggle—and don’t hesitate to ask for help.
Never attempt any labouring duties until you warm up physically.

There’s lots to carry around when preparing the set.

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260 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

STRATEGIES FOR LIFTING ON YOUR OWN

Plan the move. Run this checklist:
1. How will I hold this object?
2. Will it be easy to remove? How do I stack?
3. Will my grip be easy to maintain?
4. Where is it to go?
5. Is the next resting place adequate? Clear?
6. Is the floor/ground even? Is there good traction for walking?
7. How far away is the final position? Are there steps? How many?
8. What is the height of the final position?
9. Is there enough space in the final position for me to release my grip?
10. When the object is taken to the lift position will my view be obscured?

BASIC LIFT
1. For each lifting operation, stand with your feet slightly apart—in your best/most
comfortable balance position. Bend your knees, but keep your back straight. Take
strain gently—let your leg muscles do the work.
2. Don’t lift and turn your body in one movement.
3. If the load shifts and you’re losing balance, reverse your lift routine if possible. If not,
let the load go. Hard on the equipment, safe for your back.

LIFTING WITH ASSISTANCE

Some objects are awkward for one person to handle.
A long ladder is an example. Another is a box full of
cables, with no handles on it.
As a team, discuss the action plan (all points as
before) and who will give the guidance cues to
lift . . . pause . . . lower . . . change hands, etc.

TRAPS FOR LIFTERS

‘I can lift it on my own’—well, maybe not.
You may be able to carry it on your own—but
reaching for it, on the back seat or in the boot of a
car, imposes a totally different mechanical stress on
the back.
Don’t be afraid to share the load.Students returning Get help to slide/lift the object to your comfort-
gear after a shoot. able carrying position—then stagger off with it.

PACKING AND UNPACKING VEHICLES

When packing/unpacking vehicles, consider getting help. Slide pieces into place. Leave
heavy objects close to access points. Make use of handles. During packing, remember
to position handles for easy grasping for the unloading.
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Safety on the Set 261

LOADS OVER DISTANCES
If gear has to be carried some distance between unload and first set-up, pack and use a
trolley whenever it’s practical.

Use a strap to secure heavy items to a hand trolley.Tony This is Big Red, the trolley for moving flats for sets.
Atkins, Building Maintenance Officer, Australian Film Australian Film Television and Radio School.
Television and Radio School.

Planning Ahead
‘Use a trolley whenever it’s practical’ implies We do a lot of first aid and
planning ahead. medical training. I’ve stitched
The first step is to think about the location—the someone up out at sea. When
environment. Would it be possible to use a trolley we do shark studies we’re 24
to lessen the strain? hours away from medical help, Richard
so we have to carry full Fitzpatrick,
Location Surveys (in Preproduction) medical kits, including Camera
Operator,
morphine and defibrillators. Digital
A location survey has to encompass consideration
We’re all trained in how to do Dimensions.
of the many diverse needs of both the production
things, but we have to ring up
and the crew.
the Royal Flying Doctor Service
The suitability of the location for the needs of
on the satellite phone and
the script is the important factor, but accessibility
they instruct us on what
for the crew, access to electrical power, likely
procedures to take.
weather conditions and many other things affect the
practicality/viability of the site.
This is the time to think the whole operation through from set-up to pull-down,
considering safety as you go.
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262 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Assessing the Mechanics

In any production, there are always two major spaces to consider. There’s the action
area, which will be revealed on screen—this space will be occupied by the performers;
and there’s the off-screen work area, occupied by the crew with all their equipment.
These two areas have different needs. The screen action area may be free of any
hazard—but what about space for the boom swinger who has to follow the action, and
what about the space(s) allocated as camera positions?

Check for Changes

If it’s an exterior location, how will extremes of weather just prior to your shoot date
affect the environment?
This practice of anticipation, of visualising the mechanics of the production,
considering the practical aspects of the site that occur before, during and after the
shoot, will help you expose some of the safety risk factors.
Combine this with the check lists (e.g. lifting plan) and you get the results of a safety
scan—a report back to you for assessing risks. Then you can plan the right actions/
precautions to minimise or eliminate those risks.

The Industry’s Commitment to Safety

For major production work, a specialist safety officer, contracted by the producer, will
prepare a safety report which lists the observed risks on each location and how to
minimise/eliminate these potential hazards.

Recognition of Safety Requirements

The production’s specified safety person bases
his/her recommendations on site investigation,
knowledge of local Occupational Health and
Safety regulations, the product (script as
developed), and casting, particularly if children
are involved.

Introduced Risks
If stunts, firearms, special effects, activity in or
near water are part of the script, extra specialists
are required to train/guide/supervise these
activities.
Whenever you ask an actor to take on a risky situation, you
have to be sure that you’ve got safety precautions worked
out ahead of time.On set for Ash Wednesday, Australian
Film Television and Radio School.
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Safety on the Set 263

Preventative Control
These specialists must go through their own safety scan technique. This will alert them
to further considerations, until they feel confident of their strategies for risk control.
Their recommendations/guidelines are then adopted by production personnel as best
operational safety procedures.
Personal note: Safety guidelines are only effective if they’re accepted and applied.
The attitude and practice of all crew members are important here.

FM or 1st AD Responsible for Safety on the Set

On the set, the FM (floor manager) or 1st AD (first assistant director) is responsible for
maintaining safety standards. Situations do develop in the creative process, situations
which vary from the original concept.
If the FM or 1st AD considers the new plan of action involves a change from safe
to unsafe, then s/he has the authority to disallow the new plan.
Crew members shouldn’t disregard or argue with these judgements.

Universal Production Rules

Wherever you work, obey the house safety regulations, like those requiring the use of
hard hats and protective clothing.
Unless it’s part of screen action:
• No smoking on set—fire risk.
• No eating/drinking on set—spill damage.
These rules apply to technical areas, too, like edit suites and control rooms.
Just think of food particles in tape machine heads, a half-cup of coffee (sugared) in
a mixing console . . .

Extra Skills Needed

We do need some extra skills to give us the ‘edge’ in emergencies.

Fire
Do get some training in handling fire extinguishers. Learn to
identify the appropriate extinguisher for the different sources and
causes of fires.
At your workplace:
• Note the small tag on the fire extinguisher which informs you
of last date serviced. If it’s been more than a year, it’s time
to get the fire extinguisher recharged/serviced.
• Lift each type of extinguisher—don’t discharge it, but carry
out, as a rehearsal, the operational instructions. Learn how to use the fire extinguishers.
• Notice how heavy some fire extinguishers are. That doesn’t Josh Bullen, volunteer, Australian Film
mean they’ll last for hours! As a research task, check with your Television and Radio School.
fire safety officer on likely duration/capacity.
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264 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

First Aid
Consider training in first aid—a must for anyone contemplating location work. A St John’s
Ambulance course or equivalent is excellent. A first aid kit should be readily available
on all shoots. Check its stock regularly.

ESSENTIALS FOR SMALL CREWS

• A box containing a blanket and/or a ground sheet.
• A first aid kit.
• Thermos and ice.
• Strong beam torch.
• Clipboard with up-to-date local emergency numbers.
• A second kit containing all of the above and a small fire blanket and general purpose
extinguisher.
This is your minimum safety equipment.

EMERGENCY NUMBERS
Professional crews get call sheets with emergency numbers listed for the doctor(s),
hospital and police station nearest to the production site. In an emergency, there’s no
time to hunt these details out.

ON LOCATION
Emergencies don’t recognise industry status—so even if it is your group’s first location
shoot, do the right thing for safety reasons.

Creating a Hazard
Accidents don’t just happen.
Compounding causes: Consider again the injury
in the example of peeling the apple.
Possible factors: Hygiene was observed—the
apple was washed. But:
• Hands, apple not thoroughly dry?
So, not a firm, but a slippery grasp.
• Knife not really sharp, perhaps blunt?
So, force was needed to cut it.
• Result: Natural laws of physics went into action
Don’t ever tap someone on the shoulder or try to get
(instability + applied force = . . . )
their attention while they’re working with machinery.
Hilton Ellingham, Props and Staging, AFTRS. That was a two-factor incident involving one person.

Construction Work
When building sets, be sure to wear hearing protection, eye protection and have no loose
hanging clothing that might get caught in the equipment. When sawing, be sure to use
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Safety on the Set 265

the blade guard, and pull the nearly sawed piece through the last bit, rather than pushing
your hand towards the blade.

Creating a Risk Factor

Now let’s consider cumulative hidden agendas which can stress a group situation into
a potential hazard for everyone.
It’s a rostered early start—EFP (electronic field production) shoot.
• Crew member A is late, arriving well after the planned departure time.
• Crew member B, as navigator, hasn’t bothered to plan the best route.
• They get lost and get further behind on the production schedule.
• The driver tries to make up lost time, speeds, takes small risks.
• Crew member C knows the vehicle is overloaded but says nothing.
• No-one knows the car is overdue for brake service.
All are minor contributors to a possible disaster.
Note: Everyone has equal responsibility for the safety and well-being of the others who
share the same work area.

‘No Hazard’ Checklist

PLACEMENT OF GEAR
• Never clutter the studio with unnecessary items, and never have standby equipment,
lighting stands, the odd table, props, camera boxes, and so on, in front of a fire exit,
hose reel or extinguisher point—and certainly no gear resting on fire stairs.
• On location, don’t block existing emergency exits or fire stairs with any bits of gear
just because ‘there’s nowhere else to put them’.
Look again—there has to be!

CABLES
• After you connect cables, neaten the scene.
• Don’t have easily tripped-over piles or loops of
cables.
• Don’t have strained cables raised off the floor.
• If cables cross a main foot traffic area, tape them
down or place a mat across them, then tape the
edges of the mat down. Cables should be tidied, and never curling up or
stretched above floor level.
ELECTRICAL SPOT CHECK
• Cables and connections? Never turn on a light that’s
• Damaged insulation? plugged into an electrical
• Loose connections? cable which is still coiled up.
• Connections near water? Uncoil the cable first! A coiled
• Electrical Practices in the Film Industry, WorkCover cable can heat up and even Adrian
Authority, NSW, or similar publications in your melt down. Rostirolla,
state or country. Metro Screen.
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266 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

LADDERS
• Wooden ladders are safer electrically.
• Check before using that the ladder is struc-
turally safe.
• Don’t carry weights in one hand when
climbing. Have someone pass the object to
you.
• It’s best to treat all ladder work as a two-person
job.

LIGHTING
• Elevated floor stands/supports must be
Don’t try to climb a ladder while carrying gear.Get correctly ballasted/tied off.
someone to pass it up to you.Don Bethel and Rod • Do not place lamps near drapes or the ceiling—
Bower, Australian Film Television and Radio School. fire risk.
• Do not place lamps near automatic fire sprink-
lers—heat from lamps can activate sprinklers.
• Switch off lamps before repositioning them.
• Check lamps for residual heat before handling
them.
• All gear hung above head height needs a
second safety fixing.
• If cutting/fitting colour gels, put off-cuts
immediately into waste receptacle. Small
pieces underfoot may cause people to slip
or fall.

Annie Wright uses a secure plank between two

ladders to re-attach wallpaper high on the set wall.
Australian Film Television and Radio School.

Hold onto the upper section of a

lightstand when loosening it . . . or
it can collapse on your fingers.
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Safety on the Set 267

LAMPS CAN EXPLODE
• Duck your head, shield yourself and wait before looking.
• Don’t immediately turn and look in the direction of the sound. The housing and the
Fresnel lens will usually contain the glass fragments. Most—but not all.
During a television rehearsal with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, a 2 K lamp exploded
and showered down small fragments of red hot glass. No-one was injured but some
musical scores had extra little black ‘notes’ burnt into their pages.

Grid Work Restrictions

Don’t attempt to work on grids or lighting battens unless under the supervision of a
qualified electrician.
Lamps suspended overhead need a safety chain in addition to normal fixing.
Barn doors must also have a safety chain linked to the lamp housing frame.
Check also that safety gauze/glass is in place.

Fire on the Set

If screen action requires a naked flame—lighting a cigarette, candles, kerosene lamps—
that action requires a minder in the role of standby props or special FX person, with the
floor manager/1st/2nd/3rd AD as back-up.

Sharing Space
A crew should observe more care when sharing a
Leave a location as you find it.
location, as when shooting in other people’s work
You may have to return for
areas.
reshoots or pick-up shots.
Site permissions are one thing—they’re for right
of entry only.
A video crew should never ‘take over’ or impose possible hazards on others. Philip Elms,
Media
A video crew is distracting just by being there, so everyone’s behaviour should be Resource
as unobtrusive as possible—quiet, moderate, business-like. Centre.
To keep an objective perspective on the crew’s behaviour, ask yourself this: ‘If we
needed to reshoot in the same environment, would we be welcomed back?’

Adjusting the Location Site’s Lighting Conditions

Work areas lit by fluorescent lights are often a problem for video. The camera has difficulty
reproducing correct skin tones/colour balance. In a studio setting, you get rid of the
fluorescents, you just switch them off before you roll tape. But what if you’re in someone
else’s office space?
If it’s absolutely necessary to switch off house/work lights for the colour balance and
recording, prior arrangements must be made with area operators and management.
Once agreement has been reached, the routine is:
1. Contact personally the on-site workers who’ll be affected.
2. Explain to the on-site workers the light-changing procedure you’ll be following and
the warnings you’ll be giving them.
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268 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

3. Prior to making lighting changes, announce the change clearly.

4. Switch your video production lighting on (assumed).
5. Switch off the house/work lights.
6. At the end of the take, switch on the house lights.
7. At your leisure, switch off your production lights.
8. Say ‘thank you’.

Personal Protection
Clothing
• Dress appropriately for an industrial environment. Wear low-heeled shoes, in good
condition. Never wear thongs (flip-flops).
• For location work, take wet weather gear and any extra items you have decided on
from your safety scan. Consider the exercise as you would a two-day bush hike.
• Head gear is essential—a hat for the sun, and a cap for cold nights and windy weather.

Skin Protection
• For protection from sun, wind, insects—the usual sprays, lotions.
• Apply sunscreens approximately 20 minutes before exposure and reapply regularly.

Gloves
• Not everyone can work wearing gloves, but the light garden type are great for
handling and rewinding cables that are dirty or muddy.

Feed the crew! Crew Food

member from Uncle • Do have regular meal breaks and eat only nourish-
Tony’s Kebabs, an ing food.
independent • Once energy is on the wane, concentration de-
production directed creases—we become less alert—a perfect scenario
by Marc Tewksbury. for mistakes and accidents.

Liquids
• Fluid intake is important too. If you’re on location
and water has to be carried, take more than you
think you’ll need—and ice.
• Take a thermos of ice—even in winter. An ice pack
is great relief for a bump or a bruise.
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Safety on the Set 269

Not Your Scene When two people are carrying

flats or other heavy items, they
Be careful when helping out in craft areas where should face each other and
you are not familiar with the work practices. have their hand positions in a
Helping with stage scenery might be one example, mirror image of each other. So Alistair
if you are not used to working in the staging area. if one person has their left Thornton,
hand at the top, and their right Props and
Staging
Hazards in Helping hand at the bottom, the other Department,
person should be the AFTRS.
• Special techniques are needed when handling
opposite—right hand at the
scenery flats, rostrum tops and bases, etc. If you
top and left hand at the
don’t have these skills, ask for guidance/training
bottom. If not, the stronger
before giving assistance. Mishandling can cause
person can overbalance the
back injuries.
load and twist the weaker
person, resulting in back
damage.

Sandbag

When carrying flats, one person’s hands should be

positioned in the mirror image of the other person’s, so Ken Manning repairs a French brace.Note the
the stronger person doesn’t overbalance the less placement of the sandbag.Australian Film Television
strong one.Australian Film Televison and Radio School. and Radio School.

Counterweights
• Don’t help yourself to items which may be doing a vital job for other crafts. Removing
a sandbag from a French brace, which is holding up a flat, could collapse the whole
set.
• If you’re asked to ‘chuck a sandbag on the brace’ . . . the place to put it is in or outside
the sharp angle at the bottom of the brace, as far from the flat as possible. This will
counterweight the flat so it won’t fall. If you put the sandbag closer to the flat, the
counterweighting may not be strong enough.
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270 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

• If you’re asked to ‘hammer a nail into . . .’—for whatever reason—think about the
end result. Will it protrude (at eye level) and cause damage to personnel or equipment?
• And before you strike a blow, do check the striking face of the hammer. If the surface
is dirty, it can mishit on the nail—but find your finger(s) an easier target.
Then, of course, there are staples and . . . So, take care when helping outside your
current area of skills.

Health Hazards
There are some not-so-obvious health hazards—the sneaky ones which build up and
eventually cause us personal stress.
Eye strain, lower back pain, RSI (repetitive strain injury), damage to our auditory
sense—all due to poor understanding of personal risks.
All computer/screen work, whether typing or editing, when performed over long
hours with incorrect lighting/seating and the concentrated use of a ‘mouse’ control can
give us the trifecta of eye strain, back/neck pain and RSI to the wrist/forearm.
Lengthy sessions of loud music (concert conditions or home hi-fi) will decrease
hearing sensitivity. Not good for anyone, especially sound recordists and editors.
Publications with specific guidance on prevention of these disorders are readily
available.

The Broad Issues

Guidelines on health and safety matters that relate specifically to the film and television
industry have been developed by the industry and unions. Information on these can be
found by searching the website of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA),
<<www.alliance.org.au>>, for ‘safety guidelines for the entertainment industry’. The
guidelines have been developed and endorsed by the MEAA and the Australian
Entertainment Industry Association (AEIA) in association with the Musicians’ Union of
Australia (MUA). Endorsement is also being sought from the relevant workers’
compensation authorities.
While the guidelines may sound legalistic they are really helpful and clearly written,
with advice on risk assessment, safety induction, key safety issues and incident and
hazard reporting.

A Fact of Life
During production we’ll always be working in conditions which require split
concentration—one part on the demands of covering the action of producing (in tight
time frames), the other on coping, in a safe manner, with the risk factors inherent with
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Safety on the Set 271

variable and constantly changing location environments. The balance must always be
in favour of our health and safety.

Dos and Don’ts

• Do read and adopt the valuable advice given by health and safety organisations on
health hazard prevention.
• Do lift your state of safety awareness.
• Don’t repeat your early ‘accident’ experiences.
• Do enjoy your craft!
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Chapter

20 Lighting
Producing Videos
Lighting

Light is the basic material from which you make video images. (I know
I this is an odd concept, because whether light has substance or not has
intrigued physicists for centuries.) But it’s the light landing in the camera that forms the
video image. Without it, there’s no picture.
As a video artist, the different qualities and colours of light are the choices on your
palette. As a run-of-the-mill videographer, it’s still light which is the stuff of your work.

Two Kinds of Light

When people speak of light, they refer to incident light and reflected light. Incident light is
the light as it’s travelling from the source. Reflected light is the light after it has hit a
surface and bounced off it.
The video image is made from the pattern of
reflected light which enters the camera’s lens.
As a videographer, your job is to choose the
right light sources (incident light) for the visual
effect you want to achieve, and then carefully
arrange their heights, positions, intensities, colours
and reach so the resulting composite of reflected
light produces the picture and mood you seek.
Every surface reflects light differently. Some
surfaces are smooth and shiny. They reflect an
even light, which may be bright or dark depending
Michelle Watson puts spun over light for Bryan on the colour of the surface, the intensity of the
Mason’s production Room, Hamilton Secondary incident light and the angle of reflection of the light
College, Mitchell Park, SA, Australia.(Photo by into the camera lens.
Bronwyn Gell)
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Lighting 273
For example, a polished black stone surface can reflect a very bright light from some
angles, but appear as an even, dark black from other angles. Getting the angle right
between your camera lens and a critical surface can make or break a shot.
Other surfaces are textured and reflect a variegated pattern of light interspersed with
tiny shadows.
The angle of the incident light in relation to the
So here’s the thing—if there’s
surface texture is important. Frontal lighting reduces
no light on the subject, how
shadowing to almost nothing, whereas side lighting
can the camera see it?
produces dramatic shadows. Knowing this allows
you to emphasise or downplay the degree of
apparent texturing of any surface in your picture. Francis
Treacey,
So you can choose to make the performer’s face look smooth, by lighting from the Deakin
front, or craggy, by lighting from the side. University.
Or you can highlight the folds of a background curtain by lighting the curtain from
the side, or make the folds almost unnoticeable by lighting them from the front.
Curving surfaces reflect a gradation in intensity of light, with some parts bright and
some areas falling away into shadow.
As a baby you had to learn to interpret the A good way to see how
meaning of different types of reflected light—you lighting affects the look of a
learned to predict hard and soft, sharp and ‘comfy’, production is to turn down the
wet and dry, as well as near and far. colour controls on your
As a lighting person, you need to convey similar monitor for a few minutes. If Rachel
meanings of texture and depth to your audience, the images you see then are Masters,
although, because you’re working with a flat screen, solid black and white, chances Corporate
you have only two dimensions with which to get Training
are the lighting is quite harsh Coordinator,
across the feel of things. and contrasty.That’s great if SBS.
When you set up the lighting for a shot or a you want this effect, but
scene, you should constantly draw on what you generally when shooting video
already know about reflected light. But don’t stop you aim to create a wide tonal
there—continue to observe keenly and use what variation to add depth and
you discover. interest.
That’s how to lift your shots from mediocre to
stunning.

The Quality of Light

Of course, the word ‘quality’ can mean many things, but when applied to lighting two
of the fundamental concepts are hard light and soft light.

Hard Light
Hard light is the light you get from direct sunlight and from unshielded light sources
which are throwing their light in a straight line of sight to the subject being lit.
With a hard light, you can see the source of the light, and you can also see a somewhat
distorted reflection, on the surface of the subject, of the light’s filament or arc.
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274 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Hard light is very directional. It sharply

illuminates the side of the object it hits and causes
deep shadows with clearly defined edges on the other
side. So hard light is good for dramatic lighting. And
it brings out textures well.
But used alone, it can look too harsh, and it can
over-illuminate areas in the shot, producing hot spots
(overly bright areas) or causing problems with the
contrast ratio.
It can also cause the formation of unattractive
With the light placed behind a large diffusion
shadows, like nose shadows, on your actors. When
screen . . .
two or more hard lights are used, there can be many
ugly shadows.

Soft Light
Soft light is a bit tricky to define. An indication that
a light is soft is the wrap-around effect, which means
that the incident light wraps around the subject in
such a way that there are no shadows on the
contours of the subject’s surface.
Another sign of soft light is if the shadows cast
behind the subject have soft edges to them.
. . . a wonderful soft light on the child is obtained. Whether a light is soft or not depends on its size
(Photo courtesy of AFTRS) in relation to the subject. A large source, even if it’s
a hard light, will wrap around a small subject, and
the wrap-around effect increases as the light is moved closer to the subject.
You can say that soft light is much more diffuse than hard light. It’s the type of
sunlight you get on a cloudy or hazy day, and the light you get from artificial light sources
which are throwing their light in another direction and that is bouncing back into your
shot (in other words, indirect light).
Soft light is ‘pretty’ light. It can be very
delicate and give a mellow quality to the
subject being lit. For this reason, it’s often used
in portraiture.
It’s also less directional. It produces less
deep shadows than hard light does, and the
shadows have blurry, indistinct edges. Soft
light tends to scatter and is harder to control.

Here light is directed at a sheet of lightweight white

polystyrene and bounced from there onto Vicki’s
face.A soft, bounced, fill light can give a pretty
image.Vicki Lucan, Australian Film Television and
Radio School.
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Lighting 275
Soft light is good used as fill light to lighten up A strong soft source may be
the dark shadow areas caused by hard lights. improvised by reflecting the sun
Soft light is not good for bringing out textures. off a mirror and through a frame
Nor is it the best for highlighting sharp contours or with heavy diffusion on it.The
modelling the shape of an object or figure. Used on frame can be simply made from Tony
its own, it can result in a flat illumination. 1-inch x 1-inch aluminium tube Mandl,
and removable corner pieces, so Gaffer,
AFTRS.
it comes apart and stows neatly
in a bag.
Combining Lighting
on a Set
When you’re working out the lighting requirements
for an entire scene (or studio set), you’ll probably
use a variety of lighting equipment and employ
differences in hardness and softness of light, and
whether it’s bounced or not. You can also colourise
some lights.
Just like a painter, you don’t rely on only one
type of stroke or size of brush to produce a memo-
rable picture. The arrangement of the set elements and the
positions of some of the lights.

Helen Carter,
Cinematographer,
and Sharon
Fulton, Designer,
conduct lighting
tests for a drama
which is being
planned.They’re
trying to work out
what lights and
A gelled light shines on a background flat, to A miniature set made of cardboard has cutout
what set
appear as a brick wall outside the building. windows, backlit, to give the impression of a city
elements will
at night.
produce the
desired effects
within the scene.
Australian Film
Television and
Radio School.

A light shining through a diffusion screen

provides a soft light for the actor in front of the A model tests the effects of the lighting.
window frame.
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276 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Contrast Ratio
The contrast ratio is the difference in brightness between the darkest part of the picture
and the brightest part.
As a rule of thumb, the video image shouldn’t have a contrast ratio greater than 30:1.
This means that the reflected light from the brightest part of the picture shouldn’t be
more than 30 times as bright as the reflected light from the darkest part.
You can detect the various brightness levels across your set by using a light meter,
if you like, and it’s good practice to learn to use one.
But since video cameras have inbuilt light meters, video people often check lighting
by looking at the image in a monitor connected to a camera viewing the scene. This
shows you hot spots which you won’t see with your eyes until you’re very practised at
lighting.
One trap people fall into with using a monitor is that, when they’re using the monitor
near bright studio lights, they boost the screen brightness so they can see the image
better. But if the screen is cranked up too bright, the lighting person and the director can
end up deciding to go with a scene which is actually underlit.
A monitor is only reliable if it’s correctly adjusted. So put the monitor on colour bars
and adjust the brightness and contrast so the bars are correct, then don’t tweak those
knobs again.
If you put the camera temporarily into auto iris and check the f stop reading, you’ll
usually get a good idea of whether the lighting is bright enough.
Video is less able to handle high contrast ratios than our eyes are, or, in fact, than
film is. In a scene which is too contrasty, you’ll have to choose an iris setting which suits
the brightest parts, and leaves the darker areas of the picture looking impenetrably black,
or an iris setting which suits the dark areas and makes the bright ones bleached out to
white. Depending on your production, it may be that neither is an acceptable option.
So it’s a good idea to steer clear of known troublemakers. White clothing is extremely
reflective of light. Black and navy blue are very absorbent of light. Generally speaking,
performers should be advised to not wear white, black or navy blue. Medium tones will
work in much better with skin tones to give a good contrast ratio and a pleasing image.
(So now you know why the news readers wear ‘TV blue’.)
Sometimes you just can’t escape the situation. Your studio guest is wearing something
white and it’s just too reflective for the lighting you want to use. You can cut the intensity
of light reaching that part of the picture, by shading it from the light with a piece of card,
or a cutter or a black flag, a net or a gel. You can also use a scrim or half scrim in front of the
light which is causing the reflection. (A scrim is a wire mesh mounted in a metal frame.)
These methods should bring your contrast ratio into line. If not, maybe you can loan
the performer a sweater!
If the problem is that there are areas in the picture which are too dark, try bouncing
light into the shadows to lift their light level.

Lighting and Depth of Field

The darker the scene, the more open your camera iris will have to be to let in enough
light to reproduce the image adequately.
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Lighting 277
The wider the iris opening (the lower the f stop number), the narrower the depth of
field.
If you want to have a narrow depth of field, you can go ahead and shoot with lower
lighting. But if you need clear focus across a broad depth of field, you need to make
sure that the scene is brightly lit.
Where this consideration usually comes into play
is in videotaping concerts and stage performances.
Stage lighting is often dimmer, overall, than TV
lighting, and it’s almost always much more contrasty.
The contrast is the harder aspect to adjust for.
If you’re trying to videotape someone else’s
performance, you have three possible paths. The first
is to convince the person in charge of the
performance lighting to use brighter lights on the
night you tape. (But you’re not likely to find
agreement on this.)
Another choice is to convince the show to do a
command performance for you, with brighter lights.
The risk with this is that the lack of an audience could
cause the performance level to drop. If you move in close to the performance, you can
The most likely situation is that you’ll end up stay on wide angle and keep a good depth of field.
taping the performance with the low light situation.
Now, remembering that when you’re zoomed in all the way, you also decrease the depth
of field, make sure that you get your camera as close to the stage as possible. This way
you can work on wide angle lens to maximise your depth of field. Otherwise, you could
find that the slightest swaying back and forth of the singer will cause him/her to go in
and out of focus. Your image quality will be disastrous.
(If this section is confusing to you, you may want to re-read the Depth of Field
explanation in Chapter 2 Image Control.)

Using Location Lighting

There are different opinions on location lighting. Some people prefer to use the natural
lighting that exists at a location, as much as possible, and to assist it with bounced
sunlight and the occasional portable light, appropriately gelled.
Other lighting people always use artificial light to ensure exactly the quality and
control they seek for their image.
The key thing is to be able to work with your light sources, rather than have out-of-
control elements compromise or ruin your images.

Windows
Windows are a blessing and a bane. They can let in enough light for you to operate
entirely with sunlight and bounce cards, but they can be very hard to work around.
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278 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Shoot with the light behind you. Make sure that you notice the number, size and
location of windows when you do your site check,
and find out which way they face. Will it be a
morning shoot with the rising sun flooding in? Or do these windows face west? Will
the light be blocked by a clump of trees? Does the building next door shade the room
Sue
L’Estrange, from direct light?
Videographer. If you want to use natural light, you have to be able to arrange the set so you can
either have the window light at your back, with your performer close enough to the
window to be shone upon, or the window at your side and the performer side-on to
the window as well. A large white card or piece of polystyrene held at the correct angle
on the non-window side of the performer can bounce back a soft fill light to take care
of the shadowy side.

Sometimes you do want to use the view out of a window, to add to the sense of place in
your image. Windows can be included in the frame if their brightness can be controlled. (A
good level is 1–11⁄2 f stops over your exposure.)
In modern office buildings, there may already be ND built into the windows, or they
Tony Mandl, may have a heavily tinted film on them. Look around—there may be venetian blinds, or
Gaffer,AFTRS. vertical blinds, which can be adjusted to allow the outside to be seen, but not blow out. A
piece of neutral density gel may be taped to the glass, and reduce the outside brightness
by as much as four stops.
Also, the size of the shot, and the amount of the window shown, can be adjusted.This
way, the viewer can still see some of the outside, and you can keep the edges of the gel
out of shot.The part of the window which is not in shot can still act as a source of light.

✗
Do this. Do this.

Or do this. But not this!

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Lighting 279
Never try to shoot directly into a window. The auto iris will respond to the brightness
and close way down, giving you a good picture of the outdoors and a silhouette of your
performer. If you switch to manual iris and open it up so the performer looks okay, the
background will be all bleached out.

Bright Sky
One of the most common problems with outdoor
lighting happens when you try to get a shot of a
person with sky behind their head. If you’re facing
the sunny side of the sky, or if it’s a bright hazy day,
the auto iris will respond to the brightness of the
background sky and close down, leaving your subject
as a semi-silhouette.
The first thing to try is simply turning the shot
around, so the sunniest part of the sky is at the back
of the camera.
If the person still looks too dark, put the camera If the background is very bright, your subject may
on manual iris, zoom in so the presenter’s face fills become semi-silhouetted.
the screen and set the iris to give the right result for
the face. Then leave the iris setting there, and zoom
out. Your picture may now be acceptable. The sky
will be lighter, but if it doesn’t look too bleached out,
you can probably go with it.
If the background is now too glary, change the
shot so the background is trees, shrubbery or
anything else medium toned or darker.

Bough Shelters
Here’s the shot with sunlight behind the camera.
Another tricky lighting situation arises with many
Lucien Cooper and Hayden Barltrop, best mates.
Indigenous communities. The bough shelter is a
shaded space made using poles as uprights, with a roof of tree boughs, where community
meetings take place. Outside it may be very bright and hot, but it’s cooler and darker in
the bough shelter.
The shelter often has no walls—it’s open on all four sides. This is handy for getting
different angled shots of the group, and certainly helps the people in the meeting get a
bit of air, but the problem for the person videotaping the meeting is that the surrounding
ground is often extremely reflective of sunlight, whether it’s red sandy desert or burnt
yellow grass.
So whenever the camera operator goes for a wide shot, the very bright ground on
the far side of the shelter affects the auto iris and makes it close down, and all detail of
the people inside is lost.
One way to avoid this is to stay in on mid-shots and close-ups as much as possible,
so the people’s faces fill the screen and the outside ground isn’t in shot.
Still, it’s often desirable to use wider shots to show who’s seated near whom (which
can be important to the story).
The bough shelter is a hard location to cover.
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280 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Small Rooms and Crowded Spaces

When a room is very small—and often when you go to interview people in their offices
you strike cramped space—there’s no room for a three-point lighting set-up. However,
you can raise the illumination level enough to get a
viewable shot by setting up one light and bouncing
it off the white ceiling or off the white or cream
coloured walls.
Sometimes on-site shooting has too much stuff
in the way for doing much of a lighting set-up. Here,
too, bounced light can save the shoot.
But bounced lighting is hard to control, so it
should be a last resort. A bounce off the ceiling can
be very toppy, leaving people with shiny heads and
dark sockets where their eyes presumably are.
Another factor to watch with bounced lighting
is colour bounce. Whatever colour the wall is, that
colour will bounce onto the surface of your
On location in Canberra Pharmacy for the subject . . . Is that person really pink or green or blue?
production of Asthma Care, produced and directed So first see how you go with using different
by Owen Murray, University of Western Sydney— options, like a single redhead, with spun (a soft white
Macarthur, Bankstown, NSW, Australia.(Photo by fibreglass material) on it, from one corner of the
Owen Murray) room.

Beaches, Snow and Water

Other tricky locations are beaches, snowfields and waterways. Sand, snow and water
are all extremely reflective and can cause silhouetting of your presenter/actor.
A neutral density filter is essential to cut down the intensity of the light. Cloudy or
hazy days can be better to shoot on, as they reduce the harshness of the direct and
reflected sunlight.
Picking the best time of day is helpful, too—try to keep an angled sun to the back
of the camera operator. When it’s midday, chill out in a cafe.

Bouncing Light into Shaded Areas

When faced by conditions of harsh light, it can be best to put your performer in the
shade. You’ll get better colour representation and you can use a flexifill or a big bounce
card to reflect the sunlight in at them, if necessary.
Be sure you re-white balance for the new lighting conditions, though. Shade has a
different colour temperature to sunlight.
Aluminium foil provides the strongest reflection. If you use a bounce card
covered with crumpled foil, it will diffuse the reflection somewhat. Silver foil gives a
colder reflection, gold foil gives a warmer, mellower reflection. White polystyrene gives
a soft reflection, as does white cloth. You can even use a white wall if it’s nearby.
Both Rosco and Lee sell a foil fabric scrim with holes in it, which is the most useful
soft reflector you can get.
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Lighting 281
You can attach it to a board and use it to bounce light, and you’ll get a brighter
bounce without the hot spots reflected back on your subject which you almost always
get with polystyrene. You can use it in place of ND gel on a window, and you won’t
get the additional reflection the gel would give you. Because it’s a fabric, you can simply
lay it on a desk surface, or wherever you need it. You can roll it up to carry it around
with you. Its one drawback is that it’s fragile.

Hat Shade and Brow Shadows

For interviews in sunny places, bounce cards held at the presenter’s lap level can do a
good job of lifting the light level under a broad-rimmed hat and lessening shadows in
deep-set eyes.

Adjusting for Mixed Colour Temperatures

If you use a mixture of sunlight and incandescent lights (portable lights), you’ll have to
address the problem of mixed colour temperatures.
Say you’re doing an interview and you’ve seated your subject next to a window.
But the room is so dark that you’ve decided to lift the base illumination level by using
a couple of portable lights.
The sunlight striking one side of her face has a bluish tinge and the incandescent
lights inside the room, and affecting the other side of her face, have a reddish tinge. If
you white balance for sunlight, one side of her face will look ruddy and her clothing
colour on that side may be reddish, too. If you white balance to the portable lights, her
indoor side will look fine, but the side towards the window will have a strangely alien
blueness to it. Ugh!
There are five strategies to consider
1. Use a full or half daylight blue gel, which is a special transparent coloured sheet
which won’t melt from the heat of a light. Attach the blue gel to the front of your
portable lights, with wooden clothes pegs, and white balance the camera to the port-
able lights. Now the colour contrast between outdoors and indoors won’t be too
great.
2. Put an amber gel across the window and white balance to the reddish portable lights.
Again, both sides will match. But this can be harder because you need the amber
gel to be smoothly attached to the window, not torn or wrinkly, so it won’t give
itself away.
3. Try using a large bounce card so the inside fill light will actually be reflected window
light, and therefore will automatically be of matching colour temperature to the
sunlight.
4. Close the drapes.
5. Move the shot.
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282 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Direction of Light
Simply moving a light to a new position alters the effect of the light. When you have
the time, have fun and experiment!

Frontal Lighting
Light aimed from the camera’s viewpoint reduces modelling of figures and minimises
their surface textures.
For some faces, indirect frontal lighting is ‘pretty’ lighting—it smooths out face
wrinkles and minimises other skin bumps and variations.

Edge Lighting or Rim Lighting

Lighting from the side emphasises texture and modelling. It’s good for bringing out
interesting surfaces, dramatising facial features and highlighting objects in relief.

Under Lighting
This gives a wonderful, scary image, good for
grotesques. Because it inverts the usual facial model-
ling and shadowing, it’s a device used for mystery
stories.
One thing to be careful about—hand gestures
Under lighting is great for horror shows. may sometimes throw shadows onto the face.

Overhead Lighting
This can leave the eyes looking like deep black cavities. It’s not a flattering lighting, but
it can emphasise some moods—possibly isolation or desolation. It certainly works well
for interrogation scenes.
More often than not, though, it’s a mistake,
which happens from not paying attention to the
placement of location lighting. If you seat someone
under a ceiling light because that’s where the room
is brightest, you’ll get back to the edit room to
discover that your image is dull, disappointing and
filled with people with cavernous eyes.
However, a large softlight is sometimes shone
from overhead through diffusion material to raise the
general light level in a studio set. It can send an overall
Overhead lighting can be very toppy, and produce wash of light into the set, letting individual key lights
cavernous eye shadows. isolate and accent the actors and important set
elements.
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Lighting 283
Back Lighting
Lighting from behind can outline a figure or object with light. It can be beautiful used
on its own.
But usually a back light is part of a total lighting set-up, adding its halo effect to
separate the figure from the background.
Back light is terrific for illuminating smoke, which tends to disappear with front
lighting. You need to have a dark background and the back light set just right, then the
smoke will ‘materialise’ in your video image.
For those for whom the screen dimension is not a smoke-free zone, cigarettes, pipes,
‘steaming’ mugs of coffee, genies, even guns, can waft and coil their varied spirits for
posterity onto magnetic tape.

Silhouette Lighting
This is achieved by lighting the background but letting no light fall on the camera side
of the subject. The subject’s outline is apparent, but little or no surface detail can be seen.
The background can either be lit from the front, or, if it’s a translucent screen, it can
be lit from behind.
Before you record this image, make sure there are no hot spots on the rear wall.

Indirect ‘Firelight’
You can simulate the flicker of a campfire. To do this,
place a shallow tray of water in front of your actor
and direct a light downward onto it. You may decide
to put a red gel on the light, too. Then you have an
assistant, who remains out of shot, agitate the water.
The light bounces erratically off the wavelets and
produces an effect like firelight on the actor’s face.
Rippled chrome plastic sheeting (you can get
wrapping paper like this) wrapped around a board
will give you a similar effect. And it will allow you
more flexibility because you can tip it and angle it as
needed. With the water tray you’re limited to a
horizontal and immobile reflecting body, so you have With ingenuity, you can get some wonderful effects.
to get your actors right over close to it.
Another old firelight effect is achieved by hanging strips of coloured gels from a stick
and waving them in front of the light source.

Coloured Lighting
Lights can be given different colours by attaching gels in front of them. A gel is made
of a heat-resistant material which won’t melt or burn when attached to very hot lights.
It’s not just coloured plastic from the newsagent, and needs to be purchased from a
supplier.
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284 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Gels are expensive, and are usually bought by the roll and then cut off into the sizes
needed for each shoot. They’re slippery and uncooperative when you try to carry them
about, but if they’re rolled up, secured with elastic bands and stored carefully at the end
of the shoot, gels can be reused many times. It’s worth taking care of them and not just
crumpling them into the light kit.
Gels can be clamped into metal frames which can either be attached directly to the
light fixture or held separately in front of it on a
Gels last longer if you don’t spot C-stand. Alternatively, gels can be pegged to the barn
the light onto them. And doors—those four black metal flaps mounted on the
keeping the gel further away outer front rim of the light fixture—using wooden
from the light helps, too, even if clothes pegs (not plastic ones, which will melt).
Tony Mandl, it means you need a larger Gels come in any colour. (It’s fun to look
Gaffer,AFTRS. piece. through the manufacturer’s sample book!) The most
frequently used colours are blue and red.
There are special blues which are calibrated to
raise the colour temperature of incandescent lights to that of sunlight. You can get them
in half daylight, quarter daylight and full daylight. They’re useful if you need to match a
portable light to sunlight on a location shoot.
The darker blues cut down the intensity of the light quite dramatically, so if you
want lots of blue light, you’ll need heaps of lights. They can give a coolness to the image,
and can be used to indicate night time.
The reds are popular when people are taping
Tony Mandl,
Gaffer,AFTRS. There are no set answers in musicians. They can give a feeling of nightclub
lighting. It very much depends lighting or theatre lighting.
on the situation you’re in. How Yellows can be tricky. They can make people
effectively you light depends on look rather sallow. But a peach coloured gel, on the
knowing what you can do with other hand, can make people look healthier than
the equipment you’ve got, and they are.
relating that to the action you’re Coloured accent lights, in an otherwise normal
lighting and the style of the looking image, have become quite popular. And
program you’re working on. then there are those images which look red all over.

Spot Light and Flood Light

Some lights have movable globes. By turning or sliding a knob you can vary the type
of light between spot light and flood light. The knobs are labelled with arrows showing
which way is spot and which is flood.

Spot Light
When the globe is in the spot position, it’s held well back inside the light fixture’s curved
metallic reflector. This causes the beam of light to be controlled by the reflector. It
produces a limited and intense, direct beam of hard light.
If you watch someone walk across this beam, you’ll see that the intensity of it varies.
It’s bright in the middle, and much less bright at the sides.
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Lighting 285
Flood Light
When the globe is in the flood position, it’s thrust forward towards the open front of
the light fixture’s reflector. This allows less control of the light beam, which spills out
the sides.
The result is a less intense, broader spread of direct light. It’s a somewhat softer light,
too.
The intensity of the light beam is more even across its spread, just dropping off a
bit at the edges.

Fresnel Lights
Fresnel lights have a glass lens with raised circular
ridges of glass on its outer surface. This lens is
mounted on the front of the light fixture and can be
swung aside like a door when you need to change
the globe.
On a fresnel lamp, when you move between spot
and flood, the whole inside of the lamp—both globe
and reflector—moves forward and backward. The
focusing of the beam is done by the glass lens, rather
than by the relationship between the globe and the The ridged lens at the front of the fresnel controls
reflector. the throw of the light, whether spot or flood.

Basic ‘Three Point Lighting’

Some people feel that all you need is enough light. So they turn several lamps in the
direction of the set and blast the whole area with light. They do have enough.
But the problem is the effect is flat. There’s no modelling or highlighting. Nothing
in particular draws the eye of the viewer. There’s no sparkle to the scene. What’s more,
every segment, every show, will look boringly similar. Understanding a few basic concepts
in lighting can give you the tools to begin to control the look you achieve. And vary the
mood from piece to piece.
Here are the fundamental lighting positions for lighting one person. You don’t have
to stick with this slavishly, but it’s a good theoretical starting point.
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286 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Key Light
The key light provides the main illumination of the
subject. It’s often a hard light which helps to model
the contours of the figure.
The key light is placed to one side of the
Key light
camera. It’s up to you which side you choose. It
shouldn’t be too close to the camera because then
it would be shining into the eyes of the performer
and cause discomfort (bad for them) and squinting
(bad for the video image).
Once you turn the key light on, you’ll see that
one side of the person’s face is well lit, but the
other side now is shaded.
The further to the side of the performer’s face
Camera
that you set the key light, the more dramatic the
lighting and the more texture you’ll reveal on the
face. Position the light according to the effect you
want, considering the mood of your program.

The key light provides the main light on the subject.

Fill Light
You position the fill light on the opposite side of
the camera to the key light.
The purpose of the fill light is to illuminate
the other side of the performer’s face, lifting the
shadow that is caused by the key light. The fill
light is often a softer light, and of a lower intensity
than the key light.
You can achieve this by placing it further away
from the subject, setting it to the flood position
and/or putting some spun in front of it. You can
Key light Fill also use an indirect light or soft light for the fill.
light

Camera

The fill light fills in the shadowy side of the subject,

and is positioned on the other side of the camera.
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Lighting 287
Back Light
The back light is placed to the rear and side of the
performer, often opposite the throw of the key light.
The job of the back light is to separate the image
of the person from the background. Back
The back light is a strong, hard, direct light which light
is limited in its spread by the use of the barn doors.
The back light should light just the top and side of
the head and the top of the shoulders. Light shouldn’t
spill onto the chest or knees of the person.
The intensity of the back light varies with the hair
colour of the subject. Blonde hair is very reflective,
so it needs a less intense back light. With fluffy, curly
hair, the back light can be very glamorising indeed. Key
light Fill
light
Camera

The back light puts a glamorous halo of light on the

hair and shoulders of the subject, and separates the
subject from the background.

Background Light
Background
The key, fill and back lights illuminate and model the
light
subject with light, but you may also want that person
to be situated in a visible background. For this
purpose you use a background light, or lights.
If all you want is for the background to be seen, Back
light
it’s sufficient to use one broad soft light placed so its
throw of light misses the performer but does
illuminate the curtain, flat or wall behind.
If your subject isn’t in front of a wall-like
backdrop, you can use two or more lights to highlight
specific items at different distances away from the
camera, giving your shot a sense of depth extending
backward. Key
light Fill
light
Camera

The background light illuminates the wall or curtains

behind the performer.
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288 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Lighting a Group of People

If you have two or more people in your shot, you can give each person a key, fill and
back light.
But too many lights flooding into a small area can cancel out each other’s modelling
effects.
Barn doors become very useful for restricting each light to striking only the person
for whom it’s intended. You can ensure that your light paths are distinct by lighting one
person at a time and turning the house lights off to check that that person’s light is going
nowhere except on that one person. Light shouldn’t be allowed to spill onto the floor
either, because light-coloured floors will bounce plenty of light, muddling the effect
you’re striving for.
Of course, many people have limited access to lights, and many studios have just a
few. So you may have to arrange people in groups and then light each cluster. For
example, with five subjects you might have to use one key, fill and back light for one
group of three, and another three point set-up for the remaining group of two.
This lighting won’t win you prizes, but sometimes the bottom line is making
everyone visible.
Or . . . with careful placement, and
the use of a half scrim to vary the
Back light intensity of the light, you can have one
Key light light perform more than one function.
Fill light For example, it can be the back light
for one person and the key light for
another.

When you’re short on lights, you can use

three point lighting on small groups, rather
than individuals.

Scrim
Back light key light

You can use a half scrim to send a strong

light to one person and a less intense light
to the other.
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Lighting 289

Suggestions from Rachel Masters

1. Take an object or a person and light the image in different ways: key light, fill light, high
angle, low angle, from under the chin . . . How does the lighting affect the way you
regard the image? How does lighting affect the mood the audience feels? How many
different moods can you create using just one light?
2. Keep a written log of places you visit: an indoor swimming pool, your parents’ house,
the football field. Observe the light carefully. How does the colour of the light change
throughout the day? Does the quality of the light indicate the time of day? Does the
light reveal textures of surfaces? Look at the shadows the light creates: Are they long?
Soft? Hard? Rippled? Do the shadows affect the scene?
3. What impressions does the light leave with you? How does it make you feel? Use the
observations from your log to recreate similar moods and feelings in your video
productions.

Suggested Resources
Lighting the Office Interview
Lighting Dances with Wolves, and Lighting Dead Poets Society, both from the Kodack
Cinematography Master Class Series.
(These three tapes are AFTRS training tapes, and are available for purchase from AFTRS
Direct Sales: Tel +61 2 9805 6423, fax +61 2 9887 1030. Email [email protected])
Motion Picture and Video Lighting, Blain Brown, Focal Press, revised edition.
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Chapter

21 Using Lighting
Equipment
Producing Videos
Using Lighting Equipment

There’s a huge range of lighting equipment. Unfortunately, most of it is

I very expensive. So expensive that small production companies can find
it more economical to rent lights for their shoots, rather than invest in buying them.
So it’s no surprise that training courses usually have access to a very limited number
of lights, sometimes only a kit of redheads.
Never mind. More isn’t always better. With lights (as with other things in life), it’s
how you use what you’ve got that counts. Great productions are made by people who
are using just the sun and some bounce cards.
Still, whatever lights you can get your hands on, you need to use them safely.

Safety with Lights

Lights are the one item in video which can kill you. They carry high levels of electrical
current and become life threatening if used improperly or if they’re faulty. Safe practice
with lights is essential. People should not use lights without knowing how to use them
safely.

RCDs
RCDs (residual current devices)—also called life saver power boards—prevent accidental
injury or death from electrocution. They do this by detecting when electricity is altering
its normal pathway and going to earth; for example, when it’s taking a path through
you. Then they instantly switch off the power flow.
In 1993 an Australian university student was nearly killed on a location shoot due
to a faulty light. Now that university requires that all portable lights be used only with
RCDs. Many of the lights have had their regular plugs replaced with special RCD plugs.
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Using Lighting Equipment 291

Other lights are loaned out with separate RCD power
boards in their kit.
At the beginning of each shoot, before relying on
the RCD, you should give it a quick test to make sure
that it’s working right and will turn off in the event
of trouble.
Students should pass a lighting proficiency test, Test button
which includes how to test and use RCDs, before
they’re allowed to borrow lights from the media
equipment store.

Calculating the Electrical Load

Portable lights use high powered lamps. Redheads
Always use an RCD when you plug in lights, and be
typically have 800 watt bulbs, blondies usually have
sure to test it before you turn the lights on.
2000 watt bulbs, other lights may require much
more power. The six-light, though each bulb takes
only 650 watts, runs in paired circuits which total It’s important to use RCDs, but
1300 watts, and when all three pairs are connected, it is possible to electrocute
that lighting unit draws 3900 watts! yourself, despite using one. So
In Australia, normal household power circuits always unplug lights before
carry either 15 amps (older installations) or 16 amps changing bulbs. Tony Mandl,
(newer installations). Gaffer,AFTRS.
There’s a simple mathematical formula to
calculate how many lights you can plug into a circuit without blowing the fuse.

Amps (amount of current) × Volts (force driving the current) = Watts (power)
or: Amps × Volts = Watts
so: A 15 amp circuit × 240 volts (household current in Australia) = 3600 watts
or: A 15 Amp circuit × 120 volts (household current in the USA) = 1800 watts

The circuit will carry 3600 watts (USA: 1800 watts), A general rule of thumb:
but each circuit is likely to have more than one 1 Kw = 41⁄2 Amps.
power point connected to it.
Therefore, when each redhead carries an 800
watt bulb, you can plug three redhead lights into one circuit (in the USA, only two
Ian Bosman,
lights)—but only if nothing else is running off that circuit. Have an electrical extension Gaffer,AFTRS.
cord with you to run to another circuit for powering additional lights.
Since you can’t always be sure if anything else is running off the entire circuit, it’s a
good idea to plug in fewer, rather than more, lights per circuit.
The number of circuits available is the same as the number of fuses marked power
in the fuse-box of the house.
Some household devices draw large amounts of electricity. For example, little electric
space heaters really chew through the power. If you want to run a space heater on the
same circuit with lights, be very careful not to overload the circuit capacity. On second
thought, why not warm up by sitting under the lights?
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292 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Plugging In
Most homes built in the last 20 years have at least four electrical circuits, two for power,
which service the electrical outlets that you can plug things into, and two for lights,
which run the fixed lights in the ceilings.
Some fuse-boxes have a circuit map which tells you which power points go with
which circuit, but if this isn’t available, you can work out which goes to which by using
this simple method:
1. Go to the fuse-box and turn off the main switch.
But before you do this, ask for permission.
Turning off the main power supply can wreak
havoc with anything that’s got an electronic
On
timer in it, like the VCR, the clock radio or the
computer, unless they have back-up batteries
for power outages.
2. Remove a fuse from a position labelled power.
Main Power Power Lights Lights 3. Turn the main power switch back on.
switch 15 amps 15 amps 10 amps 10 amps 4. Take a small desk lamp and plug it into each
power point in the area where you’ll be
working.
(a) If the light turns on, label the power point ‘A’ (using a marker and masking tape).
(b) If the light doesn’t turn on, label the power point ‘B’.
5. Once you’ve done all the power points in the relevant area, return to the fuse-box
and turn the main power switch off again.
6. Replace the fuse you removed.
7 Turn the main power switch back on again.
Congratulations! You now know which power point goes to each of the two power
circuits, so you should be able to plug your lights in sensibly, not blow any fuses, and
begin your shoot with at least one thing going right.
If you do blow a fuse, re-check your plug-in arrangement to see if you’ve mistakenly
overloaded it, and look for any hidden electrical load running on that circuit. Refrigerator?
Freezer? Sometimes you can get permission to unplug things, sometimes you can’t. Try
to adjust the load and your lights so the circuit will work.
Then rewire the fuse with the correct strength fuse wire. If it blows a second time,
assume there’s an electrical fault somewhere. It could be your lights or it could be the
house wiring. Call off the shoot until a certified electrician can check the lights and the
location and fix the problem.

Replacing the Globes

1. Always turn off and unplug a light before you attempt to change the globe!
2. Tota light globes are cylindrical glass envelopes which are held tight in the lamp
housing between two ceramic end pieces in a spring-loaded system. In order to
remove the spent globe, pry one of the ceramic ends aside and gently lift the globe
out. Never just grasp the light and yank, as it will shatter in your hand. Often the
springs are very tight and it takes some effort to get the ceramic end to move.
3. Never touch the glass of the new globe with your fingers. Everyone has traces of
skin oil on their fingers. If this oil is transferred to a light globe, it can cause the globe
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Using Lighting Equipment 293

to superheat in those spots and it could explode.
It is okay to touch the ceramic ends of the globe.
4. Leave the paper wrapper around the new globe
so you can get a good grip on the globe. Then
pry aside the end ceramic piece in the light fixture
again, put one end of the globe into the other
end of the lamp socket, align the globe so it will
be in the right place to be connected to the end
you’ve opened, and ease the ceramic end back
so it grasps the globe securely. You can give the
globe a little wiggle to make sure it’s correctly
positioned. Then pull off the paper wrapper and It’s okay to touch the ceramic ends, but not the glass.
the light is ready to be used.

The globe comes wrapped in foam and paper Handle the globe with the tissue paper still wrapped
around it.

Follow a similar procedure with all other types of video light globes.

Danger from Water and Other Liquids

Water and electricity don’t safely mix. Never run light cables through wet areas or
puddles. Don’t have any watery effects happening near them. Don’t set coffee cups and
drink containers on the ground near power boards, where they might get knocked over
and spilled.
And watch that you don’t set up a light beneath an emergency sprinkler system in
a ceiling. The heat rising from the very hot light can cause the sprinkler system to go off.

Danger from Heat

Lights are also dangerous because of the very high
Fluorescent technology’s gone
heat they generate. People adjusting barn doors on
through the roof in the last few
lights which are lit should wear gloves, or use some
years.The new fluoros run
cloth, to protect their hands from being burnt.
cooler, the energy’s in the light,
Lights put too close to other items on the set
not in the radiant heat. Richard
can bubble paintwork, singe woodwork, melt
Fitzpatrick,
polystyrene, crack glass and set fire to papers and Camera
drapes. Operator,
Digital
Dimensions.
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294 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Danger from Falling

Lights are also heavy. If someone trips over them and they fall, a series of results can
occur, from people being hurt and set items being damaged, to fires starting.

Types of Portable Lights

REDHEADS
These are commonly used portable lights. They come in kits of three lights with stands.
They use 800 watt globes which are mounted in a curved reflector. They have attachable
barn doors and hooks for securing scrims. Their globes are movable between spot and
flood positions.

BLONDIES
These are much bigger than redheads and come two to a kit. They use 2000 watt globes
mounted in large hemispherical reflectors. They also have barn doors and their globes
can be set anywhere between the spot and flood positions.

TOTA LIGHTS
These are very lightweight portable lights that come
in kits of three or four. They take globes of a variety
of wattages (300–800 W) and are good for raising the
general light level. Their globes are fixed in one
position, so you can’t spot or flood them, and they
have minuscule barn doors. They work well as soft
lights when used with their reflector umbrellas.
They’re easier to carry than most other portable
lights.
Redhead Tota light Blondie

HMIS
These are arc lamps which give out an enormous amount of light for their size. Large
ones (4 to 12 Kw) can be used to illuminate broad areas. The light they give off is the
colour temperature of sunlight, so they’re used for providing ‘sun’ for a shot or
augmenting the available sunlight.
Small units are often used by news teams. Larger units are usually rented and come
with a gaffer and a lighting truck.

OTHER SMALL LIGHTS

Other small lights include:
• Mole-Richardson Tweenies (650 W).
• Dido lights (100 W).
• Inkies.
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Using Lighting Equipment 295

Sometimes all you need is to lift the local lighting just a little. Sometimes you need to
additionally highlight a small part of the set. Other times your set itself is very small, or
your framing is very tight.
These tiny lights are intense in their effect but lighweight. What could be better? It’s
definitely worth having a few little accent lights in addition to the backbreaking main
light kits.

Lifting Heavy Light Kits

Another safety factor with lights is their weight. A kit with three redheads or two blondies
in it is very heavy.
You could easily do your back in if you’re not careful when you’re lifting light kits.

Working with a Partner

The big kits come with three handles: one at the front and one at the back, with a third
one on the top. The extra handles mean that the kit is very heavy and can be more easily
(and sensibly) carried by two people.
There’s no need to feel that sharing the load is an assault on your physical prowess—
whether you’re male or female. The alternative could be that you pull a back muscle
and are immobilised for the rest of the shoot. Which is worse?

Solo Lifting
If you’re lifting a kit by yourself, never bend over and pick it up by straightening up your
back. That’s how the damage is likely to be done. It puts far too much strain on the
muscles of your lower back.
The way to lift the kit is to:
1. Stand beside it, with your side to the kit.
2. Bend your knees till you’re low enough to grasp the handle.
3. Lift the kit by straightening your legs—that way the lifting is done by your leg
muscles.

✓
✗
Sally Don, Roseville College,
during work experience at
Australian Film Television and
Radio School.
Never this way! Do this.
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296 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Once you’ve lifted the kit, the walking isn’t too bad, as long as you’re not going far.
If you are, try to use an equipment trolley.

In and Out of Cars

If you lift the kit up and put it on the outer ledge of your car boot, then you and another
person can gently manoeuvre it down into the boot. That works pretty well.
The trick comes when you have to get the kit back out of there. Don’t do it alone!
If you’re leaning way forward and then trying to lift, you’re putting your back at great
risk. Retrieving a light kit from a boot is never an easy job, but two people can manage
this job better than one.
The best way to transport light kits is in a truck or station wagon, so you can lift the
kit up to the tailgate and then just slide it forward. Unloading isn’t a problem—just slide
it to the edge again, get a good grip and lift it down to the pavement or the waiting
equipment trolley.

Setting Up Portable Lights

Portable lightstands are similar to tripods—in fact their base legs open out to form a
tripod.
Like a tripod, they’re stored and transported in a collapsed form, and then are opened
up when it’s time to use them.
How do you open them up? Just like a tripod. Wherever you find a release
mechanism, that’s where the pole opens up, so the stand becomes taller and taller and
taller.
Unlike the tripod you don’t have to adjust the length of each leg separately.

Tighten as You Extend

For each length of the telescoping pole that you pull out, retighten its knob firmly. Though
the pole may stand up fine on its own with just a slight tightening, once you add the
heavy light head one of its sections can lose its grip and collapse down into the lower
tube. It’s not the sudden loud noise that’s the problem so much as the fact that the impact
can cause the globe to break.
Of course, you’d have remembered to bring an extra globe along, but they’re costly,
and the light might crash down in mid-shoot. Not great for continuity or the tranquillity
of the performers.

Watch the Spread of the Legs

The legs on the lightstand have a surprising opening action. When you pull them out,
they go wider and wider, and then, as you continue to pull them, their bottom ends
move inward towards the pole again. So midway open is the widest and most stable
position to use them in. If you open them all the way, the base of the stand will have
become too narrow for you to put a heavy light way up there and have much (justifiable)
confidence in the system.
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Be sure to tighten the knob at the bottom of the stand between the legs. That will
prevent the stand from slowly collapsing.

Securing the Light Head

At the base of the light head is a hollow tubular section which slips over the top of the
lightstand pole. There’s a wing nut at the side of this section of the light head, and you
screw it in until the pressure against the lightstand pole is sufficient to hold the light
head securely.
There’s only one trick to it. If you don’t unscrew the wing nut far enough out to
start with, the light head’s progress down onto the pole will be obstructed by the tip of
the bolt which is meant to squeeze it in place. So the light head will be just resting
precariously on the top of the pole, and when you then twist the wing nut to tighten
down the bolt it won’t really be tightening anything.
The light head has to settle down onto the pole by several centimetres (a couple of
inches). If it doesn’t, check to see what’s wrong.

Stabilising Lightstands
It’s a funny thing about portable lightstand legs.
People just don’t see them. Somehow the light head
at the top is all their brains register.
Maybe it’s because the stands are slim, and
they’re an unobtrusive silver-grey or black. Yet even
the ones with their bottom tripod legs painted red,
as a warning, seem to escape the notice of erstwhile
assistants.
People see you putting up lights and they’re
overcome with the urge to rush over to you (maybe
to offer help). Next thing you know, they catch a foot
under one of the three outward-slanting base legs
and whammo! Either the person or the light—or You can secure lightstands with sandbags.
both—is on the ground.
So you always set the lights up so people won’t trip. It’s a good strategy to tuck the
jutting tripod legs out of people’s way. In an auditorium setting, you can get two of the
three legs under a row of seats. If you place a rubbish bin next to the third leg, you’ve
effectively highlighted the no-walk area.
Another way to secure a lightstand is to put a sandbag over one of its tripod legs.
Sandbags do a good job, and it’s easy enough to use them at the studio, but they’re
quite heavy to carry around on a location shoot. An alternative is to use waterfilled
‘sandbags’, which are special sturdy bladders that you can fill once you get to the location
and empty before you repack to go home. (Do NOT use the flimsy bladders from wine
casks! Water on the set is a grievous danger.)
If you have to walk away from a lightstand before you’ve got it secured, ask someone
to help you by standing next to it and holding onto the upright pole. Other people will
see the person, skirt around him or her, and not knock it over.
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298 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Gaffing Down the Cables

Another hazard with lights is their cables. People can trip over them easily, and you’re
usually forced to run cables across some portion of the floor area to plug them in.
First of all, you should do your lighting set-up long before non-crew people arrive—
like the audience and guests. In general, you should allow at least an hour to set up
lights, and they should be fully set up an hour before shooting time.
You can use a person of similar height to sit in for the performer, so you can work
out the placement of the lightstands and the general throw of the light. Once you’re sure
where the lights need to be, you should tape down all the cables thoroughly with gaffer
tape (that broad, expensive, silver, black or white tape, also known as duct tape).
Before you tape them, make sure that each cable is hanging straight down to the
floor along the side of its lightstand, and then run it in a short straight path to the electrical
outlet. Also, make sure you leave enough slack in the cable by the stand so you can
extend the light to its full height, and so you can adjust the lighthead later on.
It’s good if you can run the electrical cable under a row of seats or some other furniture
so people’s feet won’t be likely to make contact with it. Most of all, never pull the cord
outward from the light and through the air, effectively cordoning off a section of the
room. That’s a real trap for someone.
With your lighting set-up basically placed and aimed, you can use the last hour,
while others fuss with the camera and mics, to ensure the lights are giving you just the
right effect. Then you can do the final tweaking once your performer is able to be seated.

Controlling the Light

Three aspects of light that you’ll need to control are its intensity, its spread and its hardness
or softness.

Controlling Light Intensity

The intensity of the lights can be controlled by moving them away from the subject, or
closer to it.
In practice, if you double the distance the light is away from the subject, you cut
down to one quarter the intensity of the light. This is known as the inverse square law.
For example: If, as the starting point, your distance from the light to the subject
equals 1, and the intensity of the light at that distance equals 1, then, if the distance
between them becomes 2, the intensity is inverted (to half) and squared (to quarter).
So by doubling the distance, you quarter the intensity of the light.
If you’re not into calculating, just remember that moving a light away from the
subject diminishes its intensity very effectively.
Ordinary fibreglass insect screen Another way to control the intensity of the light
mesh makes an efficient scrim. is to add a scrim to the front of it. Portable lights are
(Disregard slight smoking when made with clips or attaching hooks at the front, so
new.) that one or more scrims can be attached to the front
of them.
Ian Bosman,
Gaffer,AFTRS.
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Using Lighting Equipment 299

Scrims won’t change the light quality, you’ll still
have a hard light with a hard shadow.
You can also cut the intensity of the light by
putting spun in front of it. Spun is a soft white
fibreglass material which can be attached to the barn
doors using wooden clothes pegs. (Plastic ones would
melt.)
There’s a gel-like material which is white and
translucent (which means the light can go through it,
but you can’t see through it). It’s called white diffusion.
This can be pegged to the front of a light to cut the A C-stand can hold a cutter or black flag to shield an
light’s intensity, too. area on set from direct light.Vicki Lucan and Ken
Spun, diffusion and gels can be hung in front of Crouch, Australian Film Television and Radio School.
a light by mounting them in a frame and attaching
the frame to a C-stand. A C-stand is a sturdy stand with tripod legs to which you can
attach a marvellous range of things. These materials do soften the light.

Controlling the Light Pathway

You can also use a C-stand to hold a cutter or black flag. These are flat black wooden or
metal pieces, with a metal stem, which come in various shapes and sizes. They’re used
to control light by blocking it from falling on some part of your set.
For example, you may have an element in your set which is highly reflective, but
you don’t want to remove it. Perhaps a prism
paperweight on the executive’s desk.
Or you may need a dark area next to a bright Lighting a scene is like eating
one, to accentuate a part of the image. potato chips—one light can be
Pieces of cardboard, or polystyrene, or almost too many and a hundred never
anything else at hand, can be used to block the path enough.
of light, and thus control your image. But watch the Shane
heat! McNeil,
Flinders
You can also use a half scrim, if you want to have one part of the light’s beam stronger University.
than the other half. One circumstance for doing this is when the light needs to fall strongly
on the subject’s face, but unfortunately the person has arrived wearing a shirt with white
in it. The half scrim can cut the intensity of the light
falling on the shirt, while still allowing good
illumination of the face.

Softening the Light

Light is softer if it’s coming from a broader area rather
than from a point source. So you can soften light by
bouncing it off a big white surface, like a large piece
of polystyrene or cardboard.
To make a ‘soft light’, turn your redhead away
from your subject, facing a large white surface, and Pointing a light towards polystyrene will give you a
the resulting bright reflected light bouncing off that good bounce.Andrew Belletty and Peter Johnson,
surface will give a softer, less shadow-creating Australian Film Television and Radio School.
illumination for your subject.
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300 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Another way to soften light is to point it at a reflective umbrella. Tota lights come
with little silver umbrellas which are designed to be attached to the side of the tota
lightheads.
A flexifill is a large piece of reflective material, white on one side and silver on the
other, which is mounted in a flexible circular frame. It’s lightweight and can be hand-
held by an assistant during a short interview, to bounce a soft light onto the subject’s
face. Or it can be mounted on a C-stand for a longer shoot.
When you’re done with it, you can twist it down neatly into a small shape to pack
it into its zipper bag.

You can bounce your key light from a sheet of poly to get a soft fill.Vicki Lucan, Australian Film Television and Radio
School.

Bouncing Light
Light can also be bounced off white walls and low white ceilings.
Many times you’ll find you’re shooting in a tiny office space or somewhere just too
small to handle the intensity of three redheads. So bouncing light can save the situation.
The thing to watch with bouncing light is that colours will bounce, too. So a cream
coloured wall will bounce a warm creamy light back and a pink wall might give your
subject a feverish look.
Sometimes you may not intentionally bounce light, but may find that the placement
of your subject is in the throw of a coloured bounce. Make sure you can live with it
before you go ahead and shoot there.
A terrible effect comes from shooting under a bluish tent or sunshade. The people
end up looking like cadavers. (Yes, we can believe it’s their 50th wedding anniversary.
The question is, are they still alive?)

Studio Lights
Studio lights tend to be bigger and more powerful than portable lights. They’re less
transportable. They’re mounted on heavy stands, often on wheels so they can be shifted
around with ease, or they’re attached to a lighting grid overhead.
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Using Lighting Equipment 301

Some basic grids are an arrangement of fixed
poles. In order to move lights around, you have to
get up there on a ladder, undo them and reattach
them somewhere else.
Better grids allow the light-bearing poles to be
moved forward and backward on tracks, and they
have some diagonal movement as well.
Really great grids are computer controlled and
have motor driven batons which will lower the lights
down so the globes can be changed from floor level.

Safety Chains 2 Kw fresnel and 5 Kw fresnel

No matter what type of lighting grid you have, every single light which is attached to it
should also be attached by a safety chain.
Lights are very heavy; it’s easy for one to slip out of the grip of someone who’s trying
to detach it, or move it to another spot, or reattach it.
And a poorly attached light might lose its grip with no warning.
A falling light could easily crack the skull of someone down below.

Whenever moving lights, undo the safety chain last, and do it up again first at the new position.Then if the heavy light
slips your grasp, it doesn’t drop.Joe Conway, School of Indigenous Australian Studies, James Cook University,
Townsville, Qld, Australia.

A falling light once missed my head by a few centimetres when I was the guest on a cable
TV show in America. I was sitting in my on-set chair going over my notes while people
were still adjusting the lights around me. Suddenly the back light slipped out of the hands
of the gaffer up on the ladder, and it came crashing down by my ear.There were no safety
chains in that studio. Needless to say, I’m convinced of their value! Martha
Mollison,
Video
Producer.
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302 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Adjusting the Lights

Sometimes grid-mounted lights can be adjusted from floor level using a long pole. The
pole has a little hook on the end of it which slips over a thin metal bar inside each large
colour-coded adjustment knob on the sides of the light fixture. One knob is for tilting
the light, one is for panning it, one is for focus (spot or flood), and one is for turning the
power off and on.

Changing Globes
Usually the lights are wired up so their power can
be turned on from switches down below at the
lighting patch bay. Still, you’d always turn the power
off at the light and unplug the light if you were going
to change the globe. Who knows—once you’re up
on the ladder, with your hand in the light, someone
else might come along and start flipping switches at
the lighting controls below, quite unmindful of your
predicament.
Of course, you’d use the same procedure as
changing the globes of portable lights.
Never touch the globe with your fingers—always
Change the globe on the light after you turn the handle it in its tissue wrapper.
power off.Bryan Mason, MAPS Program, Hamilton Some places only allow the technical staff to
Secondary College, Mitchell Park, SA, Australia. change the globes of the grid-mounted lights.

Moving the Lights

Because lights are so heavy and difficult to move, studios usually have them set on the
grid in an arrangement which suits their major usage patterns.
It’s best to think carefully about how you can use the pattern that’s there before you
launch into undoing the lights and rearranging them.
Sometimes you can get that one additional key light you need by setting up a redhead
on a floorstand, rather than pinching lights from the back area of the lighting grid.
On the other hand, sometimes you really do need to do a major rearrangement. You
should have helpers to do this.
Some people don’t like being up ladders. It’s possible to get a ladder type structure
which has a secure standing platform on the top of it, with a surrounding guard rail. If
a studio has one of these it lets more people learn about lighting and contribute to it.
When removing a light from a grid, it’s a good idea to have a person waiting at the
bottom of the ladder to grab the light from you, so you can descend safely yourself. Just
make sure they’re never standing beneath the light, in case you lose your grip on it!
When you disconnect the light from the grid, detach the main connection first, always
leaving the safety chain attached till you’re certain you can manage the weight of the
light. When you’re reattaching the light, reattach the safety chain first.
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Using Lighting Equipment 303

Types of Studio Lights

SOFT LIGHTS
These are large lights which use from 1000 to 5000
watts (1–5 Kw). Their globes are mounted facing giant
scoop-shaped reflectors. They’re good for lifting the
general light level, for illuminating the background
curtain or set, and for providing a soft light over a
wide area. As with other soft lights, you can’t spot
or flood them.

FRESNELS
These are lensed lights which can be adjusted
between spot and flood. Good for key lights on the
subjects. 2 Kw soft light and 5 Kw soft light

A fresnel lamphead has a thick glass lens on its front. You can swing the lens to the side to replace the
globe.

FOLLOW SPOTS
These are hard light sources which provide a bright
circle of light. They’re used in stage and variety show
performances, especially for following guest entrances,
and individual dancers and singers as they move
around the set.

Spot light
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304 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Lighting Controls
BARN DOORS
Barn doors are hinged plates which usually come
attached to a circular ring in sets of four: two
rectangles and two trapezoids. They attach to the
front of lightheads. By moving them in and out, you
can control the flow of the light beam. You can
narrow it down or block it off at the top, bottom
and sides.
Jolean Dilorenzo,TEAME Indigenous TV and Video People are often puzzled about how to orient
Training Course, Metro Screen, Paddington, NSW, them and ask, ‘Which way do they go?’ It doesn’t
Australia. matter—do what works for your situation.

SCRIM
This is wire gauze which can be put in front of a light to reduce its intensity.
It comes in different gauges of mesh, producing different results. It can make a
difference of 1⁄2 to 1 f stop on your iris setting. It’s mounted in frames to hold it straight
and can be attached between the barn doors and the reflector on many lightheads.

SPUN
A soft fibreglass material which also reduces the intensity of light, and softens it
somewhat.

CUTTER (OR BLACK FLAG)

A black piece of wooden ply with a metal stem, which is used to block light from reaching
some part of the set.

GOBO (OR CUCALORIS, OR COOKIE)

A cut-out stencil which can be used in front of a light to cast a desired shadow pattern,
like venetian blinds and tree branches.
It can also be a cut metal stencil, inserted between the globe and lens of a pattern
spot.

DINGLE
Generally a leafy branch placed in front of a light, to give a broken pattern on an otherwise
flat surface.

SNOOT
A circular attachment which narrows the light beam for a spotlight effect. Used in place
of barn doors.
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Using Lighting Equipment 305

DIMMERS
Controls which allow lights to be gradually faded
from full-on to full-off, or anywhere in between.
Lights can be assigned to dimmers so they’ll fade
singly or in groups.

GELS
Special coloured transparent sheets which can be
placed in front of lights to change their colour or their
colour temperature. Unlike normal plastic, they won’t
melt or burn from light heat—unless they’re wrongly
placed so they’re touching the globe.
Gels let you colour the light.Sarah Moore from
Roseville College, during work experience at the
Australian Film Television and Radio School.
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Chapter

22 Production
Options
Producing Videos
Production Options

When you’re developing the idea for a project, there are some key
I questions to answer right at the start:

The Greys,a production by the Queensland School of Film and Television, Brisbane, Qld, Australia.

1. Is it a live event which will have to be shot from beginning to end in one go?
2. Or will you have the time and space to do rehearsals with the crew and be able to
shoot retakes as necessary?
3. What sort of equipment will you be able to
use?
Take a chance and shoot for the
(a) One camera only?
moon, because a magnificent
(b) Three single cameras on location?
failure is better than a
(c) An outside broadcast van?
conservative success. Risk-taking
(d) A studio?
Francis in a supportive environment is
4. Will you have the time or equipment to edit
Treacey, an essential element in learning
Deakin the program?
and, within a course, process is
University. 5. Or will you have to do it all with in-camera
more important than end result.
editing?
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Production Options 307

Maybe at first you won’t know which method to choose. Each of these production
options has its advantages and disadvantages. You have to decide both what you can
afford and what you can live with.

Single Camera—In-camera Edited

Advantages
1. Low cost.
2. Small equipment load.
3. Small crew.
4. Easy to move crew to site and back.
5. Crew can maintain a low profile at the site and have less impact on the people
at the location.
6. At the end of the shoot, the program is complete.
7. The program can be shown immediately to the people in it.
8. The program is made of first generation video.
9. Tape is ready to be shown and distributed right away.
10. Copies can be made at the site to give to the
people in the video.

Disadvantages
1. All shots must be done in the script sequence,
regardless of how awkward that is.
2. Shots must be done quickly to keep the camera
from going into stop mode and causing a glitch
at a shot-change point.
3. Every shot must be done correctly the first time,
because to redo a shot eats into the frames at the
end of the previous shot.
4. Late ideas are hard to incorporate into a partly Check all camera operations carefully before you
shot program. begin.Tim Wiedman and Daniel Klein, SQIT College
of the South West, Roma, QLD, Australia.

Single Camera—Postproduced
Advantages
1. Shots can be taken from a variety of camera angles, if there’s enough time.
2. Shots can be taken in any order.
3. Last minute ideas and unexpected shots can be incorporated into the production.
4. Low cost.
5. Small equipment load.
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308 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

6. Small crew.
7. Easy to move crew to site and back.
8. Crew can maintain a low profile at the site and
have less impact on the people at the location.
9. Program can be edited into any shot order, and
in a variety of ways.
10. Rough cuts can be shown to advisers for
helpful suggestions.
11. Music can be added later.
12. Voiceover can be added later.
What you shoot today may be used again in another 13. Titles and graphics can be added later.
program.On location for Australian Wholefoods 14. Field material can be used again for a number
production.DOP Malcolm Foreman for t.a.v. of other projects.
productions, Adelaide, SA, Australia.(Photo by Neil
Smith)

Disadvantages
1. Continuity from shot to shot has to be carefully watched. Continuity person needed
for this.
2. Lots of cutaways needed to avoid jump cuts in edited footage.
3. All tapes must be logged.
4. Editing the project requires a major work commitment after the shoot.
5. Editing equipment can be expensive.
6. Project takes considerable amount of time to complete.

Multi-camera Studio—
Live Switching
Advantages
1. Good space for rehearsals.
2. Good technical conditions for producing the
program.
3. Access to a range of equipment, including
titling.
4. Use of lighting grid.
5. Good sound mixing capacity, including roll-
During a production of Dead Air Live; left to right, ins of music and sound effects.
Tim Macklin, Mahera Omar, Rachel Eisengart, director 6. Help from the studio’s technical director.
Craig Bouchard and Charlie Tesch, technical adviser. 7. Constant choice of shots which are all
Somerville Producers Group, Somerville Community viewable by director.
Access TV (SCAT), Somerville, MA, USA.
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Production Options 309

8. All action can be covered from several
angles at once—no continuity concerns
from doing the same action several times
for a repositioned camera.
9. Live audience possible—good to inspire
better performance and to provide visual
and audio reactions.
10. Possibility of getting questions and com-
ments from the live audience.
11. At the end of the shoot, the program is
complete.
12. No postproduction time or costs.

Red Shepherd, a multi-camera drama, is shot in The Canyon

Disadvantages set.Erin Quinlan, boom swinger, Amanda Robertson,
1. High cost for studio and equipment. production designer (seated), and Fiona Schipplock, camera
2. Time limits on studio bookings for both operator, Griffith University, Brisbane, Qld, Australia.
rehearsals and the shoot.
3. Large crew needed.
4. Any mistakes made during the shoot (by performers, camera operators, switcher,
sound) are in the final product.
5. Good shots may not get selected and are lost.
6. Needs of live audience have to be attended to.

Multi-camera OB Van—Live Switching

Advantages
1. Ability to get to an outside location, even a remote location.
2. Action can be covered from several angles simultaneously—
especially good for sports, races, concerts, parades and other
live one-off events.
3. Constant choice of shots which are all viewable by director.
4. High public visibility for the production and the production
crew.
5. The program is complete at the end of the shoot.
6. No postproduction time or costs.

Disadvantages
1. Large amount of equipment to deal with.
2. Lengthy and complicated set-up.
3. High cost for van and equipment.
Nick Spinetto works on live broadcast for WEBN,
4. Large crew needed.
Emerson College, Boston, MA, USA.
5. Transportation requirements for large crew.
6. Rehearsal time may be limited to the same day as the shoot.
7. Rain or snow can make set-ups difficult and unpleasant.
8. Good shots may not get selected and are lost.
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310 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Multi-camera—Postproduced
Advantages
1. Cameras at several angles simultaneously.
2. All shots are captured so everything is available for use in the final edit.
3. Continuity problems eliminated from action shots.
4. If one camera has problems, all the other cameras’ shots are still recorded.
5. Program doesn’t rely on the skill of the switcher.

Disadvantages
1. High cost for equipment.
2. Large number of tapes needed.
3. Large crew required.
4. If cameras aren’t linked they may not match in white balance or other signal qualities.
5. Huge amount of footage to be logged.
6. Lengthy and expensive editing.

Composite Shows
It’s also possible to have a show which combines several of the production methods
mentioned above. A live magazine style show can include loosely scripted live talk
segments, pre-recorded on-the-street interviews
Make the stopwatch your friend. rolled into the show, rehearsed song or dance perfor-
mances, pre-edited tape segments and unrehearsed
last-minute live segments.
A show like this needs an exact script order and predetermined time allotments for
Sandra each segment. The director’s assistant will be very busy on this type of production,
Chung,ABC TV, keeping track of the rundown and carefully timing each piece to make sure there are no
Training and time overruns and everything fits into the program’s time slot.
Development.

Real-time Productions
When a program is being recorded in just one take, it requires careful planning, and a
crew with excellent technical skills. There’s no second chance.
Some live productions, like orchestral concerts and stage productions, allow for
rehearsals. It would be madness to plan to shoot such an event without attending
rehearsals to give yourself a good idea of how things will go.
Usually you can get a copy of the program or script. Sometimes you can get
permission to have your crew practice their camera work at a rehearsal. Occasionally,
you can get permission to tape a dress rehearsal. These shots may save you in the edit
the following week!
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Production Options 311

Other live events, like the visit of an important
person, allow for no rehearsals. You should make
sure you find out everything you can about the
planned schedule for the person, and work out the
best places to put your cameras.
You may have to figure on the presence of a large
crowd.
Don’t forget that your crew may need special
passes to get into the action areas, and they may have
to get the equipment there very early before streets
With live events, get the schedule of activities ahead
get cordoned off to vehicles.
of time.Lt-General Sir Michael Jeffries, Governor of
WA, accompanied by Brian Williams,Western
Australian School of Art and Design, Northbridge,

Production Types WA, Australia.

There are many standard types of productions. Of course, you may be one of those
creative people who develops a new form!
But you want to cut your teeth on some of the following well-known formats.

The Lecture
The lecture sounds like it would be easy—just one person speaking for the whole show.
But it’s deceptively tricky.
Check out the site. Is the person speaking in front of a white wall or whiteboard?
This will require care with lighting so you don’t end up with the speaker in semi-
silhouette. Or maybe you can add an appropriate backdrop? A plain piece of medium
blue cloth can work wonders on a white wall, and the speaker will look much better.
Will an overhead projector or slide projector be used? If so, where will the images
be projected? Will the person be standing in a darkened area much of the time? Or will
someone else be changing overheads for him/her?
If you succumb to the temptation to use the fluorescent room lights, you can expect
to end up with a person who has black sockets for eyes (from toppy ceiling lighting)
and who looks green around the gills.
Does the speaker usually move around or cling onto the lectern for dear life? The
speaker can usually tell you this ahead of time.
Someone who stands still can be miked with a cardioid on a table stand. Someone
who turns away from the lectern frequently, to talk while looking at projected slides,
will need a lavalier (neck) mic. Someone who strides around energetically is better off
wearing a cordless radio mic lav. Someone who will be entering the audience and asking
them for comments needs a cordless cardioid radio mic, to pick up sound from both
audience and self.
Though your speaker will be addressing an audience, you need to have at least a
semi-eyeline to camera. Profiles of speakers are hard to watch for long, so position your
camera so you get a decent shot of the speaker’s face.
Because lectures are often too long (and boring) for their full length to be shown on
TV or video, plan your shooting so you can shorten the piece. To avoid having jump
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312 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

cuts, you can cover the edits you’ll need to make with cutaway shots of the audience.
You can do these before the speaker starts, but make sure the ones you take are useable.
It’s pointless taking wide shots which include people arriving if you plan to edit them
into the middle of the lecture.
You can get away with tight two-shots and close-ups of people who appear to be
paying attention to the front. A good method with cutaways is to shoot them for 15–20
seconds each. Don’t just take three to five seconds, because you’ll find to your dismay
that people tend to do something ridiculous as soon as they notice you’re shooting them,
and that renders part of your shot unusable. And of course you have to consider having
pre-roll time.
Shoot lots of cutaways. You’ll be surprised how many you need and it looks
ridiculous to keep reusing the same ones.

The Panel Discussion

Panel discussions can’t be scripted ahead of time
because there’s no way of predicting who will speak
when or what they’ll choose to say.
What can be scripted is the opening by the host
or facilitator, and the planned closing remarks.
There should also be a general idea of what topics
will be introduced, and in which order.
The host should have a good understanding of
the topic, and have written details on the names and
special titles of each of the panellists, as well as their
connection to the topic.
The director needs to decide ahead of time on
Karene McIntosh and Ross Williams present a panel at the best angles for the cameras, and basic coverage
‘Sharing the Road, Disability and Sexuality’, James strategies—like which two-shots or three-shots work
Cook University,Townsville, Qld, Australia.(Photo by best. Due to the unpredictable nature of the panel
Christine Togo-Smallwood) discussion, once the show starts the director will have
to be concentrating fully on who is talking and who
is reacting. There’ll be no time then to work out the
shots.
Panels need to be carefully miked so everyone’s
comments can be heard well. Each person can be
linked to the mixer with a lav mic, or groups of two
can share a table-mounted cardioid.
This type of production needs to be mixed live,
with a very attentive audio operator who rides the
levels and continually raises the mic of the person
speaking and lowers all the others.
If all mics are left fully on, some embarrassing
muttered comments can enter the soundtrack at full
record level. Remember, many panellists are unused
Calling the shots at Northern Melbourne Institute of to working with mics. Don’t let them come to grief
TAFE, Collingwood,Vic, Australia. from unfamiliar technology.
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Production Options 313

The Demonstration
It’s difficult to script a demonstration tightly, and it’s
unlikely that an unskilled demonstrator will exactly
duplicate what s/he did in rehearsal.
So demonstrations present coverage problems.
You need to decide what your basic shots will be,
and hang loose to switch from one to another as the
need arises. A demonstration needs at least two
cameras.
Essential shots, of course, are a good close-up of
the demonstration object(s), and a wider shot which
includes the demonstrator. At times you can use a
close-up of the demonstrator’s face, and cut to it Wolf Blass wine demonstration at Northern Territory
while you’re refocusing on the omelette in the pan, University, Darwin, NT, Australia.
or the lizard crawling up the assistant’s arm.
If the demonstration can’t be fully rehearsed ahead of time, make sure you find out
from the demonstrator what the main elements will be.

The Training Tape

The aim of the training tape is to teach something to a target audience. It’s very important
to work out who the target audience is—the production style you use for senior citizens
won’t be the same as that which you use for 12–17 year olds, and a tape made about
the benefits of housing loans from a certain bank
will have a quite different tone and look from one I got into video production as
dealing with drink driving or drug use. Unless your a format for teaching exercise.
audience feels that the message is addressed to Not just to put an aerobics
them, they’ll disregard it. class on video but to teach
Training tapes can incorporate a demonstration. about the body and how to Jeanne
They can also use documentary style and short use exercise to improve both Flanagan,
dramas. Training tapes, though the phrase itself may daily activity and well being. Independent
sound boring, are wonderfully malleable in style and Producer.

quite challenging to produce well.

In general, shorter is better than longer. The
message needs to be very clear and simple. Some-
times text on the screen can reinforce the message.
You’ve no doubt been on the receiving end of
some poorly designed training tapes. When you go
to make one, think hard about the features of the
training tapes which have impressed you.

The Boston Blades, Paralympic Ice Sledge Hockey

Champions, on Dead Air Live, produced by Jeanne Flanagan
and the Somerville Producers Group.Somerville Community
Access TV, Somerville, MA, USA.
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314 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Documentary
Documentary has the wonderful capacity to take viewers into places they would never
otherwise go—perhaps through choice, or perhaps through lack of opportunity.
Because a documentary is made up of footage
When students start getting shot of real people in their actual locations, doing
their feet wet and using the their normal everyday activities—or in some cases
medium for something that isn’t doing something extraordinary for them—it has a
corporate or commercial, they freshness and vitality to it if shot well.
get a strong sense of People shooting documentaries have to be very
Steven
Parris, empowerment. sensitive and diplomatic. Their presence should be
Edmonds- as low key as possible, so their featured people can
Woodway relax and behave and talk in their normal ways.
High School.
A documentary with an overbearing crew, which tries to alter things too much at
the location, is really shooting a form of interfered-with reality. A sort of fiction which
purports to be true. Sadly, a lie.

Quvianaktulia (Kov) Tapaungai presents the meaning of the

Inukshuk (man made of stone) for Inuit Piqqusingit: Inuit
Getting the protest onto video gives you a wider Ways,Inuit Survival.Jamisee Pudloo, sound recordist, Cape
audience.Demonstrators in Seattle,WA, USA. Dorset, Nunavut, Canada.(Photo by Kimberley Brown)

One of the benefits of documentary form is

Documentary making gives you
that you record people telling their own stories,
the opportunity to explore the
using their own words and patterns of thinking,
real world and tell a story. I
their own anecdotes and analogies. This can be
believe that truth is stranger
very powerful, and very poignant. It can give
Trevor than fiction.Trust is the most
respect to those people, and gain respect for them
Graham, important thing, getting to
Producer. from the viewers.
know the people you’ll be
working with, getting to trust
them, getting them to trust you.
Everything after that is story,
story, story. Finding the story
you want to tell.
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Production Options 315

Oral History/Life History
If your video/film work comes
By combining photographs, coloured slides, news- from your heart, your audience
paper clippings, super-8 home movies, family will know it and you will have
videos, drawings and current footage, people make made a difference.
wonderful tributes to their families or friends, or to
Claire Beach,
members of their communities or organisations. Edmonds-
Although these life histories may err on the side of glossing over the hard times or Woodway
the character flaws, there’s nothing wrong with presenting a personal view of someone High School.

to an appreciative audience. Such amalgams of visual media take a long time to complete,
but by setting your camera up on a tripod in front of photos pinned on a corkboard you
can get very good results. Films can be projected on a white wall or screen and shot
from there. Drawings, clippings, cards and other artwork, like sculptures, can all be shot
directly with the camera. It may be a good time to try out the macro lens.

Peter C.Kenny Jr.and Older people may tire easily, so

Peter C.Kenny III, New keep the on-camera interview
York, c.1947.Kenny was format to no more than two
recently decorated, at a hours maximum, with a stretch
ceremony in Washington break after 45-60 minutes. Also Donna
DC, by the Russian be sure to place a glass of Kenny,Clio
government, for getting water and tissues within easy Associates,
supplies through to the The Video
reach beside the person being History
Russian people during interviewed during these long Company
WWII.Clio Associates sessions, regardless of their and Center
videotaped his oral for Recording
age. Life Stories.
history for a US
Merchant Marine
project, and it’s stored in
the USMM Academy
archives.

Drama
Drama is made up of scenes which are played by actors. Drama can involve the telling
of a piece of fiction, or it can be a re-enactment of the documented words and actions
of real people, living or dead.
Drama is almost always postproduced—that is, edited from material shot in segments.
A director will ask the actors to repeat a scene several times, and then have a variety
of takes to choose from during editing. So a major concern with drama is that the actors
repeat their lines and actions the same way for each take. Of course, their performance
may vary—their voice volume and way of saying their lines may have different emotional
qualities—but the basics, of which words were said and where the person was standing
when they were said, need to be right on the mark which was agreed to during rehearsals.
This is to get over continuity problems in the editing stage.
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316 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Drama needs to be well rehearsed, and the actors need to be capable of giving a
convincing performance. Otherwise it will fall flat. Sometimes you can get good actors
from among your friends. Often drama students are very happy to have the opportunity
to do a performance for tape because they can use it in their show reel. At other times,
it’s the best idea to get help from professionals.
Shooting and editing a drama is a huge commitment—don’t doom your project to
failure—or laughter—by neglecting to get the best actors you possibly can.
Sets are also important with drama. You can do location shoots or in-studio work.
Both have their pluses. Locations can be difficult to light well, and the amount of time
they’re available to you may be limited. Studios give you more control, but you have
to build a convincing scene from flats and props—this takes time, imagination and access
to materials.

Docu-drama
Docu-drama is a very popular and frequently used hybrid form. It takes as its subject
real people and real events, but uses re-enactments
Enjoy it! It’s got to be an by actors for some or all of the sequences. Parts of
enjoyable experience, even if the dialogue may be from bona-fide sources, and
it’s tough. parts may be fictional.
Docu-drama is very useful for presenting
Trevor educated guesses about events in the past which
Graham, were not recorded, and for bringing life and interest to moments in history.
Producer. The risk with docu-drama is that the viewers take in the whole program as if it is
fact, when it isn’t. Even for the knowledgeable and careful viewer, it can be hard to
separate fact from speculation in a docu-drama. As a program maker, you may find ways
of assisting your viewers in this.

‘Ficumentary’ (or ‘mocumentary’)

Sometimes fiction is shot to look like documentary. By making use of production styles
and elements associated with documentaries, like hand-held moving camera techniques,
on-site interviews and comments, and recognisable real-life locations and passers-by, it’s
possible to construct a work of fiction and pass it off as ‘real’. This can be a great spoof,
it can also be a dangerous falsehood.
There’s no point in trying to Program makers should have ethics which they
show how things look in reality. consult when entering grey areas like this. What is
Video can convey emotion, the aim of the program? Who is the audience? Will
drama, form, mood, space, etc. the audience understand that this is fiction? How
Marc by altering reality. How you much harm can be done if they don’t?
Tewksbury, light, frame and move the There’s a traditional form in literature called the
The Nine camera (not to mention what ‘historical novel’. Such a work tries to bring to life
Video School.
you do in the edit suite) will the ambience of a time period, by presenting
play a large part in the overall fictional characters who live out their lives among
look of your video. Good video the events of history as it’s been recorded. These
production utilises this characters are informed by the values and common
principle. knowledge available to a particular group of people,
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Production Options 317

and they’re presented with the likely choices and
dilemmas of the day. ‘Ficumentary’ could be seen as
a modern video variation on the historical novel.
A ‘ficumentary’, clearly labelled as such, can be
a thought-provoking work, as long as the audience
understands what it is.

The Music Clip

Now this is the form many people want to try!
There’s so much surface variation in the music clip Get the best sound recording you can.Long Bay
genre, there’s no point in trying to make up rules of Gaol for NAIDOC Week, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
coverage beyond these: (Photo by Michelle Blakeney)
1. Get a good quality recording of the soundtrack!
Don’t waste your time with distorted audio or
muddy music recordings. It may be best to record
the music in a proper sound recording studio,
then lay it onto videotape in the postproduction
stage.
2. You can use a video studio to record the pictures
of the musicians playing the music. The recording
situation is set up so the musicians hear their pre-
recorded tape as foldback sound, and sing and play
along with it. Do make a simple audio recording
of this video, though, so you can use it as a guide
track to match to the studio tracks recorded
beforehand.
3. When editing, put the top quality studio-recorded
music onto the edit master first, as an audio insert
edit. Then you can cut your images in exactly Best Friend music clip, produced by Elverina Johnson
where you want them in relation to the music, and edited by Josephine Bourne,Townsville, QLD,
the words and the beat. Australia.

The Use of Voiceover

(Commentary)
Sometimes you’ll choose to supply information to
your audience by using a voiceover or commentary.
This is a scripted piece which is recorded separately
and then added into the program at the editing stage.
Voiceover can be used to tell the whole story.
This is sometimes the case in training tapes. Or it can It can be easier to write new words than to take new
be used to link one segment of a program to the next. video shots! Marilyn Murphy, Australian Film
This is a common technique in documentary, where Television and Radio School.
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318 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

there’s no field footage to make the link, or where an outside voice is considered better
for some reason.
Commentary can be written at different stages in the production process.

Writing Commentary in Advance

If the process to be shown is complex, it can help to work out a description of the process
ahead of time. This can assist in visualising the necessary shot coverage and in working
out the shooting plan.

Writing After the Shooting is Done

With any production, think At this point it will be clear what links need to be
creatively, think critically, think made. If the linking voiceovers are recorded before
commercially. the editing begins, the visuals can be cut to the right
length to match them. Sometimes, however, this can
lead to awkward shot lengths and a loss of rhythm.
Danny
Sheehy,
Queensland
School of
Writing After Editing
Film and If the commentary is written when the program has a definite form, snippets of narration
Television.
can be written to fill in missing background information, add important details and set
the mood for upcoming scenes.
In this case, narration can be written to match the available spaces. During writing,
it’s best to have the narrator read the material in the way they’ll record it, to get an idea
of the likely spoken time. Everyone speaks slightly differently. You may have to tinker
with the text, adding or eliminating a few words, so the segments will fit into their
assigned slots.

Suggestions from Rachel Masters

When you organise the shoot and write the recce plan, try to think of as many creative
options as possible. Should the shoot be done in the studio or on location? Would a different
location be more interesting? Could the light there be different, more atmospheric?
Is it essential to always be at the particular location in the script? For example, will the
audience know whether or not you’re at the beach if the only shot you need is a close-up of
sand? Could you use a sandbox instead?
Make a list of alternative ‘trick’ locations. When is a hospital not a hospital? When it’s a
white wall with medical posters and hospital signs instead! Draw your inspiration from the
theatre . . . stage and set designers have been using illusion for thousands of years. How
could you recreate these scenes: the beach, a garage, a cafe, a spaceship, the moon?
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Chapter

23 Scriptwriting
Producing Videos
Scriptwriting

Lots of people have wonderful ideas. Over a beer or a cappuccino or a

I Saturday night curry, they can tell you amazing anecdotes from their
own lives or lives of people they’ve known.
And often someone will say, ‘You should write
Ideas are a dime a dozen. Few
a book!’ or, ‘That would make a great movie! You
can tell a really good story.
should write it down’. But most never do.
Good scripts are 10 per cent
For a story to take sufficient form for it to be
inspiration and 90 per cent
made into a screen production, it has to be trans-
perspiration. Helen
ferred onto the page. The script is the blueprint for
Carmichael,
the production. Scriptwriting
People have to be inspired by it, and then realise it in a practical form. This involves Department,
a lot of collaboration between the writer, the producer, the director and the other key AFTRS.

creative departments.
A scriptwriter is a special kind of writer, a person
Writers write it down.
who’s a visualiser, who can tell a story or teach a
concept through a series of images. A scriptwriter is
someone who can marry images with sounds. It’s quite a different form of writing from
short stories and novels, essays and reports.
The drama scriptwriter has to imagine and construct a series of scenes which give Mark Stiles,
Writer and
the actors the opportunity to convey the personalities of their characters, and the meaning Filmmaker.
of their characters’ actions.
Dialogue is a part of the script for a screen
production, but it only takes up a limited percentage When writing a drama script
of the total screen time. The pictures, on the other always ask yourself,‘Is this
hand, are always there. They should each speak a scene pushing the story
thousand words. forward?’ If in doubt, cut it out.
Scriptwriting for documentaries has its simi- Lester
larities. Though the characters aren’t actors but real Crombie,
Queensland
people, and the final scriptwriting is done after the footage is shot, still the audience School of
Film and
Television.
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320 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

needs to understand where the people are coming from, why they feel the way they
do, and what motivates them to take the actions which the video portrays. The
scriptwriter shapes the story so its overall message is clear.
In a video or film script, every situation, every
Know your characters because scene, should contribute to the underlying aims of
they have to drive the script. If the production. It’s a very condensed form of story-
it’s the other way around and telling—there’s no time to waste on extras. Ninety
the plot drives the characters, minutes of screen time is the usual duration of a
you’re less likely to engage your feature, and most videos are allotted much less than
Yvonne
Madon, audience. that, so everything in the script must lead to the
Scriptwriting fulfilment of the project’s aims.
Department,
AFTRS.

The Central Theme

You should be able to write the main concept down in a few sentences, sometimes in
just one. For example:
This story shows how blood ties win out over
What story do you have to tell? everything else.
Just do it! Get out a pen and or
paper and write it down.You This story shows how our people need our culture
don’t need a computer, you to survive.
John Lonie, don’t need a scriptwriting or
Scriptwriting program. This story is about how betrayal ruins relationships.
Department, or
AFTRS.
This story shows how a person with utter deter-
mination can overcome an obstacle which seems
If you’re going to create insurmountable.
something, make sure it moves
people. It can make them laugh,
cry, doubt, agree, get angry, but
Claire Beach, the most important thing is that
Edmonds- it moves them into action of
Woodway some significance.
High School.
We have too much empty air
time. Make it count.

To write a good script, you need to be

clear about the main aim of the video.
Tanith Carroll,TEAME Indigenous
Television and Video Course, Metro TV,
Paddington, NSW, Australia.
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Scriptwriting 321

Asking the Key Questions

Before you begin to write, you need to know your
brief. What is it that you’re trying to do (or being asked
to do)?
1. What is the main purpose of the tape? To
educate? To persuade? To entertain?
2. Who is the intended audience? What is known
about this audience? What are their ages? Their
occupations? Their education level? How much
do they know about the topic? What sort of
screen productions does this group of people First decide what the aims of your project are.Mosese
generally choose to watch? Fonohema, University of South Australia, Underdale,
3. How will the tape be shown? Will it be SA, Australia.(Photo by Mark Bradley)
broadcast? Will it be part of a teaching module?
Or shown as a trigger tape for small discussion
If you can tell the story out
groups?
loud and people dig it, then
4. Is your project more appropriate to be produced
you’re onto something.
on a CD? Can it be interactive?
5. What are the main points which must be
conveyed? Gypsy Rose
Tucker,
6. How long should the tape be? Writer.
7. Where can you get information about the topic?
Who are the experts on it? What other people CD Rom technology allows
have valuable contributions to make? What you to tell stories in different
about opposing views? ways, rather than in a linear,
8. How much budget has been allocated for the fixed time way, as you’re bound
project? The budget level often determines: to in a TV broadcast timeslot. Trevor
(a) The number of actors who can be involved. Your task as the Graham,
(b) The number of different locations possible. producer/author is to make it Producer.

(Maybe some locations can be faked in a engagingly interactive.

studio, or presented through still photos or
stock footage.)
(c) The amount and type of equipment which can be used.
(d) The number of shooting days.
(e) The amount of special effects and graphics which can be included.
( f ) The acquisition of music.
Still, don’t feel overly restricted, because there are It’s really hard to make a good
creative ways around some pretty amazing script movie out of a weak story line.
requirements. Like the script which called for a herd
of elephants to thunder past a house in Africa.
There was no budget for a trip to Africa (or for a herd of elephants, for that matter).
Rob Davis,
The scene was shot in a studio using a set for the inside of the African house. The main Editor,Digital
character went to a pretend window and exclaimed about the passing elephants he could Dimensions.
see, the sound of the elephant herd was rolled in through the audio mixer using a
purchased sound effect, and some dust billowed in the window to complete the illusion!
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322 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Choosing the Elements

There are many ways to tell any story. You need to work out just what production
elements you want to call for in your script, in order to tell the story your way. Be sure
to consider what elements are most likely to attract your specific audience to the story.
Will the story be told through drama?
Or will real people tell the story themselves?
Should the dialogue be tightly scripted or ad-libbed?
Should the program include interviews?
Should there be a link person? If so, should the link be a well-known personality
(this can be expensive) or a just a local person who can present information well?
Will some of the information be supplied through voiceover?
Will there be location shoots?
Never underestimate the Will there be graphics?
importance of the title. Will there be animations?
Will photos be used?
What kind of video special effects will be included?
What music would work well?
Miranda
Douglas, What kind of audio special effects will be needed?
Publishing
Department,
AFTRS.

Training Tapes
With training tapes you should be careful to restrict the number of points you’re trying
to get across. If you need to cover a lot of ground in a subject area, consider breaking
the program into several segments. A series of short videos can be more effective than
one long one which leaves the audience with their heads whirling with new ideas, none
of which is fully grasped, and many of which just whirl out again into oblivion.
If you write several short scripts, the individual segments can then be produced and
assembled onto one videotape with quiet space between them. The instructor can pause
the tape at the end of each segment for class discussion and clarification before moving
on, or use just one segment per lesson over a series of classes.
When you’re deciding what to include in a script, try listing from one to five main
points (no more), and then imagine how you can most effectively get them across visually.
Then, having answered the key questions and chosen the points you’ll be making,
you can begin to design the program.

Designing the Video

The first step in getting any message across is to get the audience’s attention. A technique
which works well with training tapes is to have the presenter, or the main character, look
and act like a member of the target audience—that is, one of those people who will be
watching the tape to learn something. Another technique is to use a person who holds
great appeal for the target audience.
Having got the audience’s attention, your next challenge is to hold it. That’s trickier.
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Scriptwriting 323
If the audience feels that the message is directed to them,
they’re more likely to continue watching and paying attention.
What methods could you use to say—through pictures, sounds,
tone and overall look—‘This is for you’? (And it won’t hurt.) Think
of scenes the target audience will be familiar with, think of
situations they’re likely to encounter in relation to this topic.
Say, for example, you’re doing a health promotion tape on
drink driving. If the scenes you include are unfamiliar to the
audience, they’ll feel the message is for other people and they’ll
disregard it. But if they can hear the sounds they usually hear at
the pub, if the people are talking in the same style of language,
about topics which interest them, they’re more likely to be drawn
into the tape. The right music helps immensely here. And humour
is terrifically potent in holding people’s attention.
The next step is to present the information in a way that the
audience will understand it.
Sometimes people make the mistake that a training tape should
use big words to sound impressive. The problem is, the aim is not Find a way to make your images
to impress, but to teach. Unless the audience grasps the message— memorable. Uncle Tony’s Kebabs,
easily—the tape is a failure. Teachers won’t use it, it will sit on the directed by Marc Tewksbury.
shelf, and the time, effort and money used to make
it will have been wasted.
How do people learn? It helps to present the As James Joyce said, write
message in a unique and memorable way. Striking ‘what is in your blood, not
images help people remember things. Surprise can what is in your brain’.
be effective—like putting in a twist at the end of a
well-known story format. Helen
But perhaps the most important thing is emotion. You need to move people. Carmichael,
Scriptwriting
Department,
Working Out the Structure AFTRS.

1. How will the program start? At the beginning

you let the audience know clearly what the
program is about.
2. How will it develop? The middle section is
where you deliver the information of the
message. This is where the presenter demon-
strates the procedure, or you show the cells
dividing, or the drama unfolds about the person
leaving the party drunk.
3. How will it end? This is where the main point
of your message is reinforced. Sometimes

You can get ideas on structure from other plans which

have worked in the past.The Film and Television
Institute’s Library and Resource Centre, Fremantle,WA,
Australia.
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324 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Consider whether multi-media messages are repeated verbally, sometimes

interactivity is the best option they’re written on the screen.
for the script. Develop a 4. Sometimes there’s an additional action con-
concept design and pre- sequence message at the end of a training tape,
visualisation materials to like ‘To get your free blood test, contact your
Bernadette
Flynn,School strengthen the idea. local clinic at . . .’
of Film,Media
and Cultural
Studies,
Griffith
University.
Research
There are many sources of information for a video
Research and research and project.
research. Spread your wings and
become thoroughly immersed You Can Start with People You Know
in the subject matter.You need
to soak it up. It doesn’t matter First of all, there are usually people near you who
Trevor
Graham, what it is.The subject can be know something about the topic you’ve chosen or
Producer. close to you or quite distant. been given. You can speak to them about it and find
You can never do enough out what they know.
research. But there comes a They can give you leads about other people
point where you have to stop. who could be useful, and they can also send you
This is probably when you can in the right direction for additional materials. Maybe
talk confidently about your they can get permission for you to use a resource
project and when you feel centre at their workplace, or maybe they know of
inside that you know enough. a collection of materials held by an institution.
Often your own institution will have at least
some beginning materials for you to read. This can

Bernadette
Flynn,School of Visit galleries, watch films and
Film,Media and look at CD work to increase
Cultural Studies, knowledge of cultural history
Griffith
University. and production.

No holds barred. Don’t censor

yourself—go all the way. Where
you think you’ve come to the
end may just be the beginning.
John Lonie,
Scriptwriting Careful research pays off well when it comes to
Department, scriptwriting.Working in the Film and Television Institute’s
AFTRS.
Library and Resource Centre, Fremantle,WA, Australia.
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Scriptwriting 325
get you started. Besides following other people’s suggestions, learn to follow your own
nose to sniff out a story.

Lies and Videotape

Once information is made into a video and presented, people tend to take the information
as true. It’s something about the power of the medium—if you see it on the screen it
has an aura of authority.
So, if you don’t research your topic well, and present falsities or half truths in your
video, some people will still believe it, because they’ve seen it on the screen. That’s bad
in itself.
But there’s another consequence as well. Those who know you’re wrong will lose
confidence in your work. And that affects your long-term reputation.

Script Development
Scripts aren’t found under cabbages or delivered by storks. Scriptwriting involves a fairly
regular sequence of developmental stages.

The Outline
This is a brief explanation of what the program will be about. It can be written in point
form to show which topics will be covered, which points will be made. It should include:
• The style of the program.
• The intended audience.
• A list of the main characters.
It needn’t be more than a page long.

The Treatment
This is more specific and detailed than an outline,
and runs from about one to four pages in length. Ideally, the prose of the
This is what people usually use when they’re trying treatment should echo the
to interest others in their project, for funding or style of the video.
some other kind of involvement. For a drama, the
treatment should include:
Helen
• The theme. Carmichael,
Scriptwriting
• The main story arc (i.e. the overall story development, without going into details). Department,
• The main character arcs (i.e. the changes that each of the main characters will AFTRS.
undergo).
• The style.
In describing your characters, you may include a couple lines of their dialogue.
For a documentary, the treatment presents the major topics planned to be covered,
it outlines the sequences expected to be shot and lists possible interviews. Because of
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326 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

No drama, no film. the nature of documentary, where you often don’t

know what you’ll find till you get there, the treat-
ment is a guideline but not a total commitment.

John Lonie, The Script

Scriptwriting
Department, Script is a general term which refers to a variety of shooting plans. It doesn’t necessarily
AFTRS. include either dialogue or narration. For instance, a program can be made up entirely of
pictures set to music, but still it needs a script to say what happens and when.

The Draft Script

The draft script is often developed from the original treatment. It includes all the scenes,
dialogue and action.
For training tapes, the draft script would set out, in program order, all the elements
planned for inclusion in the production. Although some segments can’t be tightly scripted
because they’re interviews or demonstrations, the major points to be made in them
should be listed.
For documentary, the script’s structure and content will probably alter during shooting
and postproduction. Still, having a good script plan before going on location means the
producer, director and crew have a clear idea of what they’re looking for, and when the
unexpected happens they can make good use of it.
Scripts go through many drafts before they’re ready to be used. It’s a process of
gestation, consultation, rethinking and rewriting.
Throughout this process, the scriptwriter can benefit by consulting other people who
have good critical judgement about scripts. The
writer hones the focus of the script by taking on
A script is never written . . . It is
board and interpreting some suggestions, and
rewritten and rewritten and
rejecting others.
rewritten!
This may involve tinkering with the script here
and there, or even turfing out whole scenes and
Brian developing new ones.
Williams,
Western Scriptwriters need to be able to accept constructive criticism and make use of the
Australian perspectives other people offer.
School of Art Scripts can go through six or more drafts before they’re ready. In fact, a feature film
and Design.
script would almost never go through less than three
drafts. So take heart and don’t let the process get
A scriptwriter directs from the
you down. It’s a matter of working with a vision
page.
and a professional attitude.
After all, what’s the gain in shooting something
that isn’t as good as you can make it?
Helen
Carmichael,
Scriptwriting The Script Workshop
Department,
AFTRS. Sometimes a script benefits from being workshopped by a director and a group of actors.
This process can include a final reading or performance in front of a live audience.
Attending the workshops helps the writer to spot what sections work, so s/he can develop
these parts further. It can also help the writer to spot the problem areas.
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Scriptwriting 327
Workshopping is especially beneficial to writers who are at the beginning of their
careers.

The Rehearsal Script

This is the final draft script. It may undergo some minor revisions and dialogue polish
during the rehearsal period.

The Camera Script

This is the script that will be used during the shoot. It has all the camera directions on
it and the shots are marked and numbered. Graphics and captions are also listed, and
any special instructions are included.

An Example of Script Development Stages

Step One: Outline
VALDA attempts to renegotiate the household duties by trying out her new assertiveness
skills.

Step Two: Treatment

VALDA stands at the sink, washing the dishes. CAROLINE enters the kitchen. VALDA
decides to confront her about the unwashed dishes.

Step Three: Draft Script

1. INT KITCHEN DAY

VALDA stands at the sink washing dishes. ‘Message to My Girl’ by Enzo

plays on a tape recorder on the counter between her and the fridge.
VALDA turns and looks at the kitchen table which has more dirty dishes.
She scowls as she picks them up.
CAROLINE passes the window, bopping to music on her walkman. She
enters the kitchen, takes a slice of pizza from the fridge, and turns off
the tape player.

CAROLINE: How can you listen to that stuff?

VALDA: Caroline, we need to have a talk.

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328 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Step Four: Camera Script for a Multi-camera TV Production

1. INT KITCHEN DAY
1. C1 WS Room VALDA who’s facing sink. /

VALDA IS
LISTENING TO A
TAPE OF ‘MESSAGE
TO MY GIRL’ BY
ENZO. SHE TURNS TO
LOOK AT THE
KITCHEN TABLE.

2. C2 MS VALDA /

VALDA WALKS TO
THE TABLE AND
PICKS UP THE LAST
OF THE DIRTY
DISHES. SHE SCOWLS.

3. C1 MLS VALDA /

VALDA WALKS BACK

TO SINK & PUTS
DISHES IN THE
WATER.
CAROLINE PASSES
BY THE
WINDOW, BOPPING
TO THE
MUSIC ON HER
WALKMAN.

4. C 2 MS CAROLINE, follows CAROLINE from door, to fridge, to

tape player, to table. /

CAROLINE ENTERS,
GETS SLICE OF
PIZZA FROM FRIDGE
AND TURNS OFF THE
TAPE PLAYER.
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Scriptwriting 329
CAROLINE: How can you listen to that stuff?
CAROLINE PLONKS
HERSELF IN A
CHAIR BY THE
TABLE.

5. C 1 MCU VALDA /

VALDA: Caroline, we need to have a talk.

TV Script Format
Different production houses use different script formats. But within a production house
there’s usually an accepted scripting style which writers are required to use. This
consistency helps all the crew to find the information they need quickly, without having
to adapt from day to day to every new script.
Basically, the shooting script needs to include these things:

For Each Scene

• The scene number.
• The location.
• Interior or exterior?
• Day or night?

For Each Shot

• The shot number.
• Which camera will do the shot.
• What is the shot size? How will it vary during the shot (zoom out, pan right, pull
focus)?
• Who (or what) is in the shot?
• What is the action?
• What is said?
• What sound effects are needed?
Attached to a drama script is the scene breakdown, the cast list, the crew list and the
shooting schedule.
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330 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Computer Programs for Scriptwriters

There are computer programs which assist writers in doing standard script layouts. They
format the dialogue and instructions correctly, and can keep you from going insane with
tabs and margins and capitalising character names.
Or you can use a good word processing program and learn to do the layout for
yourself.

A Simple Script Format for Video Projects

When people are making a script for editing a simple video project, it’s not necessary to
use the full-on TV format. Often people just use three columns, like this:

TIME VIDEO AUDIO

2 minutes Host opens with details Host mic only, then roll in
about the upcoming parade. music of 1st band.

3 minutes Two bands pass, then dance Field sound of 2 bands, then
group does choreographed voiceover of host describing
routine in front of judges’ development of dance routine.
stand.

1 minute Insert pre-recorded tape Pre-recorded sound from

of lead dancer accepting award. awards ceremony

The three aims when writing

corporate video scripts: Language for Narration
1. Aim at the emotions.
2. Aim for credibility. or Voiceover
Danny 3. Aim to convince.
Sheehy, One form of scriptwriting is for narration, or
Queensland voiceover. Some of the functions of narration are:
School of 1. To give the audience an overview of the topic.
Film and
Television, 2. To explain a procedure which is being illustrated on the screen.
Brisbane. 3. To provide links from one section of a tape to the next.
4. To draw attention to something the viewer might otherwise miss.
5. To explain the meaning or significance of a picture.
6. To summarise key points.
Narration is most easily understood by the audience
Write from the heart. if it’s written in a conversational tone. So it’s import-
ant to realise that people don’t speak the way they
write. They choose less formal words, and use shorter and more direct sentence
structures. Convoluted wording is okay for written text, where the reader can go back
Stewart Klein,
Scriptwriting,
Department,
AFTRS.
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Scriptwriting 331
and re-read the sentence again a time or two. But It’s very important to know
narration has only one chance to make its point. when to stop rewriting.
Check your narration script by speaking it aloud
to yourself or, better yet, by having someone else
read it out to you, to see if it sounds right. Does it sound like natural speech? Does it
Helen
have the right rhythm? Does it convey the right tone for your chosen narrator? Is the Carmichael,
mood right for the topic? Scriptwriting,
And don’t overwrite. You don’t need to fill all available tape spaces with words. AFTRS.

Allow breathing space within the narration. Your tape can use music and sound effects
to help tell the story, too. Let these elements have a chance.
Technical terms and jargon can be a problem because they’ll be hard for your audience
to grasp, and while the viewers are worrying about a particular word you’ve used, they
won’t be paying attention to the next sequence on your tape. The audience should be
able to grasp the meaning of the video without strain or confusion.
So try to avoid any technical words you can. If you must use some, it can help your
viewers to see them. You can superimpose them over non-critical footage, or put them
up on the screen against a plain background.
The pictures and the narration should never compete with each other, and they
shouldn’t just duplicate each other. Each should add its bit without distracting from the
other.

Suggestions from Rachel Masters

Write a three-minute script about a person or a subject which really interests you, someone
or something which you feel passionate about.
Before you write your script, think about what it is that makes the subject interesting. As
you write, try to explore the character, the event or the favourite place.Think visually. What
images should be included? What does the person do that reveals their character?
Irony and juxtaposition are two very strong elements which can create a strong impact.
Write a script, or plan a soundtrack, which will contrast with the visual images you have shot
for your production.
Perhaps you could show a woman getting ready for work. At first she appears happy, brisk
and enthusiastic. But as she narrates her thoughts she tells the audience of her unhappiness,
boredom and worries for her future.The ‘picture’ the audience ends with is quite different
from their first impression of her.
Or perhaps a scene of logging or of a forest being cleared could be overlaid with a poem
about the beauties of the bush, and the sound of birds and wildlife.Try to develop tension
and contrast between what you see and what you hear.
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332 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Stewart
Klein, I recommend you read Resources
Scriptwriting Screenwriting from the Heart, by
Department, A good book is Scriptwriting Updated, by Linda
James Ryan, Billboard Books,
AFTRS. Aronson, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2000.
2000.
Also, contact the Jerzy Toeplitz Library, housed
at the Australian Film Television and Radio School,
to get access via inter-library loan, to a wonderful collection of books on scriptwriting,
and also scripts themselves.
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Chapter

24 Doing Short
Dramas
By Harry
Kirchner,
La Trobe
University
Producing Videos
Doing Short Dramas
Let’s briefly compare two multi-award winning
I short films, both excellent but quite different in
story form. Rachel Griffiths’ Tulip (1998) has a storyline which
follows dramatic conventions similar to the ones we might find in
a feature film. The second, Jane Campion’s Peel (1982), displays a
quirkiness and open ended story more typically found in short films.
Tulip is about an elderly man whose wife has recently died, and Jean Bain and Bud Tingwell as Ruth
how he overcomes the cow’s reluctance to be milked. Tulip wants and Will in Tulip, directed by Rachel
to be milked only by the wife, and despite his determined efforts Griffiths and produced by Louise
to milk her, she becomes increasingly bloated until finally the man Smith.
accidentally stumbles on a solution to the problem. He dresses in
his wife’s clothing, and the cow, now believing the man to be her
old friend, allows the man to milk her. Tulip follows the conventions
of many narratives. The man is faced with a challenge or obstacle.
The man overcomes the obstacle and is also changed in the end in
the sense that he comes closer to an acceptance of his wife’s death.
It has a three act structure: a beginning, a middle and an end.
Peel is a mini road movie about shifts in power within a family.
The family are on their way home from a drive in the country where Will has to think of a way to milk
they have looked at a scrappy block of land. Everyone is a little Tulip . . .
disappointed and the son starts throwing orange peel out the car
window to amuse himself and annoy his parents. The father stops
the car and insists the son pick up the bits of peel. After the son
finally accepts the father’s ultimatum and returns to the car, he
discovers the mother throwing peel out the car window from her
own orange. The father and son gang up on the mother, and a
stalemate results when the mother refuses to pick up her own peel.
We leave the family on the side of the road and ponder the question
as to who will eventually give in. . . . and he works it out! (Photos
courtesy Louise Smith)
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334 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

The endings of many short films are inconclusive. Successful shorts often depend
on a clever, sometimes quirky, treatment of their subject matter, often more extreme than
we might find in longer pieces such as television dramas or feature films. Short films
also often employ exaggerated genre elements. One example of this is Alison Maclean’s
Kitchen Sink (1989), where our expectations and fears are milked to the maximum by
devices skilfully borrowed from the horror genre.
Sometimes shorts comprise a series of self-contained vignettes with apparently little
in common, like Jane Campion’s Passionless Moments (1983). But notwithstanding the
original idea, they all involve a screenplay which at some time, somebody has
painstakingly written to a set of very specific conventions.

What Drives a Short Screenplay?

The best screenplays, whether they are shorts, teleplays or features, all involve ideas
which are both character driven and story driven in a way that it’s hard to tell which of
these driving forces dominate. Whether something is ‘story driven’ or ‘character driven’,
they are both sides of the same coin.

Questions to Address
Consider the following theme or story pretexts:
• An injustice to be corrected.
• A danger to be faced.
For the character, these are translated into the
following questions:
• What do I want?
• What are the obstacles in my way?
The family and friends in Alone, produced by the
• How am I to overcome these obstacles?
TEAME Indigenous TV and Video Training Course,
• What are the consequences of my attempting to
Metro Screen, Paddington, NSW, Australia.
overcome these obstacles?
• Do I eventually achieve my goal?
• What have I learnt from my journey?

Screenplay Format
In the same way that architects are obliged to follow strict conventions in the expression
of their design ideas, so too are screenwriters of drama expected to conform to certain
rules. However creatively brilliant any screenplay is, it will nevertheless alienate potential
collaborators if it is not laid out properly.
Attention to detail is paramount. This extends to whether notation is in upper or
lower case, the placement of parenthetical instructions (instructions in brackets) in the right
spot, the number of spaces between lines, and so on.
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Doing Short Dramas 335

Screenplay Layout is not Rocket Science
Screenplay layout should be easy enough for anyone who’s moderately computer literate.
It just takes a basic grasp of word processing tools, like justification, line spacing, font
formatting, tabulation, and the manipulation of headers and footers.

Don’t Include Shot Sizes

It’s rare for screenplays to contain instructions about shots. Instead, screenplays are similar
to stage plays. Regrettably, there are ‘how to’ screenwriting books still in print which
suggest it’s acceptable (or worse still, desirable), for the screenwriter to indicate what
kind of shot the audience is meant to be seeing: MCU (medium close-up), MS (medium
shot) and so on. These days, this is not the screenwriter’s job. This notation was used
once upon a time in the days when writers and
directors were contracted to Hollywood studios, and
indeed is indicative of how the roles of both writers
and directors have changed over the years.
Since the emergence of the auteur theory in the
1960s, when the director was beginning to be seen,
rightly or wrongly, as the ‘author’ of the film, direc-
tors have gained more prominence as interpreters of
the script. Suffice to say, it’s up to the director to
decide how any particular scene is to be covered—that
is, what shots are to be used. These days, a writer
may imply or suggest what the audience is to see,
but not how to achieve it. If the writer is intending Director Clodine Mallinckrodt explains the next
to direct as well, the same rules apply and the level scene to her actors and crew.Left to right: Walter
of detail should be no more or less than if somebody Locke, actor; Clodine Mallinckrodt; Jill Reurs, first AD;
else were directing. and David Bachman, actor.On the set for Dot Com
Dementia, Boston, MA, USA.

Layout and Language Conventions

The scene heading is sometimes referred to as the slug line.

The Scene Heading (or Slug Line)

A cursory glance at any screenplay will reveal the scene heading to be made up of:
• The scene number (on both sides of the page).
• Where the action takes place:
Indoors = INT, for interior.
Outdoors = EXT, for exterior.
• The location.
• The ‘time’ of day: DAY, NIGHT, DAWN or DUSK.
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336 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

It can be seen from the example that the body of any scene is normally single spaced.
And there are two line spaces between the slug line and the action; and three line
spaces between the last line of a scene and the next slug line.

The Big Print

The description of the action is called the big print. The first rule is that the big print
should always be written in the present tense: ‘Bob comes down the stairs’, not ‘Bob
came down the stairs’.
Big print should also be as economical as possible. Screenplay readers don’t want
to wade through masses of description. Writers experienced in prose fiction often
overwrite their big print, finding it sometimes more difficult to adapt to screenplay writing
than those who have written little or no creative prose. A screenplay is not a piece of
literature.

Timing the Script

A screenplay should read at around the same pace that we might imagine seeing the
film. A rule of thumb which is often used is that a screenplay should roughly play out
at one minute of screen time per page.

Economy of Phrase
The best big print conveys meaning without being too mechanistic. In Callie Khouri’s
Thelma and Louise, for example, there’s a wonderful piece of big print which refers to
Darryl, Louise’s husband: ‘Polyester was made for this man.’
We don’t know whether Darryl is short or tall, fat or thin, attractive or ugly. But we
get a perfect sense of how the writer wants us to feel about this character.
The best way to get a feel for big print is to read as many screenplays as possible.

Study Your Craft

Although it’s important to write down the gist of your story while you feel the impetus,
it’s also advisable to read other work in the screen genre you’re planning to use.
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Doing Short Dramas 337

Nobody in their right mind would seriously sit
down and begin to write a short story, or embark
upon a novel, unless they had read at least several
short stories or novels—yet sometimes people feel
they’re equipped to write a screenplay once they’ve
familiarised themselves with the layout conventions.
You should study how other scripts are constructed
in the genre that interests you. This way your mind
will be tuned in to catch the devices used that make
the script live and work. Actually, it’s a good idea to
read a broad range of screenplays when you’re
developing your craft.
Teach yourself by reading the sort of scripts you
want to write.Evelyn Lowah works to achieve her
Common Errors in Scripting dreams, School of Indigenous Australian Studies,
• Use of morning, afternoon or any time of day other James Cook University,Townsville, QLD, Australia.
than DAY, NIGHT, DAWN or DUSK.
• Dialogue centre justified (as opposed to left justified).
• Dialogue which extends all the way across to the right hand side of the page.
• No page numbers.
• Use of more than one font, e.g. page number font different from main text.
• Continuous big print or dialogue which extends over onto the next page.
• Use of shots or camera movement, e.g. ‘close up of’, ‘zoom in on’.
• Use of backstory in big print, e.g. ‘She looks out the window and remembers the
time when’.
• Use of past tense in big print, e.g. ‘Jane was the girl he liked the most at school’.

A Word About Writing Dialogue

First-time writers often enjoy writing dialogue, sometimes finding it fun to write large
passages for their actors. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with this. It should be
remembered, however, that it’s a lot easier for a non-professional actor to remember one
or two sentences before the other character replies than to have a character deliver a long
passage of dialogue.
The practicalities of filming demand that actors must be able to repeat their lines.
The longer the passage of dialogue, the more difficult it is for an actor to repeat lines.
Solution? Make your dialogue interactive throughout your script, with short passages
for the characters. The longer the passage of dialogue, the more likely you’ll have to be
prepared to ‘go again’. If the drama demands a long passage of dialogue, it’s helpful to
cover the action in a way that you’re able to cut away to a reaction shot so you can use
bits and pieces of various takes. If, when you’re wearing the director’s hat, you want to
cover a long passage of dialogue with a complicated tracking shot, you want to be very
confident that the actor can remember their lines.
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338 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Shooting a Short Single-

Camera Drama
When shooting a drama in a television studio, several
cameras are normally used. In this sense, multicamera
television drama is a bit like staging a play. Individual
cameras cover different characters and different parts
of the action at the same time, so that the vision mixer
switches to whichever camera is dramatically
appropriate at the time. In short, the shots are cut to
Two problems solved for this shoot: to control the
tape in real time.
light, the upper windows of the room were blacked
out with plastic, and to illuminate the actors’faces,
lighting was set up in the middle hole in the table. What is Single-camera Drama?
Dot Com Dementia, Boston, MA, USA. However, feature films and most video dramas are
usually shot single camera. That is, the same action is
repeated several times, with the camera framing a
different part of the action each time. Thus, the editor
will have a choice of two or more shots to choose
from when the scene is edited in the cutting room.
This is more time consuming, but allows the editor
to try out different ways of interpreting a scene, and
to preview cuts before ultimately deciding on a
particular course of action.
Even on large budget feature films, only one
camera is normally used. The exception to this is
when a shot cannot easily be repeated, for example,
To get an eye-level camera angle around the
an expensive stunt such as blowing up a bridge. In
boardroom table, the camera was set on a high hat.
this case, several cameras might be strategically
Leah Polacco, actor, on set for Dot Com Dementia.
placed to get different angles and shot sizes for use
by the editor when cutting the scene together.

Coverage
Coverage is the technical term used to describe the
shots a director uses to interpret a scene. In other
words, they’re the shots which are provided by the
director for the editor to cut together in order to create
the illusion that the action in the scene is happening
in real time. Ideally, an editor will have a choice of
more than one shot to use at any one time. Thus,
any scene shot by a director will be subject to any
number of interpretations by the editor. How is this
On set for The Spirit of Our Land, by Mitchell Edwards, achieved on set?
with Sharon Marshall on camera, Amber Dallachy As we have already seen from the drama script
and Barry Ugle, actors.School of Indigenous example, single-camera scripts look similar to plays,
Australian Studies, James Cook University,Townsville,
Qld, Australia.
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Doing Short Dramas 339

with perhaps a little more detail as to the action and ‘business’—the physical things
actors do such as picking up a coffee cup. (These moveable props are referred to as
standby props.) Nevertheless, many scripts leave these physical actions for the director
and actors to work out for themselves; this is not only acceptable but, arguably, preferable.

Arriving on Set
In student film and video, rehearsal is often considered a luxury, so let’s assume the
actors, crew and director have arrived on set, not having rehearsed the scene. Any good
crew will be keen to get working, but in the initial stages, it’s important that the director
works through the whole action of the scene with the actors before addressing any
technical matters, or any discussion of shots.
Inexperienced directors sometimes over-prepare. It’s good to have an idea of how a
scene might be interpreted, but invariably a director will be forced to think on their feet
when they discover that the shots they might have imagined are not easily achievable.
Storyboards can be useful, but they can also be a trap, especially when a director attempts
to shoot a scene in the same order in which it appears in the storyboard. This will almost
certainly be an inefficient way of shooting any scene.

The Dry Read

The director takes the actors through a dry read—that is, without any interpretation of
lines (acting). This is to ensure that the actors can actually say the lines—sometimes
harder than it might seem. (This can be done standing or sitting, but should not address
any problems of props or physical movement at this stage.)

Blocking Out With the Actors

The actors play out the scene, sometimes a few
It is the director’s job to create
times, moving about and using props to their
the most conducive working
satisfaction, and the director’s, until it feels right.
environment possible for the
At this stage, the camera person is likely to be paying
actors. Respect for the actors is
attention to physical movement through the
the first lesson in good Tom
set/location, and thinking about possible shots and
directing. Performers need Kingdon,
implications for lighting. This is called blocking out the Emerson
confidence, and the director
action, and does not normally involve the overall College,
must provide a secure, Boston,MA,
crew. Once the action for the whole scene is
protected, quiet, concentrated USA.
established, it’s time to start thinking about shots,
and creative environment on
or coverage.
the set.
In professional work the scene may have been
rehearsed and blocked before shooting day.

Decide on the Camera Coverage

The director and the cameraperson now discuss the camera coverage—what shots are
to be used in capturing the action—and they arrive at a way of covering the scene. The
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340 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

relationship between cameraperson and director invariably differs from shoot to shoot.
Sometimes a director will defer to the cameraperson regarding advice on coverage. Some-
times the director will have a clear idea of what s/he wants, in which case it’s the
cameraperson’s job to advise as to whether this is achievable or not. Please note that
the role of the remainder of the crew up until this stage has been marginal—except that
they will have been listening quietly, and thinking about their own roles in the process
which is to come.

Explain the Coverage to the Crew

The director then blocks out the shots for the crew. But first, the blocking out with
the actors is repeated, so the action for the whole scene is played out for the crew.
Next, the director stops and starts the action, explaining what shots will be used, and
in what order this will take place. (In professional crews, the First Assistant Director
usually performs this task.)
Imagine a scene is to be covered in a wide shot, which in this case we’ll call the
master shot, then a two shot, then two medium close-ups. That’s three shot sizes so far.
There might also be a close-up—picking up the telephone receiver, for example. Please
note that even if the director has envisaged that the telephone receiver shot might be the
first shot the audience sees when the scene is finally cut together, this shot will probably
be one of the last shots to be taped on the day. For the purposes of lighting and continuity,
the order of shots taped on the day is usually from widest to tightest.
Once the crew is familiar with the entire sequence of shots which will be used to
cover a scene, the shooting for the scene can commence.

Shooting the First Slate

A slate is a camera set-up. A scene with four shots
will have four slates. If an actor makes a mistake, or
the director wants to go again for technical reasons
(camera or sound, for example), this becomes a
second take. The clapper board (which is also
sometimes called the slate) would then read: 3:1:2 (i.e.
Scene 3: Slate 1: Take 2). Mark every take of every
scene you do before you shoot it. When you’re
editing, it’s much easier to find a take visually by
these markers than to have to search through the tape
Mark every take of every scene you do.Kingi Tahana, and count them out each time.
School of Indigenous Australian Studies, James Cook For student productions, you can make your own
University,Townsville, Qld, Australia. slate to write on with whiteboard marker by covering
a piece of cardboard with clear adhesive contact
plastic. All the information on the slate should also be recorded on a logging sheet. In
addition, you should have somebody mark up a copy of the script, for the editor. To do
this, draw lines down through sections of the script, using various colours to indicate
which lines and actions have been shot as a single (one actor only), a 2-shot (two people
in the shot), a master shot (showing the whole action), and so forth.
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Doing Short Dramas 341

But first things first. Let’s imagine the dry read, In a professional setting, don’t
blocking and order of coverage have already been try to be friendly. Do the job.
explained to the crew, and we’re about to shoot the Respect will win you more
first slate. Crews normally follow a defined series cooperation than niceness.
of protocols.
Sara Hourez,
Former
Director of
Neighbours.

Crew Protocol
1. Shot decided upon by director.
2. Director informs crew, e.g. ‘We’re going to do an MCU of Emily’.
3. Cameraperson rehearses any camera movement with actor/s while remainder of crew
observes quietly. Any cues are worked out during this process.
4. Cameraperson checks focus—zooms in and focuses, zooms out to required opening
frame. Focus pull positions are marked if required. Camera calls ‘Camera standing by’.
5. Sound person edges microphone in to find edge of frame and, taking into account
any camera movement, establishes microphone positioning, leaving sufficient space
for safety. Sound calls ‘Sound standing by’.
6. Director calls ‘Ready to go for a take’.
7. Slate person positions slate into shot.
8. Director calls ‘Roll camera’ or ‘Turn over’.
9. Cameraperson calls ‘Camera rolling’ after record
indicator is displayed in viewfinder.
10. Slate person counts down, e.g ‘Five, four,
three . . .’ etc.
11. Director calls ‘Action’, and ‘Cut’ after shot has
finished.
If the camera operator or sound recordist
makes a mistake, they should tell the director
immediately at the end of the shot. Dan Dow (director, floor manager and camera
12. After the shot is completed, the director asks operator!) counts in the next sequence for the
actors, camera and sound (in this order), if it was comedy A Blackcurrent Affair, School of Indigenous
okay for them. ‘How was that for camera?’. Australian Studies, James Cook University,Townsville,
Director may decide to go on to the next shot Qld, Australia.
(slate/set-up) or to go for another take. The
director informs the crew if shot was N/G (no good, go again), okay (possibly go
again), or pref (preferable, from a number of takes).
13. Slate person marks up the logging sheet and script, and marks up the new slate in
advance for the next shot.
In a professional crew situation, the continuity person would mark up the script, and
the clapper loader (and sound recordist on their own individual sound sheet) would log
the shot. Indeed, many of the roles would be highly specialised into departments.
Nevertheless, many successful short dramas have been achieved with small crews. The
demarcation of roles depends very much, of course, on the budget, goodwill and expertise
of the crew.
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342 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

It should be noted, however, that once roles and jobs have been determined at the
outset, it’s unwise for crew members to cross over into the areas of other crew members.
This is especially important when working with actors, whose job is difficult enough
without additional help from crew members other than the director.

Further Reading
The above is a thumbnail sketch of how a short drama production might be approached
in terms of conception, scripting and shooting any single scene. Production management
and scheduling are dealt with in other sections of this book, and although many of the
same principles apply to both drama and documentary, production management for drama
is an especially complicated process. Anyone seriously embarking upon a drama shoot
should therefore be prepared to look at additional resources such as the Australian Film
Television and Radio School’s Production Budgeting and Film Management kit.
And also:
Douglass, John S. and Harnded, Glen, The Art of Technique: An Aesthetic Approach to Film
and Video Production. Allyn and Bacon, Boston, 1996.
Jeffrey, Tom, Film Business: A Handbook for Producers. AFTRS, Sydney, 2000.
Seger, Linda, Making A Good Script Great. Samuel French, Hollywood, 1994.
Vogler, Christopher, The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Storytellers and Screenwriters.
Boxtree, London, 1996.
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Chapter

25 Preproduction
Producing Videos
Preproduction

The preproduction period is that stretch of time between your

I commitment—or commercial agreement—to do a video project and the
beginning of the shoot itself. Although this phase is less ‘visible’, and may seem less exciting,
than the actual production time, the success of your video project depends largely on the
amount of detailed care you take during
this preparation period.
There are five keys to good pre-
production:
1. Being able to determine what cast
and crew, equipment and arrange-
ments will be necessary for the
success of the shoot.
2. Being able to imagine the possible
difficulties in accomplishing the pro-
duction, and finding the ways to
overcome the difficulties or adjusting
the production plans so the goals are Good preproduction is the best insurance you can
achievable. get for a successful shoot.Tanith Carroll,TEAME
3. Being thorough in planning and in sorting out Indigenous Television and Video Course, Metro
all the details. Never assuming things will turn Screen, Paddington, NSW, Australia.
out right by themselves.
4. Keeping written records so phone numbers, Ask yourself ‘Is it do-able?’
addresses, dates, quoted prices, location agree- If not, don’t do it.
ments, interview consent forms, and all the other
details involved in a production can be accessed
whenever necessary.
Philip
5. Allowing enough time, and people, to attend to everything. Hayward,
Macquarie
University.
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344 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

The Production Timeline

Your production will go through a number of phases. The first one is development (or
pre-preproduction)—this is when the skeleton work is done for the project. It includes:
1. Writing the treatment and selling your idea to a funding body or buyer.
2. Writing the script and getting it approved.
3. Nutting out the budget (if you have one!).
4. Lining up a reputable crew (a commitment from a known director or camera operator
is a good selling point).
In commercial situations, the development work
When shooting widescreen,
must be completed before a project is given the go-
you should always shoot the
ahead by whoever is commissioning it. Sometimes
best format you can afford.
people are able to get grants or payment for this
development time. Other times it’s a labour of love
Richard (or desperation)—it’s work time you gamble in the hopes that you can sell your idea to
Fitzpatrick,
Camera someone. People don’t commit money to a formless inspiration floating around in your
Operator, head, no matter how lit up your eyes are. You have to get at least a treatment in writing
Digital in order to sell it.
Dimensions.
In a course setting, you still do this development
phase, but it usually has to fall within the semester
It’s all very well to be an auteur,
framework, so you can consider this within your
but it’s very hard to get
13-week production timeline.
funding, past short film budget
levels, without a producer.
Alison
Fixed Deadlines
Wotherspoon, The first thing to get clear on is how much time you have, all up. Often the one date
Flinders
University. you’ll know for sure is when the project must be completed.
Once you know this, then you can count up how
many weeks or months you have until then. That’s
the full extent of time you have to work with, and
you must fit all production tasks somehow within
this limit—or renegotiate the delivery date right away.
Within this time limit you schedule:
Preproduction Organising everything necessary for
a successful production.
Production The shooting days, including any travel
to and from the locations.
Postproduction Logging, editing the rough cuts,
possibly doing some minor re-shoots (pick-ups), get-
ting decisions and approvals for the fine cut, editing
Albert Kimaliakyuk, Cindy Rennie, Mariano the fine cut, producing the soundtrack, dubbing the
Aupilarjuk (drummer), Gloria Kowtak, Henry Naulaq, necessary copies.
Johnny Aupilarjuk, Sylvia Cloutier and Feliks Kappi, Distribution Artwork for cassette label and cover,
for the show Inuit Shamanism, in Inuit Piqqusingit: promotional brochures, organising details for the
Inuit Ways,Inuit Survival.Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, premiere screening—including venue, invitations,
Canada.(Photo by Kimberley Brown) catering and press coverage. (For students, this may
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Preproduction 345
be simplified to getting your finished tape in the It is essential that producers
box on the lecturer’s desk by noon on the day of allow adequate funding and
the screening.) time to plan their film’s
Production managers often work backwards publicity, marketing and
when constructing the production timeline, marking distribution. Sharon
in the foreseeable deadlines and making best Taylor,Public
Relations and
estimates on how long each production phase will take (or can be allowed to take). The Marketing,
way of thinking goes like this: AFTRS.

1. If the project has to be finished by 15 June (for example), and it will take three weeks
for postproduction, then the shooting has to be finished by the third week of May.
2. The shoot will take two weekends (so schedule three weekends, to allow for hold-
ups like rain, equipment breakdown, performers getting the flu, incorrect shooting
time estimate, and so forth), so we have to have everything ready to go by the
beginning of May.
3. That means that all the preproduction work (sites found and booked, equipment
booked, transport arrangements completed, cast and crew finalised, and so forth)
has to be done in April. But people will be away for Easter break in April, so that’s
going to be a push.
4. Which means the script had better be finished by the end of March, so we know
what we’re arranging for!!

Contingency Time
Though this may seem laughable to students juggling a full semester of course work,
it’s a very good idea to allow a little extra time (contingency time) at the end of each
section of the schedule.
You see, even if your production relied solely on you, it would be a good idea to
have some flexibility. But when you’re juggling the schedules and needs (health,
emotional and academic) of an entire crew, things almost never work out entirely
according to your original schedule. Being able to adapt quickly, and to imaginatively
surmount the insurmountable, is what’s required.

Some Standard Tasks of

Preproduction
Though every shoot has its own particular require-
ments, there are certain generic tasks which need to
be done during preproduction.
Make sure everyone is clear on what will be
1. Finalise the script and storyboards. Photocopy happening.Claudine Sartain discusses plans for her
and distribute them. interview with Pauline Clague for XX Live,
2. Draw up the production schedule. Channel 31, Sydney, NSW, Australia.(Photo by
3. Engage the key creative team. Michelle Blakeney)
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346 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

I think it’s extremely important 4. Have discussions with the camera operator and
BEFORE shooting video to the designer about the look of the video and
think about how it’s going to how it will be realised. Order sets to be
be edited together. If you’re constructed, props found, wardrobe found or
shooting a talking head made.
Julie Booras,
Offspring interview that you will need to 5. Organise insurance coverage, bookkeeping and
Productions. edit down, what material will payrolls.
you use to cover those edits? 6. Book the cast, negotiate contracts.
You might want to think about 7. Book the crew, negotiate contracts.
shooting some interesting B-roll. 8. Conduct preproduction meetings with crew to
If you’re shooting dialogue make sure everyone knows what’s going to
between two or three people, happen and to allow for their input.
do you have the coverage 9. Book the equipment, buy the videotapes.
necessary to edit your scene 10. Check out possible locations (site checks should
together successfully? be done by the director, cameraperson, sound
operator and safety officer).
11. Choose the locations, obtain permits and
Plan postproduction effects in clearances where necessary.
preproduction. 12. Book interviews, if needed.
13. Make the arrangements for travel, food and
accommodation.
14. Arrange and conduct performance rehearsals
Philip Elms,
Media
prior to camera rehearsals, when needed.
Resource 15. Ensure that sets are being built according to
Centre. design decisions, and that they’ll be completed
on time.
Never leave to the day those 16. Get artwork done.
jobs that can be done the day 17. Make and distribute call sheets for shoot days—
before! these tell everyone where and when they’ll be
working.
18. Check that all props have been found, that
Don Bethel,
Consultant, wardrobe is complete.
Television
Production As you can see, this list is long, and it’s still not all-
Techniques. inclusive. The point to remember is that anything
that’s overlooked can give you big problems on the
shoot.

Crew members often can contribute ideas which make the

final product better.Erika Addis, Bernard Purcell and
Deborah Klika discuss camera coverage plans for Bernie’s
World.
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Preproduction 347

Problems to solve ahead of time

Another aim of preproduction is to think ahead, and foresee problem areas so they can
be sorted out before the actual shoot begins.
Scripts need to be read carefully for any built-in challenges, and props and staging
issues should be tackled early, while there’s a hope of managing them.
Hamilton Secondary College, as is their wont, came up with a superb response to
a script which required an under-age driver.

Does your script require a lad at the wheel? Work out the camera angle you need and then . . .

. . . solve how you’ll achieve it. Shooting ‘And she said . . . ‘, Hamilton Secondary College, Mitchell Park, SA, Australia.
(Photos by Liesl Cosh)

Each of the umbrella categories in the preproduction checklist covers a wide number
of individual tasks. A good example of this is the site check.
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348 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

The Site Check

The site check, which is also known as the location recce (for reconnaissance), is the careful
assessment of the planned shooting location to figure out what problems it could pose
to the production. You can expect there will be some problems, and you may find there
are so many that a better site needs to be chosen.
It’s amazing how many beginners blithely grab a camera and rush off to a shoot,
with only the sketchiest idea of what the location will be like. Sometimes they’re lucky
and get great results, but many times they’re faced with difficult or impossible conditions.
This could mean a very trying shoot, last-minute changes to the storyboard,
unfortunate compromises which handicap the realisation of the project idea, and
sometimes outright failure.
So always do a site check.
It’s always easy to rush into a Note: Be sure to do your site check at the time
shoot, and sometimes, if you of day, and day of the week, that you plan to do your
need to catch a news event, it shoot, because many things at a site change as the
may be warranted. But taking time changes.
the time to think about the With outdoor sites this will be true of sun
Rachel
Masters, purpose of the shoot and what position, for sure.
Corporate you’re attempting to achieve Ambient noise level usually varies, depending on
Training what goes on at or near the site, and sometimes there
Coordinator, can be rewarding in the long
SBS. run. Go to locations before the are dramatic external factors, like aeroplane flight
shoot and prepare a thorough paths, school playground noise and building
recce plan. construction, which render some sites useless at
some times even though they’re fine at others.

Power
IS AC ELECTRICITY AVAILABLE?
• How many power points are there?
• How far are the power points from the shooting site? (Which means, what lengths
of electrical extension cable will be necessary? And how many multisocket
connection boards will be needed to plug everything in?)
• Where is the fuse-box? The circuit breakers? Who will be around to help with
electrical supply at the time of the shoot? (Make friends with the caretaker.)
• How much electrical load can the circuits carry?
Will your proposed lighting set-up overload this?
• What about safety? Will the shoot need a
licensed electrician to be present?

IF NO AC POWER IS AVAILABLE
• How many batteries will be needed?
• How can batteries be recharged during the
shoot?
• Can you use the car battery?
How much capacity will you need for plugging in • Would a battery belt be useful?
equipment? Bring along enough extra sockets!
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Preproduction 349
If battery power will be insufficient:
• Can a generator be used instead of batteries?
• Where could you get a generator locally? How much would it cost?
• Can it be positioned out of range of the microphones?

Light
OUTDOORS
• Will sunlight be sufficient for the shoot? If so, where is the sun in the morning? In
the afternoon? Does the position of the sun restrict the times when the site is useable?
• If you need any big location feature, like the front of a building, to look its best, at
what time of day is the light right for this?
• Where are the shadows at the different times of the day? Will shadows be a problem
to the shoot at any time? Will reflector boards be necessary to bounce light into deep
shadows? Or will lights be needed?
• Will the sun be so bright that some screening will be necessary? What about an ND
filter for the camera?
• Are additional portable lights needed? How large an area needs to be lit? What quality
of light is called for?
• Will any colour correction (gels) be necessary due to light sources of different colour
temperatures?

Where will the sun rise? Where will it set? How will the shadows fall at the time you’ll be shooting?
Should you shoot early, late or at midday? Andrew Belletty and Peter Johnson consider a site, Australian
Film Television and Radio School.
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350 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

INDOORS
• What sunlight will be available?
• What other lights will be available? Are any of the available lights unusable? For
example, fluorescent lights often give a green tinge to the image, so they should be
avoided if possible.
• Will any wall or ceiling surfaces be useful for bouncing light? Or are their colours
wrong?
• How large an area needs to be lit? What quality of light is called for?
• Will any colour correction (gels) be necessary due to light sources of different colour
temperatures?

Visuals
• Does the scene contain sacred sites which you should not be videoing?
• Are there electrical power lines strung across the view?
• Is there a building which is inconsistent with the set design?
• Are there billboards or signs which could be a problem? Can you shoot around
them?
• Is it possible to get the view you want from the camera? Can the crew safely get to
the right position? Check this by going to the spot yourself. Does the view look the
way you want it from there?

Sound
You need to think of both the sound you’ll want to
record, and the sound that’s inherent to the location.

AMBIENT SOUND
What are the ambient sounds at the time of day and
the day of the week when the shoot will happen?
• Will planes, trains or automobiles cause un-
acceptable disruption to the sound recording
How many mics will you need? What sort? Clyde process?
Williams, of Black Ebony.(Photo by Michelle • Is there a construction site nearby? A stadium or
Blakeney) race track with amplified sound? Any other
uncontrollable source of sound?
• Are there objectionable sounds which can be avoided by planning ahead? For
example, can the airconditioner be turned off, can the phone be left off the hook,
can the shoot happen after the nearby playground is emptied for the afternoon, can
the street be temporarily closed off to vehicles? What day are the lawns mowed?
• Will the rhythm of unavoidable background sounds cause problems in editing
dialogue? For example, ocean waves, though soothing to listen to, pose difficulties
when editing. This is because their rhythm is so noticeable that when one actor’s
line ends on a wave crest, the next edit has to begin on a similar wave crest or the
change in the background sound will be jarring.
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Preproduction 351
MICROPHONES
• What microphones will be necessary to capture the sound required by the shoot?
• How many microphones will be needed?
• Can these microphones be correctly placed given the limits of the site?
• How much mic extension cable will be needed?
• Will special mic supports or booms be needed?
• Will an audio mixer be needed? If so, will an additional sound operator be required?

SOUND EFFECTS
• Can all the sound effects be recorded during the
Record any wild material you
shoot? Or will some need to be done at another
can while on location.That’s
time?
much easier than coming
• Are any needed effects impossible to record at
up with it in sound
the site? Will foley effects be required? (Foley
postproduction. Jane
effects are those sound effects recorded in a
Paterson,
studio.) Sound Editor,
AFTRS.

Access

VEHICLES
• How will people get to the site? Is it near public transport?
• What sort of vehicles will be needed? Four-wheel drive?
• Do crew members have these vehicles or do they need to be rented?
• Who can drive the required vehicles? Do these drivers have valid licences? Does
anyone need to get trained and certified ahead of time?

PARKING
• What parking facilities are available?
It doesn’t matter where you
• Are parking permits needed? What do they cost?
come from or how many times
How do you get them? Who will get them?
you’ve done it, always go for
• Is the parking lot supervised or not? Would the
local knowledge. Ask around.
attendant be able to give instructions or directions
to later arriving crew members? Richard
Fitzpatrick,
Camera
UNLOADING Operator,
Digital
• Where can the gear be unloaded from the vehicles? Dimensions,
• Is there a time limit on how long you can stay in the unloading area?
• What’s the most convenient pathway to carry equipment to the set? For example,
which door is closest to the right lifts or stairways inside the building?

SHELTER
• Where can the cast and crew rest?
• Can people get out of the sun, or do you need to bring a tarpaulin or tent?
• Can people and gear get out of the rain?
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352 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

TIMES
• Are there restrictions on times of arrival and departure?
• Is the park only open till dusk? Does the building close at the end of business hours?
Does the crew have to use the site only when the public is not there?
• Are other times important to consider? Does it matter when the tide is high or low?
Does it matter when it’s peak hour?

PERMISSIONS
• Is it necessary to get permits for the use of this site? If so, how do you get the permits?
What do they cost? How long does it take to get them? Who controls them?
• Who holds the key to the building?
• Does the location owner know about the shoot?
• Have the police been advised?

A chain reaction: Video FACILITIES

production is a constant • Where are the toilets?
process of decision making. • Where are shops for food? Emergency supplies?
Every decision you make from • Where can people stay overnight?
Marc the preproduction phase • Where is the nearest medical facility in case of
Tewksbury, affects everything that comes an emergency? What is its phone number?
The Nine after. Every decision made
Video School. • Is there any suitable place for playback?
while shooting affects editing
decisions, and so it’s like a How’s that for starters? And the site check is only
chain reaction.The preceding one element of preproduction.
link affects the following one.

Rearranging a Location Set-up

There are times when the site check can alert you to problems which can be changed
by acting early and using some diplomacy. Here’s a good example:

You’ve been asked to videotape the wedding of a friend.You’re happy to use your
new skills to do this, and by now you understand that video skills go far beyond
camera operation and include many other things,including good preproduction
practices. So you agree, but say you need to have a look at the wedding site a
couple of weeks ahead.
It turns out that the wedding is to be held in a relation’s home that you’ve
never been to. Since you’ve made your request early, your friend manages to
schedule a visit before all the hoopla begins. Your friend’s aunty leads you
cheerfully out to the back verandah,which has a northerly aspect and overlooks
the bush. She beams with pleasure when you tell her it’s a beautiful site for a
wedding, and how generous of her to offer her home.
‘And how will you have it arranged on the day?’ you ask. (This is the key
question.)
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Preproduction 353
‘Well, we thought we’d have the bride and groom standing here facing
everyone,’ she says, gesturing to the west end of the narrow porch,‘and have the
chairs lined up in rows facing them.’
‘Oh,’ you say softly.Your mind is racing—it’s your first wedding and you get
the worst case scenario!
‘Hmmm,’ you say, looking thoughtful and professional.‘The wedding will be
at four in the afternoon,right? And that’s the west side of the house.Which means
the sun will be shining directly in at a low angle from that side.
You know what will happen? The brightness of the sun will make
the camera’s iris close down and the bride and groom will just
be silhouettes.’
‘Oh no!’ says the aunty, surprised and genuinely concerned.
‘We want the video to be good so we can send it to his
grandparents, who can’t come.’
‘What if . . .’ you say gently, ‘what if we have the bride and
groom standing on the east side of the verandah facing every-
one? Then the afternoon sun will light their faces and all the
colours will be beautiful.’
‘Of course! Will that fix things?’ says Aunty with relief. ‘It
doesn’t really matter which way we set it up. I just pictured it the
other way so the frangipani would be in the picture.’
‘Well, we’d get that in silhouette, too,’ you say matter-of-
factly. ‘But I could get a beautiful shot of that for you earlier in
the day by looking in at the verandah from the west side to show
all the flowers and decorations. I could do that before everyone If you’re shooting a wedding, you
arrives.’ can’t do a reshoot.Ensure that you
‘That would be great. I’m so glad we got this sorted out know as much as you can about the
ahead of time.’ And then you have the obligatory cup of tea. site and the plans ahead of time.
The shoot is salvaged from disaster—and you’ve rescued Ron and Doreen Cooper.
yourself from considerable embarrassment.

In contrast, can you imagine the other possible scene?

You arrive at the house 20 minutes before the wedding party does. The aunt is
in the kitchen taking headache tablets and fanning herself.She’s visibly shaking,
but when she spots your camera she quickly ushers you out to the verandah. It’s
been lovingly decked out with crepe paper streamers and baskets of flowers.
Sixty folding chairs are facing west towards an arbour of ivy and tiny white
blossoms which have been wired onto a large rented arch.And the huge wedding
cake is sitting on a table at the east end of the verandah.The doorbell rings and
the aunt hurries off.
You sit down because your knees are shaking.‘It’s my first wedding and I get
the worst-case scenario!’ Do you:

(a) Rush out and tell the aunt that the video will be ruined unless everything is
rearranged to face in the other direction?
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354 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

(b) Tape the wedding as it is, knowing that the ceremony part will look awful,
and try to think of what other shots you can get to partially salvage the
situation?
(c) Leave quietly through the back gate?
(d) Awake from this normal anxiety dream knowing that you’ve done the site
check and everything will be right on the day?

Choosing the Crew

Video is not a lonely-writer-in-a-garret activity. It’s a group effort that benefits from the
skill, ideas and commitment of every crew member. For people to give their best, they
need to feel that they’re working in a well-assembled team, that the director has a clearly
focused goal, and that their individual contribution is valued and supported.

Crew Size
The size of your crew depends on the logistics and complexity of your production.
Documentary crews sometimes need to be very small, so they can move around
quickly, use only one or two vehicles, and not take up too much space on location.
Drama features seem to have a cast of thousands behind the camera as well as in
front of it. (Give some thought to the credits at the end of the next feature film you
watch, if you want to think mega-crew.)
If your project is small, crew members can sometimes double or triple up on roles.
Your production assistant during preproduction
For professional work, never try might also look after props/wardrobe ahead of time
to interview someone and also and be a driver on the day of the shoot.
operate the equipment. But on larger shoots, many jobs have to be done
Thoughtful on-camera all at once, so you need a person looking after each
documentary interviews role. Even if that person will be inactive and waiting
Donna
Kenny,The require at least a two-person around at times. (Patience is not just a virtue, but a
Video History crew—one to relate to and requirement in this industry.)
Company It’s a false economy to undercrew a shoot. Trying
and Center handle the interviewee(s) and
for Recording one to focus on the to fix up things that went wrong because you were
Life Stories. equipment. short one or two people will cost you much more in
money, psychic energy, or both, than it would have
to book a full crew for the day.

Who to Choose
There are several things to consider when choosing crew members:
1. Does the person have the skill and experience to do the job well?
2. Will the person give a full commitment to the success of your project?
3. Will the person take direction from you?
4. Will the person get along with the rest of the crew?
5. Will the person act responsibly and professionally on the day?
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Preproduction 355
You should be able to answer yes to all of these In extreme filming, you have to
questions. be totally competent at what
you’re doing before you add a
Crew Dynamics camera to the activity. No-one
should be filming who’s new at Richard
A crew is like a living organism: if one part of it isn’t
the sport. I reckon a person Fitzpatrick,
functioning well, the whole being feels sick and is Camera
should have a couple of
dragged down. Operator,
hundred dives under their belt Digital
There’s a saying, ‘People choose friends for their
before they try to do Dimensions.
faults, not their good points’.
underwater filming.
The idea is that no matter how much you like
and admire a person, if he or she has a fault you
cannot abide, then you’ll never be friends with that
Working collaboratively and
person. On the other hand, you can hang around for
developing creative teams is
years with a person who has faults you can live with.
one great thing you can get
Like any saying, it has its truths and its
out of tertiary training.
limitations. But in this case, it means that crew
members should be chosen with an eye to the way Alison
Wotherspoon,
they’ll interact with the other people you’re choosing. Flinders
Note that the emphasis is on the way they’ll interact. Crew members with a professional University.
attitude can function well on a job even when they don’t really like another crew member.
Being courteous and respectful of each crew member’s skill, and getting on with your
own job the best way you know how, is part of the discipline of being professional.
A harmonious crew will produce much better work than one torn by irritations,
jealousies and intolerances. For someone to deliberately bring ill-feeling onto a shoot is
unacceptable.

Michelle Blakeney interviews Toni Janke for XX Live, the women’s show, for Community Channel 31,
Sydney, NSW, Australia.(Photo by Claudine Sartain)
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356 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

When you choose your crew, use both the information you can get about their job
skills and about their people skills. Your intuition may be a good guide for your choices.

Sensitivity to the People

in Your Video
How would you feel if some people you barely knew
came to your workplace, or even worse, to your
house, and wanted to ask you a lot of deep and
meaningful questions?
You might feel upset and invaded.
If you liked the people, you might want to help
Camera operators David Poisy and Kimberley Brown them out and do a good job with the interview, but
with excellent throat singers Napatchee Pootoogook you still might feel nervous and hear yourself giving
(left) and Qaunaq Makkigak (right), Cape Dorset, stiff and awkward replies.
Nunavut, Canada. Alternatively, how would you feel if one or two
of the video people had visited you a week earlier
Film crews can be so arrogant and had a relaxed discussion with you about their
and they end up burning their project and why you were chosen to be in it?
bridges in communities.You What if they’d shown you some of their materials
should always be mindful of and told you a few stories about why they’d chosen
Richard people’s needs and be as little this topic and how things were going for them so far?
Fitzpatrick, disruptive as possible. Work What if they told you things about themselves
Camera around their daily lives. which made you feel that you all had some common
Operator,
Digital interests and values?
Dimensions.

How can the actions of the crew help to relax the person being interviewed? A production by KINO,
University of New South Wales, Kensington, NSW, Australia.
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Preproduction 357
What if their manner made you feel an intuitive During postproduction, one
trust in them, sensing that they would consider you often asks,‘What went wrong?’
when they did the editing and not show things in a Everyone has problems or
way that would make you lose face? makes mistakes.The real trick
What if they offered to give you something in is to learn from your Rachel
return for your time and effort—like a copy of the experience.The best time to Masters,
video once it was done? head off problems is during Corporate
Now say you were the videographer in this story. Training
preproduction, before you’ve Supervisor,
Under which circumstances would you get the best gone down the track too far. SBS.
video, with the most natural look and the greatest Creating standard forms for
amount of information coming forth? use in preproduction can be a
Under which circumstances would you enjoy the good start. Why not create
shoot and go home happy and feeling like everyone your own version of a call
else was happy, too? sheet, a recce and location
plan, shotlist, logging sheet
and edit sheet? You can create
the sheets using your own
Lists and Forms: Building invented production company
name. With customised sheets
on Experience you’ll look very organised and
professional.
One way to make preproduction both easier and
more certain is to develop lists and forms which you
can use for each new shoot. For example, compile a list of the video equipment you
need for a basic shoot. Your personal list will probably contain the items which you
know how to use and have ready access to. It doesn’t matter if it’s your own camcorder,
or the local access centre’s SVHS gear, or the up-market video hire service’s Betacam rig.
This list comprises what is functionally your gear.

Plan out how you’ll handle the

risks of each scene.Be
prepared for what could go
wrong.On-site shooting,
Digital Dimensions,Townsville,
Qld, Australia.
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358 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

After listing the basics, like camera, tripod, microphones, headphones and light kit,
you list those essential little accessories which must not be forgotten. You’ll learn through
experience (or even—could it be?—thoughtful foresight) what these bits and pieces are.
For example, it may be that your headphones can’t plug into the camera without a phone-
to-mini adaptor, or your microphone needs an
When doing commissioned XLR-to-mini cable in order to connect it to the camera.
work for overseas companies, Without these adaptors your equipment set-up
there’s a lot of paperwork you won’t be functional, but they’re small and easy to
have to do relating to overlook. It’s not only easy to forget them when
insurance indemnities. I have you’re booking the gear, there’s always the risk of
Richard forgetting to take them to the shoot, or forgetting to
Fitzpatrick, to write out protocols for
Camera extreme shoots. Be prepared to bring them back with you when it’s all over. So this
Operator,
write out huge standards and one list can help you check your gear at several
Digital different times during the project.
Dimensions. procedures, and program risk
assessments. It’s a nightmare, You could make a secondary list of the less
but it makes you think about commonly used pieces of equipment, under general
what you’re going to do. Like categories like lighting and sound. This will assist you
when we work with snakes, we in drawing up your equipment list for more
have to phone the hospital complicated shoots. That way, during quiet, un-
and make sure they have a pressured times, you can put some good thinking to
supply of anti-venom. We once long-term use. There’s no point in reinventing the
had a snake bite on a shoot. wheel, or anything else, during actual prepro-
We had a helicopter on call for duction—you’ll have enough else to do.
the shoot and the snake Other forms that are useful to have on file are:
handler was medivac-ed out of • Production schedule sheet.
the Tablelands.You know, we • Call sheet.
used the sequence in the • Consent forms.
doco, it was great TV! • Basic contracts.
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Preproduction 359

A Basic Call Sheet

HOSPITAL: AMBULANCE: FIRE: POLICE:

AFTRS
AUSTRALIAN CALL SHEET: DAY:
FILM DATE:
TELEVISION & M/U & W/ROBE CALL:
RADIO DIRECTOR: CREW CALL AFTRS:
SCHOOL CREW CALL LOCATION:
PROJECT#: PRE-LIGHT:
EST. WRAP:
SUNRISE:
SUNSET:
(02) 9805 6611 EST. SCREENTIME:

SETS LOCATIONS:

WET WEATHER CALL

SCENE/ D/N INT SET/LOCATION CHARACTERS ARTIST P/U M/U ON

PAGE DUR EXT SYNOPSIS SET

PROPS:
ART DEPT:
PICTURE VEHICLES:
LIVE STOCK:
ADDITIONAL CREW:
STUNTS/SAFETY:
SFX:
SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS:
CATERING:
MOVEMENT ORDER:
PARKING:
TRANSPORT:
RUSHES (EXPOSED):
(SCREENING):
WET WEATHER COVER:
ADVANCE SCHEDULE:
NOTES:
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360 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Sample Consent Form

Australian Film Television & Radio School

RE: STUDENT FILM/TELEVISION PROJECT

I
hereby give my consent to be filmed by the Australian Film Television & Radio School. The
footage is to be utilised in the making of

I also agree that the School may use the aforesaid film in whole or part in the final version
of any motion picture film or television program either as a sequence on its own,
or preceded, interlaced or followed by such other material as the School may desire.

Signed: Date:

Name & Address (please print):

Cnr Epping & Balaclava Roads, North Ryde NSW

Postal Address: PO Box 126 North Ryde NSW 2113
Tel: (61) 2 9805 6611 Fax: (61) 2 9887 1030
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Preproduction 361

Performer’s Clearance Form

Australian Film Television & Radio School

TO:
Australian Film Television & Radio School

RE: 'NAME OF FILM/VIDEO'

I, acknowledge receipt of $ /$NIL* as full payment

for my contribution and performance for the production of a sound recording for use
on the soundtrack of cinematograph films or television programs.

I acknowledge that I have no right, title or interest in the sound recording containing
my performance.

SIGNED:

DATED:

*delete one

Cnr Epping & Balaclava Roads, North Ryde NSW

Postal Address: PO Box 126, North Ryde NSW 2113
Tel: (61) 2 9805 6611 Fax: (61) 2 9887 1030
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362 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Sample Request for Use of a Site

University of Technology, Sydney Media Centre
PO Box 123 Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Broadway NSW 2007 PO Box 123
Australia Broadway NSW 2007
Tel +61 2 9330 1990 Fax +61 2 9330 1551 Tel: (02) 9330 2282 Fax: (02) 9330 1041

REQUEST FOR USE OF SITE

The bearer , Student Number

is a student in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. S/he is seeking your cooperation
in carrying out photography; film production; video/audio recording as part of her/his course
work at a site owned, leased or controlled by yourselves namely:

Should you grant permission for use of the site, the University’s insurance policies cover the
following contingencies and the University will meet claims arising from these, subject to
negligence on your part:

Accident or injury to the student, and to his/her unpaid individuals (whether or not these
persons are students of the University) whilst on the site or travelling to or from the site;

Accident or injury to third parties at the site arising from the student’s use of the site;

Damage to the site and to property thereon, arising from the student’s use of the site.

Occasionally a student’s work may involve potentially hazardous situations. These include, but
are not limited to, use of inflammables, firearms and copies thereof, stunts and any aerial or
marine recording/photography/filming. In these instances, the student is obliged to disclose
fully such situations when seeking permission for use of the site, and to present, prior to use
of the site, authorisation from the University’s insurers that the policies apply to their work.

If you require any further information, please contact the undersigned on or the
Universities Asset Control Officer on The University will not normally issue any
further documentation regarding the use of the site, except as required by the previous
paragraph.

We request that you state permission for use of site in writing—the form overleaf may be used,
with the original being returned to the student and copy retained by yourselves.

Yours faithfully, Date

Officer City campus, No 1 Broadway, Sydney NSW

Campuses City, Kuring-gai, St Leonards

Used with the permission of University of Technology, Sydney.

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Preproduction 363

Sample of Site Agreement

University of Technology, Sydney Elizabeth Jacka
PO Box 123 Dean
Broadway NSW 2007 Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Australia PO Box 123
Tel +61 2 9330 1990 Fax +61 2 93301551 Broadway NSW 2007
Tel: (02) 9330 1926 Fax: (02) 9330 1041

AGREEMENT FOR USE OF SITE

I,
being (tick one)
owner of
lessee of
a duly authorised person in relation to the site
give permisssion for
a student enrolled in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of the University of
Technology, Sydney, and for unpaid individuals to use the site at:

to record, film or photograph in pursuance of his/her course requirements, on dates to be

agreed between us.

Permission is given to the University of Technology, Sydney agreeing to meet claims arising
from accident and damage, as stated in its attached letter.

Signature of Authorising Person Signature of Witness

Date / / Date / /

Position—if signing on behalf of company, other organisation, government department or

instrumentality.

Name Witness Name

Address Witness Address

Office City campus, No 1 Broadway, Sydney NSW

Campuses Balmain, City, Kuring-gai, St Leonards

Used with the permission of the University of Technology, Sydney.

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364 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Location Survey Checklist

Australian Film Television & Radio School
Cnr Balaclava & Epping Roads
NORTH RYDE NSW 2113
Phone: +61 2 9805 6611 Fax: +61 2 9690 1283

PRODUCTION TITLE: INTERIOR/EXTERIOR:

SCENE NO.
DIRECTOR: WEATHER/TIME
DAY/NIGHT/D for N
REC. BY: FILMING DATE(S)

LOCATION LOCATION FEE

ADDRESS TERMS OF PAYMENT
FLOOR NO.
COUNCIL CONTACT
MAP REF
PHONE
CONTACT POLICE CONTACT
WORK PHONE PHONE
HOME PHONE OTHER CONTACT
CONTACT PHONE
WORK PHONE
USE OF LOCATION
HOME PHONE
PROP AT PRESENT
TOILETS PROPS NEEDED
PORTABLE? SECURITY NEEDED
WARD/MAKEUP SPRINKLER SYSTEM/
HEAT SYSTEM
TURNED OFF
TELEPHONE NEIGHBOURS CONTACTED
ACCESS SCRIPT FORWARDED
KEYS REQUIRED INSURANCE POLICY FORWARDED
STRUCTURAL CHANGES OR ADDITIONS
HOURS OPEN FOR BUSINESS
VISUAL PROBLEMS
USE OF PREMISES NEON SIGNS
(DAYS) OTHERS
(HRS) NOISE PROBLEMS

REHEARSAL/PROPS ACCESS SPECIAL EFFECTS

ELEMENTS RE LETTER OF INDEMNITY

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Preproduction 365

FLOOR PLAN (Windows & Doors) ACCESS (Parking, Signs, Loading Zones)

FUSE BOX DIAGRAM NOTES/PICTURES

(attach polaroid photograph for electrician)
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366 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Insurance Indemnity Form

University of Technology, Sydney
PO Box 123
Broadway NSW 2007
Australia
Tel +61 2 9330 1990 Fax +61 2 9330 1551

TO BE AUTHORISED BY INSURANCE OFFICER

REFER to MR KEITH REICHENBACH
Indemnity

UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY, SYDNEY (hereinafter ‘the University’)

in consideration of its having requested and been granted permission by

(name of organisation)
(hereinafter ‘the receiving organisation’) for
(state numbers of staff)
members of the University’s staff and students of the Faculty of
(state numbers)
, plus voluntary
(state Faculty) (state numbers)
workers to visit
(state site and site address)
(hereinafter ‘the site’).
Indemnity period from to (inclusive).

HEREBY AGREES that if any such member of staff or any such student or voluntary worker
sustains injury or damage to his/her property or person however caused whilst visiting the site
whether or not such injury results in or contributes to his/her death AND/OR if any act of any
such member of staff or student or voluntary worker causes any damage, or loss to the
receiving organisation AND/OR if any claim is made against the receiving organisation as a
result of granting this permission AND/OR the excercise of this permission if liability would be
attached to the University notwithstanding the terms of this permission THEN IN EVERY SUCH
CASE the University will release and indemnify and keep indemnified the receiving
organisation from and against all actions, claims, damage and loss that have arisen or that may
at any future time arise therefrom.
DATED this day of 20

State the names of all students,

staff and voluntary workers going AUTHORISING OFFICER
on to the site:

Office City campus No 1 Broadway, Sydney NSW

Campuses Balmain, City, Kuring-gai, St Leonards

(Please attach list if space not available) Used with the permission of the University of Technology, Sydney.
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Preproduction 367
Schools with media programs usually have insurance coverage for their students
while they’re out on shoots. It may be required, for coverage purposes, for the shoot
details to be lodged with some school authority before the students embark. When this
is required, be sure to do it.
Most likely you’ll need to list the names of all the crew and performers who will be
working on the site with you. School insurance can be organised to cover all members
of the shoot, whether they’re students of the school or not. But it’s essential to list these
people on the form before the shoot.
Also, your school administration may be able to give you a printed statement about
the insurance coverage available to you and your crew. It may be useful to show this
statement to the site manager when you’re negotiating use of a location for your project.

Assuring Competence
Preproduction is the time to make sure that all the performers and crew can do whatever
will be required of them. This may seem appallingly obvious, but it’s a common oversight.

A True Video Fable

There was once a minor twelve-shot storyboard which Ross Harley,
called for a whistling person to walk through a field, Video production follows University of
discover a fire in the brush and run to get a fire extinguisher Murphy’s law. Anything that New South
can go wrong, will go wrong— Wales School
to put it out. Simple? of Theatre
The video crew found a willing friend to play the part. so be prepared for it! and Film
They didn’t show him the storyboard. At the beginning of Studies.

the shoot, it was discovered that he couldn’t whistle. The crew adjusted by having him
pretend to whistle while someone else held a microphone and whistled into it.
The fire was lit, all sorts of close-ups and long shots were quickly done, while the fire
was still containable. The friend was shot approaching the fire, discovering the fire, and
then . . . the crew found out that due to an injured ligament in his heel, the friend was
unable to run! His slow lope to the fire extinguisher was
an irretrievable blow to the project. Always prepare for the worst
But it was too late to reshoot. Enough said? case scenario.

Unfamiliar Equipment
Richard
It’s not only important that people can do what is required of them, but that they can Fitzpatrick,
do it with the equipment you’ve booked. A person can be quite competent at camera Camera
handling and camera technique, but if s/he has never laid eyes on the model of camera Operator,
Digital
you’ve booked, there will need to be time available to go over it, possibly even to read Dimensions.
the manual (make sure it’s available) and practise a bit. It’s very unwise to give a person
a new piece of equipment and expect them to use it in the next three minutes.
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368 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Suggestions from Rachel Masters

The more you think about locations, and the difficulties and rewards of using a particular
site, the more alternative great ideas will be generated. When planning a shoot, try to think
ahead of alternatives in case the weather changes.
Make a list of your five favourite places and prepare comprehensive recce reports for
these locations. Great locations could be: ocean baths, a country field, a dog obedience
training school, a football field, the theatre, an ice-skating rink or your own lounge room.
Bh0654M26-PressProofs.QXD 25/3/04 9:42 AM Page 369

Chapter

26 Budgeting
Producing Videos
Budgeting

‘How much will it cost?’

I That’s the first question most clients or sponsors will ask you, once
you’ve told them your great idea for a video.
And it may be the one you feel least prepared to answer.
A video production can cost almost anything people are prepared to spend. It can
range anywhere from the free piece done by volunteers using public access equipment,
to the 60-second TV ad, which can easily cost tens of thousands of dollars.
So maybe your first question should be, ‘How much will we be able to spend?’
Most sponsors have a certain amount of money in mind when they set out to do a
video, but very often the amount isn’t based on any experience with the cost of media
production, but rather on a ‘gut feeling’ of what they think such a thing should cost.
For example, it’s not uncommon for people to think that a couple of thousand should
buy a CSA (community service announcement). Little do they know that it could cost
nearly that for the final edit to one-inch tape in order for their product to be broadcast
quality.
But then, maybe they don’t intend for it to be broadcast at all, maybe they plan to
distribute it by sending dubs around to schools or organisations. It’s critical for you to
know what sort of distribution method is required because that will help determine the
quality of all the equipment needed, from the first shoot right through to the final edit.

What is a Budget?
A budget is the financial map used to navigate through the making of the screen
production.
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370 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

What to Include in a Budget

Your budget should clearly set out all the expected costs for every aspect of the project.
The five stages of a video production are:
• Development.
• Preproduction.
• Production.
• Postproduction.
• Distribution.
Be sure to include all the stages of the production in the budget right from the start. It’s
no good getting the project shot, and not having the money to edit it, or completing it
all, and having no money left for distribution.
Another good policy is to err on the side of higher quotes. Be conservative. Include
the higher quote rather than the lower one whenever you’re adding up how much things
will cost.
There’s no magic to preparing a budget. It’s
A constant perceived limitation simply a task which requires careful thinking, up-to-
in video production is the date information on costs, and thorough attention to
budget and the facilities. At detail. As with preproduction planning, some
times it may be tempting to standard lists can be timesavers and memory
Rachel cut back, to think small, to prompters. There’s really no point in ‘reinventing the
Masters, abandon your ideas. But there’s budget’ for every project you do.
Corporate always another way.You need And a standard layout, either kept in your
Training
Coordinator, to ask yourself,‘What are the computer or on paper, can help you put all the costs
SBS. imaginative substitutes?’ down in a readable format.

Some Useful Lists

There’s no one budget that suits all projects because every project has its own peculiarities.
But there are certain items which are likely to appear for each stage.
The following lists, by no means exhaustive, may serve as a useful skeleton from
which you can develop your own budget forms. You won’t need all the items listed,
and there may be others, not listed, which you’ll always need for your projects.

Development
• Develop the concept.
• Write the treatment.
• Write proposals for funding.
• Approach funding bodies.
This stage is often unpaid. People develop projects in their own time and then sell them
to a funding body, with a budget that begins with ‘Preproduction’.
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Budgeting 371
Sometimes, however, there’s ‘seed money’ or Believe no-one, assume
‘development funding’ available that will pay for the nothing and follow the money.
writing of the first one or two drafts of the script, and
a round of script editing.
Marsha
Preproduction Della-
Giustina,
Personnel—fees and wages (including annual leave at 17 1⁄2 per cent and superannuation Emerson
at 9 per cent*): College.

• Script writer.
• Script editor. The designer draws up the
• Producer. plans for the set, then comes
• Director (planning, storyboarding, conducting and speaks to me. It’s
rehearsals). important that this happens as
• Production designer. early as possible. I work out Wayne
• Office manager. how much it will cost, and how Smith,Head
much time it will take, to of Props and
• Bookkeeper/accountant. Staging,
• Production manager. construct it as shown, then we AFTRS.
• Site scout. look at how much has been
• Camera operator (planning and site check). allotted for the set in the
• Sound recordist (planning and site check). budget.The next step is
• Performers (rehearsals). compromising, trying to get
the best set, as close to the
Costs: design as possible, with the
• Office costs (phone, stationery, photocopying, funding available. Once a
postage, electricity, heat). realistic redesign has
• Insurance. happened, Props and Staging
• Site check (vehicle, petrol, food and accommo- get on with building the set.
dation for site scout).
• Requirements (materials and manufacture of sets,
costumes, and props). Put your money on the screen.
• Rehearsals: duplication of scripts, hire of rehearsal
space.
• (Story rights: purchase).
Darrell Lass,
Production
Designer.

A model of the set helps everyone visualise Wayne Smith, Hilton Ellingham and Ken
shots, lighting, actions and possible sound Manning check out staging plans, AFTRS.
problems.AFTRS.

* Annual leave and superannuation allowances applicable in Australia.

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372 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

• Music (composition of original music and/or

search and selection of existing works).

Production
Personnel—fees and wages (including annual leave
loading at 171⁄2 per cent and superannuation at 9 per
cent*):
• Producer.
• Director.
Make sure you include everything! Peter Millyn,
• Director’s assistant.
Production Accountant, Australian Film Television
• Floor manager.
and Radio School.
• Production manager.
• Office manager.
• Bookkeeper/accountant.
• Lighting director.
• (Vision mixer.)
• (Technical director.)
• Camera operators.
• Sound recordist.
• Boom operator.
• Performers.
• (Stunt person.)
• Caterer.
• (Child care.)
• (Animal wrangler—that is, person in charge of care
of animals on set.)
• Drivers and runners.
Never underestimate the
value of chocolate! . . . Costs:
Catering is about caring for • Equipment: purchasing or hiring costs.
the crew. So don’t • Stock (videotapes).
Stephen underestimate its value. • Travel costs (vehicles, petrol, parking, aeroplane
Jones, Budget for meals, morning tickets, departure taxes, visas, inoculations, medical
AFTRS. and afternoon teas, and (e.g. malaria pills), accommodation, food allowances).
treats on the set. • Studio rental.
• Site fees and permits.
• Food catering for all shooting days.
• Office costs (phone, stationery, photocopying,
postage, electricity, heat).
• Insurance (equipment, site, personnel—check with
client as to who is covered by what).

Postproduction
Personnel—fees and wages (including annual leave
loading at 171⁄2 per cent and superannuation at 9 per
cent*):

* Annual leave and superannuation allowances applicable in Australia.

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Budgeting 373
• Producer.
• Director.
• Office manager.
• Bookkeeper/accountant.
• Postproduction supervisor.
• Logging person.
• Editor for off-line cuts.
• Editor for on-line final cut.
• Sound (tracklayer, mixer; musicians, performers, conductor; voiceover talent; sound
effects [manufacture and/or search and purchase]).
Costs:
If the budget is tight, beg,
• Logging (equipment hire). borrow and use your
• Rough cuts (off-line equipment hire). imagination.
• Music (recording facilities hire).
• Audio track (sound mixing suite hire).
Darrell Lass,
• Fine cut (on-line facilities hire). Production
• Stock (videotapes). Designer.
• Artwork/graphics.
• Music rights.

Distribution
Budgeting is knowing how
Personnel—fees and wages (including annual leave
much things are going to cost.
loading at 171⁄2 per cent and superannuation at 9 per
Production management is
cent*):
getting them done for the
• Office manager. price. Ian Ingram
• Distribution coordinator. Young,
• Bookkeeper/accountant. Academy of
Photogenic
• Auditor of accounts. Arts.

Costs:
• Launch party.
• Publicity (advertising, brochure, accompanying material).
• Stock (videotapes, CDs, DVDs for dubs).
• Dubbing fees.
• Packaging.
• Postage.

Contingency
Once you’ve come up with the total cost estimate for the project, add 10 per cent on
top of that and label it contingency. That means you’ve allowed some extra money for
unexpected costs. You may well need it. If you don’t, everyone will be pleased that
you’ve come in under budget.

* Annual leave and superannuation allowances applicable in Australia.

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374 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Don’t spend the contingency

in your head. If there’s an
In-kind Contributions
expense, include it in your Not all the costs of a project end up being paid for
ongoing accounts. Leave the directly in cash. Sometimes one or more of the people
contingency intact for real working on a project are receiving their pay from their
Peter Millyn,
Production blow-outs. normal job. This is the case, for example, with many
Accountant, in-house productions, where people within a work-
AFTRS. place are producing a training tape for their company
or government department. Their time appears to come free. The same may go for
equipment costs, editing time, office costs. Many budget items can be invisible when it
comes to direct cash payouts.
There are at least three reasons why it’s usually
Never use your own money. the best idea to include these items in your budget
anyway, and label them appropriately.
First, it helps both you and your sponsors to see what the true cost of the project is.
Second, it gives credit where credit is due, either within the organisation or to the
Brian helpful contacts outside it.
Williams, And third, funding bodies often want to see that many of the production costs are
Western being taken care of by someone else.
Australian
School of Art
and Design.

Keep Records
It’s a good idea to keep your old budgets filed away.
They will help you draw up your new ones more
quickly, and they can help you learn from your
mistakes. If you find that you underestimated costs
somewhere within a project, make a note of it so you
won’t be caught out again.
If an unforeseen cost arose, record that too. It
may help you foresee it next time.
Keep track of the spending as you go, so you can
make adjustments if you’re having a cost blow-out.
Dave Sheridan and Sarah Curnow, Australian Film
Television and Radio School. Stick to the Budget
Although you may find that you spend slightly less in one area and slightly more in
another, overall you should make every effort to live within the budget once it’s been
accepted by all parties. This is especially true in preproduction and production.
Monitor your budget progress regularly, so things don’t get out of hand without you
knowing it. And be sure to communicate regularly and clearly with the producer about
the current status of the budget.
Lastly, be prepared to reassess the plans for the rest of the production, if significant
budget blow-outs have occurred.
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Budgeting 375
Suggestions from Rachel Masters
Time is money.Yet time is often the thing people find hardest to budget.
If learning to budget even the smallest production achieves the recognition that
people value their time more than anything else, it’s well worth it.
When you budget a production, often you place value only on the tangible things like
equipment and consumables. But the time that you and your friends put into a shoot
needs to be budgeted too.
Sometimes the opportunity to go into someone’s home or to a special event can’t be
calculated on a monetary basis, but you still need to value the contribution these
opportunities make to your production.
Practise including all the contributions to your shoot into its budget. It often helps
people to be more economical and thoughtful.
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Chapter

27 The Location
Shoot
Producing Videos
The Location Shoot

The big day has arrived! All your

I plans, preproduction efforts and
rehearsals have led to this. Now the challenge is to
achieve the best possible results from your shoot.
What do you need for this to happen?
1. You need everyone to get to the site, on time and
in good condition, so they can work well.
2. You need all the equipment to be there, in good
working order.
3. You need everyone to understand what they’re Students from the University of Ballarat, Ballarat,Vic,
supposed to do, and be up-to-date on any Australia.(Photo by Paul Mensch)
changes that have been made to the plan.
4. You need people to feel enthused about the project and energised for the work ahead
of them.

Getting the Crew to the Site

Before the day of the shoot, everyone should be given, in writing, a call sheet which
tells them:
1. The address of the shoot.
2. The starting time and estimated finish time.
3. The contact phone number at the site, and the mobile phone number of the
production manager.
4. Emergency details, like the address and phone number of the hospital nearest the
shoot location.
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The Location Shoot 377

It should have been determined ahead of time how each person will get to the site. If
someone needs to be picked up, there should be a written record of who’s picking that
person up, at what time, and the driver and rider should have each other’s phone
numbers.
If the rider is to meet the driver somewhere other
Drive and talk, don’t talk and
than at home, both people should have, written
drive.
down, the meeting place details. A rendezvous at
‘Melbourne Central’ is not clear enough. Which
entrance, on which street? Even if they might finally find each other by checking all the
entrances, you don’t want people arriving late for the shoot. Gerry Letts,
Operations
If people are travelling by bus or train, they need to know for sure which bus or and Facilities,
train route to take, and they should have a copy of the timetable for that route. They AFTRS.
also need a clear and well-labelled map showing
them how to get to the production location from the
bus stop or train station. And they need to know
how long the trip is likely to take, so they know how
early in the day to set out.
Car parking details should have been worked out
during preproduction, so drivers have the necessary
permits or entrance money, and if there’s a guard on
an entrance gate, the guard should have a list of the
vehicles which will be involved in the shoot.
And in the best of all possible worlds (which A doco crew arrives at the location.Scott Barber, Pat
rarely seems to be the case on student shoots), it’s a Saunders, Chris Ellis, Brad Francis, Curtin University of
good idea if everyone has had a decent night’s sleep Technology, Perth,WA, Australia.(Photo by Ryan
and something to eat before the shoot begins. Hodgson)

Checking Out the Take more batteries.

Equipment
This may be the point of greatest resistance for beginners, but it’s really very important.
Make sure you put all the equipment together and check that it’s all working Hart Cohen,
BEFORE you leave for the shoot. University of
Western
In fact, the most sensible time to do this is when you pick the equipment up at the Sydney—
media centre, because that saves you lugging it home and then back again if it doesn’t Nepean.
work. It also saves you being accused of having
broken it yourself. ALWAYS check that your
A number of good things happen when you do equipment works before you
a thorough gear check: go to the interview.
1. You find out if everything you need is there . . .
‘Oh no! We’ve forgotten the tapes!’ Florence Onus,
Journalism Lecturer,
2. You find out if it all connects together . . . ‘Hey, we can’t plug this microphone into School of Indigenous
the camera without an adaptor!’ Australian Studies,
James Cook University.
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378 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Make sure you get everything you need.Media Centre

Equipment Store, University of Technology, Sydney, NSW,
Australia.

Don’t be the only guy in the school who hasn’t got 3. You find out if it does or doesn’t work, and
what he needs.Richard Fitzpatrick, Digital hopefully have time to do something about it . . .
Dimensions,Townsville, Qld, Australia.(Photo from ‘Can we book another tripod? This one’s had
Digital Dimensions) it!’ . . . ‘This battery is dead!’ . . . ‘This viewfinder
is just hanging on by a thread!’ . . . ‘This lens is
dirty—do we have a lens cleaning kit?’
When doing extreme location
4. You can leave for the shoot with a modicum of
work, have a checklist. It’s no
confidence.
good doing a dive without a
tape, or a battery! Now a gear check doesn’t just happen. Someone has
Richard to agree to do it. It’s handy if the person with the car
Fitzpatrick, can do the gear check, but, whoever it is, they need to be able to spot a problem if there
Camera is one.
Operator,
Digital The person picking up the gear needs to allow an HOUR or so for the gear check.
Dimensions. Careening in to grab the camera on the way to the shoot, and not checking the gear,
leaves you open to getting to the site with something disastrously wrong.
It’s a totally good idea to get a copy of the list of what you’ve borrowed. That way
you can be sure you pack everything up again at the end of the shoot.

Before getting into the car to

drive for two hours for that
fantastic shoot/interview/
location, don’t forget to ask,
Rachel ‘Who’s got the blank tapes?’
Masters, Getting to a location without
Corporate the tapes can be very
Training
Coordinator, infuriating. Oh, and don’t forget
SBS. to label the tapes before the
shoot. Erasing material If your shoot is in a remote location, be EXTRA sure you have
because you forgot what was everything with you.There may not be a chance to duck into
on the tape can almost be a a shop for batteries or more tape! Quvianaktulia Tapaungai
criminal offence. and Loretta Kanatsiak unload sleds during the shoot of
Inukshuk for Inuit Ways,Inuit Survival, Cape Dorset, Nunavut,
Canada.
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The Location Shoot 379

And what is the accommodation enroute to the shoot? Cindy Rennie, Kimberley Brown and Jimmie Papatsie hunker
down in an igloo for the night, on their two-day skidoo trip to the shooting site for Inukshuk,Inuit Ways,Inuit Survival,
Cape Dorset, Nunavut, Canada,

Getting the Gear to the Shoot If you work in the tropics, build
a heat cupboard for your
Video equipment is heavy, but it’s also delicate. It
camera and recorder. With the
should never be banged or dropped. It should be
levels of humidity we get in
packed in well-padded cases before it’s transported,
the wet season, going from Debra
and loaded into a vehicle so that it’s protected from
even mild airconditioning to Kroon,
being flung about. Wrapping it in thick blankets can Northern
outdoors can cause
help protect it, and also hide it from view. Putting it Territory
condensation that takes an University.
on the floor instead of the back seat of a car is a good
hour to clear!
idea, so it can’t slide off the seat if there’s a sudden
stop.
Never leave video gear unattended in a car when
it’s visible through the windows. Insurance com-
panies consider this negligence, and may not pay for
its replacement if you find your window smashed
and the camera gone.
Never leave video gear unattended when you’re
unloading at a location site. Unloading gear to a
location which is out of line-of-sight from the vehicle
requires three people: one to carry the gear to the
site; one to guard the gear once it’s at the site; and
one to remain with the car that still has equipment
waiting in it. Of course, the same person doesn’t have
to do all the carrying.

A big part of producing videos is lugging gear.NEVER leave

gear unattended in a public space.Kimberley Brown hauls
the camera to the next level, Canadian Museum of
Civilization, Hull, Quebec, Canada.
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380 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Crew Briefing and Scripts

Smoothly functioning shoots don’t begin the instant people jump out of their cars and
unload the gear. There needs to be a crew briefing at the beginning so everyone is certain
about where they should be, what they should be
Peter Chvany,
Emerson The game plan here is . . . doing, and what changes were made to the plan at
College. 11 pm the night before.
In the excitement of getting going, it may seem stodgy to have a meeting rather than
just launch into things, but it takes a lot longer to round people up later and try to correct
their misinformation.
This is also when the latest version of the script
should be available to everyone, and all other
Always date your scripts.
versions should be collected or marked as out of date,
so some people aren’t mistakenly following yester-
day’s shot list.
If last-minute changes in job roles and responsibilities have to be made, this is the
Elisabeth time to make them. No-one should begin the shoot unclear about what contribution is
Knight,
Directing expected from them. Any hazy areas or overlaps where more than one person is trying
Department, to attend to a single job should be straightened out before there are emotional fireworks
AFTRS. on the set.
A well-tuned crew hums along—it doesn’t
One camera, one operator! backfire, spit, cough, sputter and stall.
Depending on your crew and the work situation,
you may decide that this is a sensible time to ensure that everyone has something in
their stomachs before the work begins.
Peter
Watkins,
Educational
Media
Services,
University of
Energising the Crew
Western
Sydney— The director is the source of inspiration for the whole crew, and it’s from the director’s
Macarthur. zest that crew members get their drive.
If the director is full of fire and raring to
Let the people tell the story instead go, the crew will catch that wave of en-
of you . . . marry pictures and thusiasm. If the director is dragging around,
words . . . shoot close-ups so I can the crew will slow down, too. Once the
smell, taste and feel whatever you’re crew’s energy drops, it’s hard to get everyone
Marsha showing . . . take me there to the up again.
Della- story, you are my eyes and
Giustina, ears . . . the camera is our
Emerson
College. eye . . . make yourself into a human A director has to be white hot
tripod. If it’s a situation where you in the morning, so he can still
can’t use a tripod, use the ground, a be red hot by the end of the
wall, a car hood, stand up against a day. If he’s red hot in the
pole, put the camera under your Brian morning, he’s ash by
arm . . . McDuffie, lunchtime.
Director.
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The Location Shoot 381

Give People Adequate Breaks
Enthusiasm has to be tempered with reality, and reasonable and
safe work practices.
People need to be given breaks now and then in order to keep
up their stamina and refresh themselves. The director may be
running on pure adrenalin (or fear) but the crew’s well-being has
got to be considered. Some of the worst tailspins a crew can go
into happen when people have been worked too long and not fed.
Normal practice is that five hours after crew call there must
be a meal break.
As no smoking is allowed on set, you may need to consider
including smoking breaks.

Food
Whether you like it or not, food is a big issue on video shoots.
It seems there’s always someone who arrives hungry and shaky. David Wang directs international
It should have been decided in preproduction whether people crew in China, for Dai Women Speak,
will be responsible for feeding themselves or whether they’ll be fed Arise Productions.(Photo by Michelle
as a crew. One way or another, they have to eat well to work well. Blakeney)
If they’re feeding themselves, it’s best if they bring
their food with them. Why? Because no matter how
close the nearest convenience store or fish and chips
place is, once crew members leave a production site
they can be swallowed up into some sort of black
hole and not return for ages. Then there are the wildest
explanations, if you have time to listen to them.
That’s why on commercial shoots the crew is
always fed on location, and they’re fed well. No-one
leaves the site until the shoot is over.
On low budget student productions, where no-
one has any money, it still may be a good idea for Coffee break in Nunavut.Loretta Kanatsiak, David
the director to supply a minimum level of calories to Poisy and Quvianaktulia Tapaungai, Inuit Ways,Inuit
keep the crew going—whether it’s coffee and Survival, Cape Dorset, Nunavut, Canada.
tea to start, juice and biscuits for morning tea,
or sandwiches at lunch time . . . keep them
happy and keep them on site.
And it’s always a good move to have a
wrap party.

In a professional setting, always

go to the wrap party, and leave
early. It shows you are social
but professional.
Sara Hourez,
former director Adrian Barham, Colin Richards, Jeremy Watkins, Harold
of Neighbours. Lowah, Imparja TV, Alice Springs, NT, Australia.
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382 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Allowing Enough Time for a Careful Set-up

People forget things when they’re nervous or hurrying, and when they’re under stress.
They forget little things that they’d normally remember.
Unfortunately, in video there are tiny things that
Remember to switch off the can make or break the quality of the image. Like
date/time! forgetting to white balance, and having the whole
day’s shoot come out too blue. Or forgetting to put
the camera’s audio switch to external mic and getting an entire interview with thin, echo-y,
Peter
camera-mic sound.
Watkins, Then there are the little things that can make or break the equipment. Like forgetting
Educational to tighten one of the tripod legs and having the camera keel over when you turn away
Media
Services,
from it. Or forgetting to gaffer-tape the light cable down and watching the redhead crash
University of to the floor when someone’s foot gets caught in it.
Western Make a generous estimate of the amount of time you’ll need for set-up. A good rule
Sydney—
Macarthur.
of thumb is at least an hour for a simple shoot without lights, and an additional hour if
there are lights.
Go through the set-up methodically, checking
Become aware of the icons in that every piece of equipment is connected right and
the viewfinder that are usually is working the way it should.
visible for normal shooting
settings. If you see an icon and
Andy Nehl, you don’t know what it is or
Head of why it’s there, find out. If it’s not
Television, meant to be there, turn it off.
AFTRS.

When you’re loading an

underwater camera, don’t let
anyone talk to you. Go through
your checklist methodically, at
Richard your own pace,‘cause if you
Fitzpatrick, screw up you can flood the
Camera Underwater camera work by Richard Fitzpatrick, Digital
Operator, gear. Rushing leads to disaster.
Digital Dimensions,Townsville, Qld, Australia.(Photo from Digital
Dimensions. Dimensions)

The Test Record

Finally, you do a short test recording—60 seconds should be enough—and play it back
to make sure that you have a good picture and good sound (use headphones).
There are some problems you can only discover this way, like:
1. A 50-cycle (or 60-cycle) electrical hum in the audio—which you can get if a mic
cable is too close to an electrical cord or device.
2. A rolling line of disturbance in the video—also called a video hum—which comes
from an electrical current nearby.
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The Location Shoot 383

3. A picture which breaks up due to a creased or
damaged tape.
4. A spotty image due to excessive dropout on the
tape. (It’s common sense to invest in new, good
quality tapes for your original footage. Use the
recycled tapes for your rough cuts.)
5. A half-image or no image at all, due to clogged
video heads.
Other problems which will show up are:
1. No sound at all, due to the mic being turned off,
or a flat mic battery.
2. Wrong sound quality, due to the mic selection
switch being in the wrong position—especially
having the camera mic engaged instead of the
external (auxiliary) mic.
3. Mic handling noises.
Ask yourself, is doing a 30-second test recording
4. Wind noise.
more work than doing this shoot again? In fact CAN
People often feel very rushed and don’t take time for we do this shoot again? David Poisy, camera
a test recording. But ask yourself if you’ve got the operator, and David Maltby, director, shooting
time to lose the whole shoot. Inukshuk,Inuit Ways,Inuit Survival, Cape Dorset,
Once you’re sure things are recording okay, you Nunavut, Canada.(Photo by Kimberley Brown)
can go ahead. But even though you’ve had confirm-
ation that things are working right at the beginning,
Monitor everything!
you should stay alert to possible changes as the shoot
goes along.
For example, the sound should be monitored throughout—mic cables sometimes
get pulled out of the camera socket or they develop strange crackling sounds. Location
poltergeists abound! Hart Cohen,
University of
Western
Sydney—
Nepean.

Malcolm Foreman shoots

close-ups for Australian
Wholefoods corporate
presentation, t.a.v.
productions, Adelaide, SA,
Australia.(Photo by Neil
Smith)
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384 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Using a Field Monitor

Never let the producer behind
the camera! They can have a Because the camera’s viewfinder is black and white,
field monitor, but don’t let a field monitor can be useful for checking the colour
them near the camera. of your shot, making sure the white balance worked,
and that the overall look is what you want.
Richard
Fitzpatrick, By first adjusting the colour, contrast and
Camera brightness to camera-generated colour bars, you can be sure that what you see is what
Operator, you’re getting.
Digital
Dimensions. There are those who say people should have enough skill to work without field
monitors. That they’re for wimps. And there are
those who have no choice because there are no little
portable models in their equipment store.
But there are other good reasons for a field
monitor. For some people it’s easier to get a perfect
focus if they can look at a bigger image. It also helps
to work from a bigger monitor for a long shoot, so
you don’t develop spasms in your left (or right) eye.
And if decisions on shots are to be made by two
or more people, it’s much more convenient if
everyone can view and discuss the shots at the same
Dai girls review a scene shot for the documentary time.
Dai Women Speak, Xishuangbanna, China, Arise Possibly the best reason is that after the shoot,
Productions.(Photo by Michelle Blakeney) it’s good public relations to let people have a look at
what they’ve done—to give them back something of
what they’ve given you.
Mark off each shot on the
If the camera has an RF unit, you can also play
script or storyboard as you
back through your home TV set. Connect the lead
finish shooting it, to avoid
from RF-out on the camera to the antenna VHF input
confusion later on.
or the RF input on the TV and tune to the appropriate
Philip Elms, channel.
Media
Resource
Centre.

Inexperienced directors
sometimes over-prepare. It can
Time Management at
be useful to have a storyboard
or a shot list, but you should
the Shoot
also be able to think on your It’s the responsibility of the director, the director’s
Harry
Kirchner, feet.You should be willing to assistant and the floor manager to keep the activities
La Trobe acknowledge the practical moving along according to the production schedule.
University. By the end of the day, the planned amount of work
problems of your original plan
as well as new possibilities needs to have been completed.
when you get on location with When a production hits a snag, it needs to be
your actors. dealt with as efficiently as possible, and the momen-
tum of the shoot must be kept going.
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The Location Shoot 385

From Don Bethel

VARIATIONS IN BUSY-NESS
There are peak loads at certain stages of production. Everyone should be available to
contribute in their main role at these points, undistracted by other responsibilities. So
cover these times with an adequate number of crew.
This may mean that some support crew members Philip Elms,
Unless you enjoy buying Media
are hanging around for long periods in between with cartons of beer for the rest of Resource
little to do or to interest them, but that’s the nature the crew, turn off your mobile Centre.
of TV/video making. phone during filming.
A word here about attitudes. Inexperienced crew
members, bored with waiting, can become social and
treat the production area with less respect, becoming noisy or inattentive. At best they
look amateurish, at worst they detract from the concentration of the crew and cast who
are still working.
Such behaviour usually results in a rocket from the director or the floor manager/first
assistant and is justly deserved. A crew member’s best contribution for the day may be
their patience! Everyone needs stacks of it—and stamina, too.
Another consideration in assessing crew numbers is the turnaround factor. During
and after each rehearsal and prior to the take, time must be allowed for resetting of props,
the repositioning of cameras and booms, and for
Richard
wardrobe changes. Slates/idents have to be recorded, Producers and directors are Fitzpatrick,
make-up patched, continuity checked. Time is always pushing for time, Camera
wasted if crew numbers don’t match the workload. always want to move on to the Operator,
Digital
Further time is lost if these functions are not effic- next site. Resist their rushing Dimensions.
iently coordinated. This is one of the responsibilities you, make sure you get
of the floor manager/first assistant. enough cutaways.They’ll come
A complete pull-down (strike) and movement to back to you later and say thank
a new location presents another time management you. At the end of the day, it’s
challenge. You may have to consider booking your reputation on the line.
additional assistant camera, lighting, sound, props or
wardrobe crew.
The production manager or floor manager, while
preparing the production schedule, mentally re-
hearses these turnarounds/transitions and makes a
judgement on estimated time and crewing require-
ments.
As your product increases in complexity, so does
the need for planning. Early attention to detailing the
mechanics of production gives you more time to
attend to performance values on your recording day.
Anticipation is the name of the game.

THE GOOD DIRECTOR Gil Scrine, conducting Directors’Master Class,

You don’t have to think for or direct everyone in their Summer Institute of Film and TV, University of
skill area—let your crew feel they’re supporting your Western Sydney—Nepean,Werrington, NSW,
production idea by getting on with their jobs. But Australia.
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386 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Plan everything and be flexible you must make it clear what you want. If you have
enough to cope with sudden to make a change, be sure everyone understands
cast absences, relocations or thoroughly the new direction—otherwise there’ll be
camera breakdowns. much confusion and flack heading your way!
Sara Hourez,
Special THE CREW AND PROFESSIONALISM
Projects,
AFTRS. If you commit yourself to a crew position, recognise that you will need patience—lots
of it—while you wait for some other crew member to rehearse his/her bit again, or
change to a better position, or change batteries, or . . .
Video production calls for long spans of concentration, long hours of waiting, and
then having to perform your task under pressure. It requires a sensitivity to the difficulty
that others are experiencing, and an understanding of the shared frustration when it all
falls apart and has to be redone.
It requires a great deal of empathy and energy from every single member of the crew
in order to be supportive, but that’s what being ‘crew’—a team member—is all about.
Welcome to the challenge!

Shooting for Editing

It’s most important to remember to roll tape in record mode for about 15 seconds before
each shot begins.
This way you’ll have enough stable signal on tape
Shoot with ‘handles’ on the for a full-length pre-roll to run smoothly. The edit
start and end of each shot.This system needs this (so you need this) in order to get
helps for pre-roll in linear the video signal stabilised and supply ten seconds of
editing and for batch capture steady control track before each edit-in point.
Philip Elms, or transitional effects in non- If you don’t allow record time for an adequate
Media linear editing. pre-roll for each shot, you may find it difficult, or
Resource even impossible, to edit your shot exactly as you
Centre.
want it.
Remember to count to ten You may need to explain to the cast and crew
before you call action. why you’re rolling tape well before cueing the action
to begin.

It’s okay to look back over your

Gill Leahy,
University of material when you’re on location but
Technology, decide if it might not be just as easy
Sydney. to go for another take. If you want to
review your last shot, that’s fine but Harry
If your timecode restarts on a don’t fast forward into blank tape or Kirchner,
tape, due to ejecting the tape, you might end up with a timecode La Trobe
University.
a battery, or whatever, the break. Continuous timecode on your
computer can’t tell which shot DV tape will save a lot of headaches
Rob Davis, is which and may capture the when batch digitising your material
Editor,Digital wrong shots or not anything. during post production.
Dimensions.
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The Location Shoot 387

Leanne Holland videotapes Martin Adams and Kingi Tahana, using camera support for her wheelchair made by Joe
Conway, School of Indigenous Australian Studies, James Cook University,Townsville, Qld, Australia.

Guidelines for Shooting an Interview

Here are a few suggestions to consider before doing an on-site interview.

Preproduction
• Visit the person whom you’ll be interviewing before the day of the shoot and
establish, as much as you can, a feeling of trust and rapport with him/her.
• Visit the intended site ahead of time, so you can plan how you’ll set up the shots
and figure out what difficulties there may be.
• Brief your crew, ahead of time, about the inter- Prepare your questions—many
viewee(s) and the site. more than you can realistically
• Research your topic carefully, and know how the use—before you interview
interviewee is connected to the topic. someone on camera. Have the
• Have a well-organised list of questions, written questions written in large print Donna
out clearly, and held neatly and reliably on a on index cards which can be Kenny,The
clipboard. held quietly on your lap during Video History
• Find out if direct questions are culturally appro- Company
the taping. Do your research and Center
priate or considered downright rude in the culture ahead of time and know how for Recording
of the person you’re going to interview. In some to pronounce key words, Life Stories.
cultures information and knowledge are shared names and terms that may
differently, so be sure to find out how to do an come up.
interview correctly with that person.

Setting up
• Set up as quickly and unobtrusively as possible. Don’t let the technical processes
dominate the interviewee’s experience of the interview.
• Never argue with the crew or shout at them. (This goes for any shoot.)
• Try to sit down quietly somewhere with the interviewee, away from the setting up.
Have an easy chat, if possible. Maybe a cup of tea.
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388 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Learn from your mistakes. • Don’t talk the subject out before the camera
rolls. Give a general idea of the outline and flow
of the interview, but don’t rehearse the actual
questions and answers. People answer most vibrantly when they’re engaged by a
question. Their answers are often shorter, less detailed and lacklustre when they’re
Carl Fisher,
Murriimage, repeating an answer they’ve already given.
Wolvi via • If the interviewee is worried about making a mistake or leaving something out, give
Gympie,Qld, your assurance that any answer can be started again or entirely redone at the
Australia.
interviewee’s request.

Rolling
Ensure your interviewee is • If a hand mic is used, keep it in the hand further
comfortable before you start from the camera.
the interview. When • Start off with a couple of easy questions to get
interviewing Elders, always ask your subject relaxed and warmed up. You don’t
Florence them where they would like have to use these answers in the final edit, but it
Onus, you to conduct the interview. will help ease the tension.
Journalism Most Elders feel more
Lecturer, • Aim for clear and precise answers, but avoid
School of comfortable at home, so be ‘closed’ questions which can be answered by a
Indigenous prepared to go to them. one word answer or a ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Aim to draw
Australian
Studies, as much useful information out of the interview
James Cook as you can.
University. • Keep in mind that you’re not in a competition and don’t have to prove that you
know more than the interviewee. In fact, if you appear to know only the basics of
a topic, your guest can feel prompted to elaborate.
• Although your questions are written down, don’t read them out. Refer to your notes
and then look at the guest and ask the questions naturally.
• Always listen to the answers. If something unexpected but interesting is said, follow
up on it. You needn’t feel obliged to rush straight on to the next question.
• If you’re going to edit out the question, ensure that the interviewee speaks in full
statements, rather than in short responses to your question. For example: ‘I was born
in Wagga.’ Not: Q. ‘Where were you born?’; A. ‘In Wagga.’
• Maintain good eye contact, if it’s culturally
appropriate to do so. The interviewee is usually
Ask your questions and then
more nervous than you. If you look at him/her
step out of their way. Be quiet.
directly and nod in affirmation from time to time,
Omit all ‘um-humms’ and other
the interviewee will gain confidence.
verbal supports. Especially if
• Avoid punctuating the interviewee’s answers
Donna the interviewer is off camera,
with ‘I see’ or ‘Uh-huh’. These utterances can be
Kenny,The he/she can use body
Video History irritating to the viewer, and make it difficult to
language—nods, smiles, raised
Company edit the taped sequence, especially if you make
and Center eyebrows, leaning forward,
these sounds while the other person is speaking.
for Recording etc.—to encourage the
Life Stories. • Leave quiet space at the end of each answer for
interviewee’s responses.
the editor to make a cut, if necessary.
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The Location Shoot 389

• Remain aware of the director and the camera operator, who may be signalling some
kind of message to you.
• Maintain an air of respect for the interviewee.
• Don’t be afraid to stop if things aren’t going well. If you’re dealing with a hostile
interviewee, it often pays to pause for a while and allow time for everyone to blow
off steam.
• Don’t go on forever in the hope of getting the answer you want. Interviewees tend
to burn out after awhile. If you haven’t got all the information you’d hoped for, you
might be able to add it in later with a voiceover or with an interview with someone
else.

At the Wrap Take some quality ‘staged’ still

• Always thank the interviewee cordially for their photographs on set for
time and assistance. publicity, rather than trying to
• If appropriate, invite the interviewee to watch a print from the video after the
playback of the interview on your field monitor shoot. It will be less costly and Philip Elms,
or their TV. better quality. Media
Resource
Centre.

Wet Weather
Water wrecks video equipment. If you strike rain on
the day of your shoot, cancel the shoot if you can.
If you can’t cancel, move inside. If you must be
outside, cover the camera with a garbage bag and
have someone holding an umbrella over the camera
operator and the camera.
The wind ruffling the garbage bag will put terrible
noises into a camera mic. A hand-held mic wrapped
in plastic will record the sound of the raindrops that
hit it.
Never run cables through puddles! If you’re near the water, use a splash protector for the
camera.(Photo from Digital Dimensions)

Making TV programs and videos involves teams of passionate creative people all working
together, and can be very rewarding and a lot of fun. It can also be very stressful when
resources are less than ideal, personalities clash and things don’t go as planned. If you find
yourself getting really stressed out, no matter how worthwhile and important the project
is, it’s not worth giving yourself a heart attack over it. Just remember . . . at the end of the Andy Nehl,
day, it’s just dots on a screen. Head of
Television,
AFTRS.
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390 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Keeping Perspective
What if your shoot is of an event that’s happening apart from your own efforts? A concert
or conference, a religious ceremony, an awards presentation, a sports competition?
When you’re the documenter, rather than the initiator, your role and the degree of
control and influence you have over the action is quite different from when you’re doing
a drama or even an interview.
Sometimes it’s hard to remember that the video itself is not the event, that there are
other interests at least as important as your own, that the show will go on whether
you’re ready or not, and if you’re not—that’s just tough.
Documenters should not change the event they’re covering. Of course the mere
presence of any camera does change things a bit. But sometimes video crews walk in
like they’re the main item. They string cables and
lights all over, regardless of how difficult or
uncomfortable they make things for the guests or the
audience; they set their cameras up in front of people
who have a right to their own view; and they even
take hand-held cameras into the performance area.
High praise for a video crew is for someone to
say, ‘We hardly knew you were there.’
What’s more important . . . the event or the
video?
Keeping a low profile, working discreetly and
Are you the show or are you documenting it? efficiently, may mean you’ll be the one group that
Students from National Recording Studio Training gets asked back.
School, Canberra, ACT, Australia.

Take a second shot just for

safety’s sake.
Quality of Work
The director decides when a take is good enough. If
the director wants another take, the crew does another take.
Philip Elms, Sometimes it may seem that it isn’t worth the effort, that the problem was minor,
Media but no matter what the crew thinks, it remains the director’s job to assess the take, and
Resource the overall situation, and decide if the extra effort is necessary for the final product.
Centre.
To be able to do this, the director must carry in his or her head a vision of the finished
whole. The director’s reputation relies on the final cut, and any compromise on quality
at the shoot lessens the possibility of achieving that
vision in the end.
Remember you have to edit it.
Still, the director can’t know everything about
what’s happened, and s/he needs to make quality
decisions based on as much information as possible.
Great preparation and direction can be ruined by a glitch in the camerawork or the
Phil sound recordist not alerting the director to a passing jet. (This should be done before or
Hayward,
Macquarie right after the shot has been completed, not during the shooting of it.)
University. So it’s important for crew members to let the director know if they realise something
has gone wrong. It’s in the nature of video that even when each crew member is striving
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The Location Shoot 391

to do his or her best, mistakes can be made, an
unforeseen difficulty can get in the way, or a shot
just doesn’t work. Directors know this.
It’s no good covering up a problem—it will show
up in the editing room and then it will be much
harder to fix, maybe impossible.
Covering up lowers a crew member’s pro-
fessional reputation, and that affects their future work
chances.

Never rely on postproduction

to put things right.This is a
myth which seldom works—
and never without extra
expense and some Ian Ingram
compromise to the quality of Young,
the program. Get it right at the Academy of
Photogenic
time of shooting if possible. Arts.
There will be enough to fix up
in post in any event.

Quality of Personal Relations

You need to be careful about the quality of your
interactions with your crew, as well as the quality of
the video on tape.
Be considerate and professional in your criticisms.
Wherever possible, speak to people quietly and
privately about what you’d like them to do
differently.
You need a good flow of information from your
crew. If people feel that they’ll be given a public
dressing-down, or spoken to in an arrogant or
humiliating fashion, they’re not likely to tell you A successful shoot relies on the skill, care,
much. cooperation and good energy of everyone involved.
On the other hand, praise goes a long way Make sure you let everyone know you appreciate
towards making people feel happy to be on the job. their work.The crew of ‘And she said . . .’, a full-length
And a crew that feels you value them will usually go feature shot at Hamilton Secondary College, Mitchell
the extra distance for you when the chips are down. Park, SA, Australia.(Photo by Mark Pilla)
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392 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Thanking someone for an

extra effort or a particularly
The Idiot Check
good piece of work is a form of When the end of the shoot comes, the work isn’t
recognition and reward, even over. First of all, the performers should be thanked
when you know you can’t for their participation and their performance
Martha
Mollison, write anyone a cheque at the (hopefully enthusiastically, but at least courteously),
Video end of the day. the crew should be thanked, and the site should be
Producer. returned to the state it was in at the beginning of the
Thoroughly clean camera shoot.
equipment after shooting on A double check should be made that all tapes are
the beach, as salt spray residue accounted for and labelled correctly.
can damage lens coatings and And the equipment needs to be packed away
electronic circuitry. carefully, making sure that every little cord, adaptor
Philip Elms,
Media and doo-dad is found and put in its rightful case.
Resource This is when you pull that photocopy or printout
Centre. from the equipment store out of your pocket and
start ticking off each item you borrowed as it’s
rounded up and packed in the car.
Once everything is checked off against the
equipment list, loaded into the vehicles, and the crew
have packed up their personal items and prepared to
leave, someone should do an ‘idiot check’.
The idiot check is when the entire shoot area is
carefully looked over, one last time, to find anything
that has been left behind without anyone noticing.
That’s when small bits and pieces like the little black
camera battery is found atop the black piano, or the
If you’re not sure what’s missing, refer to your check- tiny lav mic is discovered on a chair, even though the
out list.What’s missing from this shot? See end of case has already been packed away.
this chapter.

To err is human, to bring back

broken equipment is
unforgivable.

Hart Cohen,
University of
Western
Sydney—
Nepean.

Clean the car! Return it clean

If there was anything wrong with the gear, tell the
and don’t be mean.
equipment store people about it when you return it.
A student discusses a mic with Dmitri Mazin, Media Centre
Equipment Store, University of Technology, Sydney, NSW,
Gerry Letts, Australia.
Operations
and Facilities,
AFTRS.
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The Location Shoot 393

When equipment is returned to a media centre or hire store, anything that didn’t
work right, or got broken during the shoot, should be pointed out to the person checking
in the gear. That saves the next borrower from copping it unrepaired.

Protecting Your Original Footage

You should safeguard your original footage so it will be in the best possible shape when
it comes time to do your fine cut.
As soon as possible after your shoot, copy your
field material onto another tape. This copy is your
Don’t be disappointed if your
work dub, and you’ll use it whenever you want to
first production isn’t Academy
play your material for viewing, for logging and for
Award material. It’s a learning
all your rough cuts. If you’re editing digitally, transfer
process, and even great
your footage to a storage drive as soon as is feasible.
directors make ‘stinkers’ from Keith Smith,
Then, whatever stresses and strains afflict the tapes
time to time! Edith Cowan
or digitised footage during the rough cutting stages, University.
your source tape will remain pristine. If you’re cutting
in analog, it’s economical to use recycled tapes for work dubs.
Your original footage should be carefully labelled as such and put away in a safe
place. (Remember: Cool, dry, dust free and away from magnetic fields.) Never risk
playing it in any VCR before the fine cut because you can’t tell when the universe will
frown on you and some cranky machine will just eat your tape. There’s too much work
involved in a reshoot and too little time at the end of a semester to play roulette with
your original material.
Sometimes you’ll have material which is so valuable to you that it’s worth also
making a security dub. This is a copy of your original footage which is also never used,
and stored in a different safe place, so if anything goes wrong and you lose your original
footage, you’ll have a good quality copy to fall back on.
Of course, you should use new, high grade tapes for security dubs, and you should
take care that you copy the audio levels well when you make these dubs so that you
don’t end up with low level or distorted audio if you need to rely on them in the end.

This is what was missing—the base plate for Be sure you keep a list of exactly what you
the tripod! borrowed.
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Chapter

28 Studio Layout
and Equipment
Producing Videos
Studio Layout and Equipment

Studios come in all sizes. Some are large enough to hold a symphony
I orchestra, with room to spare. Others are tiny rooms with a chair for a
presenter and a minimal background set.
Whether your studio has access to the
latest high tech equipment with all the
bells and whistles, or you have the most
rudimentary of set-ups, your studio layout
and the principles behind your equipment
hook-up will be similar.
And with imagination and tenacity,
you can achieve good results under almost
any conditions.
Not every organisation has the luxury
of a studio floor which serves only one
Multicamera TV studio at Northern Melbourne purpose. In many schools the studio
Institute of TAFE, Collingwood,Vic, Australia. doubles as a classroom. In public access
cable TV stations, it can have all manner
of functions!

At Wakefield Community Access TV, their studio

doubles or triples as a classroom and meeting
area.Tables are set up for a public meeting.One
wall of the studio is painted in the sponge
technique and works well as a background.Part
of another wall is painted chroma key
blue.Wakefield Community Access TV,
Wakefield, MA, USA.(Photo by Ruth Stegner)
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Studio Layout and Equipment 395

The Studio Floor

The studio floor is the area where the cameras face the performers.
Although it’s possible to do a single-camera shoot in a studio set-up, studios are
usually organised for the simultaneous use of two,
three or more cameras.
It’s helpful if the studio has a lighting grid above
the studio floor so lights can be mounted in a variety
of positions without getting in the way of the
cameras’ movements and without having their stands
be in frame of some shots. But a studio can work
with portable lights only.
Some studios have flats which can be used for
simple backgrounds or hooked together for more
elaborate sets, like mock-up rooms.
Some studios have risers, which are movable
platforms upon which presenters and performers can
be seated. With the performers on risers, the camera
operators can stand comfortably upright and still get Studio production at the University of Southern
a neutral shot into the presenter’s and guests’ eyes, Queensland, Darling Heights, Qld, Australia.
rather than a high shot which looks down on the
seated people and subtly diminishes their authority to the viewing audience.
Studio walls are sometimes painted with good basic background colours or patterns,
or chroma key colours.
Dark floors can be an advantage because they won’t give off lots of uncontrollable
bounced light from the studio lights hung from the overhead lighting grid. Some studios
paint and repaint their floors, based on the needs for the current set.
The camera operators should wear rubber-soled shoes so their footsteps aren’t a
problem. Carpets can help reduce sound bounce from the floors. Rollable carpets can
sometimes be bought quite cheaply at charity shops.
Lots of useful props can be picked up there, too, over time. In fact, some remarkable
items can be scrounged from the tip (dump).
The cyclorama or cyc is a long curtain attached to
little rollers which run in the grooves of a curving
track. The track is mounted high up along three or
four walls of the studio. When the cyc is pulled open,
it makes a good generic background, hiding the bare
studio walls (and a myriad oddments) with soft folds
of cloth. Cycs are frequently black or deep blue, but
they also come in chroma key blue and chroma key
green, for use in chroma key effects.
The studio floor should be able to be isolated
from passing noise and interruptions. Usually it’s a
large room with a double door system for sound
proofing. Outside the outer door, there’s often a red The cyclorama can give your shot a neutral back-
light which is lit up during recording sessions so ground.Erika Addis adjusts cyc at the Australian Film
people are warned not to enter and spoil the take. Television and Radio School.
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396 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

The Control Room

The main control room is where the director is during a production, and where the vision
mixer (VM) sits at the switcher (or vision mixing console), electronically selecting the
chosen camera shots and executing the visual special effects which are needed.
The director and vision mixer work in front of a
bank of monitors, each of which presents them with
an available video source. There’s a monitor for each
studio camera and for each of the other possible
inputs, like the playback VCRs, the character gener-
ator, the computer, the frame stores and other special
effects units, remote sources (like an OB van or
microwave link) and the telecine.
Also in the bank of monitors there’s a large colour
Program Out monitor which shows the signal which
is currently going to line, either to tape or broadcast.
And there’s a Preview monitor next to it which lets
During studio production at the University of
the director look at the upcoming shot and make sure
Southern Queensland, Darling Heights, Qld, Australia.
it’s right.
Also present in the control room are the DA
(director’s assistant), the TD (technical director) and
the lighting director.

Wakefield Community Access TV has a main control

room, and it also has a control room on wheels,
which it can wheel to different parts of the building. Control room, Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE,
Wakefield, MA, USA.(Photo by Ruth Stegner) Collingwood,Vic, Australia.

At Wakefield Community Access TV, there are audio and video ‘outlets’ in the lounge so
they can just plug in an audio mixer and camera and use that room as a studio as well.
The ‘outlets’ are connected into their second control room, which doubles as an audio
studio for voiceovers.They have a small table and two chairs in this control room which
Barbara can be used as a set as well.
Bishop,
Independent In larger productions, other crew members like the designer and the wardrobe
Producer.
supervisor may be in the control room as well. The make-up artist would work from
the studio floor.
Program sound is heard over loudspeakers by everyone in the control room.
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Studio Layout and Equipment 397

There’s a talkback microphone into which both
the director and director’s assistant speak, linking
them to the floor manager and the camera operators
on the studio floor, and to audio control and
videotapes.
Quite often there’s a huge soundproof glass
window between the control room and the studio
floor, so the director and DA can see what’s
happening in there. But sometimes there’s no
window, and the two rooms may even be in separate
In this control room the crew can use either the TV
parts of the building. In that case, the floor manager
monitors or the glass window to check what’s
is essential as the eyes and ears of the director, and
happening on the studio floor.Northern Melbourne
the only view the director has is what the camera
Institute of TAFE, Collingwood,Vic, Australia.
operators provide.

Vision Control
Vision control may be in the main control room, or
nearby.
Each studio camera has a long thick, multipin
cable which carries signals in both directions. Besides
sending the video signal to the control room
equipment, it carries the genlock signal to the camera,
it can handle intercom signals and also return video, so This little control room can be used for voiceovers or
the camera operators can check which shot is selected cable radio.Wakefield Community Access TV,
at any moment by the vision mixer. Usually each Wakefield, MA, USA.(Photo by Ruth Stegner)
camera cable plugs into a patch bay on the studio
wall, and from there it’s connected to its own CCU (camera control unit). But in some
set-ups there’s just a hole in the wall, and the camera cables run through it.
The TD sets up all the cameras so their signals are within the required range and
their images match each other in colour, brightness, contrast and black level. White
balancing is done at the CCUs, as well as some tweaking to adjust luminance levels,
video gain, the black pedestal, and the blue and red signals, if need be.
Without this matching, the look of the picture could change from shot to shot,
distracting the viewers.
From the CCUs, the video signals are fed into the vision mixer.

Audio Control
Audio control may be in the main control room, but it’s better if it’s separate from the
general frenzy and noise so the sound operator can hear the program sound well and
pick up on signal problems, like buzzes or crackling cables. Often it’s in a nearby room;
sometimes it’s viewable from the main control room through a large window.
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398 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

All the studio mics are plugged in to a patch bay on the studio wall, and from there
audio cables are run to audio control and connected to the input sockets at the back of
the audio mixer.
Audio control also contains various playback machines,
like phonographs, and tape cassette, DAT and CD players.
The responsibility of audio control is to test, adjust and
control the volume and quality of each sound source, and
insert each one into the program correctly, according to
the director’s calls. The sound operator must ensure that
the signal output from the mixing desk is strong enough
and that throughout the program sound levels are
consistent.
Sometimes the sound operator works alone, and
sometimes there’s an assistant who helps by playing the
Operating the audio mixer, Northern
needed disks, tapes and cassettes for program music and
Melbourne Institute of TAFE, Collingwood,Vic,
special effects.
Australia.

Studio Cameras
Studio cameras are usually the best quality cameras
the institution can muster. Most places try to limit
the use of these cameras to just the studio, plus
maybe the OB van.
But it’s also possible to hook field cameras into
a studio system, either as the mainstay cameras, or
as auxiliary stationary or roving cameras for more
complex shoots.
Dominic Kanak,TEAME Indigenous TV and Video
Studio cameras have larger viewfinders, so the
Training Course, Metro TV, Paddington, NSW,
camera operators don’t have to put their eye to the
Australia.(Photo by Anne Douglas)
viewfinder and can stand back and comfortably
frame and focus their shots. Such viewfinders have
an on-air light (called a tally light), which lets the
operator know when that camera’s signal is being
used in the program.
The camera’s zoom and focus controls are
connected to servos (cables which allow remote
control) and are mounted on the tripod’s control
handles. This allows the operators to make zoom and
focus adjustments with their fingers while still having
complete control of the pan and tilt of the studio
cameras.
Lightweight camera pedestals at the Northern Headsets allow the camera operators to receive
Melbourne Institute of TAFE, Collingwood,Vic, instructions from the director or DA and to talk back
Australia.
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Studio Layout and Equipment 399

to the control room when necessary, but for the most part, camera operators don’t speak
once the show begins.
Signal adjustments, like white balance and the iris setting, are not done by the camera
operators. They’re controlled by the TD operating the CCUs in vision control.

Camera Mounts
Studio cameras are mounted on camera pedestals or
on tripods with dolly wheels.
The camera pedestal is designed to move the
camera quickly, smoothly and quietly around the
studio floor. A sideways movement is called tracking
or trucking. A forward or backward movement is
called dollying. When a stationary camera is needed,
the brakes can be locked on.
The camera pedestal can also smoothly raise or
lower the height of the camera. This camera action
is called ped up and ped down. Mounted studio camera, Northern Melbourne
Some camera pedestals are controlled by a Institute of TAFE, Collingwood,Vic, Australia.
steering wheel mounted horizontally beneath the
camera. You turn it in the direction you want the In Australia, camera operators
camera to go in, give a push and away it goes. get to their use-by date at 30
The camera is mounted on a pan/tilt head, which years of age, and should think
is controlled by four knobs. about moving on to floor
managing or directing. Chris Fraser,
Tilt Lock Cinematography
Department,
This knob locks or loosens the tripod head’s tilting action (which allows the upward and AFTRS.
downward swing of the camera lens). The tilt should always be locked before the camera
operator walks away from the camera.

Tilt Friction (Tilt Drag)

This knob allows the camera operator to adjust the tension control on the tilt action.
The ease of movement of the tilt can be varied from very fluid to quite firm, depending
on the requirements of the shot and the ability of the operator.
The tilt friction should never be used to lock off the tilt—this can strip the control
and render it useless.

Pan Lock
This knob locks or loosens the tripod head’s panning action (the swivelling of the camera
to the left or right). The pan should be locked before the camera operator walks away
from the camera.
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400 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Pan Friction (Pan Drag)

This knob allows the camera operator to adjust the tension control on the pan action.
The ease of movement of the pan can be varied from very fluid to quite firm, depending
on the requirements of the shot and the ability of the operator.
If the pan friction is on too tight, the panning action might lose its smoothness and
become jerky.
The pan friction should never be used to lock off the pan—this can strip the control
and render it useless.

The Vision Mixer

The vision mixer is a device with a counter-mounted
panel with buttons on it, which allows the operator
to electronically preview and select program video
from the array of camera shots and other video
sources which are patched in to it, and to set up and
execute visual effects and transitions. The chosen
button lights up, so the current choices are clear to
The vision mixer lets you select any source which is anyone at a glance.
connected to it, by pressing the corresponding The line output of the vision mixer is routed
button.(Photo from Northern Melbourne Institute either to a record VCR, to broadcast or to both.
of TAFE) For details on the operation of the vision mixer,
see Chapter 30, Operating the Vision Mixer.

Live Video vs
Pre-recorded Video
Video which is being generated at the moment from
a camera or other video generating device is called
live. Video which has been recorded on tape and is
being played back on a VCR is called pre-recorded.
Why is this important? Because live video has a
stable sync pulse (timing pulse) to it, and pre-
When the light’s on, that source is selected.(Photo recorded video has slight variations in its timing, due
from Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE) to extremely minor variations in the speed of the
mechanical rotation of the VCR’s playback heads. So
pre-recorded video has an unstable timebase.
A vision mixer can’t do a technically clean cut, wipe or dissolve between two video
sources unless they both have exactly the same timing and both have stable timebases.
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Studio Layout and Equipment 401

Genlock
Video cameras have to be able to generate their own
timing pulse (or sync) so they can function inde-
pendently and record a stable signal on their own.
Some cameras can also receive a sync pulse from
an external source and use that pulse as the timebase
for the signal they produce.
Genlock input
When cameras (or other video-generating
devices) are sent the same sync pulse from an external
source they operate to exactly the same timing, and
they’re said to be genlocked.
Their video signals can then be used sequentially The sync signal from the studio sync generator, or
on the vision mixer in cuts, dissolves, wipes and other some other timing device, is fed to the camera
effects without causing any signal break-up or through the genlock input.
glitching due to differences in timing.
Though the sync pulse generator is the normal source of genlock, it’s also possible to
genlock equipment from the composite video out signal of a camera, from the output
of a vision mixer, and even from a VCR. The VCR tends to be the least reliable source
of sync.
Any video signals that are input into a vision mixer need to be from sources which
are synchronised (synchronous with each other, having the same timebase as each other).
Synchronisation can be achieved through genlock or, in the case of some smaller vision
mixers, the synchronising of the incoming signals is done within the mixer itself and
genlock cabling isn’t necessary.
When the NS light comes on during a mix or wipe on a vision mixer, it means that
the two sources are non-synchronous, and they can’t be combined smoothly until they’re
synchronised.

Sync Pulse Generator

The sync pulse generator is used in a multicamera studio or OB van to genlock the
equipment by generating stable timing pulses (sync pulses) and sending them to all the
equipment which will be providing video signals to the vision mixer.
It produces signals for horizontal and vertical sync pulses, blanking pulses and
composite sync pulses.

The sync pulse generator (SPG)

gives the correct timing signal to
all the equipment in a studio.
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402 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Timebase
Corrector
The timebase corrector (TBC) receives the
video output from the playback VCRs,
strips the signal of its unstable sync
(timebase) and then attaches that signal
to a ‘rock solid’ timebase and outputs it
to the vision mixer, where it can then be
successfully combined with other
signals.
The timebase corrector (TBC) removes the sync from TBCs also allow adjustments to be made to the
a video signal and attaches a new, steady, sync video signal being processed, such as altering the
signal.A TBC is usually needed when sending pre- video gain, the black pedestal and the colour balance.
recorded video into a vision mixer.

Playback
Frequently during live shows, the director wants to
insert material which has already been taped and
edited. This could be on-the-street interviews done
on the topic the program is addressing, it could be
public service announcements (PSAs), or even
advertisements, depending on what the station is
allowed to do.
In all these cases, the playback VCRs (the decks)
have to be sending video signals with exactly the
The playback decks you see in the back of the same timing as the live video which is being
picture are mini-DV playback decks bought for $150 generated by the cameras, so that the signals can all
each at a local store.They are not industrial quality, be intermeshed without glitches as they pass through
which are much more expensive, but they are not the vision mixer.
used 24-7 so they do the job.Wakefield Community
Access TV,Wakefield, MA, USA.(Photo by Ruth
Stegner)

Wakefield has programming about 8 hours a day, and the rest of the time it’s their
community bulletin board.The playback area is interesting because they converted from
SVHS playback to DV by simply replacing one deck with the other. The connector types
were the same, so it was immediately compatible. A carousel system would have been
Barbara much more expensive to buy and to service—and if the system went down they would be
Bishop, off the air. This way, they can run down to the local video store and buy a new deck out of
Independent petty cash, and they’re back up and running in no time.
Producer.
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Studio Layout and Equipment 403

Frame Store
A frame store can do the timing correction that a TBC does, but it’s also able to hold in
memory a full frame of video information.
This increased memory capacity makes it possible for the frame store to do an array
of wondrous signal manipulations, including:
• Freeze frame, which grabs one whole frame of video and continuously repeats it,
giving the effect of a still photograph on the screen.
• Freeze field, which reproduces just one field of information, again with the appearance
of a still photograph on the screen. Freeze field is what to use if the frame has action
in it. For example, while a freeze frame will show a guitarist’s hands shimmering,
the freeze field will show a still image.
• Strobe, which is an effect caused by the video signal going in and out of freeze frame
mode at a regular rate. This rate can be varied.
• Mosaic, which gives the image the appearance of being made of tiny tiles. This effect
can be increased to the point that the image is unrecognisable, or decreased till the
effect is barely noticeable, by controlling the size of the tiles both vertically and
horizontally.
• Paint (or posterisation), which gives the image the appearance of a paint-by-number
project. This effect can also be increased till the picture looks like a flat-toned poster
made up of wide swathes of monotone colours, or decreased till the effect is hardly
evident.
• Mirror image, where the image from one half of the screen is reproduced in a mirror
image on the other half of the screen.
• Negative image, where the lights are dark, the darks are light, and the colours are
replaced by their opposites (red is cyan, blue is yellow, and so forth).
• Compression, which digitises the signal and then allows it to be squashed or stretched,
either vertically or horizontally.
• Multiple images, which allows the same picture to be repeated in miniature several
times in different positions on the screen, with one little section active (displaying
moving video) and the other positions showing freeze frames.

A frame store does the same job as a TBC, but it can also do additional special effects.

Black Generator
The black generator comes either as a device on its own, or it can reside inside the vision
mixer.
It produces a clean black signal with solid sync pulses. It’s used to produce the black
for the beginning and end of shows, and its composite video out signal can also be used
to genlock the studio.
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404 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Video Distribution Amplifier

A video distribution amplifier (VDA) is a simple device which takes a video signal in at one
port and outputs the same signal, at full strength, to four or six ports.
Thus the VDA allows the same signal to be sent at once to several studio devices,
without its signal level being lowered (attenuated). A typical distribution of a video signal
would be that the camera signal is taken out of the CCU and sent simultaneously to:
1. The patch bay connected to the waveform monitor and vectorscope.
2. The camera monitor.
3. The vision mixer.
4. The patch bay for the frame store.
A VDA is essential to a video copying set-up, where several VCRs need to receive the
same signal at once.

Routing Switcher
The routing switcher works in reverse to the VDA. It takes in many video signals but
has only one or two outputs.
A routing switcher is simply a row of buttons, when viewed from the front. At the
back it has a row of BNC sockets which allow several video signals to be input into it,
and it has one or two video outputs.
The routing switcher is used to assign a variety of video sources to a single piece of
video test equipment, like the waveform monitor or the vectorscope, or to a monitor, a
VCR, or whatever is desired.
The TD can select any source s/he
wants to view or adjust by pressing the
labelled button at the front which
corresponds to that source’s input, and
then that signal is allowed to pass through
to the video out of the routing switcher
and is sent along to the test equipment or
wherever.
Routing switchers are usually rack
mounted so the input cables at the back
are inaccessible to all but the technicians.
This is so the cables stay connected to the
The routing switcher lets you select a signal and right positions and the routing switcher
send it to whatever equipment you choose. remains reliable for the next operator.
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Studio Layout and Equipment 405

Patch Bay
Patch bays are the ultimate for allowing the user
choice in connections. They can be used for both
video and audio signals, and also for assigning lights
to the lighting mixer.
A patch bay has a row of inputs and a row of
outputs. It’s rack mounted and the cables coming
from and going to the various pieces of studio
equipment are labelled and connected at the back.
The back is usually accessible to the technicians only. Patching in a video cable.Colin Kemp, Engineering
At the front are connecting sockets for every in Department, Australian Film Television and Radio
and out position, and each socket is (hopefully) School.
correctly and legibly labelled. (We’re talking about
the best of all possible worlds here!)
The patch bay allows anyone to connect any
input to any output by the use of short cables or
attaching devices.
The patch bay allows much more flexible use of
equipment by giving the operator the ability to
quickly and easily set up whatever signal paths are
desired. No need to climb in behind the rack and
reconnect everything—or make a total mess of the
studio hook-up. Any signal paths can be set up by
one user, and then unplugged at the end of the shoot Routing audio through a patch bay, Northern
so all the wiring is intact for the next user and all the Melbourne Institute of TAFE, Collingwood,Vic,
options are still available. Australia.

Character Generator
The character generator (CG) has a keyboard which allows the operator to type in titles
for the opening and closing credits and for superimposed titles within the show.
The basic CGs have only one font type (lettering style) and two or three font sizes
to choose from, and are limited to white on black. They can send one still page of lettering
at a time. Never mind, they get the message across.
The fancier ones are word processors which have
a range of fonts and font sizes, can do special effects
Store a template of the
on the lettering (like drop shadow, bold and outline),
standard end credits for your
can generate coloured letters and backgrounds, and
show, including your copyright
can store several pages of credits in memory.
announcement.Then for each
They can also present the pages of credits in a
new program you only need to Martha
variety of scrolls (where the words roll upward or
adjust the names of the crew. Mollison,
downward across the screen) and crawls (where the Video
No need to retype the whole
letters move horizontally across some section of the Producer,
thing each week! Sydney,NSW,
screen).
Australia.
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406 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Teleprompter
A teleprompter is basically a computer and display system.
Whatever the presenter has to say, the news, the weather, the commentary, anything,
it can be typed in advance and saved to a file on the computer’s C-drive or on a floppy
disk.
When rehearsal time comes, the presenter looks towards the camera which has the
display of the words either attached to it or near it. Because the words have to be large
so the presenter can read them at a distance, the words have to roll up the screen to
show the whole speech.
In the control room, the operator of the teleprompter works out what’s the best speed
for the presenter to read the words aloud, and makes a note of it, with any variations
due to long hard words, or quickly spoken phrases.
Then for the program, the presenter can rely on the words rolling out in front of
his/her eyes at just the right speed.

Graphics Computer
For more elaborate credits and for computer
generated graphics, there are computers with good
graphics programs and composite video outputs,
which can be connected into the vision mixer and
used as a flexible source for imaginative program
content.
The graphics can be presented on their own, or
mixed or wiped into combinations with live video
from the studio cameras or from pre-recorded video.

The Audio Mixer

A simple audio mixer allows a number of sound
sources to be input into it (like the studio mics, the
playback VCRs, and the tape, cassette and disk
machines) and all these sources can be mixed down
into one or two audio outputs, which can then be
Multicamera TV studio, Charles Sturt University— inserted into the production, either for recording or
Mitchell, Bathurst, NSW, Australia. for broadcast.
For each input sound there’s a corresponding
fader control which allows the operator to set the volume of that sound and to fade it
in and out, as required.
There’s also a master output fader (or two) for volume control of the mixed sound
as its output to the next step on the signal path.
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Studio Layout and Equipment 407

On more complex mixers, the sound quality can
be manipulated by using equalisation controls for
bass, mid-range and treble frequencies, the sound can
be selectively assigned to any combination of outputs,
the gain can be adjusted, the fader can be muted if
necessary, and any single source can be listened to
on its own (solo).
For more about the audio mixer, see Chapter 31,
Operating the Studio Audio Mixer.
Each fader knob controls the volume level of the
signal attached to one sound input.

The Lighting Mixer

The lighting mixer follows much the same principles as the vision and sound mixers. It
has a number of fader-controlled inputs, which can be used to adjust the output levels
of the various studio lights.
However, as there are often more lights than there are inputs, it’s usually serviced
by a patch bay. Whatever lights are needed for the production can be attached to the patch
bay during set-up time, and then the patch bay is cleared at the end of the production.
The mixer is operated by faders which allow the brightness of each light to be set,
so some lights can be on at full strength while others are slightly or seriously dimmed.
Some mixing consoles allow more than one lighting set-up to be installed at once—
either manually or assisted by a computer. Then it’s possible to do a slow or quick
crossfade from one lighting arrangement to the next, giving a smoother transition from
scene to scene on the same set.
A master fader will raise and lower an entire lighting arrangement, simultaneously
getting each light to its assigned output level.
Lights can also be switched to being independents, so they’re separately put on and off
by their individual faders.

Waveform Monitor
The waveform monitor is a signal testing device
which has several different displays, selected by a
knob.
The TD uses the waveform monitor to check
specific aspects of the video signal, like the sync pulses,
the luminance level and the pedestal (black level). It’s
helpful in diagnosing problems, matching signals The waveform monitor shows information about the
from different sources, and ensuring that the studio luminance signal, and the vectorscope shows
output signal conforms to broadcast standards. information about the colour signal.
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408 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Vectorscope
The vectorscope is another signal testing device, used for analysing the properties of the
colour portion of the video signal.
It shows colour phase and the chroma amplitude (strength of the colour signal).
It’s especially useful when operating in NTSC, where the colour from each camera
can be out of phase, and therefore unmatched to the next one.

Suggestions from Rachel Masters

Try to create an opportunity where you and your friends can observe the workings of a
television studio. Often television stations need audiences. Phone your local station for
tickets and be a part of the show, while observing what’s going on behind the scenes.
Making television is fun—even though everyone often looks very serious.Try not to be
disappointed when you see that all the glamour is in front of the cameras.
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Chapter

29 Studio
Roles
Producing Videos
Studio Roles

Some studio crews number 20 or more people, and other wizards pull off
I a good production with only two or three people doing all the studio jobs.
So when we talk about studio roles, it’s as a general guideline only. You have to
work with what you’ve got and whoever is there to help you.
However, it does help, when dividing up the work, to have a general overview of
all the jobs that need to be done. So here goes.

The Producer
The producer is the head of the production team and is responsible for the successful
completion of the project.
The producer decides on the program concept, chooses the director and other key
production personnel, like the heads of design, photography, lighting and sound, and
may be involved in the selection of other crew and performers.
The producer has the final say on artistic and editorial policy, and controls the budget.
The producer also has overall responsibility for the quality of the program.
However, once the major decisions on program treatment have been made, the
producer hands the artistic realisation of the production over to the director in the studio.
In a drama production, the producer does not usually sit in the control room and dictate
ideas on how the shots should go.
In broadcast news and current affairs, where It’s the ideas that count.The
stories are sometimes being included and dropped producer’s business is content.
up until the moment of transmission, the producer
is present in the control room to make those last-minute decisions.
The producer is responsible to the television station or to whomever has Gilda
commissioned the project. Baracchi,
Producer.
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410 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

The Director
The director is responsible for the creative vision behind the production, and for guiding
the program designers in realising that vision through sets, costumes, lighting and sound.
It’s the director’s responsibility to decide the final visual and audio treatment.
The director is responsible for explaining the production to the performers and the
technical crew, rehearsing them till they’re ready to give a good performance, and directing
them through every step of the actual taped or broadcast program.
The director must enthuse the whole team, so everyone is committed to the success
of the project.
As a result of all this responsibility, it’s usually the director who gets the overall credit
or blame at the completion of the project. The director is responsible to the producer.

Directing involves being able

to live in two worlds—the
world of your inner vision, and
the day-to-day world where
Kathryn your inner vision is given life.
Brown,
Director.

As a director you have to stay

flexible, because control room
procedures vary from place to
place. For example, in Sydney
Sara Hourez, the DA calls the shots, and in
Former Melbourne s/he doesn’t. As a
Director of freelance director you have to
Neighbours. The director needs to keep the DA up-to-date on any
adapt to the crew you are
directing. changes to the program.The DA then informs the rest of the
crew.

The Director’s Assistant

The director’s assistant (DA, or producer’s assistant), performs a wide range of tasks
which help the director to organise and run the production.
The DA performs many administrative tasks, like ensuring the scripts and rundown
are copied and up-to-date with last-minute changes, and distributing them to all crew
members.
The DA acts as the director’s go-between with every department involved in the
production, and ensures everyone knows exactly when and how the production will
proceed.
For the actual performance the DA alerts Videotape to record, times all segments
and the program itself, prepares cameras for their upcoming shots, uses the character
generator, watches continuity, liaises with external program sources such as an OB van
or feed from another site, alerts the director to snags or timing problems, and may type
in the credits.
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Studio Roles 411

Be ready for any eventuality—

and don’t be afraid to ask! If
you don’t know what’s going
on, how can you tell everyone
else? Anna Lang,
Directing
Department,
AFTRS.

Take one step at a time!

DA Anna Lang times a segment in Studio 1, Australian Film

Television and Radio School, Sydney.
Sandra
Chung,ABC TV
Training and
The DA needs excellent communications skills, diplomacy and a good knowledge Development.

of every role in the production process. The DA may need special qualifications if working
on productions like music or dance.
The director’s assistant is responsible to the director.

The Designer
The designer is responsible for the overall look of the production, and is in charge of
staging and properties, wardrobe and make-up.
In response to the producer’s brief, the designer draws up a proposed set. Once s/he
has received the go-ahead, the designer draws up and delivers floor plans to the producer,
the director and the technical director.
The designer arranges for the construction of staging and any other necessary set
elements, and makes sure that they’re built according to the approved specifications and
delivered on time.
The designer also makes sure that all props are
Anyone can design with a
procured, and that the performers are dressed
million dollars. It takes a clever
appropriately, in the correct period of wardrobe and
designer with a hundred
make-up.
dollars to make it look like a
The designer is responsible to the producer and
million. Darrell Lass,
the director.
Production
Designer.

The Floor Manager

The floor manager is in charge of everything that happens on the studio floor, during
pre-production times, rehearsals and the production itself. S/he is the director’s right-
hand person and representative on the studio floor.
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412 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Anticipation is the name of the The floor manager also attends site checks for
game. location shoots.
The FM is particularly concerned with safety,
crew morale and contentedness, performance achieve-
ment and discipline—where necessary.
Don Bethel,
Floor The floor manager compiles a workable schedule which allows for the creative needs
Manager and of the director and performers, and the practical needs of the technical and support crew.
Consultant, This schedule would include the amount of time needed to do special effects, for example.
Television
Production At the beginning of a production, the FM welcomes the performers and guests to
Techniques. the studio and looks after their comfort and needs.
The FM puts tape markings on the floor to help the performers know where they
should stand, or to stop their movement, and assists performers to achieve the right
positions and eyelines.
During rehearsals the floor manager can give the
director information about possible difficulties with
the stage directions planned, and during performance
the FM remains alert to anything which might get
in the way of achieving the desired shots, remedying
whatever is possible.
The floor manager gives the countdown to the
actors so they know when the show begins.
The FM remains in constant contact with the
director, via headphones with talkback, and conveys
The floor manager, Erik Vaage Teigen, gives a count- the director’s instructions to the performers and crew.
down cue to the band, Mech, Griffith University, The FM also discreetly relays to the director the needs
Brisbane, Qld, Australia.(Photo by Walter Holt) of performers and crew, making sure that the director
is aware of the mood on the studio floor, and that
people get rest breaks when they need them.
At the end of rehearsals and the production, the
FM thanks the performers and crew, on behalf of the
director.
The floor manager is responsible to the director.

Ben Farrawelle, boom operator, and Charlene

The Technical Director
Davison, floor manager, on set for Alone,TEAME The technical director is in charge of the booking and
Indigenous and Video Training Course, Metro operation of all technical resources, and liaises
Screen, Paddington, NSW, Australia.(Photo by between the director and the technical crew.
Anne Douglas) It’s the responsibility of the TD to ensure that
each camera’s picture is technically lined up and that
the signals from all the cameras are correctly white balanced and match in colour,
brightness, contrast and black level. This is done by adjusting the CCU (camera control
unit) for each camera. The CCUs are all housed in the vision control room, where they’re
linked to signal test equipment—a waveform monitor and a vectorscope—so their signals
can be analysed.
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Studio Roles 413

Avoid shooting very saturated

blues and reds because blue
tends to get very noisy, and
red bleeds all over the place.
Ian Andrews,
Metro Screen.

Adjusting camera levels.Rod Bower,

Australian Film Television and Radio
School.

The TD also makes sure that the system is correctly set up for special effects, like
chroma key.
The technical director is responsible to the director.

The Vision Mixer

The vision mixer inserts each shot into the program
by operating the vision mixing console according to
the instructions of the director.
During rehearsals, the VM works out how to
achieve the shot sequences and special effects which
the director may require. On air, the VM sets up and
programs any effects required and switches the
cameras and other sources to line. In a harmonious
working relationship, the VM could alert the director
to problems related to effects or shot sequences.
The VM needs to be able to follow a script and/or
rundown and to constantly think one step ahead.
In most cases, the vision mixer is responsible to Vision mixing in the control room of the University
the director. of South Australia, Underdale, SA, Australia.

The Sound Supervisor

The sound supervisor might be working alone or overseeing a sound crew. In either case,
s/he ensures that all elements of the desired soundtrack for the production are ready,
and that each one gets correctly mixed into the program.
This includes:
1. Making sure any necessary pre-recorded music and effects have been procured, and
the necessary playback machines have been hooked up to the audio mixer. Also that
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414 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

the corresponding mixer faders have been labelled,

the sources are cued up and that sound checks have
been done to find the correct levels to achieve the
program’s needs.
2. Selecting the right mics and making sure they’re
placed so the desired sound can be captured.
3. Participating in rehearsals and alerting the director
to any problems with boom moves, in relation
to lighting, or to the performers.
4. Mixing all sound sources (from mics, VCRs, disk
players, tapes, OB van and remote sources,
special effects equipment, etc.) into the program
soundtrack.
5. Ensuring that the program sound level is
consistent and neither too high nor too low.
6. Returning all sound equipment to its proper
Operating the Studio 3 audio mixer.Barry Fernandes,
storage at the end of the production.
Sound Department, Australian Film Television and
Radio School. The sound supervisor is responsible to the director.

The Lighting Director

The lighting director is responsible for designing the right lighting look and for achieving it.
This includes deciding on the type and strength of all lighting fixtures to be used,
drawing up a chart which shows where each light will be hung or stood, and planning
for the appropriate use of gels, spun and reflectors. It also includes working out the
details of special lighting effects, like helicopter lights.
The lighting director oversees the installation of the lights for the production, and
works with the sound supervisor to solve problems relating to boom access or boom
shadows.
The lighting director makes sure that the script for the program lighting is correct,
that the lighting board or computer control is properly programmed, and that the lighting
operation is adequately rehearsed and correctly performed during the production.
The lighting director is responsible to the director.

The Videotape Operator

The videotape operator is responsible for cueing up all videotape inserts and rolling the
tapes quickly when requested to do so. It’s important to be familiar with the operation
(and quirks) of the VCRs in question.
In small studios, the same person may also operate the record VCR to tape the
program. S/he must load the correct record tape, put the VCR into and out of record
mode as instructed by the director, and play back segments so they can be checked.
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Studio Roles 415

The videotape operator makes sure everything is recording correctly by referring to
the record VCR monitor and the video level meter, and watching the audio VU meters
to make sure the sound is reaching the record VCR and that it’s strong enough but not
distorting.
After the program, the videotape operator sometimes is asked to replay the program
for viewing by the director, the crew and possibly the performers.
S/he is also responsible for correctly labelling
both the tape and the tape case, and delivering the
tape to the director.
In a production facility, the videotape operator’s
job is complex and involves many important
functions, including editing. But to a student just
beginning to learn studio work—whose only duties
are to put the VCR into record, watch the levels and
stop the tape at the end of the shoot—being put in
the videotapes job slot can seem like a set-up for a
boring class. Still, when you come right down to it,
what good is everyone else’s work if it doesn’t get
recorded? Which sometimes happens. This is a
critical position.
The videotape operator is responsible to the Operations Department, Imparja TV, Alice Springs,
director. NT, Australia.

The Camera Operators

The camera operators should be totally familiar with the cameras and pedestals they’re
using. The current standard studio set-up has four or five cameras, three on pedestals,
and one or two hand-held that are able to rove.
Although shot sizes are roughly standardised, each camera operator should be sure
to learn what the current director means by each shot size.
They should rehearse each shot they’ll be required to produce, according to the
planned script, and they should make sure that their camera cards, which list their shots,
are correct and up-to-date on any changes.
The camera operators should practise any
The real buzz of being a
difficult camera moves and let the floor manager or
camera operator is not the
director know of any anticipated problems. Each
money.The biggest reward is
camera operator should get to know whether the
having the skill to interpret
director wants him/her to offer up shots and, if so,
what the director wants and Chris Fraser,
then to do so (the director’s feelings on this become
achieving it every time. Cinematography
obvious pretty quickly!). Department,
During the production, each camera operator AFTRS.
should go directly to the next scripted shot as soon as the last one is no longer being
used. In productions where the shots aren’t totally scripted, the camera operators should
follow the general coverage instructions they’ve been given (like ‘stay mainly on the
host’, or ‘keep to long shots’).
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416 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

The camera operators are connected by head-

phones to the control room. They can talk back to
the DA or the director during rehearsals, but should
usually refrain from speaking during the production.
If camera operators make a mistake, they should
keep going regardless and never stop the production.
The camera operators are responsible to the
technical director, and they work for the director.

TV Production Studio, Macquarie University, North

Ryde, NSW, Australia.(Photo by Mario Bianchino)
The Boom Operator
The boom operator guides the boom to pick up the needed sound for each part of the
production. The boom may be hand-held or it may be mounted on a movable dolly.
The boom operator is connected by headphones to the control room.
The boom operator should rehearse all moves carefully, watching for problems like
boom shadows being cast on the set, or potential collisions with moving cameras, lighting
fixtures or other set elements.
The boom operator is responsible to the sound supervisor and to the director.

Lena Adams booms a drama production at the School of Jeremy Reurich, technical trainee, operates boom in
Indigenous Australian Studies, James Cook University, Studio 1, Australian Film Television and Radio School.
Townsville, Qld, Australia.

The Performers
The performers should arrive on time for rehearsals, follow the directions of the director
and the floor manager, be clear about whatever needs they have which can be accom-
modated, and put out the best performance they can.
Performers should watch their energy levels, giving less energy to early rehearsals,
so they have reserves left for building up to full performance level for the final rehearsals
and the production.
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Studio Roles 417

Other Roles
In large studios the production team would
include many other positions, like costume
designer, make-up artist, stage hands, electricians
and gaffers, camera assistants and grips.

Production Manager
The production manager books the studio facili-
ties and looks after a myriad other production
details long before the day of the shoot. The
production manager, in some cases, even does the
budgeting.

Production Secretary This elaborate Victorian Hospital set . . .

The production secretary types and photocopies

scripts, and does other things to help the pro-
duction run smoothly.

. . . and its waiting room . . .

Aysha Ahmed is a volunteer production assistant,

Australian Film Television and Radio School.

The Casting Director

The casting director works in consultation with the . . . were built by Ken Manning, Annie Wright,Wayne
producer and director to find the appropriate per- Smith and others in the Props and Staging
formers for the production. Their job is to under- Department of the Australian Film Televison and
stand what the director is after for a particular role Radio School.
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418 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

and draw on their knowledge of actors to present a

list of suitable available choices for the director to
consider.
The casting director would then arrange for the
director to meet the actors for a chat or audition and
offer any advice or knowledge to help the director
make his/her decision.
Once a performer is decided upon, the casting
director will negotiate with the actor’s agent to
contract the artist.
Productions that cannot afford a casting director,
and have no money to pay performers, will need to
approach organisations/drama schools or local
theatre groups to seek out actors. These places do
not act as agents (i.e. offer suggestions for each role)
but will usually allow you to put up a notice with
your requirements so that actors can contact you for
Make-up artist preparing performer for Uncle Tony’s
an audition. It would depend on the type and age of
Kebabs, directed by Marc Tewksbury.
the role as to which organisation to approach—for
example, a children’s theatre company for juveniles,
You’re only as good as your last amateur theatre groups for others. Often these people
job. are keen to get the experience; however, the quality
of performance can at times suffer.
Rob Stewart,Coordinator Television Training
Unit,Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE.

Suggestions from Rachel Masters

Learning to cooperate but not to compromise on standards is a good rule when working
with your friends.
Making friends may be easy, but keeping them can be hard when everyone is striving
to make the production a success and some people are losing their tempers under the
pressure.
Before the production, organise a production meeting and decide on the roles you will
need on the shoot day. Decide, as a group, who will be the director, the producer, the
director’s assistant/continuity, the editor, the sound recordist, the lighting person.You may
need to double up on roles.
Then the next time you shoot a production together, rotate the roles so that everyone
gets to understand the responsibilities and duties of each role. Eventually you may have
your personal preferences, but learning that each team member’s contribution is integral is
also invaluable.
When you work as a team, don’t forget to follow the plan.
‘What plan?’ you say.
Exactly . . . don’t forget to have one that’s written down.
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Chapter

30 Operating the
Vision Mixer
Producing Videos
Operating the Vision Mixer

The vision mixer is a video signal

I handling device which allows two or
more video signals to be input to it. It has a number of
buttons which the operator uses to choose which signal
will be output to the program out (line out) port at any
given time.
Vision mixers are used in video studios, edit
suites, OB vans, portable multicam set-ups, and for
selecting which signal goes to air from a broadcast
control centre.
All the video signals which are input into a vision
mixer need to be synchronous; that is, they all need to
have exactly the same underlying timing pulses. So These controls decide the signal which goes to
all the sources need to be genlocked to a sync gener- broadcast or to tape.(Photo from Northern
ator or other timing supplier. Melbourne Institute of TAFE)
If two signals aren’t in sync, you can’t do any
effect which involves both of them together, and if
you try to cut from one to the next, you’ll get a glitch
at the cut. On some vision mixers, you’ll see the NS
light come on, which means the signals are non-
synchronous.
The output of a vision mixer is sent to a record
machine, through an in-house closed circuit system,
to a transmitter for broadcast, through an external
cable network, or any combination of these.
The vision mixer can pass on any input signal Tanith Carroll, vision mixer, Robin Cowburn, director,
unaltered, or it can impose an effect on the signal or Kathryn Brown, instructor.TEAME Indigenous TV and
combine two or more signals together. Video Training Course, Metro Screen, Paddington,
NSW, Australia.(Photo by Anne Douglas)
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420 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Learning to Use a Vision Mixer

For most people vision mixers and video effects units are a bit boggling at first—some
of them have so many buttons and moving levers.
A good way to start is to have a session or two with someone who already knows
how to use the equipment pretty well. That person can run you through the basic knobs
and show you how to get some of the effects you’ve always wanted to achieve.
Then it’s great fun to play around with the equipment by yourself, especially when
using your own footage. The more you play, the better you’ll understand the equipment
and the larger your own personal bag of tricks will be.
When you get an effect you really like, it’s a good idea to jot down the positions of
the knobs and faders. That way you should be able to reproduce the effect later on,
whether it’s to show someone else or to use it in one of your own projects.
(There’s many a frustrated beginner who just can’t figure out how to get back to that
deadly effect s/he got on the first day!)
You could even try following the steps suggested in the equipment manual. You
may come across effects you’d never discover on your own. Perhaps even effects nobody
else at your school has learned yet. After all, who reads manuals?

Standard Vision Mixer Functions

There’s quite a range in vision mixers, from the simple and inexpensive Panasonic MX10
and MX12, which are frequently used in VHS and SVHS edit suites, to the enormous
Grass Valley mixers in broadcast stations, which can offer over a hundred choices in
wipes. Still, there are certain functions found in almost all vision mixers.
This chapter will deal with the basic concepts used in operating a vision mixer.

The Bus
A bus is a row of buttons. It may be three buttons long or ten or more, depending on
the mixer. (I don’t know why it’s called a bus since all those little buttons in a row look
more like a train to me!)
Each button is connected to a different input
video signal. By pressing a button down, the vision
mixer operator selects the signal to be used. On many
mixers, the button which has been selected lights up.
On all but the most basic mixers, there are at least
two buses. One is used for selecting the signal for
‘program out’, so it’s called the program bus. The other
is used for checking a signal before it’s selected for
the program, so it’s called the preview bus. Preview is
especially important if you’re trying to set up a special
effect and you want to make sure it’s right before you
Whatever button is lit up tells you the input signal put it into the program.
sources that are active at the moment.(Photo from The buses are connected to their inputs and the
Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE) buttons on each bus correspond to those on the bus
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Operating the Vision Mixer 421

next to it. So if the program bus goes, from left to
right, camera 1, camera 2, camera 3, frame store 1,
frame store 2, colour bars, character generator, colour,
video black, and effects, then, to avoid confusion, all
the buses on the mixer should be connected up in
the same order.
Obvious as this may seem, it’s important for each
button to be clearly labelled. New users shouldn’t
have to puzzle over the meaning of half-scratched-
off labels in the studio or edit room.
Whatever button you select will light up.(Photo from
When you’re doing a remote multicamera shoot,
Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE)
you’ll be assigning the inputs to the mixer yourself.
A strip of masking tape stuck beneath each bus works
well for temporary labelling.
Both the program bus and the preview bus are
connected to monitors, so the vision mixer operator
can see what’s been chosen on each one. In a studio
situation, although the control room’s camera
monitors may be black and white, the program and
preview monitors are almost always in colour.
These monitors should be clearly labelled, too.
A classic mistake is for a director to get confused
between the two monitors and start calling the
program shots according to what’s on the preview
monitor!
The program bus controls the signal which goes to
Some mixers have a take button which, when
the vision mixer’s program output.
pushed, sends whatever is on the preview bus to the
program bus. Other mixers let you toggle (switch)
between the two buses by moving the fader handle forward or backward.
In a two-camera studio, because most switching is done between camera 1 and
camera 2, pressing the take button makes operating the mixer a piece of cake for a
beginner, as long as the show is made up exclusively of cuts.

Cut
A cut is when one entire signal instantaneously and completely replaces another. It’s like
a straight-out clean edit between the two sources.
Many programs are made up entirely of cuts, and many others have only a small
number of shot transitions using other effects.
More is not always better when it comes to video effects. The overall look of the
program is important to consider when deciding what style of shot transitions to use.

Other Buses
There are several other standard functions on a vision mixer. They are:
• Mix/Dissolve.
• Fade.
• Wipe.
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422 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Vision mixers usually have two more buses, called effects buses, to allow the operator to
set up these other shot transitions.
The effects buses are often named the A bus and the B bus. (How’s that for wildly
imaginative nomenclature?)
To use an effect in your program, you first select the button labelled effects on the
program bus. Once that’s selected, whatever source is chosen between the two effects
buses will be automatically sent to program out.
How do you set up the effect? It’s pretty simple once you get the hang of it. There’s
a fader handle which moves between the two effects buses. This handle can be positioned
to select the signal which is assigned to the A bus or the signal on the B bus. It can also
be set anywhere between the two.

Mix/Dissolve
A mix (also called a dissolve) is a blend of the images from two sources. As you do a mix,
one whole picture fades away as the other picture gets stronger on the screen. In mid-
dissolve both pictures are viewable at half-strength.
To do a mix, select the mix button from the effects-mode choices. Then select one
of your desired signals on the A bus, and the other one on the B bus. As you move the
fader handle from the A position
towards the B position, you’ll see the A
picture becoming fainter and the B
picture becoming stronger. When you
get all the way to the B position, the B
picture is full-strength and the A picture
is completely gone.
When you move the handle from
the B bus back to the A bus, the dissolve
is reversed.
If you want your next shot transition
To do a mix, first select effects on the program bus, to be a dissolve to a different source,
then move the effects fader between your chosen select the new source on the inactive
sources on the A effects bus and the B effects bus. effects bus, and then move the fader to
that bus when the time comes.

Cutting on an Effects Bus

Once you’ve completed a dissolve (or fade or wipe), you can stay working on the active
effects bus, cutting from shot to shot as long as you like by just pressing the buttons on
that same bus for the shots you require. Each shot will automatically go to program out.
Then you’re well positioned to do another effect when you need to.
Or you can return to cutting your shots on the program bus.
Just remember to reactivate the effects button on the program bus when you need to
do your next mix, fade or wipe.
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Operating the Vision Mixer 423

Fade
A fade is like a dissolve, but it goes from a picture to black, or white, or to a plain colour,
all of which are internally generated by the vision mixer.
You do it in the same way as a mix, by selecting the picture on one effects bus, and
the black or colour button on the other bus, then moving the effects fader from one to
the other.
You can also fade up from black (or any other colour).
Fades are used at the beginning and end of programs, to indicate the passage of time,
and to create a pause in the flow of the action.

Choosing the Colour

On mixers which have internally generated colours, you can have up to three controls
affecting the colours:
• Hue, which selects what we normally call the
colour—like red, blue, green and so forth.
• Saturation, which selects the intensity of the
colour, ranging from pastel to vivid.
• Luminance, which selects the brightness of the
colour, from very dark to nearly white.
By playing around with the three controls, you’ll
discover quite a range of colours, from muted sepia-
like tones to garish chartreuse. You can use anything
you want, from the restrained to the outlandish.
These colours can be used in fades and wipes, Working on ICAM, Julie Nimmo,TEAME Indigenous
and other effects like superimpose and key. TV and Video Production Trainee, SBS TV, Australia.

Wipe
A wipe is an effect which causes one picture to replace another by moving across the
screen in any one of many selectable geometric patterns.
A wipe is done much the same way as a dissolve or a fade.
You start off by selecting the wipe button from the effects-mode choices. But then
you have to deal with another whole range of choices! Are you up to it? You’ll find an
array of buttons with geometric patterns on them. Each pattern shows you the kind of
wipe that button will give you. So choose your wipe pattern—maybe you want to start
with a wipe which replaces the picture diagonally from top left to bottom right across
the screen.
Then you assign your two signal choices to the A and B buses respectively. As you
move the effects fader handle you’ll see the wipe transition happening.
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424 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

To do a wipe:

1.Select wipe mode from the effects-mode choices. 2.Then select the geometric pattern you want.

3.Then move the fader between the A and B effects 4. . . . And there’s your wipe!
buses.
If you move the fader back, the wipe will recur
in reverse, unless . . .

Wipe Direction Controls

Some mixers have a way for you to select the
direction of the wipe, regardless of the direction
you’re moving the fader handle. You can assign the
wipe function to always go in one direction (from
left to right, for example, or from centre to edge). Or
you can choose for the wipe to always go in the other
direction. Or you can choose for the movement of
the effects fader handle to correspond to the changes
in wipe direction, so if you move the handle down,
the wipe goes one way, and if you move it up, the
wipe goes the other way across the screen.

Robby Paul vision mixes for the drama The Spirit of

Positioner Joystick
Our Land, directed by Janice Stevens, with Chandini Look for a little handle sticking out like a gearshift in
Jesudason on lighting.School of Indigenous a racing car. This is the positioner. It does nothing
Australian Studies, James Cook University,Townsville, unless you turn it on—there’ll be a switch labelled
Qld, Australia.(Photo by Jason Troutman)
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Operating the Vision Mixer 425

positioner on/off. Once you turn it on, you’ll find that the positioner affects the starting
position of certain wipes—usually the ones which open from the centre of the screen.
So, for example, if you’re using a circle wipe, you can make it start from the top
right of the screen or the bottom left, or wherever you want it to. You can even colour
it and move it around—remember ‘follow the bouncing ball’?

Framing for a Live Effect

When you’re preparing and rehearsing an effect for a live production in the studio, your
camera operators need to be clearly told what you’re trying to achieve. Usually they like
the challenge—it makes the shoot more interesting for them.
They can press the return video button, which is generally a tiny button on the
underneath side of one of their servo tripod handles, so they can see the combined image
which is being produced by the vision mixer, and adjust their shots accordingly.
If the cameras don’t have return video, a monitor in the studio can help them line
up their shots.
If the studio doesn’t have a monitor (some studios work with skeleton equipment),
the camera operators can crane their necks and look through the control room window
at the program monitor.
If the control room doesn’t have a window—they have to listen very carefully to the
director’s instructions through their headsets.
If there are no headsets . . . it’s one of those crews which knows how to fly by the
seat of their pants, and they’ll find a way. (Maybe they don’t have a wipe button either.)

Framing for a Postproduction Effect

When you’re planning to do an effect in postproduction, you need to be sure you frame
your shot correctly at the location shoot.
For example, if you want to open your show with a child’s head appearing in a circle
wipe at the centre of frame, you have to take care to shoot the original footage with the
child’s head in the centre of your shot, and it must be the correct size to fit into the circle
wipe you intend to use. It’s no good taking a slightly longer shot than needed and having
a T-shirt logo in the centre rather than an elfin grin.
This may seem painfully obvious, but unless you’re very careful about framing during
the location shoot, your split-screen may make your performers look even more
fragmented than they seemed on the day of the shoot, or your title graphic may be just
too big or too small or too high or too low for the effect you worked out so carefully
on the storyboard.
Do you have the time to re-shoot?

Wipe Borders
On some mixers you can also choose to put a border on the edge of your wipe. There’ll
be a switch which is labelled border on/off. When you flip it on, suddenly a border appears,
clinging to the edge of your wipe, and it moves across the screen as your wipe moves.
Now this border has its own set of controls:
• Colour, to adjust the hue, saturation and luminance of the border colour.
• Width, to make the border wider and thinner.
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426 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Wipe Edges/Border Edges

As if that’s not enough, there’s another knob which you can turn to make the edge of
the wipe or the edge of the border either hard—like a straight line—or softer and softer
till it’s blurry like a mid-dissolve or vignette.

Moving Edges/Moving Borders

Now for the people who gravitate to the psychedelic, you can also choose to make the
edges or borders oscillate in a wave pattern. There’s a modulator on/off switch to get this
happening. And then you can really let loose. The waves can be made to be deep or
shallow, by turning the amplitude knob, and they can be made to be many or very few,
by turning the frequency knob.
If you’ve got a mixer which lets you oscillate borders, you’ll probably be transfixed
for some time.
It might be a good idea to stop here and try these basic mixer moves.

Vision Mixing Round Two

You’re back for more? Well, moving right along, we still need to cover:
• Superimpose, and
• The key effects:
– Luminance key.
– Chroma key.
– Internal key.
– External key.
– Downstream key.

Superimpose
When you superimpose something, you make it appear over the video image. This effect
is used for putting titles or graphics onto a picture.
You can superimpose a title by stopping a dissolve midway, but better results can
be obtained by keying if the mixer doesn’t have a button labelled super.

Key Effects
The key effects cause parts of the video image to disappear and be replaced by another
video signal. The resulting effect is as if a cut-out stencil were being applied to the screen.
The different key effects operate by being connected to different aspects of the video
signal. So for each type of key, different video information is used to determine the shape
of the holes which the key stencil cuts.

LUMINANCE KEY
The luminance key is connected to the brightness part of the video signal. When using
luminance key, you can make any area of the image disappear which is above a certain
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Operating the Vision Mixer 427

luminance level (brightness level). You can vary the level of brightness at which the key
becomes active by adjusting the clip and level knobs in the section of the vision mixer
labelled key effects.
Wherever the initial image disappears, another video signal will replace it. You can
choose whatever signal you want to supply the replacement video. You can use the
signal from a camera, or from the vision mixer’s own internally generated colours, or
you can use colour bars, black, a pre-recorded image . . . It’s up to you, and there’s
enormous scope.
So, for example, all the white shirts and bright parts of faces can be replaced with
purple or black or colour bars or some moving image.
You can also switch the luminance key to negative and have the initial signal drop
out sections of the image which are below a designated brightness level. So all the dark
hair and black pants can suddenly be replaced with whatever you decide.
White on black captions can be inserted easily and well, using luminance key.
To engage luminance key, you need to use the lum knob at the key effects section of
the mixer panel, and you also have to select key at the effects mode section on the panel.

CHROMA KEY
Keying can also be done in connection with the chrominance (colour) of the signal.
You do this by selecting chroma key with the key effects choices dial on the vision
mixer. Then you have to tell the mixer what colour you want to eliminate from the
signal.
Some colours tend to work better than others. Red can be a poor choice for a chroma
key because red is a component in skin tones, and usually the aim is not to have parts
of people’s faces eaten away.
Often the aim is to get rid of the background of the shot and replace it with something
entirely different.
Your guitarist can appear to be playing music in the wildflowers on a mountainside
in Switzerland, or your love scene can be played out in a cafe with the Eiffel Tower in
the background.
To make the effect happen, you have one camera pointed at the actor, who’s
positioned in front of a plain coloured background. You delete that background colour
from the image using the chroma key function, and you insert in its place an alternative
background which is being supplied by another camera, aimed at a carefully lit scene
from a postcard, picture book, or painting which is mounted on a graphics stand.
Another possible background source is a computer generated image supplied by a
graphics computer linked in to the vision mixer. With computer generated backgrounds
you can let loose your fantasies.
The camera that shoots the chroma key window is called the source camera. On some
vision mixers, there’s only one input for a chroma key source camera, so only one camera
at a time can be used as the chroma key source. Save yourself some frustration by finding
out if this is the case with yours! (To do this look at the cable connection at the back of
the vision mixer.)
Any other camera can be used to supply the fill video (to fill in the holes), but the
stencil for the chroma key must be cut with the source camera.
Chroma key can be a fiddly process—you have to check your image carefully before
you record it. Watch for craggy edges around hair, or incomplete keying in shadow areas.
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428 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Watch out for tell-tale glare from the glossy page you’re using as the replacement
background image.
Chroma key blue, which is a very vivid blue, is frequently used for chroma keying
because it’s a colour which can be avoided deliberately in clothing and it isn’t a skin
tone. Sometimes you can run amuck with it on close-ups of blue-eyed people, though.
Consider what your shots will be before you make your key colour choice. Bright green
is also commonly used for chroma keying.
Screens and studio curtains can be bought in
chroma key blue. The shadows in the folds of the
curtains can give problems in getting a clean key
effect, though. You’ll probably need to pull them
out flat.
Special paint can be bought in chroma key blue.
It’s expensive, but if used only as necessary it can
allow you to create some terrific effects. You can
paint it on chairs, boxes, wooden structures . . .
Once there were some students at the University
of Technology, Sydney, who were crazy about Star
Trek. For their final project, they painted boxes with
chroma key blue and carefully placed them at the
Interview with chroma key background, for Asthma front of their set, and put a blue screen at the back.
Care.University of Western Sydney—Macarthur, Then they performed their actions in between the
Bankstown, NSW, Australia. two blue surfaces.
The vision mixer operator did a chroma key,
inserting a freeze frame of the control room of a spaceship as the replacement signal.
The blue on the boxes dropped away to be replaced by the front of the spaceship’s
control panel. The Trekkies stood behind it speaking in Klingon, and behind them the
screen dropped away and was replaced by the rear wall of the spaceship control room,
complete with a window out into the universe.
The effect worked so well that they forged ahead and managed to insert one of their
number into a scene with Spock himself!
By the way, no matter what colour you use as the drop-away colour in a chroma
key, that colour can occur in the replacement signal with no problem. It won’t drop out
of the replacement signal.

INTERNAL KEY
Internal key is a luminance key. It uses as its key source a signal which is on the A or B
effects buses. This is frequently one of the studio cameras, but it could be any signal
which is connected into the effects buses.
With internal key, the luminance signal from one of the buses cuts the key stencil
and that same signal fills in the resulting ‘holes’. The signal from the other bus supplies
the rest of the picture.
Like the other key effects, it’s controlled by the clip and level knobs in the key section
of the vision mixer.
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Operating the Vision Mixer 429

EXTERNAL KEY
External key is also a luminance key. The difference is that the external key source is not
available to be selected on either of the effects buses, in other words, there’s no button
there for it. It’s a video signal which is connected only to the vision mixer’s input labelled
external key in.
With external key, the stencil is cut by a source which cannot otherwise be called
up for the program. The ‘hole’ which the external key source cuts is filled by the video
from one of the effects buses, and the rest of the picture is from the signal on the other
effects bus.
Again, it’s controlled by the clip and level knobs
For the best key results, go
in the key section of the vision mixer.
for the biggest luminance
contrast. Black and white
DOWNSTREAM KEY
work best.
This is often used for inserting titles into a program
Jim Tumeth,
from a camera which is permanently set up and Training
aimed at a graphics stand. Development,
It’s called downstream key (DSK) because it performs the key function on the signal AFTRS.

just before it reaches program out. Because this effect happens after the signal has passed
beyond the effects circuits in the vision mixer (in other words, downstream of those
circuits), it leaves the main effects system free for constructing other effects.

Timing Effects
Some video effects don’t just cause two discrete images to screen-share in one way or
another. They alter the timing of the signal’s playback.

Freeze Frame
By pressing the button labelled freeze frame you can get a still image. Even if the signal
is from a videotape which continues to play onward, the image will stay the same in
the effects unit until you unfreeze it.
You can then apply other image altering effects to a freeze frame image, or use it in
wipes, mixes, fades or whatever you like.

Freeze Field
A frame is made up of two fields, each of which is the scan of every other line of an
image (the odd field is all the odd lines and the even field is all the even lines).
Well, when there’s some fast motion happening, even the tiny time difference
between the scanning of one field and the next can pick up a variation in the image. So
you can find that a freeze frame looks slightly unstable.
A case in point is if you’ve videotaped a guitarist playing music. The hand which is
strumming the strings will have been moving very fast. When you play back a freeze
frame of this image, the strumming hand may appear to flutter. That’s when you need
to use a freeze field instead of a freeze frame. It will give you a more stable still picture.
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430 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Strobe
Strobe is a series of freeze frames which are grabbed from the video as it plays back in
real time. It gives the effect you may have seen when dancing under strobe lights.
The speed of the strobe is variable, so it can be a rapid series of short quick shots,
resulting in very little picture information being missing, or the individual freeze frames
can be longer in duration, thus blocking out large chunks of the intervening video.
Some home video cameras allow the user to shoot field footage in strobe. This may
please someone who has no access to an edit system, but it means that if the strobing falls
awkwardly on the action, there’s no way to regain the missing picture information.
It’s almost always better to record the image normally and apply effects in
postproduction. Then you can try the effect different ways until you get what you like
and the timing is the best you can manage.

Altered Images
Some effects reproduce your image in its correct timing and with its picture elements
retaining their normal dimensions, but with some aspect of the signal dramatically
changed.

Negative
The negative button will cause your image to be produced in its colour opposites. Not
quite the same as a photographic negative, because video colour opposites are different,
but you get the idea.

Invert
Invert, as you’ve probably guessed, presents your image upside down.

Monochrome (Mono)
By pressing the mono button, you can turn your image
into black and white.

Paint
The paint effect simplifies the colour values in the
image by reducing the number of tones. All the
shades of a colour within certain ranges are
reproduced as one flat tone, so as you increase the
paint effect the picture looks more and more like a
paint-by-numbers oil painting or a poster. (On some
mixers it’s called posterisation.)
Ratana Salam does a dissolve.School of Indigenous Paint is a variable function, so you can increase
Australian Studies, James Cook University,Townsville, or decrease the effect, as you see fit. If your image
Qld, Australia.
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Operating the Vision Mixer 431

starts to remind you more of your elderly uncle’s lounge room paintings than a chic
poster, you might reconsider using it.

Mosaic
The mosaic effect breaks the whole image into rectangles, like mosaic tiles. When a small
amount of mosaic is dialled up, the image is only slightly affected, but when it’s fully
applied, the image is no longer recognisable.
Mosaic can come with horizontal and vertical controls which operate independently
of each other, so you can have tall thin tiles, or short fat ones, or square ones.

Compression Effects
There are a number of variations possible with compression circuitry. For one thing, you
can have the image squeezed thin so two images can appear side by side on your screen.
Or it can look flattened, so two squashed images can sit atop each other on your
screen.

Mirror
The mirror effect compresses the image vertically or horizontally, so it fits into half the
screen and then fills the other half of the screen with its mirror image.

Multiple Image
Compression can also make your image smaller while it retains its original internal
dimensions. So you can have several images appear on one screen at the same time.
This can be a neat way to show headshots of all the actors in your drama, or present
shots from various segments of your magazine-style program. You can also use it when
wrapping up a show.
On some systems, the last image you select remains active, so you can have, for
example, four small frozen frames and one with an image running in real time.
It does take rehearsals to get the effect right.
Some effects units are programmable, so once you decide on your sequence the
machine can store it and then reproduce it again and again on command.

Titles
Titles can be captured by shooting white lettering on a black background and bringing
it into the image via a key function on the vision mixer.
Or they can be drawn up as artwork and cut in straight as a normal camera image.
They can also be produced by a character generator or a computer which can output
a composite video signal.
Depending on the type of CG or computer, titles can be produced in several sizes
and in different fonts (lettering styles).
Some equipment allows you to colour the letters and/or the background. Some
allows you to make the letters bold or put them into italics, to add borders around the
letters or give them drop shadows.
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432 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Television Aspect Ratio

If you’re making your titles by hand-drawing them or using stencils or pre-punched
letters like Letraset, it’s important to set them out in the right proportions on the page
or the cardboard.
The TV screen has an aspect ratio of 4:3 (16:9 in
widescreen). This means that the standard TV screen
4 is four units wide by three units high (or 16 units
wide by 9 units high).
Unless your title cards and other graphics are
made to these proportions, they won’t fit nicely onto
3 the screen. You may have to shoot them smaller than
you’d like, or redo them to make them fit. A common
mistake is to draw them up on the normal page,
which is taller than it is wide. Titles have to be wider
than they are tall. When using a computer, choose
the landscape mode.

Safe Titling Area

When framing graphics, don’t forget the safe titling area.
Because not all TV screens have the same amount of image cut-off at the top, bottom
and sides, the titles will appear differently placed when viewed from screen to screen.
Now, you don’t want any part of your lettering to disappear off the left or right sides
of the screen, or for your subtitles or people’s names
to be hanging off the bottom of the frame, so make
sure your titles are placed with plenty of screen space
all around the lettering.
1 Title card
Safe titling area
2 Camera’s frame

3 The portion of the frame which will show up on TV

4 Safe titling area

Presenting the Titles

Titles can be presented in a variety of ways. The basic ways are page by page, or as a
roll or a crawl.

PAGE BY PAGE
Character generators can store a number of pages of titles in their memory bank. When
they’re needed, each page can be called up in succession, or a particular page can be
summoned by typing in its page number.
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Operating the Vision Mixer 433

When a production assistant types in the credits, it’s good to write down which
credits are on which page, so in the rush of a live program the right page can be called
upon quickly.
This would be especially important when calling up the names to put with the images
of guests on a show—you certainly wouldn’t want to put the wrong name up on
someone, or have to search through several pages to find the right one.

CREDIT ROLL
Rolling credits means to make the credits roll up across
Allow plenty of time for doing
the screen. Several pages of credits can be made to
your credits. Often there are
roll in succession. This is a common way of pres-
surprising disputes about
enting the end credits for a show.
whose name goes where and
Most CGs and computers will do a roll in several
in what size type—and never Meredith
different speeds.
assume you know how to spell Quinn,
every name. Publishing
THE CRAWL Department,
AFTRS.
A crawl is when the words are made to travel
horizontally across the screen, usually at the bottom, but crawls can also be placed at
the top or the middle of the frame.
Crawls can also be composed of several pages of credits, though usually they’re used
for shorter messages.
Crawls can be run at a variety of speeds.
Though these are the most common forms of credit displays, some new computer
programs will display credits in almost any way imaginable.
They can whoosh in from one side or the other and either stop or keep going, they
can leap on line by line, they can roll from the top or the bottom or seem to emerge
from invisible slits at any height in the picture, and on and on. Choosing the credit
display style you want may be very time consuming in itself—another reason to allow
more time than you think you need for postproduction.

Live Switching
During rehearsals for a program, the vision mixer works out how to achieve the effects
the director asks for. Once a decision has been made to use an effect, the vision mixer
notes it on the production script.
During the actual program the vision mixer works from the production script, making
the prearranged transitions. But s/he is not supposed to execute any shot change or effect
until the director calls for it.
If you want to use digital effects and transitions which normally need to be rendered,
you have to either pay very big bucks for a TV station type vision mixer, or content
yourself to doing these effects in post production.
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434 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Suggestions from Rachel Masters

Depending on the access you have to a video mixer and digital video effects generator, the
sky is really the limit! But even with a simple split screen you can create some mind-
boggling effects.
Script a scene that involves a two-person conversation.Then videotape the scene with
one person holding the first half of the conversation and standing on the far left of the
frame, but talking to the right side of the frame (as if someone were there). Don’t move
the camera.
Now ask the same person to play the other part in the conversation and be at the right
side of the frame, talking to the left side.
Time the pauses in the conversation carefully to allow for the other part of the dialogue
to fit in.Then if you run the two recordings into a vision mixer at the same time, and make
a split screen wipe down the centre of the frame, you can make the conversation appear
to be happening in real time!
The practicalities of this idea take a bit of practice.You’ll need to keep the camera
perfectly still so the split screen line down the centre doesn’t move.The line in the frame
between the two people should be invisible.You’ll also need to record each half of the
conversation in one take and time it exactly. If you did an edit in either half of
the conversation, you’d get a jump cut. Changes in lighting will also give the game away.
Give it a go. It can be very odd to have a conversation with yourself and see it on
screen—unless you’re an identical twin, in which case you probably know the feeling
already.
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Chapter

31 Operating the
Studio Audio Mixer
Producing Videos
Operating the Studio Audio Mixer

The first glimpse you get of a studio

I audio mixer will either delight you—
if you’re a buttons person—or give you a fright.
It’s a bit like walking into the cockpit of a plane.
‘How can anyone learn all these buttons?’
Well, the big relief is that the desk is full of
repetition. Once you’ve learned the buttons related
to one sound input, all the other input rows are
basically the same!
The function of the audio mixer is to take in a
variety of sound sources, blend them together, and It looks hard at first glance . . . (Photo by Northern
send them out through either one or two master Melbourne Institute of TAFE)
output channels.
In a studio situation, it would be usual for some
of the inputs to be used for live mics from the studio
floor, some for rolled-in music from CDs, DATs or
tapes, and some for rolled-in sound accompanying
pre-edited video inserts. There could also be tele-
phone feeds, sound from a remote site, and special
effects.
The person operating the mixing desk, who’s also
called the audio mixer or the sound desk operator, has to
be constantly alert to make sure that all the sounds
are flowing through at the right volume. Each sound
needs to be loud enough but not distorted. And each
sound needs to appear and disappear at the right
times. . . . but don’t panic.Operating the studio audio
Studio audio mixing desks are also used for doing mixer at Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE,
sound postproduction for video edits. Collingwood,Vic, Australia.(Photo by Shane Fox)
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436 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Inputting the Sound

The sound enters the audio mixer at the back of the mixing desk, which is the opposite
side from where the operator sits, and is usually kept almost inaccessible.
This arrangement contributes to the athleticism of the operator. In times of confusion
or full-on crisis, the operator may have to scrabble through a small space under the desk
and arch his/her body upward in the darkness, hand-tracing the snarl of cables to check
if the connections have been correctly made, or alternatively do a full body sprawl across
the top and hang upside-down, trying to read the input labels and tugging at the wiring
to check that it’s secure.
In practice, most technicians who maintain a studio would like to get their hands
on midnight cable swappers. A hint for survival in a media centre environment: ask the
resident technician to make any cabling changes you need.
For now, let’s assume that no clown has been in there rearranging things the night
before it’s your turn to operate.

The Inputs
MIC LINE MIC LINE MIC LINE MIC LINE MIC LINE MIC LINE PEAK
PROGRAM METER

MIN MAX MIN MAX MIN MAX MIN MAX MIN MAX MIN MAX
GAIN GAIN GAIN GAIN GAIN GAIN L R
L-R L+R
+6

- + - + - + - + - + - +
+3
TREBLE TREBLE TREBLE TREBLE TREBLE TREBLE

0
- + - + - + - + - + - +
-3
MID MID MID MID MID MID

-6
- + - + - + - + - + - + -10
BASS BASS BASS BASS BASS BASS
-14
AF AF AF AF AF AF
-18
PF PF PF PF PF PF
0 MAX 0 MAX 0 MAX 0 MAX 0 MAX 0 MAX -24
AUX AUX AUX AUX AUX AUX
-33

L R L R L R L R L R dB
L R

1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2

3 4 3 4 0 MAX
3 4 3 4 3 4 3 4
ASSIGNS ASSIGNS ASSIGNS ASSIGNS ASSIGNS ASSIGNS AUX SEND

L R L R L R L R L R L R 0 MAX
PAN PAN PAN PAN PAN PAN AUX RETURN

SOLO SOLO SOLO SOLO SOLO SOLO SOLO

+10 +10 +10 +10 +10 +10 +10

0 0 0 0 0 0 0

-10 -10 -10 -10 -10 -10 -10

-20 -20 -20 -20 -20 -20 -20

-30 -30 -30 -30 -30 -30 -30

-40 -40 -40 -40 -40 -40 -40

-50 -50 -50 -50 -50 -50 -50

- - - - - - -

INPUT 1 INPUT 2 INPUT 3 INPUT 4 INPUT 5 INPUT 6 MASTER OUTPUT

The buttons of one input row are repeated for every input row across the mixing desk.
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Operating the Studio Audio Mixer 437

Each input (or input channel ) is made up of the connection socket, where a sound signal
enters the mixer, and the row of control buttons and switches which can be used to
affect that particular sound signal.
A 6/2 channel mixer has six inputs and two outputs, a 16-channel mixer has 16 inputs
and could have any number of outputs, from 16 to two to one.
Once you learn the controls on one input, you know how all the others work. So
in one fell swoop, you’ll have learned most of the mixer’s buttons.
At the back end of the audio mixer, for every input row there are usually two
connection sockets, a 6.5mm (phone) connection and an XLR (3-pin) connection.
This dual capacity means that it’s possible to assign two different cables to each
input, effectively doubling the number of signal sources which can be wired into the
mixer, but of course only one connection for each input can be used at a time. Usually
one signal for each input is used for a mic level signal and the other one is used for a line
level signal.

Mic Level vs Line Level

What’s the difference?
A mic level signal is the audio signal level which is available
from many microphones. It’s a lower voltage signal (usually from MIC LINE
2–5 millivolts).
A line level signal is a higher voltage signal (up near 1 volt or
even higher), and is usually sent from a piece of equipment, like The switch with the greatest effect
a VCR, a tape recorder or a CD player. Now in this case the on the input signal is the mic/line
expression higher voltage is a relative term. In no way is this voltage selector.
dangerous to the operator. But the mixer’s circuitry is very sensitive
to these differences in voltage.
The first choice the sound operator makes in setting up a mixer for the project at
hand is to select whether the input signal is mic level or line level.
If the operator makes an error, and a mic level signal is assigned as a line level source,
the volume coming through the mixer will be far too low. Even moving the input’s
volume fader up to maximum level may not yield an adequate signal.
On the other hand, if a line level signal is assigned as a mic level source, the volume
will be blasting and distorted, even when the volume fader is only moved up a little
way.
Radically low or high volume is a good indication that the input signal has been
incorrectly designated.

Gain
Moving systematically down from the mic/line switch (which is
the correct order in which to adjust an input signal), the second
choice the operator makes is the signal’s gain level. MIN MAX
The gain knob (also called trim or sensitivity) allows the operator
to boost or diminish the raw volume of the incoming signal. If the
GAIN
signal is very hot (high in volume), it can be reduced at this point. The gain knob is for initial gross
If it’s coming in low, it can be boosted here. volume control.
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438 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Equalisation
The third section in the line of buttons is the equalisation section.
- + This function allows the operator to affect the quality of the sound
coming through the mixer by selectively emphasising or diminishing
TREBLE the relative strength of different parts of the sound.
Very basic mixers have two equalisation controls: treble and bass.
Bigger studio models also have a control for the mid-range frequencies.
Some mixers have several mid-range knobs.
- + The equalisation knobs have a passive position (the detent position),
sometimes marked right above them by a zero. When the white line on
MID the top of the knob is oriented straight up and down in relation to the
column of buttons in the input, it’s lined up with this zero, and the knob
is therefore in the detent position. Some knobs also settle into a little
grooved resting place in this position.
- + When the knob is in this zero position, the signal is allowed to pass
through this part of the input circuitry unaffected.
BASS Turning the knob to the left, towards the min ( – ), will reduce the
The equalisation knobs let you volume of the frequencies affected by this knob. Turning the knob to
alter the quality of the sound. the right, towards the max ( + ), will increase the volume of the
frequencies affected by the knob.

TREBLE
The treble knob affects the high frequencies in the
sound. Turning the knob towards min ( – ) will
separate out and reduce the volume of the high
frequency elements within the sound signal. It
reduces the presence and the impact of the high
frequency section of the sound.
Turning the knob towards max ( + ) will increase
the volume of those frequencies.
Why would you adjust the treble?
If your recording is very toppy or hissy, you’d
reduce the treble frequencies.

MID-RANGE
George Karpathakis explains equalisation to Daniela
The knob labelled mid is the one for adjusting the
Fego, Edith Cowan University, Perth,WA, Australia.mid-frequencies of the sound. This one controls the
(Photo by Keith Smith) main components of the human voice, and is less
often adjusted than the treble or bass, which is
probably why cheaper mixers don’t even have this knob. Still, there are times when
tweaking this one will help the quality of your sound.
You might want to decrease the higher mid-range if you’re equalising the sound from
the mic of a speaker with an overly sibilant voice—the sort who makes annoying little
whistles with their dentures when pronouncing s, for example.
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Operating the Studio Audio Mixer 439

On the other hand, you’d probably try to increase the mid-frequency part of the
sound signal if the voice you were recording (or had recorded) sounded a bit muddy.
That is, if you found it lacking in clarity and crispness—the sharpness of a t or s, for
example.

BASS
The bass sounds are the low frequencies, including what you know as the bass in human
voices and in the sounds produced by musical instruments.
Bass also includes the low frequency rumble from traffic and the 50-cycle (and 60-
cycle) electrical hum which can be picked up sometimes by mic cables.
You may well have a pre-recorded on-the-street interview which would benefit from
having the bass frequencies diminished.
A 50Hz (or 60Hz) notch filter can be used to eliminate a 50- or 60-cycle hum.
When would you increase the bass frequencies? Well, some people like to add bass
to male voices, in the belief that it makes them sound sexier, or scarier, or more
authoritative.
Any time you encounter a thin-sounding voice, you could try adding a bit more
bass, to see if this increases the warmth of the voice.

Equalisation On/Off
Some mixers have EQ (equalisation) on/off switches. To compare whether the equalised
signal is better or worse than the unequalised signal, switch between EQ on and off,
listening carefully to the difference. EQ, like salt, can be quite effective in small doses.
Also, always check that the EQ switch is off when you first start your recording
session, or you may hear, and even record, a voice that’s drastically different to reality,
just because someone else’s EQ from a previous session wasn’t turned off.
In fact, the first thing to do, whenever you arrive at a session, is to go over the mixer
carefully and check that all the knobs are in the off or detent positions. That way you
start with a clean slate (to use a nineteenth-century expression).

CONSISTENCY IN EQUALISATION
One trap which goes with altering the sound of a person’s voice is that later you may
not remember exactly how much treble or bass you added to or subtracted from it.
If you’re doing more than one shoot with the same people, you’ll need their voices
to sound the same on each tape.
So if you do employ the equalisation circuitry, carefully draw a picture for yourself
of the equalisation knob positions, so next time you can set the adjustments exactly the
same.
If you’re doing a number of shoots for a project which will be edited later, it’s generally
a good idea not to equalise the voices, but to record them as they are, and then the
equalisation, if needed, can be done in one go in sound postproduction.
It’s very odd to have an actor or presenter who sounds like a different person from
one scene to the next.
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440 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Auxiliary
The auxiliary button controls an output which you may or may not want to use.
Beside it there’s a tiny switch with two possible positions, labelled prefader and
postfader. It is important to understand the function of this little switch.
If the switch is set on prefader, the sound which is sent out of this output will be
unaffected by the position of the main volume fader (which is the sliding button at the
bottom of the input row which controls the volume level of the sound being sent to the
main output channels).
An example of using the prefader position would
AF = prefade (antefade) be if the presenter wants to hear his/her own sound
MIC
PF = postfade
LINE in foldback even when the program sound has been
faded out—say, during a commercial break or a pre-
recorded tape roll-in.
If the switch is set to postfader, the sound which
is sent out this output will be at the volume level that
is being specified by the volume fader knob at the
bottom of the input row.
As with the gain switch, this knob controls the
volume of the signal, but in this case it’s the signal
The position of the prefader/postfader switch is a key after the equalisation has been applied, and in direct
concern. relation to the position of the volume fader.

With the assign Assign Buttons

buttons, you can The assign buttons control the pathways the signal will take once
send several inputs L R it leaves this input. You can assign the signal to the left and right
to a subgroup, so channel outputs, and most likely you would. You might also
you have less faders assign the signal to other outputs going to other record
to move when 1 2 machines, or to foldback to the studio floor.
you’re mixing. There are also times when you’d decide to group several
inputs into a subgroup, which is then controlled by one volume
3 4 fader, and from there sent to the master outputs (the left and
ASSIGNS right channels).
An example of this would be if you had miked
several drums from a drum kit, and you wanted to
be able to raise and lower the overall drum volume
separate from the rest of the mix. It’s a lot easier to
have five drums assigned to a subgroup, which is
controlled by one fader, than to be trying to raise and
lower five faders at once while keeping their volumes
still correct in relation to each other!
So the assign buttons are for establishing
subgroups, as well as sending the signal to either the
left or right channel or both.
An important thing to remember is that the
sound from any individual input won’t go
Music recording studio, Northern Melbourne anywhere unless it is assigned to a subgroup or
Institute of TAFE, Collingwood,Vic, Australia. output.
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Operating the Studio Audio Mixer 441

Pan Pot
The pan pot knob (pan potentiometer) allows the mixer operator to apportion the
percentage (amount) of sound from each input channel to each output channel—that is,
to adjust the balance.
So some sounds can be assigned entirely to the left output
channel, and other sounds can be assigned entirely to the right output MIC LIN
channel.
When the pan pot knob is in the middle position, it assigns the
sound from that input channel equally to both left and right output
channels.
Why would you want to split the sounds into distinct channels?
There are numerous reasons, but let’s take a simple but frequent Turning the pan pot knob can
scenario as an example: make footsteps travel from the
left speaker to the right one.
You’re recording a friend singing a terrific song she’s written for your
project. Another friend will accompany her on an acoustic guitar. This pleases
you because they’re both good at what they do, and you feel that at least this
part of your project will seem professional.
During the recording session, you tape both the vocal and the instrumental
sounds at the same time. You notice that the guitarist is playing unusually
energetically, but you think it will be okay.
Later you decide that the guitar is just a bit too overpowering at some points,
and you think the song would have a better feel if you could lower the level of
the guitar in relation to the singing voice.

If the two sounds have been assigned to separate tracks, you can change the balance
between them in postproduction. But if both sounds have been assigned equally to both
output channels, you’re stuck with the balance that was recorded on the day.

Solo
At the bottom end of this whole column of control knobs and
buttons on the input channel, there’s a little press button labelled
solo. MIC
When you hold this button in, you can hear the sound from
that input exactly as it is on its own, unmixed with any other audio
input. Solo lets you hear each input sound
This is a good tool for finding where an audio problem is. If on its own, with no regard to the
there’s a hum or crackle coming from somewhere in the mix, volume fader’s position.
checking the solo sound for each input channel can locate the
culprit channel (and sound source) easily.
One thing to know: some solo buttons will stay on without being held. If a mixer
has a solo button engaged, the headphones and the monitor speaker will only output
the sound from that input. The program sound will not be heard again through the
headphones until the solo is disengaged. So, if you can’t figure out where your program
sound has disappeared to, check the solo buttons before you panic.
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442 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Volume Fader
MIC LINE
The volume fader is the last control for each input. It’s
a sliding button which glides up and down within a
groove at the base of the input.
The groove has numbers along the side of it,
MIN MAX ranging from the very bottom position, which lets
no volume pass out of the input, up through
GAIN numbers like –50, –40, –30, –20, –10, to 0, then on
to +10.
Each fader controls the volume of the sound
which is sent out of its input channel into the overall
- + mix.
All the other previously mentioned input buttons
TREBLE
should be set before the studio production or sound
post-mix begins, but it’s during the production itself
that the volume faders are moved up and down.
This is when the sound desk operator responds
During the mix, the volume faders are
to the director’s instructions, such as:
the only buttons you should need to
be moving.
‘Cue music’ (by raising the correct fader).
‘Cue presenter’ (by raising the fader for the
If the volume fader on your
studio boom mic or presenter’s lav mic).
mixer is raised less than one
‘Roll insert’ (by lowering the studio mics and
quarter of the way up, you
raising the fader for the pre-recorded roll-in).
could have problems.
‘Fade to black’ (by lowering the master output
Barry Investigate! Try winding back
fader).
Fernandes, the gain knob at the top of the
Sound input row, so you can bring the
Department, It’s the desk operator’s job to ride the levels during a
AFTRS. fader up further. Or try
mix, so if someone in the studio starts talking louder
switching a pad in.That way
or softer, their fader can be nudged subtly up or
the quality of the sound
down to maintain a consistent sound level for the
should be much better.
program.

Outputting the Sound

Once all the input sounds have been checked and the sound levels and equalisation have
been adjusted where necessary, the mixer is ready to blend the various sounds together
according to the volume fader positions.
After passing through the mixing circuitry, the sound is sent to the outputs.
Studio audio mixers have a minimum of two audio outputs, which can be connected
by cables to the two sound inputs on the studio recorder VCR.
The output sound is line level, so it should be connected into the record VCR (or
audio tape machine) at the line in (audio in) input, not the mic in input.
Portable audio mixers for field use sometimes output mic level sound, so be careful
that you remain clear on the differences when you’re connecting different pieces of
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Operating the Studio Audio Mixer 443

equipment together. If you’re in doubt, check the output—it should PEAK The program
PROGRAM METER
be clearly labelled as either line out or mic out. out signal
Some studio audio mixers have more than two outputs. These should be
auxiliary outputs can be sent to the PA (public address sytem) for the L R
kept at a
audience, or to foldback to the presenter or singer. Sound can also L-R L+R good volume
+6
be sent out to another piece of recording equipment, or sound can level, unless
be sent to special effects equipment, for reverberation—or other +3 the director
tricks—to be added. Then the sound can be brought back into the 0
has asked for
mixer and re-added to the mix. a fade.
-3
In most cases there will be at least two master output volume
faders, one for all the sounds the operator has assigned to be output -6
as channel 1, and the other for the channel 2 combination. -10
-14
-18
-24

Phantom Power -33

dB
Phantom power is 48 volts DC power sent from the mixer out along
the mic cables to power the mics which are connected to the inputs.
If your mixer has phantom power, you won’t need to use separate
0 MAX
power supplies for each of those mics which normally require them. AUX SEND
Be very careful you don’t apply phantom power to mics that
don’t take it, like dynamic mics, or you could damage them. MAX
0
AUX RETURN

SOLO
Barry
If you have problems, first check if there’s the Fernandes, +10
appropriate power to the microphone. Maybe there’s Sound
0
a flat battery or phantom power isn’t arriving. Department,
AFTRS. -10

-20

-30

-40
Don’t use phantom power on a dynamic mic.
-50
-
Colin Kemp,Engineering Department,AFTRS.

MASTER OUTPUT

VU Meters and PPM Meters

On a good audio mixer, there will be a VU (volume unit) meter for every input, so the
operator can see the level of every individual sound source at any given point.
The operator should take care to keep the signal levels right. Generally speaking,
sounds like dialogue should be kept good and strong. The VU meter’s needle should be
reading up between 5 and 0, but not in the distortion range past the zero—that is, right
up near the red, but not in it.
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444 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

7 5 3 0 PEAK It’s better to have a strong initial signal available

20 10 3
from each input than to have to boost the sound too
much with the volume faders. If you’re having to run
your faders way up at their top limit, go back and
VU boost the gain at the input so you’re working with a
more substantial signal.
Even if there are no input VU meters, there will
When the VU meter needle passes beyond the 0, the be output meters. These show you the level of the
sound is distorting. sound departing through the outputs.
On some mixers, the output meters are PPMs
(peak program meters). These are made up of lines
Watch the levels! of LED lights, green ones for up to the 0 level, and
then red ones to indicate distortion levels. PPMs are
more sensitive to sudden loud sounds (transients) than VU meters are.
For the output channels it’s essential to make sure the mixer is passing along a good
Jim Tumeth, strong signal. Don’t rely on cranking up the record levels at the VCR. If you’re boosting
Training a weak signal further down the line, you may get it loud enough, but you’ll have an
Development,
AFTRS. undesirable amount of background noise or hiss with it.
On the other hand, be careful that you’re not sending out a distorted signal, either.
Even if it’s recorded at a low level at the VCR, the distortion in the sound will be recorded,
and you’ll be stuck with it on your master tape.

Level Setting Order

Always set sound levels starting from the source and following the entire signal path to
the final recording machine.
If you like, you can think of the signal flow like water going down a stream. Start
from the headwaters and move to the sea.
The last machine to set levels on is the record VCR.

Make sure you’re not sending

too much level to the
Monitoring the Sound
headphones, or you’ll deafen The mixer will have a headphones outlet, so the
yourself. operator can listen to each sound without the distrac-
tion of whatever control room noise is happening at
Jeremy the time, and so the other people trying to sort things
Reurich,
Technical out in the control room don’t have to listen to every step of the sound checks.
Trainee, Close to the headphones outlet, there’s usually a volume knob labelled monitor. This
AFTRS. controls the level of the sound sent to the headphones, but doesn’t affect the master
output sound in any way.
Take care that you watch the output meters to gauge the levels of your program
sound. Don’t be tricked by thinking it’s loud enough because some wax-eared or
walkman-deafened person before you left the monitor sound turned way up.
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Operating the Studio Audio Mixer 445

Other Possible Features

Studio audio mixers may have many other features, including:
• A talkback system.
• An inbuilt speaker.
• Aux send and aux return monitoring controls.
• The facility to do four or more submixes in them.
Despite the cringe that this comment usually elicits, it’s a good idea to thoroughly read
the manual for your audio mixer. You may find out that your mixer can do all sorts of
things no-one at your media centre ever knew about!

Normalising the Mixer

Before you set out to do anything with the studio audio mixer, you should normalise it.
This means putting all the input knobs to their zero (passive, detent) positions, so you
can hear every sound fresh and unaltered by any electronic circuitry.
It can be alarming to do a sound check and hear your great guest singer’s voice
sounding way to thin or too bassy. You can add minutes to your life by getting rid of
any EQ (equalisation) left on the mixer from someone else’s mix, before you start judging
your sound sources.
And after all, a signal which sounds good unaided can probably best be left that
way! No need to tweak knobs for the sake of it.
It’s good audio manners to renormalise a mixer when you’ve finished working with
it, too.

Doing a Sound Check

Part of setting up for a studio production is doing a sound check. The aim of this is to
find the right operating level for each input fader.
You can usually set the levels for roll-in music and other pre-recorded material during
rehearsals.
When the time comes to set the levels for guests or actors using studio mics, it’s
good to have a helper.
First, the assistant pins the mic to the person’s shirt, or seats the person and sets the
mic on its stand in the planned program position. Then, when the desk operator is ready,
the assistant asks the guest to speak in their normal speaking voice—this request does
tend to tongue-tie people, so you could suggest that they tell you how their trip to the
studio went, or tell you their name, address and other fairly automatic details.
The guest can say anything, as long as it’s in a normal speaking voice. It’s just that
people are often nervous and get hung up trying to think of what to say so the people
around them won’t think they’re buffoons. It usually works to give them an easy task
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446 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

because they’re more likely to speak up naturally if they’re not nervous about what
they’re saying. Don’t ask them to count, though. It’s too staccato a sound.
As each person you’re checking is speaking, the desk operator brings the input volume
fader up to the right level for program sound. Some people like to mark this spot with
a bit of masking tape so that during the program it’s clear what level to take each fader
to for the right sound volume.
You should adjust the gain so you can set the fader level so that there’s a little more
room to move it up during the program if needed.
Always check for air gaps. Is Though most people tend to speak louder once they
everything plugged in? get going on a topic, you need to give yourself some
correction leeway in case they speak softer for some
reason.
Once you’ve done a sound check on all sources, you’re nearly ready.
Barry
Fernandes,
Sound
Department,
AFTRS.
Lining Up Tone
There’s still one more job to do. You need to send tone, so the person operating the record
VCR can set the audio input levels correctly.
Find the button on the audio mixer which
Set the tone as quickly as switches on the calibrated tone, which is a standard-
possible, because the sound of ised line-up signal. Then adjust your master output
the tone annoys many people. faders so you’re sending tone out at 0 volume level,
which is a strong signal level, just below the distor-
tion level.
Colin Kemp,
Engineering The VCR operator should then set the audio input VU meters on the master record
Department, machine so they’re reading the tone at 0, as well.
AFTRS. From then on, the adjustments to program sound should all be done at the audio
mixer.
The person watching the record machine shouldn’t be making independent decisions
about program sound level. If something appears to them to be wrong, for example if
there’s no sound arriving at their VCR, or it’s too low, or it remains distorted, the audio
desk operator should be told at once. But corrections should be done at the mixer, not
at the record machine.

Operating Tips
Label Each Fader
There’s nothing worse than losing track of what sound is which on the mixer. You can
label an audio mixer, without damaging it, by running a strip of masking tape along the
base of the inputs and writing each fader source on it with a marking pen.
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Operating the Studio Audio Mixer 447

Assign Mics to Faders in a Sensible Pattern
It often helps to have a logical connection between
what you can see and what you’re doing!
Have your sound assistant set up the studio mics
so their inputs correspond to the same left-to-right
order as the seating arrangement of the studio guests
and host.
So if, during the program, you forget who
‘Melissa’ is, you can at least raise the fader of that
person on the far left whose mouth is moving.

Masking tape is commonly used to label which

Keep in Contact with the Studio Floor signal is going to which fader.Tape can also be used
Not all studios have enough talkback headphones to to mark the right level for each fader.(Photo from
go around, and they tend to be passed out first to Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE)
the camera operators.
But the sound assistant needs to be in contact with the audio desk operator, and vice
versa. This can be managed by leaving the boom mic fader up during set-ups, otherwise
known as leaving the boom open.
The sound assistant can then go over near the Colin Kemp,
When you’re plugging or
boom mic and speak quietly to audio control, and Engineering
unplugging sources from a Department,
audio control can speak back via the PA system to
mixer, ensure that the channel AFTRS.
the studio.
fader is at a minimum and the
In the absence of boom mic and PA, a good set
monitoring level is set to low.
of hand signals can get messages across, providing
there’s line-of-sight between audio control and the
studio floor.
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Chapter

32 Studio
Procedures
Producing Videos
Studio Procedures

Studio work requires the smooth coordination of a team of people who

I are spread out over two, three or more rooms. Everyone needs to know
what’s happening, everyone needs to be up-to-
date on whatever changes have been made by
the director.
Studios use talkback systems which allow
the director and director’s assistant to converse
with the floor manager on the studio floor, all
the camera operators, the sound supervisor in
audio control, and the videotapes operator in
the tapes area. The sound supervisor can also
communicate with the boom operator via
headphones.
Audio control can also leave a boom mic
open during preparation times so the director
can hear what’s happening on the studio floor
and anyone on the floor can speak to the
Third year students prepare to record Business Studies unit director through this mic if necessary.
for replay by satellite throughout WA.Western Australian
School of Art and Design, Northbridge,WA, Australia.

A Word to the Director

The main point to remember when directing a production is to promote effective
communication. You have to make sure that everyone knows what you want to have
happen, when you want it to happen, and what you want it to look like.
All crew involved in the production must be kept constantly informed of any changes.
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Studio Procedures 449

A new shotlist for cameras, changes to the script, Remember the 7 Cs: clear
different moves, a change of running order—every- concise communication is the
thing must be communicated to everyone involved. cornerstone in creating a
In the heat of the moment, it’s easy to forget that capable crew.
you, as director, are the source of all action. The rest
Carol Brands,
of the crew have to act on your instructions. Keep Curtin
them informed, and always give them plenty of University of
warning. Technology.

The Floor Manager

The floor manager is pivotal in studio communi-
cation. The FM is in charge of relaying messages
promptly and accurately to anyone on the studio
floor who is not wearing headphones. This includes
the performers, obviously, and any other helpers, like
those arranging the set or adjusting lights.
Once the floor manager puts on headphones and
establishes initial communication flow with the
director, the FM should never break that link by
taking the headphones (headsets or cans) off. If that
link is broken, the production will soon grind to a
halt. During rehearsal, if the FM must leave the studio
floor, the headphones—and the floor manager’s The floor manager gives a countdown cue for studio
duties—should be delegated to an assistant until the production, Northern Melbourne Istitute of TAFE,
FM resumes them. Collingwood,Vic, Australia.
Because the FM also needs to be in contact with
the people on the studio floor, a good trick is to wear
the headphones with one earpiece on—to listen to
the director—and one earpiece off—to listen to the
people on the studio floor.

Establishing Comms
During the set-up period, time should be allowed for
a routine communications check:
1. The director speaks to the floor manager and the Camera operators should keep their
floor manager reponds. headphones on throughout the
2. The director speaks to each camera, and each rehearsal period.Robin Cowburn,
camera responds in turn. TEAME Indigenous TV and Video
3. The director speaks to audio control, and audio Training Course, Metro Screen,
control responds. (The boom operator has a split Paddington, NSW, Australia.(Photo
of director’s comms and program sound.) by Michelle Blakeney)
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450 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

4. The director speaks to the videotapes area, and videotapes responds.

5. The director speaks to the lighting area (if it’s separate), and lighting responds.
The technical director also has communication with the technical areas, to establish
program levels, and so forth.
Sometimes the DA and director share the same mic. A balance should be established
early on, because the DA’s shot-calling and instructions need to be heard at the same
volume level as the calls of the director.
It’s good if the director and director’s assistant have noticeably different voices, like
one male and one female, so everyone on the intercoms can easily identify which person
is speaking.

Using Talkback Systems

In most speaking situations, we’re face to face with
the one or two people we’re talking to, so it’s obvious
who’s speaking and who’s being addressed, people
take turns in speaking and outsiders don’t butt in.
These are the communication rules we were taught
at a young age. Telephone conversations follow a
similar pattern because they’re still one to one, even
though we don’t have eye contact.
But when you hook up many people to a talk-
If each crew member knows their job and is treated back system—where they can’t see each other—
with respect, you’ll have a happy and committed many people could have something to say at the
crew.L to R: Derek Whittaker, Evonne Dunne, Greg same time. When everyone is hearing messages
Barnes, Arran Gerrard, Nicole Baxter.Curtin University which are not addressed to them, and most people
of Technology, Perth,WA, Australia.(Photo by Sue are under pressure, good communication can break
Scrutton, CU Public Affairs Unit) down quickly.
The director sets the mood during the pro-
duction, so the director’s talkback manners have a big impact on the overall feeling
happening within the crew.
For good talkback people should:
1. Use the same courtesies of speech that you’d use in person.
Director: ‘Let’s go for a rehearsal. Would everybody please stand by?’
2. Always specifically address the person to whom you’re speaking, before you give
your message.
Director: ‘Camera 1, could you give me the opening shot, please? A little tighter,
thanks. Yes, that’s fine.’
3. Don’t speak unless you have something to say which is relevant to the production.
People should not be chatting about other things over the talkback system—the
‘airwaves’ need to stay clear for necessary production communication.
4. Stay quiet. There’s nothing worse than someone adding useless noise into everyone’s
ears. So refrain from humming, whistling, clicking, grunting, burping, and so on.
5. Speak in a normal tone. Not all headsets have volume controls and being constantly
screamed at is enough to set people right on edge.
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Studio Procedures 451

PTT (Push to talk)
Never switch off control room
To cut down on the amount of noise which would communications to the floor.
go through the talkback system, many headsets, Your floor crew may think that
especially those worn by the camera operators, have you are talking about them in
a good feature called a PTT button. This means that the control room and paranoia Sara Hourez,
what you say is only transmitted into the system will reign. Also, don’t joke in former
while you’re pushing that button, the rest of the time the control room, because director of
you can’t be heard. Neighbours.
if the performers on the set
see the camera operators
Mute laughing, they may think
you’re laughing at them.
The talkback mic in the control room usually gives
the director a number of options about who can hear
what’s being said. The director can choose to speak only to the floor manager or only
to the camera operators. It’s also usually possible for the director to speak to everyone
on the studio floor through an intercom speaker, or to mute the whole system and speak
only to those in the control room.
In times of crisis it may be best for the director to mute the talkback system and sort
out the problem in private. No point sending aggravation out to everyone. It’s important
to get back on line as soon as possible though, because crew feel very nervous if they’re
cut off for long.
Before muting the comms, the director should always explain that this is about to
happen and give a time estimate of how long the mute will last.
‘Sorry, we need to sort out a question here. We’ll be back in about three minutes.’
If the problem takes longer, the floor manager should be advised.
‘This will probably take another ten minutes. Let everyone have a break.’
Don’t leave people just hanging and wondering.

Regrettable Speech
Talkback demands another self-discipline. A person should never say something over
talkback which is meant as a private comment. Everyone hears what is said, and the
words can’t be recalled.
It’s especially important to not rudely criticise
anyone’s work in public like this, or to make
derogatory comments about a crew member or
performer. Such speech is unprofessional, unkind and
also capable of being accidentally sent out over a
speaker or recorded on tape.

Technical Difficulties
Talkback systems vary in quality and some can be
quirky and discouraging. Successful productions have
been put together with only a couple of headsets The DA instructs each camera operator to line up
working on the day, with the floor manager their next shot.Julie Nimmo,TEAME Indigenous TV
whispering shot directions to a camera operator, or Training, SBS TV, Sydney, NSW, Australia.(Photo by
with no-one able to talk back to the director at all. Anna Warby and Arne-Romy Berg)
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452 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

In times of necessity, people rely on hand signals and dramatic facial expressions
sent through the window between the studio floor and the control room.

Control Room Dialogue

Directors need to make their messages simple, clear and polite, and use as calm a tone
of voice as can be mustered under the circumstances. There should be enough time for
people to give their replies.
Here’s a sample of the way a director would speak during a rehearsal.
Director (this message is relayed via the floor manager): ‘Standby everyone.’
‘We’ll be going in about 30 seconds.’
‘Everyone okay?’
Note: Audio control should have left one of the studio microphones open so that people
on the floor can talk back to the director if they need to.
Director (over headphones talkback system): ‘Standby studio.’
‘Standby audio.’
‘Standby videotapes with opening titles.’
Floor Manager (after checking that the floor is ready): ‘The floor is standing by.’
Audio Control: ‘Audio standing by.’
Videotapes: ‘Videotapes standing by,’
Director: ‘Opening shots please.’
‘Videotapes, roll to record.’
Videotapes: ‘Tape is rolling’ (or ‘We’re recording’).
Director: ‘Ten seconds . . .’
(Either the DA or director will count down from 10 to 0.)
‘After titles, we’re opening on Camera 2.’
‘Go theme . . .’
Audio control brings up the opening music to be played under the titles.
Director: ‘Take titles.’
‘Ready 2 . . .’
As the production proceeds, the director is
For the director’s assistant:
responsible for telling the vision mixer exactly what
Don’t worry about the closing
images to put to line. The director tells the VM when
titles when you’re rolling the
to cut, dissolve, set-up for an effect, do an effect, and
opening titles.
so forth.
Sandra They may be working from prearranged shots
Chung,ABC TV
Training and notated on a script, or ad-libbing. In either case, the director needs to watch what’s
Development. happening on the camera monitors and the preview monitors because things don’t always
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Studio Procedures 453

Audio control has all the music and effects cued and Tanith Carroll, vision mixer, and Robin Cowburn, director.
ready.Broadcasting students, Batchelor College, TEAME Indigenous TV and Video Training Course, Metro
Batchelor, NT, Australia. Screen, Paddington, NSW, Australia.(Photo by Anne
Douglas)

go to plan. It’s pointless to put a camera to line if the shot isn’t ready, no matter what
the script says.
In scripted work, the director’s assistant prompts
each camera to get ready for the next shot. In multicamera, once you’ve
committed yourself to a shot,
Director’s Assistant: ‘Camera 1, a mid-shot of the
let it go to air or tape. Look
guest, please.’
ahead to the next shot and
Director: ‘Stand by to take [camera] 1.’ ensure that it is what you Sara Hourez,
‘Take one.’ want. In high turnover former
television (over 25 minutes director of
Camera operators need warning that their picture is Neighbours.
screen time per day), you do
about to be used.
not have the luxury of revision
Director: ‘Camera 2, can you get me a close-up of and perfecting.
the host?’ In multicamera television
‘Focus?’ drama series in studio, you
‘Good.’ usually use and camera script
‘Standby, 2.’ to three cameras.You might,
‘Take two.’ without warning, need to
The same procedure applies to videotapes, to the rescript for two cameras.
character generator and to any slides or graphics
being used. The director’s assistant makes sure each
source is ready, and the director calls the take.
Director: ‘Take videotape.’
‘Take character generator.’
‘Take slide.’
If these sources are available on preview monitors, the director may refer to the number
of the monitor instead of the actual source.
Director: ‘Take six.’
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454 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Using Graphics Mounted for Cameras

If there are a number of graphics on the floor, the director’s assistant will oversee the
flipping (or changing) of them. As soon as a graphic has been taken and the director has
gone on to the next shot, the director’s assistant will say:
Director’s Assistant: ‘Flip on 1’ (meaning the graphic appearing on Camera 1).
‘Flip on 2’, etc.

Cuing Audio
Sound must be cued by the director whenever it’s needed. The sound operator should
be ready to bring in the next music or effect by reading the script, but the exact time
and the pace at which the music is brought in is a creative decision made by the director.
After several rehearsals, the sound operator will have a pretty good idea of what’s
required, but it’s still up to the director to give the cue.

Never assume, always ask—for Lighting

example, are there any Lighting changes must also be cued, unless there’s a
reflective surfaces on the set? standard format to the show which is always
As drama crews know the set followed. Usually a standby is given to the lighting
Sara Hourez, backwards, clarification of this operator, with a description of the next lighting
former will mean no time wasted on a needed.
director of re-shoot.
Neighbours.
Performers
Instructions for the performers are passed on through the floor manager. When the
director wants the performers to begin talking, or moving, or taking any particular action,
s/he says:
Director: ‘Cue performer.’
Then the floor manager makes the appropriate signal, taking care to be in the current
eyeline of the performer.
Of course, the FM never speaks out loud, as the voice would be picked up on the
studio microphone.
Once the performer has received the director’s cue:
Director: ‘Take one’ (or whatever), the shooting sequence begins.

Relax—enjoy it—it’s not brain

surgery!

Leone
Adams,NSW
ABC TV
Training
Co-ordinator.
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Studio Procedures 455

Silent Communication on the Floor

The floor manager uses a vocabulary of hand signals which should be well understood
by the host and the rest of the production crew.
With inexperienced performers, the FM needs to explain, before the start of the show,
the signals that are likely to be used and where s/he will stand to give the signals. This
way the performers won’t just stop talking and look stunned when confronted with an
incomprehensible hand sign or waving of arms.
Make sure that signals are always repeated in the same form and in the same spot.

Types of Cues
There are three major types of cue a floor manager handles:
• Time cues.
• Performance cues.
• Written information cues.

Time Cues
Time cues let the performers know how long it will be until the segment starts, when
to begin speaking, and how much time is left until the segment ends.

Standing by Start

Standing by (further away from performer) Start (further away from performer)
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456 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

We’re on-line (or) Everything’s okay Wind up (move finger in circular motion)

Stretch (move hands as if to pull on elastic)

Cut! Cut! (used when performer’s eyeline is directly

to camera)

5 minutes 30 seconds
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Studio Procedures 457

30 seconds (at a distance) 15 seconds

10 seconds 5 seconds

Performance Cues
Performance cues give the performers directions about where and when to move, how
to change speaking or singing level, the limits of the frame to which the performers are
working (this takes considerable skill on the part of the floor manager), and which camera
to direct the performance to. The floor manager can even use them to direct or correct
the performer’s eyeline.

Come closer Move back

Stop! Speak up
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458 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Tone it down Walk in that direction

Go from this camera . . . . . . to this camera

Go from this monitor . . . . . . to this camera

No good Applause!
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Studio Procedures 459

The floor manager must be acutely aware of which camera is being used and the
eyeline of the performer to whom s/he is signalling.
The floor manager must always signal messages from a place which will allow the
performer to continue speaking or acting without being seen to have been given a
message. On television, when eyes move even slightly left or right, hunting, the unchar-
acteristic glance is completely obvious.
In practice, this means the floor manager stands right next to the camera the presenter
is working to, or, if there’s a conversation going on with a studio guest, the floor manager’s
signals are offered in the eyeline of the presenter but, of course, out of frame of the
camera’s shot and also not casting shadows into the shot.

Signal along the eyeline of the

presenter.

Whatever it requires, the floor

manager signals along the eyeline of
the performer.

Complications in Sending the Signals

Sometimes the floor manager has to give directions to more than one actor and isn’t
physically able to get to the next signalling position in time. This problem should usually
be spotted during rehearsal and can be solved by working out a plan for bouncing signals.
In such a case, the floor manager receives the director’s cue over the headphones
and signals the assistant floor manager or other designated floor crew member (who’s
positioned correctly), or even another actor who won’t be on camera for that shot but
will be in the eyeline of the performer, and the signal is received and then sent on by
the bouncer.
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460 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Sometimes
a signal
must be
bounced.

Another complication is when the performer is unable to see a signal given by anyone.
For example, the performer might have to begin an action from a face-to-the-floor
position. In this case, the floor manager could work out that the performance would
begin a certain number of beats of time (counted silently by the actor) after a spoken
signal is given by the floor manager.
Or an off-camera physical signal, like a tap to the bottom of the foot, could be used.
Floor managing often requires quick thinking and ingenuity—coupled with common
sense. Elaborate signals are never preferable to clear, concise ones. Which brings us to
style. A skilled floor manager gives signals in an
unambiguous style which neither confuses nor
distracts the performer.
For example, time signals should appear at the
correct time and then be finished. A cue for ‘two
minutes left’ which is hanging in the air for ten to
fifteen seconds becomes less useable because it’s less
accurate.
This can lead to a bit of a quandary. If the floor
manager must finish a signal as soon as it’s received
by the performer, the performer must have some
subtle way of letting the floor manager know that
the signal has been received.
If the performer is off-camera at the time, that’s
Carol Brands rehearsing Ben Air, Katie Air and Sam not so hard—a minor hand movement or nod will
Talbot-Dunn for a post-grad project.Curtin do. But when the performer is on camera, this kind
University of Technology, Perth,WA, Australia.(Photo of message acknowledgement is part of the craft of
by Judy Wheeler) competent actors and floor managers.
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Studio Procedures 461

Written Cues
There are times when a presenter needs to be prompted with a name, a title or some
non-signable information. When this happens, the felt pen and the white card,
strategically placed, save the day.
It’s a good idea to not rely too much on written instructions, however. Presenters
can get too dependent on them, and it’s hard to disguise the fact that they’re being read.

Rehearsal Routines
Marking a Position
Once a position for the performer has been lit and approved on camera, the floor manager
will see that appropriate and discreet floor marks are placed down (using floor-marking
tape), thereby targeting or ‘locking in’ the preferred action area.

Studio Calls During a Rehearsal

The floor manager conveys the stages of production to those personnel not in headset
contact with the director by using these standardised calls:
‘Quiet please, we’re standing by for a stagger through.’
This signals the first attempt at coordinating all production elements—performers,
cameras, audio, lighting, etc.
At this stage everyone expects stops and starts and repeating the action several times.
Performers will speak their lines but there will be no performance yet.
‘Quiet please, we’re standing by for a run.’
This means a continuous rehearsal of the segment or scene, hopefully with few
interruptions. From this the crew should get an indication of pace and a recognition of
performance. Rehearsals continue with improvements until:
‘Quiet please, we’re going for a final run.’
This signals the last rehearsal. Everyone gives their top performance.
Then:
‘Quiet please, we’re going for a take.’
Commitment!
Throughout the rehearsal period, it’s important that the floor manager indicates to
performers, as soon as possible after each stop, the recommencement point:
‘We’ll pick it up from . . .’

Live transmission
Live transmission is called in as:
‘[number of] minutes to air.’
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462 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

All communication in the production environment should be clear and concise, avoiding
confusion and wasted time. The floor manager, in the coordinating role, is the key figure
in the passing on of accurate information.
So say what you mean, and mean what you say!

The Floor Manager’s Tool Kit

Before rehearsal begins, make sure you have a talkback headset with sufficient cable
length for adequate movement (a radio headset is preferable) and that you have access
to:
• Slates and identification boards.
• Cue cards, white board.
• Felt pens, chalk.
• Floor-marking tape, gaffer tape, double-sided tape.
• Cloths.
• Staple gun, hammer, screwdriver, pliers, clips.

The Floor Manager’s Survival Guide

Preparation
• Study script and floor plans carefully.
• Assess problem areas.
• Discuss problem areas with your director.
• Liaise with technical and support staff.
• Schedule appropriately.
• Check progress on all work prior to production period.

Production
• Be early. Check that everything and everybody is ready.
• Start rehearsals on time.
• Give adequate and timely refreshment breaks.

Overall
• Use common sense.
• Be calm and courteous.
• Maintain a quiet discipline.
• Anticipate the director’s needs.
• Care for the cast and crew.
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Studio Procedures 463

Production Identification
on the Tape
Every production must have some form of identifi-
cation recorded on the tape before the program itself.
This can be done either by using the character gener-
ator or by an ID board.
A program ID should include:
• Program title.
• Director.
• Date of recording.
It could also include:
• Producer. When the control room team are confident in their
• The name of the client who commissioned it. equipment and everyone understands the
• The place where it was made. communication procedures, studio production can
be both an adrenalin rush and a lot of fun.Jason
Troutman on vision mixer with Sylvia Tabua
directing, School of Indigenous Australian Studies,
James Cook University,Townsville, Qld, Australia.
Segment Identification
Every segment of a program should be identified just before the beginning of the segment.
Often this is done by typing the information into a character generator in the control
room and recording its signal.
When a character generator isn’t available, the floor manager is responsible for
providing the identification for each taped segment. This is done by speaking the
information while using an identification slate or clapperboard, as in film production.
Information should be complete and include:
• The segment or scene number.
• The take number.
• The script line reference.
• The program title.
• Whether it’s for A-roll or B-roll use in editing.

Rolling-in Sequence All tapes should be properly

labelled with production
The lead-in to a recording can be: name, roll number, time code
and date.
• 30–60 seconds of colour bars.
• Fifteen seconds of tape identification. Serge
Golikov,Post
• Ten seconds of black. Production,
• Ten seconds of countdown. AFTRS.
• Program begins.
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464 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Assessing Studio Work

Steve Parris of Edmonds-Woodway High School (Edmonds, WA, USA) has developed
this humorous sheet for students and staff to assess studio production work.

EWTV STUDIO PRODUCTION RUBRIC

5 4 3 2 1 0 (no show at all)
Camera Solid Camera shots Shots are No shots Show didn’t make
composition composition have a few consistently use quality deadline
is consistently looks good weak shots outside of composition
beautiful throughout with poor prescribed
framing composition
guidelines
Switches Switches are A couple Most switches Switches Too little, too
are timed well-timed and switches are out of sync cause major late!?!
and create clean are early or with the show distraction
a fluidity late or use script
without any inappropriate
errors wipes
Audio quality Audio is clear A couple Audio mishaps, Major audio My dog ate our
Technical

is flawless and well of audio poor EQ dropouts or tape

and perfectly equalised distractions, distractions;
equalised okay EQ draws
attention away
Talent makes Talent speaks Inconsistent Poor eye Talent is Just five more
NO errors, clearly; good eye contact; contact, using the minutes!?!
with clear, eye contact, can’t hear speaking and opportunity
professional posture and some words; presence to grandstand
delivery language weak presence their own ego
Lighting is Lighting A few shadows, Many shadows Very We don’t have a
very inviting, looks good, light uneven very uneven distracting show because
flattering no glaring lighting ______________ .
shadows
Gear is stored Gear is put Room is a bit Cables lying Messy Marvin Show is a no show
better than it away as messy around City!
was prescribed uncoiled, stuff
laying around

Show has Show is well A few hiccups The show This is a show? We punt!
a smooth made without in flow and stops and
continuity and any glaring continuity starts like an
rhythm errors to draw old Buick
away from
message
Maintains a Viewers stay Viewers say: Show was Show is Crew abducted
Aesthetic

high level of interested! ‘Yeah, that was pretty lame REALLY, REALLY by aliens? Yeah,
interest in okay…’ LAME! right…
viewers (they
can’t stop
watching)
The show The show has Some stuff Lots of fluff WHO CARES! ‘Show is missing…
touches us in important that we could with Elvis…’
a meaningful content. care less about
way!
GUT FEELING GUT FEELING GUT FEELING GUT FEELING GUT FEELING No show? No
score, Baby…
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Studio Procedures 465

Caring for the Studio Space

A studio is a shared space which is used by different groups of people, who may never
meet, but are joined by the desire that their program will be done as well as it can be.
As a user of this space, you want it to be clean and functional when you arrive. So
does everyone else.
Somerville Community Access TV, which services a wide range of public access
groups, has developed this studio checklist which all groups are expected to fill out when
they arrive and when they leave.

Somerville Community Access TV

Studio Checksheet
Producer _________________________________ Date _______________________________

Staff Staff

In Out In Out

Chairs/tables/risers/flats properly stored

Rugs rolled and stored/Props in bins
All lights on grid with safety chains attached
Lighting board: masters/lights and all faders off
Program/intercom/CAM 4 cables on hook
XLR cables neatly coiled
All four Lavalier mics, clips and batteries in cases
Cabinet neat: mugs, headphones, gels, gloves
All three studio cameras:
Three wheels locked
Lens cap on
Tilt and pan locked
Cable on hook

Comments:

______________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________

Thanks to Don Bethel for his major role in the preparation of this chapter
and for demonstrating the floor manager’s signals.
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Chapter

33 The HOT Studio

(Host Operated Television)
Producing Videos
The HOT Studio

Although it’s usually easier to do video as part of a group, many people

I
are attempting to do productions on their own, either for an assignment,
as a community service or as a hobby.
People in remote communities, working in tiny broadcast stations, can find that
they’re the only ones around with the skills and interest to do video, and therefore their
community expects them to carry the whole load.
It is feasible (I didn’t say easy) to go out
alone and interview someone, then return to
base and edit the piece together, eliminating
the blips and repetitions, and adding titles and
credits to the beginning and end (sometimes
called tops and tails). This results in a finished
video which can then be distributed, donated
or sold.
But the idea of doing a full-scale studio
production, single handed, could seem
impossible.

Democratising the
Means of Production
However, with a nifty design and a minimum
If you sometimes have to do the video all by yourself of equipment, a single person can produce
in your community, the HOT studio is for you! Sylvia finished video shows which look like they
Tabua, broadcaster for the Torres Strait Island Media were done by a whole team.
Association,Thursday Island, Australia.
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The HOT Studio 467

Not only can the show have multiple sources, but it can be done LIVE for broadcast,
and can include phone calls into the studio from the watching audience!
It’s not exactly a smoke and mirrors act, but most viewers are probably tricked by it.

The Room Layout

All you need is a small room—4 × 5 metres (12 × 15
feet) would be enough.
For fire safety reasons the room should have two
exits. Check with the local fire regulations to see if
you need to add a door to the exterior. Remember,
the design idea is HOT, but we’re not building an
oven to cook anyone in!
You’ll also need to consider ventilation and cool-
ing. A small room running studio lights will become
very warm very quickly. However, the noise of an
airconditioner or a fan can do terrible things to your
audio by adding an obnoxious background hum. You
need to think carefully about the temperature
conditions in your community, and allow for quiet With only very little gear and a small room, you
room cooling, or you may limit yourself and your can have a HOT studio that works for
facility to rather short shows. community broadcasting.

Lighting
If you have the luxury of planning ahead and making the HOT studio part of a purpose-
built facility, be sure to call for quite high ceilings. This is so you can have a small overhead
lighting grid. The grid can be made of criss-crossed poles and suspended from the ceiling.
A lighting grid can only be used if you have a high ceiling because the studio lights
run very hot, so they have to be sufficiently lower than the ceiling so they don’t melt
it, burn it, or cause harmful gases to be heat-released
from ceiling materials.
The electrical wiring for any TV studio needs to
take higher power electricity than normal household
circuits provide. Have a separate circuit installed to
supply the lighting grid. The sockets for the grid lights
can be up along the grid poles, too, so there’s no need
for the electrical cords from the lights to hang down
and get in the way.
A basic set of lights can be attached to the grid,
and they can even be wired so they can be turned
on by ordinary light switches next to the entry door.
One or two frontal lights to light the host and guests, In a HOT studio, try to keep the lights COOL! A small
a back light to separate the people from the back- room heats quickly and airconditioning ruins a
ground, and a background light to illuminate their sound track.HOT Studio, Somerville Community
signage or backdrop would do. Access,TV, Somerville, MA, USA.
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468 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

For those artistes who need more complicated lighting, the grid is there for adding
whatever lights they choose. Even attaching coloured gels to the front of some lights
can go a long way towards changing the look of a standard set. A gobo (cucaloris or
cookie) can give a new background in an instant.
If you’re working with a room in your existing building, or even in your own home,
a lighting grid may not be possible. Don’t worry, you can use lights on floor stands, it
will just be more cluttered at floor level. Take care to stabilise them with sandbags so
you don’t trip on a stand leg and knock over a light.

Camera
This is the easiest part. Your portable camera can be
mounted on a tripod and set up facing the end of the
room where your host will sit. You will need to take
the signal out of this camera and send it to the little
vision mixer on your studio desk. This is done by
running a connecting cable from the video out port on
the camera to one of the video in ports on the vision
The most basic camera will do, since there’s no need mixer.
to genlock it in a HOT studio.HOT studio, Somerville If you’re a tiny operation, you can have the
Community Access TV, Somerville, MA, USA. camera connecting cable attached to the desk and
reconnect the end to the camera whenever you use
the HOT studio. If you have more than one camera, you could dedicate one to the HOT
studio and not have to be plugging and unplugging every time.

The Host Desk

This is where the HOT studio comes together.
Whatever you put into the host desk determines the
technical capacity the host will have with which to
assemble a show.
The host desk is fairly broad, as it faces the
camera. It has a rising section at the front, which the
camera sees as a nicely painted or panelled desk-front,
but which secretly holds most of the studio operating
equipment.
You should decide on the design of the host desk
Everything the presenter needs is within an easy yourself, keeping in mind what your own shows will
reach.HOT studio, Somerville Community Access TV, be like and what your community needs are. But
Somerville, MA, USA. here’s an example to start off from.
First of all, you need a vision mixer, which allows
you to switch from one video signal to another. This should be set into the tabletop of
the desk so you can operate it without appearing to reach around and push buttons.
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The HOT Studio 469

A very simple vision mixer has inputs from only four
sources, but that’s enough for you to make quite an
impressive show. Let’s consider what you would
connect to it.
Each different piece of equipment is known as a
source. Each source is attached to a different input on
the vision mixer.
The most obvious source is your camera. You
can connect that to the input labelled source #1 on
the vision mixer. Then whenever you press the
button marked #1 on the vision mixer, the camera’s
signal will be broadcast, or sent to your record tape,
or both.
In the rising part of the desk, at the front of your
work surface, you can have a monitor which shows
you the signal from your main camera. This way you
can be sure that the picture is well framed and in
focus. If it isn’t, you need to adjust your camera
before your show starts. Pretty essential stuff!
Another handy source for your program is a
This HOT studio is hot to trot.It’s ready to go
VCR. This allows you to play any video that you’ve
wherever the show needs to be, and can get there
shot and edited before the show. Or a tape someone
on its own wheels.Wakefield Community Access TV,
else has sent you, perhaps from another community
Wakefield, MA, USA.
like yours, or from a national organisation which
deals with your topic.
So your show could open with your personal
This is a HOT studio. It allows
introduction, then go to a pre-recorded tape, and after
one person to produce an
the tape has finished, it could go back to you for the
entire show. They have push-
wrap-up comments.
pull levers which control the
Therefore, you could connect a VCR as source #2.
intensity of lights, and all kinds Barbara
Another handy input is a document camera. This
of other features. Great Bishop,
is another portable videocamera, mounted in a stand Independent
Northern Video in New
facing downward towards a flat surface (you can buy Producer.
Hampshire is selling these
these stands or make one). This camera can be used
packages for use at municipal
to give a close-up view of anything too small to show
meetings.They can be
well with the main camera. The document camera
connected to permanently
should be close enough for you to reach easily,
wall-mounted robotic cameras,
maybe just off-camera to your right.
and the cabinet can be locked
So you could connect the document camera as
with a padlock.This allows one
source #3.
person to complete a very
Source #4 could be a computer which can input
sophisticated production with
graphics and credits into your show.
a minimum of lugging of
Also hidden on your desk you could have a small
equipment. Nice!
computer monitor displaying your script or rough
running sheet. You could also use a regular piece of
paper for that. Which means you could use the monitor screen for something else. How
about having a live phone-in capacity?
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470 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

If you can link this screen to the computer in the front office of your building, and
manage to get someone to agree to take your calls, then people can phone in to your
show. Your telephonist can answer the calls and send the basic information on to you
discreetly via the computer screen in your desk. So your screen might say:
Line 1 Jennifer from Brockton
Line 2 Michael from Haverhill
Line 3 Hot Lips from MASH
This option certainly makes local shows much more exciting and involving for the
community of viewers! It means, though, that your desk will need another little box
with buttons which allows you to select the phone line you want next. Then once you
make the choice, you’re on your own!
You rig your audio system so the caller’s voice is
sent out via a speaker into the studio; that way your
audience can hear both sides of the conversation, and
you don’t need to be fussing around with a telephone
handset.
A final monitor in the host desk shows the output
of the vision mixer, so you can always see what your
show looks like, and be sure that you’ve pushed the
right button to get the signal you want into your
show.
The vision mixer needs to be wired in to your
broadcast system, so you can send your video feed
live to cable or live to air. Additionally, you most
likely would choose to have a second VCR, this one
Nancy Grabowski and Debby Higgins produce a live attached to the output of the vision mixer, so you
call-in show on Special Education.HOT Studio, can record your program. Good for checking your
Somerville Community Access TV, Somerville, work, and also good so you have a finished tape
MA, USA. for reruns.

Sound
It makes sense, when you’re designing your HOT studio, to think of what possible uses
both you and others might make of it in the future.
So although you may start off thinking of it as being just what you need for you to
make a show on your own, the day might come when you decide to have a guest.
Maybe two guests. Maybe more.
Where would they sit? How would you capture their voices well?
In the HOT studio in Somerville, MA, USA, there are three cardioid microphones
attached to long bendable necks. There’s one in the middle of the desk for the host, and
one on each end for whoever else might squeeze onto the show.
Each microphone is wired into the audio mixer (sorry, yet another box with buttons
to operate!) and can be turned on and off. If only the host is on the show, only the
middle mic needs to be activated. If there’s one guest, then one end mic gets turned on
as well. And so forth.
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The HOT Studio 471

Background
The background may be simple to decide upon. For example, your community station
may decide that the Aboriginal or Torres Strait Island flag should be behind all your
shows. Or the local TV committee may decide that every show should have its own look.
One simple solution is to have a plain or textured cloth background, in some medium
tone, hung on the wall behind the host’s chair. A medium blue works well on TV.
The worst thing you can have is a glossy white wall behind the host. This reflective
background will make the auto iris on the main camera close down, and anyone seated
in the host’s chair will look semi-silhouetted. As a general rule, the darker the skin tone
of the host, the darker the background should be. So think of your range of producers
when deciding on your background.
Ideally the cloth should be backed with cork or some other such material, so things
can be easily attached to the background with pins. But if not, if it’s cloth over a hard
surface, Velcro tabs work well.
With this generic background, anyone using the studio can put up their own posters
or artwork, their show sign or tapestry, and they’ve quickly and easily established the
look for their show.

Problems Likely in a HOT Studio

• Overheating from studio lights.
• Background noise from air conditioner or fan.
• Sound from other places in the building or from outside.

Want to Know More?

Information in this chapter is based on the HOT Studio at:
Somerville Community Access TV
90 Union Square
Somerville MA 02143
USA
<<www.access-scat.org>>
Tel: +1 617 628 8826; Fax: +1 617 628 1811
Email: [email protected]
Thank you SCAT!
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Chapter

34 Studio
Interviews
Producing Videos
Studio Interviews

The studio interview is a simple, low cost and efficient way of getting
I
information across. It can also be entertaining and humorous, with the
right host and guest combination. It’s worth aiming high and being imaginative when
you’re searching for guests.
The interview can stand on its own, as just talking heads, or it can be interspersed
with pre-recorded tape segments. It can also be livened up if the guest shows things
s/he’s brought in, or gets up and does a live demonstration.

The Set
In the interview, the guests and what they have to
say should be the focus of attention, so the set is
usually kept quite simple. Frequently the cyc curtain
is drawn across the background, so the interview is
in an indeterminate location with a soft background.
Still, adding simple but appropriate artefacts,
which reflect the culture of the guest or the content
of the interview, can lift the visuals and enhance the
aesthetics of the program.
Because camera operators usually stand, the
comfortable height for their cameras is higher than
the eyeline of seated guests. For this reason, the
Faye Starr from the AFTRS Student Centre is interview set is elevated on risers (movable platforms)
interviewed by Vicki Lucan, Australian Film Television when possible. This makes the camera angle neutral
and Radio School. in relation to the host’s and guest’s eyelines.
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Studio Interviews 473

A standard interview set consists of a chair for each guest and the host. Sometimes
a low table is placed in front of them, so items which will be discussed can be at hand
for close-ups.
It’s important that the set doesn’t get in the way of camera moves, and that it doesn’t
look peculiar from any anticipated camera angle.
Check that background details and designs don’t appear to grow out of anyone’s
head, and watch that unexpected words don’t appear when someone’s head blocks out
sections of background lettering.

Lighting the Interview

Simple three-point lighting set-ups work well for the studio interview, and they’re easy
to achieve because there’s a high ceiling and adequate space around the seated people.
If there are plenty of lights, each person can have a key light, a back light and a fill
light of their own.
Back light for A Back light for B

Key light Fill light for

for A & B A&B

In this set-up, only one key light and

one fill light is used for both people.
Person A Person B They each have their own back light.

Key light for A

Fill light for B

Key light for B

Fill light for A

Sometimes the key light of one

person can be the fill light for
another.
Person A Person B
However, when two people are sitting side by side, it’s workable to light them both
with the same key and fill lights, and give them each their own back light. Sometimes
the back light can be shared as well.
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474 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

If two people are facing each other, it’s possible for the key light of one person to
be the fill light for the other and vice versa.
It’s also possible for both people to share a key light and each have their own fill
and back lights.

Key light for A & B

Back light for B

Back light for A

Person A Person B

Fill light for A Fill light for B

If the key light comes from the centre rear, one key light can serve both people, but they may each
need their own fill lights and back lights.

Indirect frontal lighting can be soft and shadowless. Combined with a strong back
light on the head and shoulders, this lighting set-up can give a very pretty effect.
Indirect frontal lighting from floorstands can get in the way of camera shots and
tracking moves, though.
When lighting an interview, take care to control the light intensity which falls on
each face. Lighter skinned people tend to look bleached-out fairly easily, while darker
skinned people can handle a stronger light intensity. When lighting two people together
who have quite different skin tones, seat the darker skinned person closer to the light.
Guests should be advised to arrive in clothing which is neither very pale (white is
especially reflective and difficult) nor dark (black is a problem, too), as these contrast too
starkly with skin tones and make lighting very difficult. Medium tones, especially blues
and rose, work well. Green can sometimes make a person look sickly.
Coloured gels can be used for throwing mood lighting on the cyc, but should usually
be kept off the skin and hair of the guests.
The person who designs the lighting can make it soft and flattering, or stark and
dramatic, depending on the tone of the program.
Good lighting adds greatly to the aesthetics of an interview, so allow enough time
to get it right, and don’t cut corners.
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Studio Interviews 475

Setting the Sound

Let’s face it, talking heads with poor sound is a waste of everyone’s time. No-one will
watch it, not even your mother!
First of all, you should use the best mics you can get your hands on.
Second, you should never accept buzzing or crackling sound. Find the source of the
buzz and remedy it. Change to another cable to get rid of the crackle.
Third, if the sound level is too low, replace the mic batteries with new ones. If you
can’t get an adequate level, change mics.
If you have only one mic, you need to place it so the sound is of equal quality from
both—or all—the speakers. This probably means positioning it closer to the more softly
spoken person.
Because interviews aren’t totally pre-scripted, and people can jump in with a comment
at any point, it’s very difficult to mic them with a super-directional boom mic. It works
best if each person has his or her own mic, either a clip-on lav or a directional mic, which
is out of shot if possible.
Once the mics have been placed, a sound check needs to be done to find the right
record levels for each voice.
The floor manager or studio sound assistant asks each person to talk in their normal
speaking voice. Giving them something easy to do, like talk about their trip to the studio
that day, helps them to speak fluently for long enough so the person operating the audio
desk can get a good sample of their voice volume and mark their fader at the right
program level for them. Their voice level should be set so the VU meter needle on the
mixer is up near the red, but not in it.
Bear in mind that people tend to speak louder
once they get revved up, so it may be necessary to I have particularly enjoyed the
lower their level slightly during the actual interview. live format of our productions
because they are less formal
and more interactive than a
taped program structured to Jeanne
get the maximum information Flanagan,
into the shortest time. Independent
Producer.

Michelle Fullerton attaches lav to Kris

Flanders,TEAME Indigenous TV and
Video Training Course, Metro Screen,
Paddington, NSW, Australia.(Photo by
Michelle Blakeney)
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476 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Preparation
The success of an interview depends on both the skill and the preparedness of the host.
A person’s ability to be lively and entertaining on camera isn’t always matched with a
knowledge of the relevant issues.

Research
Research and preparation are
Someone needs to do good research and become
the key to an effective
thoroughly grounded in the facts, opinions and
interview. By the time you sit
controversies surrounding the subject to be discussed.
down to do the interview, you
This person may be the host, or it may be another
Florence should know as much as, or
crew member acting in the role of researcher. Either
Onus, even more, on the topic, than
Journalism way, the end result should be that the host is
the interviewee.
Lecturer, thoroughly familiar with:
School of Always ask your interviewee
Indigenous what his/her title is, and how 1. The main aspects of the issue.
Australian s/he would like to be 2. The names of key people active in the area to be
Studies,
James Cook addressed on the tape. discussed.
University. 3. The main arguments held by proponents and
opponents of the show’s guest.

Cultural Awareness and Sensitivity

People from different cultures ask questions in different ways; they also ask different
questions. In some cultures, direct questions are downright rude or only certain people
have the right to ask certain questions.
Body language varies, too. Looking straight into the eyes is respectful for some and
insulting for others. The list goes on and on.
You need to be as knowledgeable as possible about the culture from which your
guest comes. This way the risk of giving offence to your guest or to members of your
audience is less.
And it’s quite amazing how much more
positively many people respond if they feel you’ve
taken the time to try to understand where they’re
coming from.
A seemingly small gesture, like greeting a person
in the hello of their first language, can make a huge
difference to the results of your interview.

Questions
Lester Bostock, director of TEAME Indigenous TV and The interview should be structured around a list of
Video Training Course, with actor Lee Willis, Metro key questions or topics. The director, researcher and
Screen, Paddington, NSW, Australia.(Photo by Anne host should have a preproduction meeting in which
Douglas) they discuss the questions/topics ahead of time and
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Studio Interviews 477

decide the order in which they will be addressed, Treat your talent with respect;
usually starting with easy areas designed to put the this means respecting cultural
guest at ease, and building to the real stingers which difference and diversity.
should bring out strong reactions and statements
from the guest.
Marjorie
The host should have this list written down on hand-held prompt cards or on a Anderson,
clearly readable script held on a clipboard. The director should have a copy of the list, National
so if necessary s/he can prompt the host to ask one which was missed out. Coordinator
Aboriginal
Part of the art of interviewing is to know when to follow a lead. The guest may say Employment
something which opens up a whole unexpected area. The host needs to make a decision and
on the fly about whether to follow an unplanned line, or return to the prearranged plan. Development,
ABC TV.
To a certain extent, the director needs to trust the interviewer to follow his or her instincts
in this.
An open heart and open mind
opens doors of possibilities.

Hospitality
Claire Beach,
The guest is the most important person in the program; in fact, there is no program Edmonds-
without the guest. The guest should be warmly greeted and treated well during the entire Woodway
time he or she is there. High School.

Hospitality for the guest is primarily the

responsibility of the floor manager, but all the crew Listening: Always conduct your Florence
should be polite to and considerate of the guest. It’s Onus,
interview with an open ear. If Journalism
unprofessional to ever make a guest feel unwelcome you’re not listening to what Lecturer,
or belittled, no matter what you may think of his or the person is saying, you can School of
her line of argument. Indigenous
miss the opportunity to pick Australian
The flow of the taping session should be clearly up on things you were Studies,
explained to the guest. The floor manager should go unaware of. James Cook
over all the hand signals which might be used during University.

the show, make sure the guest is comfortable in the

set’s chair, and promptly explain the reason for any hold-ups and the expected duration
of the delays.
On long shoots, the floor manager should make sure that the guest gets tea and rest
breaks at comfortable intervals.
At the end of the recording session, the guest
should be thanked and accompanied to the door. If You don’t need to be an expert
possible, the guest should either be allowed to view in the subject—they are—but
the tape playback right away or promised a copy of you do need to know the right
it at a later date. questions to ask to elicit their
most informative and dynamic Donna
responses. Kenny,The
Video History
Company
and Center
for Recording
Life Stories.
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478 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Those lights get hot! Floor Manager Christine The floor manager makes sure the performer is
Parlevliet passes a drink of water to Dianne Bain, comfortable and understands all the hand signals to
while Sunshine De Luna looks on.Edith Cowan be used.University of Southern Queensland, Darling
University, Perth,WA, Australia.(Photo by Keith Heights, Qld, Australia.
Smith)

Coverage Guidelines for the Director

1. When setting lights and planning out camera shots during rehearsal, use other people
to stand in for your guests. It’s not a good idea to tire guests out, and they would
benefit more from having a relaxed chat with the show’s host in another room.
2. Establish the physical relationship between the host and guest at the beginning of
the interview. A wide 2-shot can do this.
3. During the interview, it’s important to listen as well as to look.
4. The pace of switching between shots will depend on the mood of the discussion.
Lively, controversial interviews benefit from quick cutting. More personal or reflective
interviews suggest longer and more intimate shots, slow zooms and thoughtful
reaction shots.
5. Medium close-ups and close-ups are the lifeblood of interviews.
6. Make sure that the shots of your host and guest match in both size and framing.
Never intercut between shots in which the interviewer appears larger on the screen
than the guest does.
7. When either the guest or host is gesticulating, either zoom out to include a full view
of the hand motions, or zoom in and lose the hands entirely. Never let the gestures
be only partially seen at the bottom of the frame.
8. Name captions should be superimposed over
Never say ‘We’re ahead of medium shots, not close-ups. Writing across a
schedule.’ You’re asking for it! person’s chin looks bizarre.
9. Tape or film inserts, photographs, graphics and
props can make an interview more interesting. But the timing and order of these
Sara Hourez, additions should be scripted ahead of time so that they flow into the program
Special smoothly, everyone knows when they will appear and their usefulness is maximised.
Projects, 10. If the guest or interviewer is to give a live commentary to a pre-recorded tape segment,
AFTRS.
s/he needs to preview the tape and have one or two rehearsals, preferably in a quiet
place away from the studio. Once on the set, the commentator needs to have an
unobstructed view of the monitor which is showing the segment.
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Studio Interviews 479

A Selection of Basic Camera Set-ups

The arrangement of the chairs on the set has a surprisingly great impact on the way the
guests feel, and therefore how they act and speak. This, and the positioning of the
cameras, affects the way the audience perceives the interview.
So don’t just automatically plonk people into the set’s chairs as you find them; rather,
think carefully about what the dynamics of the interview will be and arrange the set to
underscore the alliances or conflicts you hope to show your viewers.
Use whatever camera resources you have to give you the flexibility you need for
good coverage. It’s almost always possible to connect an additional camera into the
studio mixer, using a BNC cable from the camera’s video output. So don’t be shy to go
for a second, third or fourth camera if you need it.

One Camera, One Guest

Covering an interview with only one camera demands skill on the part of the camera
operator. Every camera move must be done well because that camera’s shot is always
on show.
The majority of interviews are done with people who are known for their interest
in a subject, or their specialised knowledge, but whose ability in front of a camera is an
unknown quantity.
As a director, you need to arrange the shoot so your program host can carry the
interview if necessary.

SUGGESTED COVERAGE IF HOST AND GUEST SHARE EQUAL PROMINENCE

When the guest’s speaking ability is unknown, the guest and host can be given equal
screen importance.

Guest Interviewer

With this set-up, the

guest and host have
equal prominence.
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480 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

• You could begin with a medium shot of the host, who looks directly down the
camera lens to give an introduction to the piece.
• As the host turns to introduce the guest, zoom or dolly out to reveal the guest, till
both are framed in a tight 2-shot. Stay with this 2-shot for a while (maybe till the
guest is answering the second question), and then tighten the shot to a medium shot
of the guest only.
• As long as the guest is performing well, you can
stay with this 1-shot, varying it from medium
Speak clearly, in short shot, to medium close-up, to close-up, depend-
sentences that the interviewee ing on the content and emotional quality of the
and the audience understand. answers.
• For variety, pan to the host for a question or
Florence reaction shot. But do this only from a medium
Onus, shot, never from a close-up.
Journalism
Lecturer, • Also for variety, sometimes widen out from the guest to a 2-shot. You may choose
School of to do this if the guest is faltering and you think the footage would benefit from the
Indigenous additional image and body language of the host. Take care to stay with your 2-shot
Australian
Studies, for a decent amount of time, because frequent zooming in and out is annoying to
James Cook the viewer.
University. • At a prearranged signal, return to a medium close-up of the host who again looks
directly to camera for closing remarks.
• Fade studio audio, fade up program end music, and slowly widen to a 2-shot of host
and guest quietly talking to each other as you roll credits over the screen. For an arty
effect, fade down the frontal lights and show the host and guest silhouetted against
the background.

SUGGESTED COVERAGE IF THE GUEST IS CAPABLE OF CARRYING THE INTERVIEW

When the guest is capable of carrying the interview, the host can be shown in partial
profile in the 2-shots. This bolsters the screen importance of the guest.
• Begin with a medium shot of the host, who turns his or her upper body around to
show full face to the camera.

Guest Interviewer

With this set-up, the

camera emphasis is
on the guest.
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Studio Interviews 481

• As the host introduces the guest, pan left to a 2-shot with depth, or track back slightly
to include the guest in a wider 2-shot. You can stay with this 2-shot until the guest
has answered the first question.
• Then either zoom or dolly to tighten to a medium shot of the guest. As long as the
guest is performing well, you can stay with this 1-shot, varying it from medium shot,
to medium close-up, to close-up, depending on the content and emotional quality
of the answers.
• Towards the end of the interview, widen out to Double-barrelled questions: Florence
a 2-shot again, or pan to a single of the host and These often confuse the
Onus,
Journalism
have the host turn to the camera again for the interviewee. For example: Lecturer,
closing. ‘Where is the conference going School of
Indigenous
to be held, and who’s going to Australian
Two Cameras, One Guest be there?’ Studies,
James Cook
Having the second camera gives you a great advan- University.
tage, because now you can adjust one shot unseen while your viewers are looking at
another one which is steady and well-focused.

SUGGESTED COVERAGE FOR A RELAXED STYLE OF INTERVIEW

When the relationship between the guest and host is relaxed and friendly:

Guest Interviewer

With this set-up, both

the guest and the host
Camera 1 Camera 2 have a dedicated
camera.

It’s a convention that cameras are numbered from left to right across the set. Although
this isn’t totally necessary, it does help to reduce the director’s and vision mixer’s
confusion, and there’s definite benefit in that!
• Camera 2 can start off with the establishment 2-shot.
• Then camera 1 can be used in a medium shot for the host’s initial remarks.
• Camera 2 reframes to a medium shot of the guest, and the director cuts to the guest
during the introduction.
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482 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

As the interview proceeds:

• Camera 1 covers all single shots of the host.
• Camera 2 covers all single shots of the guest.
• Either camera can be asked for a 2-shot.
However, this is more likely to be asked of
camera 1, because camera 2 will be used for the
greater amount of screen time, leaving camera 1
more opportunity to dolly or rearrange shots.
• Camera 1 can dolly to a more central position to
pick up an evenly balanced 2-shot of the guest
and host.
• Camera 1 can also be used to cover close-ups of
objects the guest wants to show.
• Camera 1 can turn left to get shots of graphics
on a pre-lit graphics stand.

Floor Manager Clare Mowday discusses a camera SUGGESTED COVERAGE FOR A CONFRONTATIONAL STYLE OF
script with operator Kira Morsley.Edith Cowan INTERVIEW
University, Perth,WA, Australia.(Photo by Keith For a ‘hard-nosed’ interview where there could be a
Smith) feeling of confrontation between the guest and the
host, a table can be used in between them.

Guest interviewer

Camera 1 Camera 2

A table or desk between

the guest and host
heightens the feeling of Guest Interviewer Guest Interviewer
confrontation.

• The two cameras need to be positioned almost directly opposite each other, but still
out of each other’s shot. Each camera should have a good over-the-shoulder shot.
• Cameras should take care not to cross the action axis line, drawn in dots in the
illustration above.
• The two camera shots should be carefully balanced by:
1. Matching the lens heights of both cameras.
2. Matching the camera positions in relation to their subjects.
3. Matching the framing of both shots.
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Studio Interviews 483

As with all interviews, it’s best to have a neutral angle shot of both guest and host. This
is done by setting the camera lens at the eye level of each person. Elevating the guest’s
chair on risers, or lowering the camera height, will achieve this, with the first option
being the preferred one for the comfort of the camera operators. Especially in a
confrontational type interview, you don’t want to diminish the authority of any speaker
by looking down at that person from a high camera angle. Nor do you want to artificially
aggrandise one or the other by looking up at that person from a low camera angle.
As with the previous set-up, the bulk of the screen time will go to camera 2, so
camera 1 is the camera to ask to dolly out to a more central position for a 2-shot, or to
cover any extra shots, like objects and graphics.

Two Cameras,Two Guests

There’s more than one way of looking at the idea of having two guests on a show. Some
say that each person has to be able to make a distinct contribution to the interview or
you should go with just one guest, that it’s pointless to have a second person who says
little and is basically a rubber stamp of the first.
On the other hand, some say that asking people to appear in a studio interview is a
very big request, and that many people find the thought quite frightening. By allowing
a second person who holds a similar position on the subject to come along, you give
your guests some moral support, and you cover yourself if your primary guest goes
speechless.

SUGGESTED COVERAGE FOR AN AMIABLE INTERVIEW WITH TWO PEOPLE

When there are two guests who concur on the subject, they can feel more comfortable
if seated together.

Guest 1

Interviewer Guest 2

Guests who take a

similar stand on an
Camera 1 Camera 2 issue are usually
happy to sit side by
side.

• Camera 1 is responsible for covering each of the guests, using both 2-shots and
singles. This means camera 1 will be very busy, and will be asked to change shots
frequently and rapidly. It makes good directorial sense to put your better camera
operator on this camera.
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484 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

• Camera 2 covers the host, during opening remarks, questioning, reaction shots and
the final wrap-up.
• Camera 2 can also be asked to dolly back and get a 3-shot, or track left for a 3-shot.
• For variety, camera 2 can track right and get a deep profile shot of the two guests.

SUGGESTED COVERAGE FOR AN INTERVIEW OF TWO PEOPLE WITH OPPOSING VIEWS

When there are two guests who oppose each other on the subject, it may be better to
seat them on either side of the host.

Interviewer

Guest 1
Guest 2

Guests who take an

opposing stand on an
issue may prefer to be
seated separately. Camera 1 Camera 2

• The role of the host could be minimal in this interview because the two guests are
likely to fuel each other, and each will have plenty to say. Most of the camera coverage
will go to the guests. Still, the host needs to keep control of the show.
• The opening of this interview is tricky because each guest needs a good shot for
their moment of glory—the introduction. Two possible ways to handle this are:
l. (a) Move one of the cameras to a central position and open with an establishing
3-shot, then zoom in to a medium shot of the host, for opening remarks.
(b) Cut to the other camera, which has a medium shot of the first guest to be
introduced.
(c) Cut to your first camera, which is now on a medium shot of the second guest,
for the second introduction.
2. (a) Open with a medium shot of the host.
(b) As the first guest is introduced, widen out with that camera to a 2-shot which
includes the first guest.
(c) Cut to the other camera for a medium shot of the second guest for the second
introduction.
• It’s critical for everyone to be clear on which guest will be introduced first. It doesn’t
matter whether Guest 1 or Guest 2 is the chosen one, as long as everyone knows
the game plan.
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Studio Interviews 485

• Coverage can proceed with successive single Body language is important
shots of the guests, interspersed with shots of the when conducting an interview.
host for variety. You can acknowledge the
• 2-shots are also good showing the host and a interviewee by nodding your
guest framed together. Just don’t jump from one head rather than by saying Florence
2-shot to another, or the host will appear to leap ‘yes’ or ‘uh-huh’ or grunting. Onus,
from side to side of the frame. This appreciative silence will Journalism
Lecturer,
save you lots of heartache School of
SUGGESTED COVERAGE FOR TWO OPENLY ANTAGONISTIC when editing.There’s nothing Indigenous
PEOPLE worse than a tape splattered Australian
Studies,
Where the two guests hold strongly opposed views, with off-camera sounds, which James Cook
providing them with a physical barrier might be a can’t be explained later University.

good idea. without being forced to show

the interviewer.

Interviewer

Guest 1 Guest 2

Action axis line

Sometimes the
drama is heightened
by emphasising the
Camera 1 Camera 2 difference between
the two guests.

• Inserting a table between the two guests does physically separate them, giving them
each their own space, while also acting as a psychological barricade (and possibly
stopping them from slugging it out!).
• The director needs to be especially aware of eyelines when cutting between singles,
so people don’t seem to be looking the wrong way.
• There’s a good opportunity for over-the-shoulder shots, but take care to keep both
cameras to the front of the action axis line.
• Again, you shouldn’t cut from one 2-shot to another, because your host will appear
to leap from side to side of the screen.
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486 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Three Cameras,Two Guests

SUGGESTED COVERAGE WHERE EACH GUEST CAN HOLD THEIR OWN

You can use your cameras to maintain the distinctness of each guest.

Interviewer

Guest 1 Guest 2

Camera 1 Camera 3

The third camera greatly

Camera 2
increases your flexibility.

• Camera 2 can open, either with:

1. An establishing 3-shot which zooms in to a medium shot of the host.
2. A medium shot of the host.
3. A medium shot of the host which widens out to a 3-shot.
• Coverage continues with each camera dedicated to cover the singles of one of the
persons on the set.
• Camera 1 covers Guest 2 and can also be asked for 2-shots of the host and Guest
2, and for occasional 3-shots.
• Camera 3 covers Guest 1 and can also be asked for 2-shots of the host and Guest 1,
and for occasional 3-shots.
• Camera 2 covers the host and can also be used for:
1. A safety 2-shot.
2. A safety 3-shot.
3. Graphics from a pre-lit graphics stand.
4. Shots of guests in partial profile, if tracking is possible.

SUGGESTED COVERAGE WHERE THE TWO GUESTS GIVE EACH OTHER SUPPORT
You can seat the guests so they feel each other’s support.
• Camera 1 covers most singles of Guest 1, and can be asked to truck left to get shots
of either guest over the shoulder of the host.
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Studio Interviews 487

Guest 1
Interviewer
Guest 2

Camera 1 Camera 3
Each guest is covered
Camera 2 separately, but they can
feel supported by each
other.

• Camera 2 covers most singles of Guest 2, and Once you have completed
can get 2-shots of the guests. Camera 2 can also your interview, replay a small
get a profile of the host, if needed. segment of it to ensure:
• Camera 3 covers the host and can get a 3-shot
with depth. 1. That you have it.
2. That the sound quality and Florence
• You may need to use one of your cameras for Onus,
graphics, or for covering a close-up of something levels are good for Journalism
one of the guests has to show. The camera you broadcast. Lecturer,
School of
choose will depend on which cameras you’re Indigenous
using leading up to the shot. This is where planning ahead will definitely help you Australian
troubleshoot. Studies,
James Cook
• You may need to release one of your cameras for use on the next segment in your University.
program. If so, give this camera ample warning and plenty of time to reach its new
studio position so it can frame and focus before you have to use its shot. Don’t wind
up one segment before the first shot of the next one is ready!

Ethics and the Interview

It’s easy to influence the tone of a studio interview. The director does this by choosing
the seating arrangement, and selecting the content and order of the questions.
The interviewer does this by tone of voice when asking the questions, and by changes
in facial expression and body language.
It’s also possible for the director to use camera shots to subtly, even subliminally,
influence the viewing audience.
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488 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

A high camera angle looking down on the guest can be interpreted as reducing his
or her authority.
A very tight shot of the guest, intercut with loose relaxed shots of the host, can seem
to put the guest in the hot seat. If the guest is able to see his or her image in a studio
monitor (which is almost never a good idea), s/he can feel squeezed and under attack
by such an image. This can affect performance, especially in a guest who’s started a
downward spiral.
A close-up reaction shot of the host with a slightly raised eyebrow or tiny smile may
imply that the guest is not telling the truth.
Don’t succumb to underhanded tricks like these. Camera shots and angles should
remain neutral and people’s credibility should stand or fall on their words and their own
performance.
Otherwise it can be justly said that the guest has not had a fair go.

Suggestions from Rachel Masters

If you can record an interesting one-person interview, you’re well on the way to becoming
an accomplished videomaker.
There are many different variations on the one-person interview, but they all revolve
around the same idea: the interviewee should be the focus of the interview.Your friends
may be budding current affairs journalists, but their face on camera may not always be
needed, and it can be distracting.
Record a one-person interview which, when edited, will run for about four minutes.
Remember to include cutaways and reversals.
If you don’t have access to a studio, don’t worry, there are lots of appropriate places to
do interviews. Perhaps you can do the shoot on location. Look around your
neighbourhood. Who are the local celebrities?

Training Resource
The Greater Perspective, 2nd edition, Lester Bostock, SBS, 1997.
Available from SBS. This style manual gives information about
how to go about doing screen productions within Australian
Indigenous communities. A must to read.

Lester Bostock, author

of The Greater
Perspective.
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Chapter

35 Video Transmission
Methods
Producing Videos
Video Transmission Methods

The video signal can be transmitted

I in several ways. It can be sent along
a wire as a composite video signal. This is the way video
is transmitted within a studio, and through some
closed circuit TV systems. When sent this way, only the
picture is carried on the video signal wire. The sound
needs to be carried on a separate audio wire.
The video signal can also be sent along a wire as
an RF (radio frequency) signal. When sent this way,
the video and audio signals are converted to a single
radio frequency signal and sent together along just
one wire. This is the form of transmission used by
cable TV. The transmission of programming along
cables is often referred to as cablecasting, instead of
broadcasting.
When the signal is transmitted through the air, Community access TV stations work on a public
it’s transmitted as a radio frequency (RF). This is the access, first-come, first-served basis.So anyone from
method used for broadcast television. that particular community who wants to learn how
to do video has the right to participate.Open Day at
Wakefield Community Access TV,Wakefield, MA,
USA.(Photo by Barbara Bishop)
Cable TV
With cable TV, the service provider transmits signals along a vast system of cables which
emanate from the provider’s head end transmission facility.
From the head end, there are many trunk lines which radiate to sections of the city
or the geographic region. These trunk lines lead to system sub-centres called gateways.
From the gateways, smaller areas called nodes are serviced. Within these nodes, broadband
cable is strung along the telephone poles, or entrenched underground, throughout each
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490 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

neighbourhood. Amplifiers are placed along the broadband cable pathways to maintain
a consistent signal level. Along the way, between the amplifiers, are taps. Each tap allows
from two to eight homes to be serviced by direct wires from the cable system. These
individual wires are connected to people’s houses and from there to their TV sets.
A cable TV provider (company) collects TV programming from a variety of sources
and distributes its collection of programs on a number of cable channels. This
programming is received only in the homes of the subscribers who have signed up for
the cable service, usually on the basis of a monthly fee.
Cable TV providers generally offer a range of choices in channel packages, which are
also referred to as levels or tiers. The customer can choose to receive either a small number
of channels for a lower price, or packages which include a larger number of channels
with some special enticers, like channels showing new movies, top sporting events or
adults only material.
To acquire their programming, cable TV providers pay a fee to collect signals from
different satellites, using giant satellite dishes located at the system’s head end. They also
receive off-air signals from local TV broadcasters (both commercial and government-
sponsored channels), and they can generate their own programming from their studios,
if they have any, and from their OB (outside broadcast) vans—which are used for local
sports coverage, local events, government meetings, and so on. In addition, they can
collect new programming on videotape from other providers.
These other providers could have a commercial arrangement with the cable system,
and pay to have their programs transmitted. Or they could be approved providers who
supply program material for free-to-air channels reserved for government meetings, health,
education or religious programming.
There’s another category of program provider which could apply to you. That’s public
access.

Public Access
Public access channels are available to community groups or individuals for free, so
anyone can broadcast their own programming. Needless to say, the variety of
programming which arises from a whole community is almost by definition broader
than the choices available from any other channel. From a multiplicity of producers can
come a wonderful spectrum of programming.
A public access channel is defined as a common carrier, available on a first-come, first-served
basis. You can understand this definition by thinking about a public road. Anyone can
travel down it, and the first one who gets to it, gets to ride down it first. Then all others
can use it in the order in which they arrived.

Public Access in the USA

In the USA, cable TV systems offer public access packages to the communities from
which they extract their service provision fees. Although the public access facilities are
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Video Transmission Methods 491

free to community members, and may cost a lot of
money to set up, the cost to the cable company for
providing them is minor compared to the quite
considerable sum paid in monthly fees by the overall
community to the cable TV company. So public
access is not a charity set-up, and is seen by many
media advocates and community members as a
public service obligation. Still, there are some cable
TV providers who offer little or no public access.
Public access packages can include access to
production equipment, fully equipped studios and
OB vans. They often include wages for teachers to
train community members in how to plan, make and
edit their own programs. They can also pay the
wages of people who are hired to produce local Charlie Tesch and Larry Sawires Yager receive an
programs, and for coordinators who oversee all of award from Bunny Riedel on behalf of the Somerville
this production activity. So local public access Producers Group, for producing the longest
channels can supply the community with jobs for continously running public access program (Dead
local media people. Air Live) in the USA.
In places where cable TV systems compete for
permission to supply a community with cable service, local media activists can pressure
the competing providers to offer very good public access equipment and services as part
of their overall commitment to the community.

Public Access in Australia is Available Free-to-Air

In Australia, free-to-air public access is currently available in six cities on the community
broadcast channel, usually Channel 31, often referred to as the ‘sixth channel’.
The sixth channel is on the UHF spectrum. Channel 31 is located near SBS in the
UHF frequency range.
Community broadcast channels are allocated their licence by the Public Broadcasting
Association. At time of writing the community channels are:

Adelaide ACE TV UHF 31

Brisbane BRIZ 31 UHF 31
Lismore LINC TV UHF 68
Melbourne MCTC Channel 31 UHF 31
Perth Access 31 Perth UHF 31
Sydney CTS Channel 31 Sydney UHF 31

These channels are all up for renewal at the end of 2002.

Other cities have the right to apply for a community channel, and some have done
so, and even been licensed, but then the channel has folded for some reason.
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492 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Broadcast TV
The television most people experience is that which is a signal transmitted through the
air as an RF frequency. It’s broadcast from a TV transmitting tower, which is situated
high on a hill in each locality. There are two reasons for this arrangement: television
signals don’t travel very far, and they have to travel in a straight line.
As the RF TV signal passes each home, it’s captured by an aerial on the top of the
house or block of units or apartments, then it runs through a cable directly to the
individual TV sets. When there’s no rooftop aerial, people can use ‘rabbit ears’ on top
of their TV set to capture the RF signal.

The broadcast TV signal bounces off hills.It can’t pass through them.

TV signals sent through the air can’t pass through hills. In fact, they bounce off them,
and this rebounded signal can then enter TV aerials which have already received the
signal directly from the transmitting tower. This is why some people have problems with
ghosting on their TVs. They’re actually receiving both a direct signal and a reflected signal,
with the second one arriving marginally later than the first, and appearing slightly
displaced to the right on their screen.
This also explains why some people who live quite close to a TV broadcasting
transmitter can get very poor signals. If they live in a hollow on the far side of another
hill near the transmitter, they’re in an area which can’t get a direct signal.
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Video Transmission Methods 493

When a household has a VCR, the
rooftop aerial cable is usually connected
directly to the VCR, and from there
another shorter cable takes the RF signal
from the VCR to the TV. Connecting the
aerial to the VCR allows people to tape
TV programs off-air. This practice is
commonly done for timeshifting, which
simply means that the viewer wants to
watch a program at any later time, rather
than being stuck with the TV station’s
broadcast time slot.
With this hook-up, it’s possible for
inveterate viewers to watch one program
and tape another at the same time. If you
can’t do that with your present set-up,
swapping the cables around may be all
you need to do to have this capacity.

Microwave Links The signal path is from the rooftop aerial to the VCR, and then
from the VCR to the TV.

Video can also be sent via a microwave link. With microwave transmission, the TV signal
is an RF signal which is loaded onto a microwave carrier. Microwave transmission requires
line of sight, which means that it too can only be done in a straight line. For this reason,
microwave links are commonly set up on hilltops or the tops of tall buildings. With a
microwave link, a signal can be received and then retransmitted. This is one way TV
signals can be sent across vast distances.

Landlines
TV signals can be sent along landlines (or bearers) from one capital city to another. In the
past, these landlines were coaxial cables, but they’ve gradually been replaced by broadband
fibre optics.
Program segments can be sent along landlines from several different cities to one
studio, and then edited together there into a whole program.

Satellite Transmission
Another way to send video from one geographical region to another is to use a satellite
link. Satellite links are routinely used for collecting news stories from around the nation
and world, so they can be edited together each night for TV news bulletins, for example.
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494 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Satellite distribution is the preferred method for international TV distribution,

especially for Australia and New Zealand, which are geographically isolated from other
English-speaking countries.

How Does a Satellite Link Work?

The first thing you may have learned about satellites and TV transmission is that there
needs to be a satellite dish. You can see these on top of the hotels and clubs which advertise
SKY Channel, and you can see them dotted around the countryside on top of buildings
and hills, and at big institutions, such as universities and hospitals.
The satellite dish, also known as an antenna, comes in two varieties. One can only
receive signals. Needless to say, these cost less and are far more common. The other sort
can send signals as well.
If you have a close look at a satellite dish, you’ll see that it’s comprised of a large
curved surface which has a smaller device mounted at a distance from the inside base
of the curve. This is called the feed horn. The feed horn directs the transmitted signal to
the broad curved surface of the dish and from there it bounces off into the sky. The feed
horn can either direct the signal straight at the curved reflector surface, or it can use a
double bounce system, in which case the dish is called a dual-reflector antenna.
The dish has to be correctly oriented towards the sky so the transmitted signal can
be received by the right satellite.
The satellites used for the conveyance of television signals aren’t the ones you can
see crossing the sky at dusk like purposeful shooting stars. They’re the ones which are
in orbits which are geosynchronous to the earth’s surface. This means that, though they’re
in orbit through space, they stay in a fixed position in relation to the earth, so, for example,
the ones which serve Australia are always in the same place in relation to Australia. In
order to be geosynchronous, they must be 35 680 km (22 300 miles) above the Equator.

Launching into Satellite Vocabulary

A satellite broadcast operates via a TV station sending a baseband signal to an earthstation
which has a satellite dish which can be used for the uplink. The signal is uplinked to a
geosynchronous satellite, where it’s received by a transponder. The transponder changes the
frequency of the signal and amplifies it. Then it sends the signal to another transponder
on the same satellite. The second transponder retransmits the signal back to the Earth,
using the new frequency to protect the retransmitted signal from interference from the
original signal. The downlink signal can then be picked up by the satellite dishes of any
of the earth stations within the footprint of that satellite.
• Uplink: Transmission system sending a signal to a satellite; also, the signal sent up
to the satellite.
• Downlink: Transmission system receiving a signal sent from the satellite to the earth;
also, the signal sent to the Earth.
• Footprint: The geographical area on the Earth which receives the downlink signal from
a particular satellite at a useful strength. Because footprints don’t align with national
borders, satellite signals can be received in countries which don’t necessarily approve
their program content, yet have no regulatory control over their broadcasters. This
is one of the benefits (or hazards—depending on your point of view) of satellite TV.
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Video Transmission Methods 495

• Earthstation: A facility for the transmission and reception/distribution of satellite-
mediated (handled) television and radio signals.
• Antenna or satellite dish: A piece of equipment composed of a curved reflector and a
feed horn, which can be used to receive signals from, or transmit them to, a satellite.
• Geosynchronous satellite: A satellite which stays in a fixed position in relation to the
Earth.
• Transponder: The part of the satellite which receives the uplinked signal, converts the
signal to another frequency, and amplifies it for retransmission to earth via another
(downlink) transponder.
• Baseband signal: The signal which is sent from the TV station to the earthstation for
uplink to the satellite.

DBS: Direct Broadcast Satellite

When an individual receiver, like a home or business, has its own satellite dish and
receives programming directly from a satellite for its own use and not for distribution
to others, this is called DBS. Some satellite TV broadcasts can be purchased directly
like this.

Interactive Satellite Communication

World Telly at AFTRS
Using a combination of most of these methods of video transmission, it’s possible to
construct a signal path for interactive satellite communication.
In March 1996, a one-hour interactive satellite program called World Telly was put
together in the main TV studio at the Australian Film Television and Radio School.
World Telly was a magazine-style variety program which incorporated live
performances from AFTRS in Sydney, and live performances from Bangkok, Thailand,
as well as pretaped segments rolled-in to the program from both sites. The two studios
were connected via a satellite link, and the set-up allowed for two-way video and two-
way audio.
The signal path for this program was a feat of cooperative transmission!
If you’re ready for a real challenge, try to follow this:
The signal originating in the AFTRS studio (in the Sydney suburb of North
Ryde) was sent by coax cable to the rooftop, to the microwave transmitter,
which sent it by microwave link to the government-sponsored TV station,
ABC TV, a few kilometres away, still on Sydney’s north shore.
From the ABC, the signal went by landline to TOC (Telstra Operations
Centre) which is at the Centrepoint Tower in the centre of Sydney’s business
district. From TOC, the signal was sent along TV1, a dedicated landline, to the
ABC earthstation in Darwin.
From Darwin the signal was uplinked to Palapa B2P, an Indonesian
satellite. It was received on Transponder ‘T5 Lower’. This is the transponder
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496 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

which is permanently booked by the ABC for

Australia Television, the international satellite
TV broadcasting service of the Australian
Broadcasting Corporation.
The signal was then downlinked to Si Racha
earthstation, owned by CAT (Communications
Authority of Thailand). From Si Racha earth-
station, the signal was microwaved to Channel
11 in Bangkok. This is the national TV broad-
caster for Thailand.
Because Channel 11 had no uplink capacity,
a mobile earthstation (on a truck) was hired and
parked at Channel 11.
The signal from Channel 11 studio was
transmitted to the mobile earthstation via
temporarily laid coax cable.
From the mobile earthstation, the signal
was uplinked to Transponder ‘T2 Horizontal’ on
Palapa B2P satellite.
The signal was then downlinked to Darwin,
to the ABC. Because the ABC landline link to
Explaining last minute details of World Telly, Scott Sydney was unavailable, the signal was then
Watkins-Sully, producer, Australian Film Television microwaved to the Optus earthstation in
and Radio School. Palmerston, NT (just south of Darwin).
The Optus earthstation uplinked the signal
to BIT 5L, which is the Optus satellite.
From the Optus satellite, the signal was downlinked to the satellite
receive-only dish at AFTRS, and sent by coax cable to the control room of
the main studio!

World Telly could be received in 24 countries, as

Scott far away as India and Sri Lanka to the west, China
Watkins- The process and practice of a
and Korea to the north, and Tonga and other Pacific
Sully,AFTRS project such as World Telly
student and Island nations to the east. It was broadcast by the
provides invaluable experience
producer of ABC channel Australia Television, and broadcast
World Telly. of the kind of international
internally in Thailand.
coproduction that will surely
When you send a signal up to a satellite, there’s
become commonplace in the
no way of knowing who will pull it down, and
near future, through the
record it, and/or retransmit it. The program can end
implementation of larger
up anywhere in the world!
satellite footprints and easier
A great feeling for megalomaniacs. Not so great
access to technology.
for control freaks.
For anyone else hoping to try an interactive
satellite program, here are some helpful hints from Scott Watkins-Sully, the AFTRS
student who initiated and tenaciously followed through on World Telly.
First, learn as much as possible about the culture of the people you’re cooperating
with, and be respectful of their ways of doing things.
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Video Transmission Methods 497

Then, know your signal path—transponder
names, uplink frequencies at every point, and the
names and phone numbers of the transmission
officers who will be on duty at the time.
Make sure you have paperwork confirming every
stage of every link, and copy that paperwork to
everyone who’s part of the link, complete with phone
numbers.
Don’t be afraid to approach people for infor-
mation. Interactive satellite communication is a
process everyone’s constantly learning about.
Ensure that you know your signal path within
the control room and the video and audio consoles,
and that you have total control over all incoming and Know your signal path! Barry Fernandes and Scott
outgoing signals. Watkins-Sully confer on World Telly, Australian Film
Ensure that everything’s up and running and Television and Radio School.
patched as far in advance as possible. You should
have at least 15–20 minutes line-up time for the satellite feeds.
Be certain that you have very, very carefully balanced foldback audio to the studio
floor at every live site.
Project set-up time depends on resources. A broadcast station could put together an
interactive satellite program more quickly, but with relatively unresourced projects, it
would take six months or more to put one together.
Dealing with overseas links takes lots of time to negotiate and confirm production
details.
World Telly II, a coproduction with Fiji, was transmitted in February 1997.
If anyone would like to get more information about World Telly or how to put together
an interactive satellite program, you may contact Scott:
Scott Watkins-Sully, 22 Cavendish Street, Pennant Hills, NSW 2120, Australia;
tel: +61 2 9484 4824; mobile: 0414 864 916; fax: +61 2 9484 8747.
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Chapter

36 Videoconferencing
Producing Videos
Videoconferencing

Videoconference set-ups are somewhat similar to the HOT studio. They

I
also allow for only one or two people per site to generate a continuous
program from several sources. This is done by using cameras in fixed positions, which
are operated by remote control. Other signal-generating equipment, like a VCR, a
computer or an audio player, can be hooked into the system as well.
Universities and businesses have invested in increasingly comprehensive video-
conferencing set-ups.

A Typical Videoconference System

It is increasingly common for universities to provide subjects which are physically taught
at only one campus, but attended by students from one or more other campuses as well.
Videoconferencing is one of the many techniques included in distance education.
The distant students (who may only be in a
building a block away, but could also be on the other
Site 1 Site 5
side of the world) go to a designated videoconference
room at their own campus or a local community
Main
centre, to connect in to their teacher’s lecture theatre
campus at the main campus.
With videoconferencing the teacher becomes,
willingly or not, the producer of an interactive
Site 2 Site 4 multicamera media event which is produced live,
Site 3 broadcast simultaneously to several sites and
recorded for posterity, for better or worse.
Students from all five satellite sites can see, and But as the producer of the show, it’s up to the
converse with, the lecturer and the class at the main teacher whether to go for a very simple production
campus.
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Videoconferencing 499
or a much more complex one. For many teachers it’s an invigorating challenge and for
some it’s a chance to dabble in a bit of the theatrical.
Typically, in the videoconference room where the teacher will be, you find a hand-
held remote control, a couple of large monitors, a main camera and second camera,
possibly a spotlight, microphones, document camera, and other plug-in equipment such
as a VCR and a computer.

Remote Control
The hand-held remote control operates the rest of
the equipment.

Monitors
One of the large monitors shows the image which
is being generated from the main lecture hall, and the
other shows the image which is the return video—that
is, whatever is being received from somewhere else.
In a basic set-up with only two sites, it simply shows Whoever holds the remote control chooses the
the other site. displays people see.
In a more complex set-up, the second monitor
shows a full screen image of whatever remote site
has been selected by the remote control in the
teacher’s room, and a small PIP (picture in the picture)
appears on the screen for every other remote site
linked into the conference. By clicking the remote
control, any PIP can be turned into a full screen
image.
If the site has only one monitor, the PIP setting
can be used so that a small box in a corner of the
screen can show one image and the rest of the screen
shows the other. So the teacher and home audience
can still see both the output video and the incoming In videoconferencing, you can be happy if someone
video. gives you the PIP.

Cameras and Microphones

A main camera, is mounted high up, perhaps from the ceiling of the room or from a wall
mount. This camera is positioned to produce a good view of the teacher, both in a long
shot and in a medium close-up. This camera can be panned and zoomed using the
remote control, so the teacher can move around the front of the room, and go between
the whiteboard and the document camera or whatever.
There may be a spotlight which can be turned on to highlight the teacher in an
otherwise dully lit room. The spotlight should be well placed, certainly not mounted
right above the lectern or presentation desk, or the resulting toppy lighting will make
the teacher look haggard indeed.
There is a second camera which is mounted to give a wide shot of the classroom or
lecture theatre. It shows all those participants present at the main centre. This camera
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500 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

can be panned and zoomed, so a small group of

students can be found and highlighted, or an
individual asking a question or making a comment
can be seen well by those at other sites.
It’s a good idea for the second camera to be
mounted above the monitors so that the students in
all sites get images of people facing them.
Ideally the main camera on the teacher is mounted
at such an angle that when the teacher looks at the
class in the room, his/her eyeline is roughly correct
In the ISL (Interactive Systemwide Learning) lecture
for the students who are at the other sites. Sometimes
hall, the camera swivels towards whoever pulls
this positioning is not thought out carefully and the
down the toggle switch on the base of their
people at the other sites see only a profile of the
microphone.The camera is in the upper left-hand
teacher addressing the warm bodies present. The
corner of the picture, behind the smoked glass.
teacher has to learn to regularly face the lens of the
Central Queensland University, Bundaburg, Qld,
main camera so the participants at the remote sites
Australia.(Photo by Karl Neuenfeldt)
don’t feel left out.
The teacher may have to alternate between
looking at the students in the room and those on the
monitor.
In some systems the second camera is controlled
by the remote control. In more fully automated
systems, there are microphones built into the lecture
theatre tiers which are linked to the second camera.
So when a microphone detects a question or
comment from a participant in the audience, the
camera automatically zooms in to the area around
Ideally, the second camera is mounted above the that microphone. (You’d quickly learn to whisper to
monitors. the people next to you!)
In any case, the system provides a mounted
microphone for the teacher, and one or more
microphones for the room, depending on the size of
the room.
The second camera can be projected on a big
screen at the front of the hall so everyone present
gets a TV view of who’s talking. The big screen, in
fact, can show the entire videoconference, with all its
different camera shots and other sources, if desired.
There is a third camera, referred to as the document
camera, set within easy reach of the teacher. This
camera is mounted above a small well-lit platform.
This camera can easily be raised and lowered to give
either a wider or a closer shot, and the lens can also
be zoomed in and out, and focused. It can be
Lecturer Florence Onus shows her videoconference operated locally by the teacher, or remotely, using
class a graphic using the document camera.James the remote control.
Cook University,Townsville, Qld, Australia.
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Videoconferencing 501
Under this camera can go anything that fits
there—smallish objects for inspection by the class,
like rocks, flowers, feathers, computer chips, gadgets . . .
Flat on the little platform can be placed printed
material, like charts, graphs, maps, photos, artwork,
actual documents, converted OHPs (overhead
projector sheets) and computer printouts.

Other equipment
In addition to the three main cameras, other
electronic equipment can be wired into the system.
Students can view videos, documents and students
There can be a VCR, an audiotape player, a CD
at the other sites, on either the big screen at the
player, a DVD player, a digital camera and a
front of the room, or on the monitors at the right.
computer, whatever sends a visual or sound signal.
James Cook University,Townsville, Qld, Australia.
The computer can be used to display Power Point
programs and other graphics or text files, even
relevant emails or websites. The probability of the success
of your technology
presentation is inversely
related to the status of your
Operating the audience. If a parent comes in
to see something, it will
Paul Clark,

Videoconference System
Manchester
probably work. If the Memorial
School
superintendent comes in,
The teacher just needs to put the desired equipment there’s no way it will work!
into play mode, select the appropriate source on the Always have a fallback plan so
remote control, and the image will be presented to you can show your work some
the class on the monitor and on the big screen as other way.
well. The sound will be delivered through the room’s USB cables are standard-
speaker system. All the remote sites get the signals, ised on the end that attaches
too, on their monitors. to the computer BUT the other
In some systems the computer connecting port end varies from camera to
is there, but the computer is not. Teachers arrive with camera, even within the same
their own laptops and plug them in. In this instance brand. If someone tells you not
it’s important that the right cables and connectors are to worry, they have the cable
available to allow the teachers to successfully connect you need, chances are they
to and use the system. This means the technicians in don’t.
charge should be aware of what varieties of
connection ports are on the various computers used
by the teachers, and each teacher should do a test run of computer connecting, well
before the class, to make sure everything works.
A dedicated VCR, often located under one of the monitors, can be used to tape the
whole lecture, for the people who couldn’t be there at the time, or for the archives.
A side benefit of making the video recording is that reviewing the tape can give
teachers feedback on what they’re doing, and help them work to improve their
presentations. Careful viewing can also help teachers figure out what might be going
wrong with the dynamics in the class, if they’ve perceived there’s a problem.
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502 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Remote Sites
There may be less equipment in the other rooms (the remote sites), if teaching is not
going to be generated from those sites.
The students in the remote sites may also have hand-held remote controls, and their
remote controls may be able to override the one in the teacher’s classroom. Ah, the duel
of the remotes! The struggle for technological dominance!
These auxiliary remote controls give the distant participants some measure of control
over what they see and what they transmit. They can control the camera in their own
room, so they can zoom in on speakers when they want to, or frame out people who
wish not to be televised.

A Production Management Tip

For teachers who aren’t control freaks, who also have responsible students (in other
words, in most cases), it works well to give the operation of the remote control over to
a student. This job can be rotated from week to week, so everyone gets a feel for the
technology, and no-one misses out too much. Concentrating on what shot should be
on next, and how to get to it, can distract a student from the content of the lesson.
Having given away the vision mixing, the teacher can concentrate on the best possible
delivery of content. In addition to a dynamic personal presentation replete with
movement and body language, this can involve juggling between such additions as items
placed under the document camera, short pre-recorded videotapes and computer-based
data displays.
An attentive student can make sure that at any given time the best possible image
is being transmitted. This avoids the problem of the teacher forgetting to press the buttons
on the remote and ending up with 10 minutes transmission of some graphic under the
document camera, rather than the lively debate which is happening in the room.

Digital Networks
For people living in remote communities, digitial networks can connect them to the
mainstream of communication in their own country, and open up the world of
cyberspace to them.
In Australia, the current federal policy is to improve the communications systems in
regional and remote areas, to ensure everyone has access and no-one is communication
poor. This needs to be seen in the context that some remote communities don’t even
have a standard telephone service let alone the Internet! Talking via radio telephone has,
in the past, been an exercise in crackle and frustration, accompanied by the knowledge
that all calls could be listened to by others.
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Videoconferencing 503
Cape York Digital Network
Cape York, the pointy northeastern tip of Australia, is home to many extremely remote
Aboriginal communities. The Cape York Digital Network (CYDN) is a project of the
Balkanu Cape York Development Corporation, part of a larger group of Indigenous
telecommunications organisations known as the Outback Digital Network (ODN). The
CYDN is in the process of enabling and delivering communications services to the
16 remote communities it serves.

Horn Island
Seisia
New Mapoon
Injinoo Umagacio

Old Mapoon

Weipa
Napranum
Lockhart River

Aurukun

Coen

Sixteen remote
Pormpuraaw communities are
being connected
Hopevale into a digital
Kowanyama network under
Laura
the design and
supervision of the
Wujal Wujal
Cape York Digital
Network (CYDN).
Mossman (Map courtesy of
the Balkanu
Cairns Cape York
Lotus Glen Development
Corporation)
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504 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

As part of the CYDN an Internet Protocol (IP) network is being built over ISDN links
to create a flexible network that is capable of being expanded as demand increases.
Although every community is different and will have its own express needs and
desires in relation to joining the network, a standard package of equipment that could
be installed in a community includes:
• Six computers, some with webcam, some with thin-clients, connected to a server in
Cairns. This allows centralised upgrades of software and minimises maintenance
costs.
• A complete videoconferencing facility offering links up to speeds of 384 Kb.
• Cisco AiroNet products to distribute wireless data links to other buildings in the
community for applications such as videoconferencing and for Internet access. So
the health clinic, the council and the school can remotely tap into the network and
take advantage of the cost saving it offers.
It’s anticipated that the videoconferencing
facilities will allow for communications which have
up till now necessitated expensive plane travel,
weather permitting, or have been just plain impossible.
For example, the digital network will allow
people to attend meetings, medical consultations for
illnesses that don’t require hands-on examination,
legal consultations, interactions by teachers and
students with supervisors, colleagues or peers in other
places, and contact between community members
and family who are away from the community in
Sue Connolly, facility coordinator in Napranum,
southern institutions (like schools, hospitals and
videoconferences to Steve Pelham, CYDN technical
prisons).
officer in Cairns, using the new videoconferencing
It also allows employment opportunities for
facility installed as part of the Cape York Digital
community members, such as taking up guest
Network.(Courtesy of the Balkanu Cape York
lectureships at universities. This has been
Development Corporation)
demonstrated by the Tanami Network, which is
another member of the ODN and pioneer of videoconferencing in remote Indigenous
communities. Tanami Network covers the Tanami desert region in Central Australia.
The ODN communities in the Northern Territory and Western Australia have also
been offered funding from the federal government, and it’s anticipated that the model
will be delivered to many more communities in these regions. Private phone access will
also increase, currently very low in Indigenous households.
Part of the overall plan is that community members will be trained, and paid, to
oversee the use of the videoconferencing facilities.

The Access Grid

A number of people, largely in the National Energy Labs in the USA, working in the
lofty realm of high-end computing where a gigabyte is NOTHING, have been developing
a new level in videoconferencing. It’s known as the Access Grid.
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Videoconferencing 505
The Access Grid relies on sending the video (and
all the other signals) via the Internet, instead of over
the phone lines. This not only makes multi-point
videoconferencing more possible, but it also allows
every site involved to record all the signals generated
from every other site! A massive amount of data, to
be sure. But it means that any part of the event can
be scrutinised later, even manipulated, copied into
files, edited . . . let your imagination run free!
One of the aims of the Access Grid is to get away
from the TV studio model of videoconferencing, and
allow people to do the same things, even better, with
less psychological intrusion.

Dominique Morel with

‘Hydro’, the SGI Origin
Camera
3800 supercomputer, at
Speaker
James Cook University,
Microphone
Townsville, Qld, Australia.
Video Capture Computer Projector (Photo by Lee Askew)

Display Computer

Large Screen
Camera
Audio Computer Microphone
Projector
Gentner
Line balancing
Amplifier transformer

Microphone
Projector
This is the layout of the
access grid room at
Ethernet Monitor
connection James Cook University,
Speaker Townsville, Qld,
Australia.(Graphic by
Camera Dominique Morel)

People tend to feel rather nervous in a TV studio

environment, but hopefully by using computer
technology, in specially designed rooms, people will
feel more relaxed, more like they’re in a natural face-
to-face meeting session. Of course, the cameras still
need to be there, but they can be much smaller and
less obtrusive.
Another thing is that the images of the remote
sites, because they’re projected on a very large white
screen or wall, are much bigger than those thumbnail
PIPs (small pictures in the larger monitor picture) on Will the real room camera please stand up? (Photo
by Dominique Morel)
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506 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

You can see everyone larger than life if you choose to. Access Grid site, James Cook University,Townsville, Qld, Australia.
(Photo by Dominique Morel)

the normal TV monitor. Where in standard videoconferencing, in the long shots of rooms
with groups of people in them, individuals tend to disappear due to tiny image size and
poor lighting, in this new set-up people are much more visible. A close-up shot of
someone talking can be huge. So people have much
more feeling of connection with the distant
participants.
And where having five sites connected was a
stress on both the ISDN lines and the eyes, trying to
see all the remote locations in their PIPs, the Access
Grid can handle 30 or more sites simultaneously. The
limiting factor is the network bandwidth available to
the main site.
About 1–3 gigabits per second is required for
each site which is connected. When the people at the
sites are sitting still, the bandwidth requirements go
down, but when folks start to move about, there’s a
The images from other sites are supplied via ceiling need for much more bandwidth to convey the video
projectors.(Photo by Dominique Morel) data.
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Videoconferencing 507
So for connecting 30 sites, 30–100 gigabits per second is required. James Cook
University in Queensland has a 22-gigabit link from Townsville to Brisbane, so 18 sites
is about all its system can bear. When booking an Access Grid event, checking the
available bandwidth will let you know how grandiose your plans can be.

Virtual Whiteboard
A great addition to videoconferencing, now available through computer-based video-
conferencing, is the virtual whiteboard using a Wacom
tablet. A person can draw on the Wacom tablet at
their site and the image can be projected very clearly
at all the other sites.
Participants at remote sites in standard video-
conferencing facilities have had considerable
difficulties seeing clearly what’s being written on the
whiteboard in the main lecture site. Whiteboard
markers in colours other than black are hard to see,
and the presenter often creates a problem too, by
absentmindedly standing between the camera and
the whiteboard, thus obscuring the whole business.
So having a display which is the graphic only is a
distinct advantage.
And get this—using the virtual whiteboard,
participants in other sites can add to or delete from The virtual whiteboard lets everyone add their bits
the image which is being sent out across the grid! So from wherever they are.James Cook University,
many people can be contributing to the thinking-in- Townsville, Qld, Australia.(Photo by Dominique
pictures going on, which is an important part of some Morel)
meetings.

PowerPoint Presentations
PowerPoint presentations work well on computer based videoconferencing, as they do
on standard videoconferencing. But with the computer-based system there’s been an
interesting development. In order to save on the bandwidth required for the total event,
a method called distributed PowerPoint has been
developed.
Be well prepared. If you’re
The distribution amounts to this:
doing a PowerPoint
Before the videoconference, people send their
presentation, it needs to be
PowerPoint presentations around to the other par-
mailed to all receiving sites,
ticipating sites, so that the graphics files (and these
usually by the day before the Dominique
can be large files) are stored ahead of time at every site.
conference. We always have a Morel,
During the videoconference, whoever is present- James Cook
trial run beforehand.
ing something using PowerPoint is temporarily the University.
Master. Because of a synchronising signal embedded
in the system, when the Master starts the presentation at his/her site, all the other sites
(known as the Clients) latch onto the Master’s synchronising pulse. From then on, each
slide changes as does the one at the transmitting site. But only the pulse is being
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508 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

transmitted, because the files themselves are being simultaneously recalled from all the
local computers.
This system ensures top quality viewing of the PowerPoint presentations at each
Client site, and allows everyone to save the files and do with them as they will. Hmmm,
what copyright issues might arise from this?

Equipment Needed
Another aim of the Access Grid, which is based on existing public domain technology,
is to supply a new level of capacity at low cost.
Surprisingly, the equipment needed to put together an Access Grid site is just roughly
twice the cost of the equipment needed for a standard ISDN-line-based videoconference
site.
A basic Access Grid set-up can be achieved using just three computers. One computer
is dedicated to processing the incoming and outgoing video signals, the second processes
all the audio, and the third processes the display for the other activities, like PowerPoint
presentations and virtual whiteboard.

Front view of rack Back view of rack

Most of the guts of an Access Grid site can be mounted in one small rack.(Photo by Dominique Morel)

You don’t need super-computers to do this, either. All you need is two dual-process
computers and two ordinary ones, the type used in general purpose computer labs. You
add one special display card (not cheap) and three or four inexpensive Hauppage TV
cards, or the like, a soundcard or two, and you’re ready to rock and roll.
At present the most expensive item in setting up an Access Grid site is the Gentner,
one of those slim black boxes which understate their worth. The Gentner does echo-
cancellation on the audio signals.
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Videoconferencing 509
Matrox G200 Quad Output XVGA PCI Card
Display Computer

Audio Computer PCI Sound Card

Ethernet Cards

Single Output AGP Card

Video Capture Computer

Time to put your cards on the cable! Video Capture PCI Cards
(Graphic by Dominique Morel)

24-hour Access
There are some Access Grid sites that are live,
Be careful what you say,
24 hours a day, seven days a week. To reach one,
because when you’re
you simply call up its URL (Web address), like visiting
broadcasting you have no way
any other website, only you do it from the Access
of knowing who’s listening.
Grid computer.
Remember, the sites are live. People can forget Dominique
Morel,
their every move is being broadcast to anyone else who has the capacity to look in, and James Cook
is looking at the time. So when you enter an active Access Grid site, bear in mind that University.
you’re in a virtual fishbowl—and remember, you never know WHO is watching. Or
listening.

How many Big Brothers are out there?

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510 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

However, under most circumstances, due to cost, privacy concerns and other factors,
Access Grid conferences are prearranged and the sites are activated for the specified times
only.

Future Access
In the near future, standard videoconferencing (known as H323) will be able to connect
into the Access Grid, so using the Access Grid for teaching to less bandwidth-rich facilities
will be become feasible.
For up-to-date information on the Access Grid, including a list of what gear you
need to set one up, and who else is on it, visit <<www.accessgrid.org>>
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Chapter

37 Video on the
Internet
Producing Videos
Video on the Internet

Video-on-the-Internet has shimmered

I in the minds of many when pondering
the future of video distribution and the potential world
audience. It’s been like a Shangri-La beyond the next
mountain range. But the mountains have been high,
and it’s the techos who’ve been cutting the paths, the
rest of us waiting for word to come back that the way
is clear.
The good news is that the pathways are opening up.
Very short (under 3-minute) videos are currently
available on the Internet. You can find them easily on
commercial sites, showing trailers for movies, for
example.
It’s possible for you to put your short videos on
the Web, too. Once you’ve completed your edit, you can save your
As you no doubt have realised, the only way a video to a file format which can go on the Internet.
video signal can be sent through the computer-Internet Julie Booras works at her digital edit system at Offspring
system is if it’s a digital signal. Productions, Lynnfield, MA, USA.(Photo from Offspring
Video streaming is the term used for outputting Productions)
digital video signals. A nice term, eh? It makes the
process sound rapid and natural. So much for names.

Do You Need a Dedicated Server?

(Why does this sound like a household helper dressed in formal gear?)
The first thing to understand is that there are two ways to handle video transmission
on the Internet—there are progressive streaming and real time streaming (which uses the
protocol RTSP: Real Time Streaming Protocol).
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512 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Progressive Streaming
The first, progressive streaming, works fine for people who are already connected to the
Internet by ordinary Web software and a standard Web server.
With this set-up you can download short videos as compressed files which are then
able to be decompressed and displayed on your computer, or you can upload your own
video files to be shown on the computer screens of your audience.
Video player programs use high compression methods to present video clips on a
small section (e.g. 160 pixels x 120 pixels) of your computer screen. Though the picture
is displayed on only a small part of the computer screen, people have been willing to
accept this viewing size; however, they wouldn’t be happy about it on their TVs.
Although it’s possible to enlarge the viewing window on your computer screen, the
quality of the image will appear to go down. This is because enlarging it is not increasing
the resolution—you’re just making the same number of pixels display at a larger size.
When you request a video clip off the Internet, you may find that the download
time is more than you would like. The faster your modem, or the better your cable link,
the quicker the process will be.
Some short videos have to be completely
downloaded onto your computer drive before they
can play. This depends on the format the video has
been encoded in. Other programs allow a video to
begin to be displayed on your computer when only
part of the file has been downloaded.
The advantages of working with progressive
streaming are that you don’t need to invest in a
dedicated server, and there’s one less piece of
software to learn and manage.
Another benefit of progressive streaming is that
you can save the video to your hard drive (that is, if
you consider saving huge files to be a benefit.) Of
course, that also means you can save the videos to
CD, DVD and videotape, with the right connections
You can view videos on the Internet with either out of your computer.
progressive streaming or real-time streaming. A disadvantage of progressive streaming is that
Learning the ins and outs of computers young at you can’t jump ahead to view another part of the
Manchester Memorial School, Manchester, MA, USA. video while you’re receiving it.

Real Time Streaming

In order to get into real time streaming, you need to have a dedicated server to handle the
media streams, and you need to install A/V server software onto it, which means
additional expense to you. Real time streaming is well suited to longer videos and
broadcasts of events, lectures, training sessions, corporate functions, and so on.
With real time streaming you don’t need to download the whole video before playing
it. In fact, you can’t download it and save it, which is an aspect which helps protect the
copyright holders of the video.
Real time streaming is more like a broadcast situation. The video stream plays
automatically, and you don’t have to wait long for it to start, just long enough for an
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Video on the Internet 513

amount of the stream to download to the buffer. But, unlike normal TV transmission,
you can also jump ahead to any location on the video, as you please, unless it’s a live
event.
The protocol used for real time streaming makes better use of network bandwidth,
and it generally produces better video quality for the viewer.
There are other more advanced features in real time streaming as well. Real time
streaming allows for admission control and multistream multimedia content. Some of
the software programs allow you to get detailed reports on who requested which streams.
You may like this feature if you’re a provider.
On the other hand, you may worry about this detailed reporting if you’re the
consumer! What will people do with the information about you which they get kicked
back to them once you receive one of their videos over the Net?
Real time streaming can also scale the media streams to support a large number of
end users. Video which has been encoded for real time streaming tries to keep pace with
the connection speed at the user’s end so as to minimise disruptions to the program
flow, like stalling. Sometimes this method falters, due to Web congestion, but it can
handle some problems by trying to maintain a constant connection.
Video streaming is usually done in three levels of quality: low, medium and high.
(How’s that for original terminology? At least the wording isn’t too futuristic to
understand.)
Low is compatible with the average modem. It’s
a speed of 3 Kbps (3000 bytes per second).
So a home user could probably use video
streaming at the lowest level.
Medium transmits the information at 10–15 Kbps.
High is transmission at broadcast quality, called
T1, which is 100 Kbps.
One of the great things about video streaming is
that it allows lots of people to be downloading the
same file at almost the same time. This makes it very
suitable for broadcasting on the Internet. Many users
can be accessing the video all the time.
The person sending the video does need to
consider how many users there are likely to be. The
more users, the greater the bandwidth needed at the Music videos are highly likely Web fare.Sky Cooper,
sending end. pictured for his recent CD,Coffee House.MP3s of
If you’re expecting thousands or millions of songs available on <<www.kemai.com>>
people to be wanting to see your video, you have to (Photo by Brian Rohr)
get it set up on a server with serious capacity!
Because some ISPs (Internet service providers) don’t want their system to be clogged
up with large video files, you should also be clear on what your needs are when you’re
choosing (or changing) your ISP.
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514 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Putting Your Video on the Internet

Once you’ve edited your video, you then have to encode it for putting it on the Internet.
Your digital editing package may have come bundled with compression/encoding
software, like Media Cleaner Pro EZ from Terran Interactive. If not, you’ll need to purchase
some software that can do the job.
Before you encode your video for Web delivery, you have to make some important
decisions.

Quality (Resolution) vs File Size

If you want a better quality of video, you’ll end up with a larger file size. Large files take
a long time to download, and people usually want the downloading process to be quick.
Because ISPs generally base their charges on bandwidth, downloading huge files can
become a financial issue.
If most of the people who’ll receive your video
have limited computer capacity, you need to decide
in favour of practicality and keep the files sizes small,
which means lower quality video. If you don’t, the
people you want accessing your programs are
unlikely to be willing (or even able) to download
them. It’s a case of low quality is better than no video
at all.
However, if you know your client audience is
more concerned with quality, and has high speed
network connections and the latest computers, you
Wherever you are, you can be editing for the Web. can go for huge files and impressive quality.
Working at sea, Digital Dimensions,Townsville, Qld, You will be asked to make choices about:
Australia.(Photo from Digital Dimensions) • The data rate (e.g. for 56K modem).
• The frame rate (e.g. 10 frames per second).
• The size of the video on the screen (e.g. 240 ×
180 pixels).

Some Tips
Do some trials first, and get some friends or colleagues
to report back to you on how your video downloads
and plays on their computers. Unless you get
feedback, you could happily feel that your video was
out there for everyone to see, yet people could be
terminating the download in impatience or disgust,
or be distinctly unimpressed by what they watched.
Getting feedback is a critical step in putting video
Laptops can handle edit programs too.(Photo from on the Internet! But you can get by with the help of
Digital Dimensions) your friends.
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Video on the Internet 515

DATA RATE
With a 56K modem, true connection speed is usually lower than that. Try setting your
data rate to around 40K to minimise the interruptions due to net congestion.

FRAME RATE
Modem delivery is very slow, so go for a low frame rate. Your frame rate should divide
evenly into the normal replay frame rate of the video format you’re using. Since PAL
delivers video at 25 frames per second, start off trying out a frame rate of 5 fps; since
NTSC delivers 30 frames per second, try 6 fps.

FOR PROGRESSIVE STREAMING DELIVERY

In some encoding software you’ll find a choice for 2-pass Variable Bit Rate (VBR). Try
it, it can enhance to overall quality of your video. It will take longer to do the encoding,
but it’s worth it.

MIXED ENCODING
It’s possible to encode for both progressive streaming and real time streaming. Doing
this mixed mode of encoding will serve both your low-end modem users and those with
high speed ISDN and DSL delivery.

The Wizard Interface

You may find that your encoding software offers you a wizard interface. It’s like an
‘encoding for dummies’ routine. It’s fine to start off with that, to have the rush of getting
your first video on the Net, but the Wizard interface doesn’t always give great results,
in fact sometimes they’re downright disappointing. So once you get your confidence
up, move on to create your own settings. Then, when you find what you like, as with
everything else in video, SAVE IT! You can use that cluster of settings again for your next
video, and tweak it as need be.

Allow Enough Time Build in extra time/

When you’re starting out encoding videos, it will take contingency for compression
you much longer than you expect, and you’ll find and testing.Test across a range
that you’re way back again at that steep learning of platforms and with the
curve. Never mind, you’ve been there before. Just intended audience. Bernadette
have patience, and don’t promise to deliver anything Flynn,Griffith
University.
too soon!

Who’s Doing It?

Charles Sturt University in Bathurst, NSW, Australia, is beginning to incorporate video
streaming into their main TV journalism course.
Lecturer David Cameron says it’s partly because they’ve been lucky enough to get
access to the technology, and partly because in a rural city like Bathurst there aren’t the
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516 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

opportunities for students to do live broadcasting in

other ways, as the students in the urban centres can.
They’re video streaming their weekly news show
every Friday lunchtime. All during the week the
students gather and put together their stories, then
on Friday morning the total news program is
assembled and done live in the campus TV studio.
The analog signal is taken from their vision mixer and
sent through an analog-to-digital converter. From
there it goes to the free Quicktime Broadcaster
software on a laptop (mind you!) and from there to
Angela Gray, Online Media Production student, hosts their dedicated G4 server and out onto the Web.
the weekly news show, webcast Friday lunchtimes, It’s also being recorded, encoded and posted to
at Charles Sturt University, Bathurst, NSW, Australia. a website for later use as video on demand, and kept
(Photo by Christian Prusiak) for the archives. Check it out!
<<www.csu.edu.au/newmedia/>>
Who will view it? Other staff members and the
university IT people, who are very keen to see what
impact video streaming will have on the university
network. It’s possible the show will be streamed to
the student union, once the TV students get used to
doing it well.
Is anyone else doing video streaming with their
students? Please let me know for the next edition.
Send your stories to Martha Mollison via the
Producing Videos website, <<www.aftrs.edu.au/
producingvideos/>>

Tips from David Cameron, Charles Sturt

University, Bathurst
WHEN SHOOTING VIDEO FOR THE WEB
A steady shot with minimal camera movement helps
produce a smaller file. Avoid excessive pans, tilts and
zooms, and use a tripod if available.
Shoot for a smaller screen. Consider avoiding
Bannon Rees and Lachlan Simond prepare for a live wide shots. Stick to closer shots that show detail even
webcast at Charles Sturt University, Bathurst, NSW, when reduced in size for the desktop.
Australia.(Photo by Christian Prusiak) Excessive detail or unnecessary movement in the
background will soak up valuable bandwidth.
Consider shooting in front of a plain background, with gelled lighting to provide a suitable
wash. The simpler the better: for example, avoid leafy trees.
Consider using a composite shot to reduce file size. Shoot in front of a blue or green
screen, then add a static image for the background. Compositing is a snap with software
like Final Cut Pro.
Don’t forget the audio—your audience won’t forgive you if they can’t hear what’s
going on. Get the best possible recording your gear allows, and avoid unnecessary
background noise.
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Video on the Internet 517

WHEN EDITING VIDEO FOR THE WEB
Avoid fades and wipes. The slower frame rate of video compressed for the Web can turn
your snazzy transition into an ugly splash of pixels.
For clarity, consider using a subtitle approach for your titles. Add a black bar (letterbox)
along the bottom of the screen, and add your titles as large white text.
Avoid mixing music and voice unnecessarily, as this can make it harder to compress
the file without losing sound quality for one or both elements.

WHEN NAMING FILES AND FOLDERS FOR THE WEB

Avoid eXCesSIVE CaPITalS. The Web is case sensitive.
Use underscores ( _ ) instead of spaces.
Use only numbers, letters, underscores ( _ ), and dots (.). Avoid !@’#$”%^&*()-
+=?<>{\}}{/;
Avoid rude or embarrassing file names—you don’t know who might see them on
the Web.
Use correct file extensions to indentify file format (e.g. file.gif, file.mov, file.html).

Webcam
Of course, the simplest, no-work way of sending
video over the Internet is by using a Web camera
connected to your computer. A Web camera is a tiny
video camera specifically designed for broadcasting
moving images on the Internet. You may hear them
called either PC videocameras or webcams.
Webcams come bundled with software which
allows them to capture video in a format which is
ready for transmission on the Internet. They can be
attached directly to your personal computer, usually
by a USB connection, and can send video live out
into cyberspace, or home to Mother, depending on
whether you’re broadcasting, interfacing with your
website or sending a personal email. You can even Sam Neilson, Stephanie Millard and Jeremy Pau from
do basic videoconferencing. Pimlico State High School,Townsville, Qld, while at
Even though webcams can only capture and send Croc Festival 2002 in Weipa, Qld, Australia.
a low resolution image (say 320 × 200 pixels), it’s
considered good enough for use in a small display box on a computer screen. When
kept small, the image looks okay even though it’s pixel-poor.
Most people are more sensitive to whether the image appears to move smoothly or
jerkily. This is determined by the connection you have from your computer to the Internet.
If you’re stuck with using a modem, the number of frames which can be transferred per
second will be very low, producing a wildly jumpy picture. But if you have a cable or
DSL connection, you should be able to send video at 15 frames per second, which is
about half the speed of normal video, so it will look quite good to most people.
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518 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Webcams are pretty inexpensive by videocamera

standards; some sell for less than $100. But as always,
if you want to pay more, there’s a model there for
you. For example, if for some reason you want to
operate your webcam using a remote control, and
you want it to have a zoom lens, and you want it to
be wireless so you can have it well away from your
computer, a few hundred extra dollars will be readily
accepted by the manufacturer.
Maybe you want your webcam pointed at the
baby in the playpen, or at the activity going on in the
next room, it’s up to you. Webcams can come with
inbuilt microphones to add audio life to the image
you’re sending. You want to use it as a security
camera? That’s fine, some webcams come with
Wouldn’t your relatives like to see this if they can’t be motion detection software. Using it with a laptop?
there in person? You can get them with both stands and clips for
versatility.
Besides USB connections, there are Firewire, Ethernet and PCI varieties. Check your
computer’s available ports before buying, so you’re sure you can attach it. Hopefully
your PC will automatically detect the webcam once you plug it in, and will go ahead
and install the driver software. If not, you might need to use an installation disk.

Beyond Website Posting

There are several other methods for sending short videos through the Internet.

Email
A small Quicktime or AVI (video for Windows) video can be electronically attached to
an email and sent along with it. So you could efficiently send a short video to lots of
people, providing they can decode it at the other end.
As some ISPs limit the size of emails which can be sent, file size may be a problem
with videos attached to emails.

NEWSGROUP
A newsgroup is an Internet information site, formed around an agreed-upon topic, which
allows people to post messages for all the visitors to the newsgroup site to read. Anyone
can send a message in to a newsgroup, and it will usually be posted for everyone to
read. You could send a text message with a video attachment, and people who are
browsing through the newsgroup may see your message, download it and watch your
video.
Some newsgroups have a person who sorts through the incoming messages and
orders them into some preferred sequence, so there isn’t a 100 per cent guarantee of
getting your video posted, but it’s close.
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Video on the Internet 519

So a newsgroup limits your audience to those who visit the newsgroup site and
choose to download your file.

Mailing Lists
A mailing list is like a newsgroup, but it always has a moderator (minder). Mailing lists
are also based on common interests, but the messages sent in aren’t public. The
moderator culls the messages and sends all the relevant ones to the individual mailboxes
of the subscribers.
So with a mailing list, everyone could be advised of your video, though of course
they’d still choose whether to download and watch it or not.

New Style of Broadcast Channel

With the growing video capacity of the Internet, there’s a blurring happening between
what’s a home page and what’s a program. The major limiting factor is file size and
download time. But in theory there’s no reason why you couldn’t have a home page
which holds ads, soapies, documentaries—whatever you want to put there.
A week is a long time on the Internet, and the increased presence of video on the
Net is one of its foremost aims.

Sites to Check Out

2-pop is a bulletin board which has information about video encoding, as well as digital
editing and special effects.
Streaming Media is a portal which leads you to lots of media information, including
news and updates on technology.

Thanks to Bill O’Donnell, David Cameron and Peter Brady for their help with
this chapter.
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Chapter

38 Copyright
Producing Videos
by Copyright
Meredith
Quinn

Copyright means the right to reproduce or straight-out copy a work.

I Although copyright varies from country to country, those nations
which are members of the Berne Convention of 1886 and the Universal Copyright Convention
of 1952 will have copyright protection in countries which are also co-signatories. Australia,
the UK and the USA are members of both these conventions.
As far as possible, the information in this chapter broadly covers the situation as it
exists in Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom. There may, however, be
some variations. In each section it’s stated clearly which territories the law applies to,
and whether you’ll need to make further checks. If in doubt, the Arts Law Centre in
Australia and the Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts (VLA) in your state of the USA should
be able to assist. There’s no similar organisation in the UK but the Writers’ & Artists’
Yearbook (A & C Black, London, published annually) contains a clear explanation of both
British and US copyright law, plus a lot of other useful information. A Basic Guide to
Copyright, published in Australia by Magabala Books, 1998, is a slim paperback which
deals with Australian copyright in plain English.

The Requirements for Claiming Copyright

on a Work
To be the legal copyright owner of a work, just three requirements must be met:
1. The work must exist in a material form. That is, it must be in writing or recorded on
video or audio tape, or on film. (You cannot copyright an idea, it must exist as a
work).
2. The work must be original. This means it must be the product of your own skill and
effort and not copied from someone else. (It doesn’t mean it has to be very creative
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Copyright 521
or imaginative, it just has to be your work.) The exception to this is where you’ve
produced the work in the course of employment, in which case the copyright belongs
to your employer unless agreed otherwise. This proviso generally relates to paid
employment, but if you’ve produced the work while a volunteer for an organisation
it would still be wise to check ownership rights.
3. You must be a citizen or resident of Australia (the USA; the UK) or of a country to
which Australia (the USA; the UK) has promised copyright protection through its
international treaty obligations.
That’s it. At the basic level, it’s very simple. If you made it, you own it. No-one else can
copy it without your permission.
In Australia and the UK you don’t need to register your copyright, although it’s a
good idea to always put the copyright symbol and your name and the year the work
was first produced on any script, video, song or sound recording you do. For example:
© Sky Cooper 2003.
This alerts others to the fact that you’re claiming copyright on the work, and it lets
them know who they need to get permission from if they want to use any part of it.
In the USA there’s a requirement to include a formal notice of copyright on all publicly
distributed copies of your work, either by using the © symbol, the word ‘Copyright’ or
its abbreviation ‘Copr’, with the year of first publication and your name. You must also
register your copyright by depositing two complete copies of the work with the Copyright
Office.

Community Ownership of Creative Materials

Sometimes a creative work is understood by a community to be looked after by certain
members of a clan group.
Indigenous communities have songs, stories, designs, drawings and dances that are
part of their culture and have been passed down by
their ancestors for untold generations.
Certain people are the traditional custodians of
these works, but they may not own them in the
personal way that a non-Indigenous lyricist might
own the words to a song s/he wrote. Nevertheless,
the community asserts its past, current and future
ownership rights to this material. This is a sense of
ownership that hasn’t been addressed much in non-
Indigenous legal systems.
Indigenous copyright and methods of safe-
guarding the cultural rights of Indigenous people are
being hotly debated around the world. Because of
differences between cultures in the understanding of Dancers Shaun Edwards, Earle Rosas, Jenelle Gray,
ownership, there have been many times when Tamara Pearson, Colin Lawrence and Tanya Reading
Indigenous people have felt that their cultural heritage from the show Ignishin by the Cape York Indigenous
has been unfairly used for the profit of others. Theatre Troupe, Cairns, Qld, Australia.
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522 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Oral Histories
I guess for me copyright for
Indigenous people is very When someone tells their life story to someone else,
important, and we as a people the question is, who owns the work? In such cases,
must work to protect our it’s advisable to figure out a fair apportionment of
copyright as a human right. rights before the project begins.
Shaun
Edwards, Most of what we promote as
Kokoberrin
person,
artists is from the old people Joint Authorship
Staaten River, and it’s very old. We must
When a work is produced by more than one person,
West Coast, remember that Indigenous art
Cape York there can be conflict over copyright unless there’s an
and dance is part of a structure
Peninsula, established understanding from the beginning. For
Qld,Australia. that worked. It made sense,
example, when a person or group of people produce
and for thousands of years. It’s
the text and others produce the artwork, who should
worth protecting because it
have what rights?
worked for so long.
When a story is understood to be the common
property of a clan group, but a particular person
writes it down, who owns the rights?
Or what about when someone produces a painting which is the reproduction of a
traditional design or story?
When a dancer allows the recording of a traditional dance, or a singer records a
traditional song, to whom should the copyright be assigned, the individual performer
or the community or clan group?

Individual Authorship
Of course, Indigenous people, like anyone else, may
also produce works which are entirely the result of
their own creative effort and therefore they may have
sole rights to these works.

Indigenous Heritage Rights

Indigenous heritage rights, also referred to as Indigen-
ous cultural and intellectual property rights, have
been the subject of detailed enquiry initiated by the
Australian Federal Attorney-General, the Minister for
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs and the
Minister for Communications and the Arts.
Indigenous groups in other countries have also
Wurringu (The Women) painted by Karen Doolan, and expressed similar concerns about the rights to their
dedicated to her mother and sisters.Her mother’s cultural heritage.
people are the Gwamman and Tagalaka of North For more information on this aspect of copyright,
Queensland and her father’s people are the Waka you could read Our Culture, Our Future: Report on Aus-
Waka and Gurrang Gurrang from further south tralian Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property Rights,
around Woorabinda.Karen works as an artist in by Terri Janke, published by the Australian Institute
Townsville, Qld, Australia. of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, 1998.
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Copyright 523

The Protection of Confidential Information

Although the copyright law only protects works which exist in a material form, in
Australia there’s another law relating to confidential information (US and UK readers will
need to confirm whether this also relates to them). If you tell someone in confidence
about an idea you have for a project, and then they make unauthorised use of this idea,
you may have some redress.
As with anything else, there are certain conditions which apply.
1. The information must have the necessary quality of confidence. This means it
excludes trivia and ideas which are already public knowledge.
2. The information was disclosed in confidence to the other party. The recipient of
the information should be clearly informed of the confidential nature of the
information. The Arts Law Centre advises that a confidentiality letter be sent to
the recipient before you tell them your ideas (they’ve devised a sample letter for
such use).
Generally speaking, it’s safer to express your ideas on paper, in the form of a
concept document or treatment, and add both the standard copyright notice and
a ‘private and confidential’ warning.
3. There has been an unauthorised use or threatened use of the information.

What Rights are Included in Copyright?

In the law, copyright is considered to be a kind of property right. It’s in the class known
as intellectual property.
Although a video script or a song isn’t the same sort of sturdy object as a house or
a car, the right to copy it is still regarded as a true property. The copyright holder has
the exclusive right to do certain things, and to authorise or prevent others from doing
certain things.
In Australia, the USA and the UK, in relation to copyright on a videotape production,
these things include:
1. Making a copy of the video. Only the copyright owner has the right to make a copy
of the video. Someone else can purchase a copy and own it and use it, but they may
not copy it onto another tape.
2. Broadcasting the video. This includes via television, radio and some satellite
broadcasts.
3. Transmitting the video to subscribers through a diffusion service. This would include
cablecasting it on a cable TV system, and this particular right is known as ‘cable
rights’.
4. Holding a public screening of the video.
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524 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

How Long Does Copyright Last?

In Australia and the UK, the copyright of a film or video lasts for 50 years. After that,
the work enters the public domain and anyone can copy it without infringing copyright.
(US readers should check with their local VLA to determine length of US copyright in
film and video.)
The copyright on underlying works—like the music or the script—usually lasts for 50
years after the death of the author, whether she or he remained the owner of the copyright
or not. In the USA this is true of works published or copyrighted after 1 January 1978.
With works published prior to 1978 the situation is more complex, with the copyright
existing for 28 years from the date copyright was secured, and an extension of 47 years
now being automatically granted at the expiry of the first 28 years.

Transferring Your Copyright Ownership

Because copyright is a property right, the copyright owner can sell, lease or bequeath
any or all of the rights related to any work.
In Australia, the USA and the UK, if you assign (sell) your copyright, the new owner
usually buys all the rights to the work.
Alternatively, you can sell only some of the rights—like the right to make your video
into a computer game. You can also limit the assignment of right by time (as ‘for a ten-
year period’) or territory (e.g. ‘international rights only’).
Another approach is to licence (lease) your copyright, which means that the licensee
(the user) has the right to use the work, but does not actually own it. The licence needs
to be clear about what it includes:
1. Is it exclusive or non-exclusive?
2. What is the period of use?
3. In what territory does the licence apply?
4. Exactly what uses are being licensed? Video cassettes? CD Rom? Video games?
Book? Broadcast?
Both the assignment of copyright and a licence of all or partial rights must be in
writing to be enforceable.

Acquiring Rights
Just as no-one is allowed to copy your work, you’re not allowed to copy anyone else’s
without permission.
So what happens if you want to use someone else’s script? Or include a music
recording in your video?
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Copyright 525
To Use a Script or Adapt a Literary Work
The first place to check is the publisher, because publishing contracts can include exclusive
licence to film rights.
If the publisher doesn’t own the film rights, or the work is unpublished, contact the
writer or his/her agent or, if the writer is deceased, his/her estate.
Writers’ guilds generally carry samples of options and purchase agreements. In some
instances they may also be able to assist in tracing writers.

AUSTRALIA
The Australian Writers’ Guild, 8/50 Reservoir Street, Surry Hills, NSW 2010;
tel +61 2 9281 1554, fax +61 2 9281 4321
email: [email protected], <<www.awg.com.au>>

UNITED STATES
The Writers’ Guild of America West, 7000 West 3rd Street, Los Angeles, CA 90048;
tel +1 213 951 4000, +1800 548 4532, fax +1 213 782 4800; or
The Writers’ Guild of America East, 555 West 57th Street, Suite 1230, New York,
NY 10019; tel +1 212 767 7800, fax +1 212 582 1909, <<www.wga.org>>

UNITED KINGDOM
The Writers’ Guild of Great Britain, 430 Edgeware Road, London W2 1EH;
tel +44 207 723 8074, fax +44 207 706 2413, email: [email protected],
<<www.writersguild.org.uk>>

To Use Music
Under Australian, USA and UK law, if you wish to use pre-existing music, whether it’s
library music or commercial music, you’ll need two licences, one from the copyright
owner or his/her representative and one from the owner of the recorded music, which
would be the music library or a record company. The copyright licence, a synchronisation
licence, is normally granted by the original publisher. However, it might be helpful for
you to use the services of the mechanical rights organisation (AMCOS in Australia, Harry
Fox Agency in the USA, MCPS in the UK). Some of these rights organisations have the
authority to grant the synchronisation rights themselves, some of them will contact the
original music publisher. Finally, if you wish to manufacture the video you’ll need a
mechanical licence from the same organisation.

AUSTRALIA
AMCOS (Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners’ Society Ltd),
6–12 Atchison Street, St Leonards NSW 2065;
tel +61 2 9935 7900, fax +61 2 9935 7714,
<<www.amcos.com.au>>
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526 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

UNITED STATES
Harry Fox Agency, 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY, 10017;
tel +1 212 370 5330, fax +1 212 953 2384,
<<www.nmpa.org/hfa.html>>

UNITED KINGDOM
MCPS (Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society),
Elgar House, 41 Streatham High Road, London SW16 1ER;
tel +44 181 664 4400, fax +44 181 769 8792,
<<www.mcps.co.uk>>

Public Performances
If your video is then played publicly, either on TV or cable/pay, or shown in clubs,
APRA (Australia), BMI, ASCAP (USA) and PRS (UK) come into play. However, the
licence for public performances of the musical copyright does not have to be procured
by you (as the producer of the video), but by the TV station or club that wishes to
play the video.

AUSTRALIA
APRA Ltd (Australasian Performing Right Association),
6–12 Atchison Street, St Leonards, NSW 2065,
tel +61 2 9935 7900, fax +61 2 9935 7999,
<<www.apra.com.au>>

UNITED STATES
BMI (Broadcast Music Inc), 320 W 57th Street, New York, NY 10019-3790;
tel +1 212 586 2000, fax +1 212 582 5972; or
8730 Sunset Boulevard, Third Floor, West Hollywood, CA 90069-2211;
tel +1 310 659 9109, fax +1 310 657 6947, <<www.bmi.com>>
ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers),
1 Lincoln Plaza, New York, NY 10023;
tel +1 212 621 6000, fax +1 212 724 9064; or
3rd Floor, 7920 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90046;
tel +1 323 883 1000, fax + 1 323 883 1049; or
8 Cork Street, London, W1X 1PB; tel + 44 207 439 0909,
fax + 44 207 434 0073, <<www.ascap.com>>
ASCAP also has offices in Nashville, Miami, Chicago and Puerto Rico.

THE UNITED KINGDOM

(PRS) Performing Right Society, 29-33 Berners Street, London, W1T 3AB;
tel +44 020 7580 5544, fax +44 020 7306 4050, <<www.prs.co.uk>>
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Copyright 527
For use of the copyright of the actual sound recording, in Australia contact the record
company direct, or ARIA (Australian Record Industry Association), 263 Clarence
Street, Sydney, NSW 2000; tel +61 9267 7996, fax +61 2 9264 5589,
email: [email protected], <<www.aria.com.au>>
In the United States, contact BMI or ASCAP. In the United Kingdom, contact MCPS.
The Australasian Music Industry Directory (Immedia, Sydney) has an up-to-date and
comprehensive listing of record companies, music publishers and music associations for
Australia, New Zealand and the Asia-Pacific region. The Music Week Directory (Music
Week, London), is a valuable resource for the UK; for the USA there are a number of
publications which can be referred to: Recording Industry Source Book; Yellow Pages of Rock;
and a series of directories on varying aspects of the music industry published by
Performance magazine and Pollstar magazine. The International Buyers Guide (Billboard, NY)
carries comprehensive international listings, and there is a new directory, MVI for Music
Business International World Year Book, which also covers the international arena.
One last thing—you need to check whether the record company has obtained the
performer’s consent for the recording to be used on video or film. If not, a performer’s
release will have to be obtained from each performer. In Australia, the Arts Law Centre
has a sample of a performer’s release (and a variety of other agreements). In the USA
speak either to your attorney or Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts in your state, and in the
UK your solicitor should be able to assist. For anyone enrolled in a formal training course,
your tutor may have a collection of various release forms, or know where you’ll find
copies.
For general inquiries and free help, contact:
The Arts Law Centre of Australia, The Gunnery,
43 Cowper Wharf Road, Woolloomooloo, NSW 2011;
tel +61 2 9356 2566, 1800 221 457, fax +61 2 9358 6475,
<<www.artslaw.com.au>>

Fees for the Use of Copyright Music

In Australia, fees are usually set for 30-second segments of the music for commercial use.
Fees can be waived. If you’re using the music in a video that you’re making for a
charitable project or for a student assignment, it’s worth asking for either a fee waiver
or a reduced fee.
In the USA contact BMI or ASCAP, and in the UK contact MCPS to get this
information.

To Use Part of a Film,TV Program or Videotape

In Australia, the USA and the UK, whenever you use someone else’s film or video footage,
you must get permission from the copyright holder.
If the footage used includes underlying rights to music, script or artwork, you must
also get permission from the owners of those rights.
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528 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

What About Videos Made for Class

Assignments?
You don’t need to get permission to copy parts of videos, films or recorded music if
you’re making a video for the purposes of study and research, as long as the use is
considered fair. Fairness is determined partly by how much you copy.
If a class assignment video does include copyright material, for which permission
has not been obtained, the screen production may not be exhibited publicly, either with
or without an admission fee.
This situation is the same in Australia, the USA and the UK.

Further Questions
If you’re in Australia and need any more information about copyright, there are two
organisations which can give you free help. They’re both funded by the Australian Film
Commission.
Arts Law Centre of Australia,
The Gunnery, 43 Cowper Wharf Road, Woolloomooloo, NSW 2011;
tel +61 2 9356 2566, 1800 221 457, fax +61 2 9358 6475, <<www.artslaw.com.au>>
Australian Copyright Council PO Box 1986, Strawberry Hills, NSW 2012;
tel +61 2 9318 1788, fax +61 2 9698 3536, <<www.copyright.org.au>>
In the USA, there may be a Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts in your state. The UK no
longer has an arts law agency to provide assistance free of charge, so you will need to
seek private legal advice. It’s also worth surfing the Net to see what information and
help is available there.

This chapter was written by condensing material published in ‘Copyright and

Other Legal Matters’, Ian Collie, Film Business, ed. Tom Jeffrey, AFTRS and
Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1996, and through research by Meredith Quinn. With
thanks to Dr Ekke Schnabel of BMI for his comments and contribution, to
Kay Hawley of APRA for her assistance, and to Ian Collie for his additional
comments.
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Chapter

39 Distribution
Producing Videos
Distribution

Once you’ve finished your video, most likely you’ll want other people
I to see it. How will you distribute it? Will you show it at small screenings?
Will you enter it in festivals and see how it rates against other tapes of its kind? You
could win a prize, have your ideas appreciated by people far away, or get asked to work
on another project from good festival exposure.
Will you sell copies to schools or other institutions? Will you put it out over the
Internet? Will you schedule it to be broadcast or cablecast on a public access channel?
Will you sell it to a TV network? Or will you just send copies to friends or family?
Generally speaking, the major questions about distribution (Who is the target
audience? How will the video be delivered to them?) should be answered before the
video is even made—during the planning and preproduction stages. That way, the video
is more likely to be well designed to appeal to the right people. And it will be made on
an appropriate tape format. For example, VHS isn’t usually considered suitable for
broadcast, but using Betacam for distribution only to friends may be overkill on the high
end of the technology.
Once your video is completed, and you want to distribute it, there are a couple of
important things to remember. First and foremost, hold onto your master tape! It’s
taken you too many hours of editing to risk having it ‘eaten’ by an erratic VCR (or even
a normally reliable one), or misplaced, or accidentally dubbed over.
There are two essential things to do as soon as you’ve finished editing your project:
first, erase protect the tape, and second, label it clearly as a master tape. Then store it
upright like a book, somewhere safe, in a spot which is cool, dry, dust free, and far from
magnetic fields. The master should only be used for making dubs. The copies made
from the master, which are third generation video (hopefully no further), are your
distribution copies.
Big screen showings are problematic. Of course you want to use your best quality
tape for these . . . just cross your fingers and hope all goes well. And never send your
tape off to a screening without making a security dub of it. If the master does get wrecked,
at least you’ll have something fairly decent to remember it by.
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530 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

When working in digital, you can save your master to DVD and to tape, and you
should save your EDL and rendered files too.
Dubs can be made one at a time on your edit system, or several copies at once at a
distribution house. Usually, cost and time constraints determine your choice.
When making a dub on an edit system, the master (with the red button or tab
removed!) goes in the player VCR, and the blank tape goes in the recorder. If you’re not
using new tapes, make sure the blanks have been bulk erased, as this produces a better
erasure result than the erase head in the machine sometimes does.
Use assemble edit mode to make the copy. Make sure the audio levels on the record
machine are correct and check that the video level is strong. If it isn’t, adjust the tracking
on the player until it’s the best you can get. Watch the recorder monitor during the
copying.
Once the dub is completed, be certain to spot check it. Your video work will be
known by the quality of your dub, so never send something off which isn’t the best it
can be. An easy way to check a dub is to put it into play at about every five minutes of
program as you rewind it to the head of the tape. When checking it, pay attention to
both the audio levels and the picture quality.
Clogged record heads, excessive dropout, incorrect tracking or skew settings on the
source machine, wrong sound recording levels, and an incorrect sync setting or input
setting on the recorder, are all problems which can
Don’t expect there to be jobs wreck the quality of a dub. Each of these problems
waiting for you. Start working can be detected with a post-dubbing check.
for your job from Day 1.That If you see something wrong with your dub,
means networking. adjust the relevant switch setting and try a test re-
cording over the piece of tape where the problem is.
Alan Hills,
Queensland If there’s too much dropout, throw the tape away
School of Film (or, if it’s new, return it). If there’s instability at some edits, you may need to:
and
Television. 1. Get the copying done at a distribution house with a time base corrector, which
corrects sync errors; or
2. Get the edit system serviced before the next edit session.
Above all, remember that no matter how much work, care and expertise went into your
master, you’ll be judged by the dub you send out. Just imagine how your work will rate
with someone who receives a dub with distorted audio, mistracking video, or just plain
snow!
It should go without saying that you should label both the tape cassette and the tape
case. An unlabelled tape is likely to be erased by someone who may well assume that
it has nothing on it.
Also, a neatly printed or typed, correctly spelled label—possibly with a bit of artwork
and pizzazz—gives your tape a more professional look.
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Distribution 531
Tips from Donna Kenny
When starting a videography business:
• Consider doing some free jobs for friends
and family in exchange for using their
productions as demo material to show
your first paying customers. Spend time
building a solid business infrastructure.
Have your rates written down clearly and
simply so when a potential client calls, you
can inform them efficiently and
confidently about your standard rates. When taping an interview,the eyeline of your interviewee has
• Practise stating what you do in a cogent to be correct for the camera.Control the eyeline by taking care
sentence or two. where the interviewer sits or stands.Donna Kenny interviews a
• Aim for consistency in the look of all your client.(Photo from Clio Associaties)
marketing materials. Use the same font,
colours, logo and design for all your business cards, flyers and pamphlets.
• Remember the three As essential to business: Availability, Affability and Ability.

Video Festivals
Having your video accepted for showing at a festival is an excellent way of getting your
work into the public eye. There are hundreds of festivals around the world, so it would
be impossible to list them here. The Internet is a good source of information about
festivals (search using keywords through one of the major search engines, such as Google,
Yahoo!, AltaVista or Excite), or seek out a printed directory. Two such directories are:
Directory of International Film and Video Festivals, The British Council (published annually).
AIVF Guide to International Film and Video Festivals, Kathryn Bowser, FIVF, 625 Broadway,
9th Floor, New York, NY 10012, USA.
Some search engine URLs are:
Google: <<www.google.com>>
Yahoo!: <<www.yahoo.com>>
Excite: <<www.excite.com>>
AltaVista: <<www.altavista.digital.com>>
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Glossary
Glossary
Glossary

A/B roll A video edit set-up which has two player VCRs feeding into the
control system, so dissolves and wipes can be done with accuracy.
AC Alternating current. This is the type of electrical current which is
supplied through the wiring in buildings. In Australia, New Zealand
and the UK, the AC is 240 volts. In the United States and Canada the
AC is 120 volts (sometimes 110 volts).
Action (i) Any movement which takes place in front of the camera.
(ii) The cue for performers to begin the scene.
Ad lib Unscripted dialogue or movements.
Address track A track on some video formats (including BVU) which can be used
for recording timecode or userbits data.
ALC Automatic level control. A system built into some cameras which
automatically keeps the input audio signal below the volume level
which would result in distortion.When ALC is turned on,the operator
cannot control the audio levels manually.
Analog A continuous signal. Analog video systems generate a video signal
by fluctuating current or voltage.
Angle (i) The line along which the camera looks at the subject.
(ii) The view available to the camera via the particular lens being
used; for example, wide angle or telephoto.
Animation A series of images (drawings, computer graphics, photographs)
which are shown in a quick sequence to create the illusion of
movement.
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Glossary 533

Antenna (i) A metal device used to capture the television signal when it is
transmitted through the air as an RF signal.
(ii) Another name for a satellite dish, which is a piece of equipment
composed of a curved reflector and a feed horn, which can be
used to receive signals from, or transmit them to, a satellite.
Aperture The adjustable opening which allows light to enter the camera.The
size of this opening is indicated by the f stop setting.The bigger the
number, the smaller the hole.
Aspect ratio The relationship between the width and height of a television
picture. The current standard is 4 units high by 3 units wide.
Widescreen is 16 units high by 9 units wide.The standard for HDTV
is also 16:9.
Assemble edit The edit mode which causes all tracks on the videotape to be erased
and replaced with new signals.
Assemble mode Assemble mode is used to stripe tapes, and to make dubs. It is not
usually used for editing a program.Every assemble edit ends in snow,
which means it makes a break in the control track on the tape.
Atmos A recording of the ambient sound at a location. In a sound mix, the
atmos track gives a sense of authenticity to the scene on the screen.
Attenuate Reduce the amplification of a signal.
Audio (i) Sound.
(ii) The recorded sound signal.
Authoring system The system which allows a computer programmer to map out all
the segments on a videodisk and create a menu which allows the
user to navigate through these segments.
Azimuth Alignment of recording head to tape. Hi-fi audio is recorded in the
video track at a different azimuth than the video signal in order to
prevent interference between the two signals.
Back focus The focus adjustment at the rear of the lens barrel, just before the
light reaches the image-gathering surface. Back focus can be
adjusted if needed, but normally it’s okay as is.
Back light Lighting which comes from behind the subject and is used to outline
the subject and visually separate it from the background.
Back projection Projecting an image, either still or moving, onto a screen which is
set up behind the foreground action. In this scenario the projector
is behind the screen.
Backdrop The curtain used in the background of a shot.
Background (b/g) Anything beyond the main area of interest in a picture.
Background light A light used to illuminate the background in a shot.
Balance A pleasing combination of images or sound.
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534 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Balanced audio A balanced audio cable has three conductors: two centre wires and
a braided shield. Balanced is preferred for professional use because
it’s not subject to electrical interference.
Bandwidth The amount of data per unit of time; for example, megabytes per
second (MB/sec). Wider bandwidths can deliver signals with more
detail and better quality.
Barndoors Four adjustable metal plates attached to the front of light heads,
used to limit and control the spread of the light beam.
Baseband signal The signal which is sent from a TV station to an earthstation for
uplink to a satellite.
Bass The low frequencies in a sound. Low pitched drums, traffic rumble,
thunder and electrical hum are all in the bass range 30 to 240Hz.
Batch capture In digital video editing,to digitise (transfer to the computer) several
shots in one go.
BCU Big close-up.A shot which shows the human face framed from mid-
chin to mid-forehead.
Betacam A high quality video format, recorded at high speed on 1/2-inch
tape.
Bi-directional mic A microphone which picks up sound from two sides, and not from
the top, rear or other two sides. Good for two-person interviews,
especially in radio.
Bit The basic unit used in digital data. Only two bit characters are
possible in a binary system: on and off.
Blocking Planning out the moves for either the performers or the cameras
within a scene or production.
BNC This lock-on connector is the standard video connector on
professional video equipment, and studio and broadcast cables.
Boom pole A special lightweight, telescoping pole used for holding a
microphone close to the performer, but out of frame.
Bounce down To combine several audio tracks into one track on a digital audio
workstation (DAW).
Breakout box A device used to convert signals from analog to digital, and from
digital to analog.
Breakout cable An AV cable with a single connector on one end, which goes into a
digital camera, and three connectors on the other end, to transmit
video and two audio tracks for connection with another piece of
video equipment, like a VCR or monitor.
Bridge A short visual or music sequence used to tie two parts of a program
together.
Broad Floodlight that emits a broad beam of light for fill purposes.
Broadcast Transmission of electronic signals (either TV or radio) by radio
frequency (RF).
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Glossary 535
Bulk eraser Device for erasing tapes quickly by passing them through a strong
electromagnetic field.
Burn-in Image imprinted onto the light-gathering suface of the TV camera
by pointing the camera for too long at a bright light source. The
burn-in will appear on subsequent shots.
Busy Too cluttered or overcrowded on the screen.
Byte A sequence of eight adjacent bits, used as a unit in digital data.
C stand A metal stand with a three-legged base used for holding lighting
controls like cutters, bounce cards or polystyrene, and frames with
spun or gel in them.
Cable TV A system of transmitting television via a network of wires directly
connected to homes, rather than through the air to antennas.
Camcorder A video camera and recording unit within a single housing.
Camera card A list of the shots, movements and repositions for each camera in
accordance with the shooting script. Camera cards are usually held
in a mount on the studio camera pedestal.
Camera left/right Directions given to performers, always described from the camera’s
point of view.
Camera script The final script for a performance.
Cans Headsets or earphones worn by the crew on the studio floor so that
they can hear the director’s instructions from the control room.
Call sheet Written information about the performers, crew, start and finish
times, and locations for a shoot. It should also include emergency
phone numbers, nearest hospital, and so forth.
Caption Words superimposed on the screen, on the bottom half, giving
names of speakers or other information.
Capstan Roller that keeps tape moving through a VCR.
Capture To load video into a non-linear edit system, changing it from an
analog to a digital signal in the process, if necessary.
Cast (i) To select performers for a production.
(ii) The performers appearing in front of the camera.
Catwalk A walkway set above a studio, for use by lighting and maintenance
technicians.
Cardioid mic A directional microphone with a heart-shaped pick-up pattern. It
picks up sound from the front and sides,and rejects sound from the
rear. It’s very useful, hand-held, for on-the-street interviews.
CCD Charge coupled device.A sensor for scanning images,used in video
cameras in place of the older video tube. A CCD stores light
information as packets of minute electrical charges.
CCU Camera control unit. A remote control device which adjusts the
signal sent from a camera. In a multicamera studio, the CCUs are all
in the vision control area, so the technical director can set up each
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536 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

camera to the desired signal levels and match its signal to that of
the other cameras being used.
CCTV Closed circuit television.A video system which is linked together by
coaxial cable; its signals are not broadcast beyond the range of its
physical connections.
CD-Rom Compact disk read-only memory. A compact disk that stores
computer information, and which cannot be overwritten. It is
physically the same as an audio CD, but CD-Rom players operate
much faster than CD players because they must be able to access
data from different parts of the disk almost instantaneously.
CG Computer generated. CG backgrounds can be added to the video
of characters shot in front of chroma key backgrounds, to make a
composited image.
Character generator A device used to type in and store the credits and captions used in
a video program.Character generators (CGs) have a variety of fonts,
can store many pages of information, and present words page by
page, in rolls, crawls and other dynamic screen motions.
Chip A collection of related circuits designed to work together on an
electronic task.
Chroma key Electronic special effect that eliminates a selected colour from a
video image and replaces it with the image from another source.
Chroma key is often used to add a separately produced background
to a studio shot.
Chrominance The colour information in the TV signal (also chroma).
Cinching Slipping between layers of tape in rewind or fast forward mode.
Coaxial cable Coax. A shielded cable used for the transmission of RF (radio
frequency) signals and also for video and sync signals.
CODEC Coder/decoder.The CODEC changes signals from analog to digital,
and from digital to analog.
Compact disk (CD) A small disk which carries digital audio only, and is decoded by a
laser in a CD player.
Compatibility The ability of equipment to be interfaced (connected together) and
yield good signals.

Component signal (i) A separated-out part of a composite video signal; for example,
the luminance only, or the R (red), G (green) or B (blue) part.
(ii) The entire video signal,but sent out on separate cables for each
part of it.
Composite video A complete video signal containing all necessary picture and sync
information.
Composition The arrangement of picture elements within a scene.
Compression A formula for reducing the amount of data in an image file. DV
format uses a 5:1 compression ratio in recording mode.
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Glossary 537
Condenser mic A microphone which uses an electronic component called the
capacitor to respond to sound, and requires a power supply to
operate it.
Contrast ratio The comparison of the lightest and darkest sections of a picture.
Control room The room from which the TV program is directed and coordinated
and the vision mixing is done.
Control track A series of electronic pulses which tells a video replay machine
where the beginning of each field of video is. An unbroken control
track is essential when editing in insert edit mode.
Copy Material to be read on air.
Crane A large mechanical ‘arm’on which the camera and camera operator
can be mounted and which can be raised,lowered and manoeuvred
through space.
Credits The names of the contributors to a program.
CU Close-up. A tightly framed shot of the subject. When referring to
humans it usually means a head-and-shoulders shot.
Cue Visual or audio signal given to performers or technical operators for
them to commence an action.
Cut (i) Instant switching from one camera to another in the vision
mixer.
(ii) The join which is the end of one shot and the beginning of
another in the editing process.
(iii) The director’s signal to stop the action.
Cutaway A shot which shows something related to the main action or topic,
but which is a view of something other than the action or the
speaker.Cutaways are used in editing to conceal the edits necessary
to reduce the time a sequence takes on screen, from real time to
program time.
Cut-in A shot which shows a detail within the frame of the action or the
interview. A cut-in is used to cover edit points, so the real time of an
action or interview can be reduced in the editing process.
Cyberspace The virtual space in an electronic system, like the Internet.
Cyc, cyclorama A large curtain, sometimes attached to rollers, which is hung on a
high track suspended around the edges of the studio, and which
can be drawn behind the performers to make a background for a
set.
DA Director’s assistant.A studio role with many responsibilities,including
advising camera operators of their upcoming shots and timing the
progress of each segment of a production.
DAT Digital audio tape. A system which records and replays audio using
a digital signal. DAT tape cassettes are smaller than normal audio
cassettes.
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538 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

DAW Digital audio workstation.This equipment allows the recording and

editing of digital sound, and lets the sound editor manipulate clips
on various tracks with great accuracy.
DC Direct current. The type of electricity supplied by batteries and by
AC adaptors. Portable video cameras are designed to run on DC so
they can be battery operated. To plug them into the wall current,
you need an AC adaptor.
Decibel (dB) Measurement of the sound volume or signal strength of an audio
signal. A dB meter gives a visual display of this signal strength.
Definition The degree of detail in television picture reproduction.
Degauss To demagnetise. Audio heads need degaussing from time to time
to reduce hiss on tape recordings. Monitor screens also need to be
degaussed at times to improve functioning.
Depth of field The distance between the closest and furthest objects which are in
clear focus to the camera’s image-gathering surface. Depth of field
is affected by the angle of the lens, the aperture setting (f stop) and
therefore indirectly by the amount of available light, and by the
distance the subject is away from the camera.
Desktop video The video equivalent of desktop publishing. Through the
convergence of computer and video technologies, it’s possible to
produce low cost,high quality video products on home computers.
Detent position The neutral position of a knob on the equalisation section of an
audio mixer. In this position, no equalisation (changes in volume to
selected sound frequencies) is applied to the signal.
Diffusion material Spun glass cloth,or other material,which is placed in front of a light
to soften the quality of the light and make the shadows produced
by it less hard.
Digital An electronic signal which is made up of discrete (separate) pieces
of data,as opposed to a continuous flow of information.Digital video
and computer information is encoded into a binary code, made up
solely of on and off.
Digital video A video signal which is recorded in a binary code,and can therefore
be copied through many generations without any loss in signal
quality.
Digitise To change a signal from analog to digital.This word is also used to
mean the process of entering an analog video signal into a non-
linear edit system.
Digitiser A device which changes an analog signal into a digital signal, so it
can then be used by a computer or a non-linear edit system.
Dimmer Device connected to a light, or a lighting system, which varies the
light output (brightness) by changing the voltage supplied to it.
Diopter The lens in the viewfinder of a videocamera, which can be adjusted
to suit the eyesight of each camera operator.
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Glossary 539
Directional Receptive from only one direction, as in directional microphone.
Director The person in charge of deciding the overall camera coverage and
the camera movements, and who guides the actors’ performances
in the making of a production.
Dissolve Transition from one shot to another by a process of cross-fading,
during which the image of the incoming shot is temporarily
superimposed over that of the outgoing shot.
Dolly (i) Movement of the camera towards or away from the subject.
(ii) The support on which the camera tripod is mounted.It has little
swivelling wheels so it can be moved in all directions.
Double head Picture and sound film run separately for transfer.
Down a generation When an analog signal has been copied, the new version is said to
be down a generation from the original. The new version is of a
lesser quality than the original material. In video, you try not to go
down a generation if you can in any way avoid it.
Downlink (i) The transmission system which receives a signal sent from a
satellite to the earth.
(ii) The signal sent from the satellite to the earth.
Downstage Towards the camera.
Dropout Loss of signal due to damage to the tape or dirt on the tape or record
head, preventing proper recording or playback.
Dry run Rehearsal without cameras.

Dub (i) A copy of a videotaped or audiotaped signal. An analog dub is

less good than the original material, because it’s down a
generation.
(ii) To make a copy of a taped signal.
DVD Digital versatile disk. A DVD can hold seven times the information
that a CD-Rom can. Feature length films are now being delivered
on DVD.
DVI A system that combines a computer with a compact disk, and
enables the user to produce interactive programs containing audio,
video and computer generated material.
Dynamic mic A microphone of the moving coil type. A dynamic mic doesn’t
require a power supply.
Earth station A facility for the transmission and reception/distribution of satellite
mediated (handled) television and radio signals.
ECU Extreme close-up. A shot which enlarges a detail to bigger than life
size.
Edit The process of putting video material into a scripted order to form
a final program. Analog editing is done by transferring information
electronically from one videotape to another.Digital editing is done
with a computer, using digital editing software.
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540 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

EDL Edit decision list. This is a record of all the in and out points of an
edit.EDLs are usually stored on floppy disks so they can be kept safe,
and are taken to postproduction suites to enable the video
machines there to do the fine cut.
Electron gun The device in the camera or television set which sends the electron
beam to the photoelectric surface,enabling the capture or redisplay
of the light image.
EFP Electronic field production.The term applied to recording drama on
location with a video camera rather than a film camera.
ENG Electronic news gathering.The term applied to recording the news
on location using a video camera rather than a film camera.
Equalisation To change the quality of a sound by adjusting the volume of
selected sound frequencies. Equalisation is done on audio mixers.
Erase To remove information from a magnetic tape.
Establishing shot A shot,often a long shot,which gives the viewer an idea of the larger
surroundings in which the action is occurring.
Eyeline The line along which a person is looking,especially in relation to the
framing of a picture. For example, the director may decide that
the subject’s eyeline should be to the left of frame or to the right
of the camera position.
Exposure Quantity of light being admitted to the camera.
f stop Calibration of the size of the camera aperture (the hole which lets
light into the camera).A large f stop number means a small opening
and greater depth of field.A small f stop means a large opening and
a shallower depth of field.
Fade in (or up) (i) To increase the volume of the audio signal.
(ii) To make the picture appear gradually from a black or coloured
screen.
Fade out (down) (i) To decrease the volume of the audio signal.
(ii) To make the picture go gradually to a black or coloured screen.
Fader The control knob which can be moved up and down, or rotated, to
adjust the volume level of an audio signal.
Feedback (i) In audio: an effect which occurs when a microphone is placed
too close to a speaker and a loud howling sound is produced.
(ii) In video: a visual effect produced by videoing a camera signal
from a monitor which is showing the image from the same
camera.An endless multiplication of the image is produced,like
looking down a tunnel, with ever-smaller images.
Field One half of the picture information within a frame of video. A field
is one scan, from top to bottom, of the image-gathering surface of
the camera, entailing all the odd lines or all the even lines (312.5
horizontal scan lines in PAL and SECAM, and 262.5 horizontal scan
lines in NTSC).
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Glossary 541
Fill light (i) A light that illuminates the subject from the opposite side of
the camera to the key light.
(ii) A light which gives general illumination to a scene, or a part of
a scene. Fill lights are often diffused light.
Firewire A hard drive which can store a large amount of digital information.
FireWire The trademark name for the connection (and connecting wire) for
putting video into a computer.
Fish pole A microphone suspended from a pole, held either from the catwalk
or the floor, and used to cover sound in areas not reached by the
boom.
Flare Areas of superbrightness in the video image caused by light
reflections off polished objects or dirt or tiny particles on the surface
of the lens.
Flat (i) A piece of standing scenery.
(ii) Dull image quality; even, not contrasting, usually referring to
lighting.
Flexifill A handy cloth device for bouncing light, white on one side and
metallic on the other, which is large when being used but twists to
fold into a small bag for packing away.
Floor The studio floor where the actors and cameras are located.
Floor plan A diagram of the studio floor, showing the positioning of scenery
and properties, the entrances and exits, and the available technical
facilities like power points.
Floppy disk A digital storage device made of a thin, flexible magnetic disk
covered by a flexible or hard plastic sleeve. Computer, audio or a
small quantity of video information can be stored on a floppy disk.
EDLs are usually stored on floppy disk and then taken to the
postproduction suite.
Fly Studio objects or scenery hanging from above.
FM Floor manager.Production role which occurs both in the studio and
on location.The floor manager has many responsibilities, including
keeping all the people on set in a productive and harmonious mood,
and relaying directions from the director to all those who are not
on headsets.
Focal length The distance from the optical centre of the lens to the photoelectric
surface in the camera.
Focus To adjust the lens to obtain the sharpest image.
Foley Sound effects produced in a studio for use in the production of a
soundtrack.
Foot-candle A unit of the measurement of light. It means the brightness of light
one foot away from one candle. Some domestic camcorders can
obtain a usable signal from only three foot-candles of light,but other
cameras require much more light.
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542 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Footprint The geographical area on the earth’s surface which receives a

satellite’s downlink signal at a useful strength. Because footprints
don’t align with national borders,satellite signals can be received in
countries whose governments don’t necessarily approve of the
program content, yet who have no regulatory control over the
broadcasters of the signal. This is one of the benefits, or hazards,
depending on your point of view, of satellite TV.
Foreground (f/g) The part of the picture nearest the camera.
Frame (i) The vertical and horizontal edges to the video image.
(ii) To use the camera to set up a shot with a particular composition
of visual elements.
(iii) One complete television picture (comprising two fields, 625
horizontal scan lines in PAL and 525 horizontal scan lines in
NTSC). There are 25 frames per second in PAL and SECAM, and
30 frames per second in NTSC.
Frame capture The process of digitising a frame of video.
Frame store A device which can store a frame of video as a digital signal and
allow various electronic adjustments and manipulations to be done
to the signal.
Freeze frame A motionless image caused by the repeated scanning of one frame
of picture information.
Frequency The number of electromagnetic cycles which pass a given point in
a second. Frequency is measured in cycles per second, usually
referred to as Hertz.
Frequency response The reproduction characteristics of microphones or other audio
equipment.
FX Abbreviation for effects, meaning special effects.
Gain (i) The volume level of the audio signal.
(ii) The amplification level of the video signal.
Gel A transparent or translucent coloured sheet, which is heat resistant,
and can be placed in front of a light to alter the colour of the light
beam.
Generation A recording of a signal. The original recording is called the first
generation, a copy of the original recording is called the second
generation, a copy of the copy is called third generation, and so on.
Genlock Linking different video sources (such as studio cameras, playback
machines and remote sites) to the same synchronising pulse,so their
signals are in exactly the same timing. This is to prevent rolling of
the picture when one shot is switched to another in the vision mixer.
Geosynchronous satellite A satellite which stays in a fixed position in relation to the Earth.
Ghost A double image on a television screen caused by signal reflections
in poor reception areas.
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Glossary 543
Gigabyte One billion bytes (USA),one thousand million bytes (Australia).Video
editing storage systems are rated in gigabytes.
Grams The sound effects and music section in the control room complex.
Grandmother clause When a newer model of equipment, or a computer program, will
correctly play back the data on products recorded on an older
model.For example,SVHS players will play back videotapes recorded
in VHS, but VHS players can’t play SVHS. Likewise, Digital 8 can play
Hi-8, but Hi-8 can’t play Digital 8.
Graphics Artwork such as drawings, maps, mounted photographs and titles.
Grid The overhead suspension system used for mounting the hanging
studio lights.
Handling noise Unwanted sound which is introduced into the signal path between
a microphone and the recorder. This noise can be caused by the
hand which is holding the microphone,by careless operation of the
boom, or by movement of the microphone cable or its extension
lead.
Hard disk A rigid plate with a magnetic coating which can store digital data.
A hard disk can handle a larger amount of information at a higher
speed than a floppy disk can.
HDTV High definition television. The theory was that one worldwide
improved TV standard would be adopted by the mid-1990s,but that
is yet to happen.The new standard will have at least 1000 horizontal
lines per frame and the aspect ratio of wide screen TV (16:9).
Head The device which transfers onto magnetic tape the picture or sound
signal. It also reads the signal from the tape during playback.
Head end The facility from which the television signal is cablecast (distributed)
in a cable television system.
Head room The space on the screen between the top of the subject’s head and
the top of the frame.
Helical scanning A method of recording video information onto tape in a series of
diagonal stripes, developed to save recording space.
Hertz (Hz) The unit of measurement of electromagnetic signal frequency. It
means cycles per second.
Hi-8 Hi-band version of Video 8, a high resolution video format, close to
broadcast standard.
High angle (H/A) Any shot taken above normal eyeline.
High key High intensity illumination.
Highband BVU Umatic (3/4-inch) video format,1-inch and Betacam;all formats
which meet broadcast standards.
Hot (i) When a portion of the video signal is overly bright, as when
there are hot spots on the wall due to a poor lighting set-up.
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544 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

(ii) Receptive to recording sound. A microphone is hot all over its

housing, so it will transmit handling noise if it’s rubbed or
knocked anywhere on its body.
Hue The word used in television vocabulary which is the equivalent of
colour in normal speech.
Ident (ID) (i) Station identification.
(ii) A board used at the beginning of every taping sequence,
containing details of what is about to be taped.
IEEE1394 Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers standard for inputting
signals into a computer.This standard connection is also known by
trade names like FireWire and iLink.
iLink The trademark name for the connection (and connecting wire) for
putting video into a computer.
Image compression The reduction of the number of data bits (and therefore space)
needed for the storage or transmission of the image, while still
maintaining reasonable quality.
Impedance Rating of the resistance characteristics of audio components, such
as microphones. Different impedance levels are expressed as high
impedance or low impedance.
In the can A finished television recording, a show ready for broadcasting.
In-camera editing Shooting a video program, exactly in script order, in one shooting
session,moving between record mode and pause,and never putting
the camera into stop until the program is done. At completion of
the shoot, the program is ready for distribution if all goes well. In-
camera editing is used by people with no access to editing
equipment, or no time to use editing equipment.In-camera editing
requires a high level of skill to make a good product.
Insert editing The mode of video editing in which the main erase head is not
activated, but flying erase heads mounted next to the video heads
are activated instead.This is the usual edit mode for editing a video
program in an analog edit system, and in this mode you can copy
any combination of the video and audio tracks,but NOT the control
track. A tape must be striped (given a continuous control track)
before insert editing can be done on it.
Instant replay An action recorded on special tape recorders and immediately
played back, sometimes in slow motion. Instant replay is especially
common on sports programs.
Interactive videodisk A multimedia system constructed by linking a video disk player to
a computer, which is programmed to work in conjunction with a
specially produced video that allows a high level of active
participation during the viewing process.
Intercom Audio intercommunication system among studio floor and control
room personnel.
Intercutting Cutting from one vision source to another.
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Glossary 545
Iris (diaphragm) The circular opening and closing mechanism that controls the
amount of light which reaches the video tube or CCD.
Jack stage A brace to hold up a flat.
Jib A camera mount consisting of an arm which can be attached to a
dolly or crane. A jib can be revolved left or right, up or down.
Joy stick (i) Gearstick-like device on the vision mixer panel for controlling
the placement of wipe effects.
(ii) Gearstick-like device on the edit controller, for controlling
videotape movement.
JPEG Joint Photographic Experts Group. A standard for the data
compression of still images.JPEG compresses image files to a smaller
size.
Key light The main source of light on the subject or the scene.
Kilobyte 1000 bytes
Kinescope A method of filming a videotape program off a screen for recording
or archival purposes.
Lavalier (Lav) A small omnidirectional microphone, usually worn clipped to the
clothing.
Lens Optical system which collects and focuses light and transmits it to
the image-gathering surface (the video tube or CCD) of the camera.
Level (i) A description of the intensity of audio and video signals.
(ii) To set levels for a production is to adjust sound levels on the
audio mixer and VCR to obtain the best quality recording.
Lighting The art of manipulating natural and artificial sources of light to
achieve a desired visual effect.
Line level The level of an audio signal which is sent from an amplified source,
like an audio mixer, another VCR, a CD player or a monitor. A line
level signal is usually around 1 volt in strength.
Line monitor The monitor that shows only the pictures going to air, or being
recorded on tape.
Lip sync When sound and picture are recorded or played back
simultaneously.
Live (i) A live microphone is one that is transmitting a signal.
(ii) A live show is one that goes straight to broadcast.
Location Any place outside of the studio where material is recorded.
Log (i) The written breakdown of a day’s program schedule.
(ii) The list of the material which is recorded on a videotape.
(iii) To make a list of what’s recorded on a tape.
Logo Symbol of identification for a program, a television station, a
production group.
Long shot Shot with wide field of view, or far away from the subject.
Loose shot A shot slightly wider than the standard shot size.
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546 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Lossless compression Reducing the storage space required without reducing the quality
of the image.
Lowband All domestic and industrial non-broadcast quality video formats,
including VHS, Beta, Video 8 and some Umatic (3/4-inch).
LS Long shot. A shot framed to show the whole body of the subject.
Luminance The brightness part of the video signal.The luminance signal is the
main part of the video signal, and on its own gives the black and
white reproduction of the image.
Macro A lens used for taking shots of objects which are less than a metre
away from the camera.
Magnetic tape Plastic tape,coated with a magnetically sensitive oxide,which is used
for recording electromagnetic signals, either sound or vision.
Magnetic tape can be erased and used again, many times.
Make-up Materials and paints used to enhance, correct and change facial
features or produce the impression of wounds.
Mark To put a small piece of masking tape on the studio floor to indicate
positions for the performers and scenery,or camera stopping points.
Mask (i) A shield placed before a camera to cut off some portion of its
field of view.
(ii) To conceal, by use of scenery pieces, any portion of the
background.
(iii) When a performer or object is blocking the view to some
background performer or object.
Master The first generation of a recording, or the first edited version of a
program.The master should be used for the production of copies.
Master control Control centre through which all television production and playback
areas are routed.
MCU Medium close-up. A shot which shows the subject from mid-chest
up, with a small amount of headroom in the frame above the head.
Megabyte (MB) One million bytes of information.
Mic level The level of the audio signal which is sent from many, but not all,
microphones. It is 1 to 4 millivolts in strength.
Microphone A device for converting sound waves to electrical energy.This energy
can then be transmitted or converted into a magnetic signal to be
recorded on tape.
Mid range Sound frequencies higher than bass and lower than treble; 250 to
4000Hz.
MIDI Musical instrument digital interface. The communication of digital
data between musical instruments, allowing several musical
instruments to control and interact with one another.
Mix To combine audio signals from several inputs down to one or two
output channels.
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Mixer (i) In video: a device for selecting or combining video signals.
(ii) In audio: a device for combining audio signals down to one or
two channels to produce a soundtrack which can be recorded
onto videotape.
MLS Medium long shot. A shot which frames the subject from midway
between the knee and ankle to just above the head.
Monitor A video display unit that looks like a home television set but receives
its picture and audio information through line inputs.It’s sometimes
unable to receive an RF signal.
MPEG Moving Picture Experts Group. A standard for moving image
compression.
Multimedia A computer based system for working with text, video, film, audio,
graphics and animation.
Narrator Reader or speaker who adds information to a program and who can
be either seen or unseen.
ND filter Neutral density filter. A filter which reduces the amount of light
which gets to the camera lens, but doesn’t alter the colour of it.
Negative image An image where lights and darks are reversed for special effect.
Noise Unwanted interference in either the audio or the video signal.
NTSC National Television Standards Commission.The video standard used
in the United States, Japan, Canada, Mexico and many other
countries. NTSC has 525 horizontal scan lines per frame, and 30
frames per second.
OCR Optical character recognition.A scanning process which recognises
and encodes printed characters into digital form for use in a
computer.
Off-air signal Any RF signal broadcast through the air and available for public
reception, for free.
Omnidirectional mic A microphone which picks up sound equally well from all directions.
Order wire A sound link set up between two sources distant from each other.
Out of frame Out of the camera’s view.
O/S Over the shoulder.A shot taken from behind,looking over someone’s
shoulder at another person or an object.This shot is often used for
a cutaway when recording interviews.
Oxide Iron oxide particles on a videotape, the recording medium on early
videotapes.
Pacing The flow and speed of an edited video piece, including length of
shots and types of transitions.
PAL Phase alternate line. The name of the video standard used in
Australia, New Zealand, and many other countries. The PAL signal
has 625 horizontal scan lines per frame, and 25 frames per second.
Pan To move the camera left or right in the horizontal plane.
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548 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Parallel action Intercutting shots showing two different actions at two different
locations.This allows the edited program to convey a sense of two
things happening at the same time, and the cut from one scene to
another works in editing in the same way as a cutaway does,
allowing the editor to reduce time from real time to acceptable
screen time.
Patching Interconnecting audio, video or light cables into a common circuit.
Pause mode The mode on a camera recording system in which the recording
has stopped, but the tape is still in contact with the record heads.
Pause is used between shots, and is especially useful in in-camera
editing.
PCM Pulse code modulation. A system of digitising a sound signal.
Peak Highest level of signal strength, as on VU meters.
Pedestal (i) A rolling mount for a camera, used in the studio.
(ii) The black level in the video signal.
Phantom power A method of sending electrical power from a studio audio mixer to
condensor microphones, so individual microphone power supplies
aren’t needed. Computers can also phantom-power devices
connected to their firewire inputs.
Photoelectric Able to change light energy into electricity.
Photosensitive Responding to or sensitive to light.The video image is made when
light is changed into an electrical current at the photosensitive
surface of the video tube or the CCD.
Pickup tube The tube inside early video cameras which registered the image
focused by the lens.
Pixel Individual dots or picture elements in a computer image.Each pixel
has its own colour. The screen image is made up of thousands of
pixels.
Plotting Planning of camera shots, deciding camera and boom positions.
Pot Abbreviation for potentiometer.This refers to any equipment control
knob which allows continuously variable output, as with the pan
pot.
POV Point of view. A shot where the camera shows what one of the
characters would see.
PPM meter Peak program meter. A type of meter used for reading the volume
of sound.PPMs use a display of lights,rather than a swinging needle,
to indicate sound levels.
Pre-amp An amplifier which comes before the main amplifier, used to raise
the signal to an appropriate level.
Premix To combine several audio tracks to form one track, which is then
input into a further audio mix.
Preview (i) View a production before it is broadcast.
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Glossary 549
(ii) View a caption or a special effect on the preview monitor in the
control room before placing it into the production.
(iii) An electronic process in video editing which allows the editor
to see what an edit would look like, without actually doing the
edit.
Props Properties/objects used for set decoration. Hand props are those
items, like a mobile phone, which an actor uses onscreen.
Proximity effect An exaggeration of bass frequencies which occurs when a cardioid
microphone is placed very close to the speaker’s mouth.Though it’s
a form of distortion, the particular sound yielded is considered
desirable, even sexy, in some instances.
Public access A policy which means that everyone has the right to broadcast on
a public TV or radio channel, on a first-come, first-served basis. (Like
everyone has the right to go down a public road.)
PZM Pressure zone microphone. A microphone which uses a hard flat
surface to capture and direct the sound waves towards its
diaphragm. It has a hemispherical pick-up pattern, and can re-
produce room sound very well, but isn’t selective, like a directional
microphone is.
Quartz iodine A powerful light source in a small glass envelope. Requires special
care to use safely.
Quicktime A media integration standard used in Apple computers, allowing
the manipulation and synchronisation of digitised video. You can
change your digital video product into a Quicktime file to put it on
the Internet.
RAM Random access memory. A memory system in which data can be
accessed in any order, with equal speed.
RCA This slip-on connector is often used on cables carrying audio signals
and is used on home equipment, on audio and video cables.
Reach The distance over which a microphone can pick up a good signal
strength.A shotgun microphone has a longer reach than a cardioid
which was designed for hand-held interviews.
Real time Time as we experience it.Most edited programs show actions which
have been reduced from real time to a shorter length.
Recce (Also reccy.) A visit to a location site to check out its potential for a
video shoot and to determine its drawbacks and inherent problems.
Receiver Home-type TV set that accepts RF (radio frequency) signals.
Receiver/monitor A video display unit which can display signals received either via
broadcast (RF) or via direct line inputs.
Render To create the files of a digital effect
Resolution A measure of the amount of detail that can be recorded within the
video image, by a particular camera or with a particular format.
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RF Radio frequency.A modulated video,audio and sync signal.RF signal

is used to broadcast television through the atmosphere. Television
receivers are designed to decode RF signals.
RF converter A small device to encode video and audio signals to RF so that they
will play on a normal television receiver. RF converters are included
in home VCRs but must often be purchased separately for industrial
level VCRs.
RGB Red, green and blue.The primary colours of the video image.The R,
G and B signals can be viewed separately with video test equipment,
and the relative strengths of these three signals can be adjusted
during shooting and postproduction to produce certain effects.
Roll The director’s signal to start videotape recording or to start a replay.
ROM Read-only memory. A permanent internal memory built into a
device during manufacture. ROM data can be read quickly, but it
can’t be altered.
Run down The list of proposed program content for a program.
Run through A rehearsal of action and/or camera movement.
Sampling Turning a signal into numbers which can be processed by
computers. Digitising.
Satellite dish A piece of equipment composed of a curved reflector and a feed
horn, which can be used to receive signals from, or transmit them
to, a satellite.
Saturation The richness of the hue (colour) in the colour TV signal. A very
saturated hue is like a vibrant cartoon colour, a not very saturated
hue is pastel.
Scanner A device which converts images to a digital form.
Scanning Movement of the electron beam in the video tube from left to right,
top to bottom. One scan creates one field.
Scene The shot or assemblage of shots that make up a unit of a program.
Schedule A listing of all information regarding the taping day,with times,dates,
scenes, actors, etc.
Scrim A wire mesh put in front of lights to slightly diffuse the beam.A scrim
is also useful for catching the flying glass if the globe explodes.
SECAM Système Électronique Couleur Avec Mémoire. The video standard
used in France, the former Soviet Union, former Eastern Bloc
countries,and some other countries.SECAM has 625 horizontal scan
lines per frame, and 25 frames per second.
SEG Special effects generator.An electronic device able to produce video
effects.
Servo control Remote control of the zoom and focus on a studio camera,operated
by switches mounted on the pan handles of the camera pedestals.
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Glossary 551
Set The arrangement of scenery and props which make up the
environment seen in a shot or scene.
Set up (i) To install a set in the studio.
(ii) To get all cameras and equipment positioned and ready to
operate.
Shock mount A microphone holder which isolates the microphone from any
handling noise.
Shooting ratio The relationship between the amount of footage shot and the
length of the final edited product. Drama usually has a much lower
shooting ratio than documentary because the shots can be more
carefully planned out ahead of time.
Sibilant Having a hissing sound, like that produced by s.
Signal-to-noise ratio The strength of a signal compared to the internal design noise of a
piece of equipment. A high signal-to-noise ratio means a better
quality piece of equipment and a better recorded result.
Site check A visit to a shooting location,done ahead of the shooting day.A site
check is for obtaining useful information like the position of the sun,
the accessibility of the site, the possibility of using AC power,
environmental noise factors, and so on.
SMPTE Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers.This group sets
standards for video.
Snow Random black and white dots shown on the television screen.Snow
can be due to poor reception or a dirty VCR head.It’s also the image
you see if you play an erased tape or a never-recorded tape.
Special effects (SFX) Creation of illusions by mechanical or electronic means.
Splice Mechanical join between pieces of tape or film.
Spot light A light focused or restricted to cause it to send a narrow beam.
Spun A fabric made of spun glass, which is put in front of lights to slightly
soften the beam and reduce its intensity.
Stability The timing quality of a television picture.
Still (freeze) A motionless image caused by the repeated scanning of one frame
of picture information.
Stop mode The mode in a video recording system where the recording stops
and the tape is no longer in contact with the record heads. Never
go into stop if you’re trying to do in-camera editing, because you’ll
get a glitch at the edit point when you begin the next shot.
Storyboard Shot-by-shot drawings and accompanying text indicating the major
points in the content of a scene or program.Audio content may also
be listed.A storyboard looks rather like a cartoon strip,but of course
it’s much longer.
Stripe To record a continuous control track onto a videotape to get it ready
for use in insert edit mode. A tape can only be striped in assemble
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552 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

edit mode.Striping can be done with any stable signal,but it’s most
commonly done with black so that if the edit points slip slightly,the
error will be less noticeable to the viewer. In order to be sure the
edit system is laying a true black stripe and not just no video, check
to make sure the frame counter is moving on the record machine.
Superimpose (super) Electronic overlapping of two or more pictures on the screen.Often
used for putting captions or credits over an image.
Surround sound The sound of a location, recorded by an omnidirectional
microphone, used to give presence and authenticity to the scene.
SVHS Super VHS.This analog format records a high resolution signal close
to broadcast standard.
Sync Electronic timing pulses that control the recording and replay of the
video image.
Sync generator A device that produces electronic synchronisation pulses.All studio
equipment can be linked to one sync generator so there will be no
timing differences between the signals from the various sources.
This is called genlocking the equipment.
Synopsis A brief description of the program’s storyline or plot. A scene
synopsis lists all scenes with a short description of the plot
movement in each one.
Take (i) The director’s signal to cut from one camera to another.
(ii) The completion of one part of a production.
Talent The term once used to refer to all performers and actors.This term
now has a derogatory flavour to many people, and is no longer
considered acceptable.It should be replaced with performer or actor.
Talkback A speaker or headset system that connects the studio to the control
room.
Talking heads The term applied to close-up shots showing people speaking.
Talking heads are commonly part of a TV program, but they quickly
become tiresome, so cutaways related to what the speakers are
discussing are used to liven up the content.
Tape Oxide-coated mylar plastic that will record picture and/or sound
information when magnetised by a tape head.
TBC Timebase corrector. A device which corrects the timebase (sync) of
a video signal and makes it synchronous with other devices, like a
vision mixer.
TD Technical director.The person in the studio whose job it is to set up
and balance the signals from all the cameras.
Technobabble Technical terms and acronyms, sometimes used to confuse people.
Telecast A television transmission.
Telecine A device for the transfer of film or slides to video.
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Glossary 553
Telephoto A lens designed to narrow the field of view and enlarge the subject.
The focal length is longer than usual; for example,150 mm.Used for
close-ups which are shot from a distance.
Telerecord A method of recording electronic vision signals onto 16 mm film.
Test pattern Specially designed chart to test resolution and colour balance in a
video picture.
Texture mapping The process of wrapping a 2-D image onto a 3-D object.
Thirds A concept in shot composition which divides the screen into three
sections vertically or horizontally.
Tilt To tip the camera up or down, as you would look up or down with
your head.
Timecode A system which gives a unique number to each frame of video.
Timecode can be recorded during the shoot, with some cameras,
or added later if necessary.Timecode is very useful in linear editing
and it’s essential with non-linear editing.
Timeshifting Recording a video program at one time in order to view it at another,
more convenient, time.
Track or truck To physically alter the position of the camera in the horizontal plane,
either hand-held or on a dolly. Often done in a motion parallel to a
moving subject.
Tracking The movement of the video heads, or the hi-fi audio heads, along
the recorded signal path on the tape.If the heads aren’t riding right
on top of the signal tracks, the replay picture or audio quality will
be poorer, and you will have what’s called a tracking problem. This
can usually be fixed by adjusting the tracking knob on the player.
Transponder The part of the satellite which receives the uplinked signal,converts
the signal to another frequency, and amplifies it for retransmission
to Earth via another (downlink) transponder.
Treble High frequency sounds—4096 to 16 384Hz.
Trunk lines Heavy duty signal-bearers which are used to carry signals large
distances between major centres.
Two-shot A shot including two people.
UHF Ultra high frequency RF signal. SBS TV and the public access
channels in Australia are on UHF.
Unbalanced audio An unbalanced audio cable is not recommended for professional
use because it’s subject to electrical interference.
Unidirectional mic A microphone which picks up sound only from a cone-shaped area
to the front of it. Some unidirectional mics have a broader pick-up
range than others. The ones with a very narrow range are called
hyperdirectional.
Umatic A 3/4-inch video format. Low band Umatic is not broadcast stand-
ard, but high band Umatic is.
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554 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

Unit A team of people who work together to produce a television

program or series.
Uplink (i) The transmission system sending a signal to a satellite.
(ii) The signal sent up to the satellite.
Upstage (i) Away from camera, towards the back of the set.
(ii) To walk towards the back of the set, causing the other actor(s)
on set to turn away from the camera.This is a trick to focus the
audience’s attention on oneself and away from the others.This
move is not very popular with the other actors.
User interface The parts of the software and hardware which the operator
manipulates to communicate with and control the program.
VCR Video cassette recorder. A device which records video, audio and
sync information onto videotape which is housed within a cassette.
Vectorscope A device which graphically displays information about the colour
part of the TV signal.
VHF Very high frequency RF signal. Many TV stations broadcast on VHF.
The RF converters in VCRs produce a VHF signal which can be
displayed on a TV receiver, often on channel 1 or 2.
Video The picture component of the television signal.
Video 8 A domestic video format using 8-mm tapes.
Video streaming Sending video files over the Internet.
Videotape (i) To record both sound and vision onto magnetic tape. No
processing is necessary. The tape segment/program is
replayable at once.
(ii) Magnetic tape used to record both sound and vision.
Viewfinder (EVF) A device to enable the cameraperson to see the image the camera
is recording. Usually a small TV screen in black and white. Some
cameras use an optical viewfinder,which is a split from the lens itself.
These require special care in estimation of depth of field and
exposure.
Virtual reality Interactive electronic media which give the illusion of immersion in
an artificial world which exists inside the data space of the computer.
Vision mixer A device for selecting or combining video signals.
VLS Very long shot. A shot which shows the full body of the subject,
taking up about half the height of the screen.
VM Vision mixer.The studio role of the person who operates the vision
mixer.
Voiceover The voice of the narrator or another person, used without the
accompanying image of that person.
VU meter Volume unit meter.A meter with a moving needle that indicates the
audio level in the recorder or mixer.
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Glossary 555
VTR Video tape recorder.Any device which records video,audio and sync
information onto videotape.
Walk through A rehearsal, usually preceding camera rehearsal, where performers
and crew note the major action.
Waveform monitor A device which graphically displays information about the signal
strength and sync characteristics of the video signal.
Wavelength The length of one cycle of an electromagnetic signal.
White balance To adjust the camera’s colour rendition for any new lighting situation.
Wide angle A lens, or a setting on a zoom lens, which maximises the width of
the background in a shot.
Wipe A visual effect where one picture appears to push another off the
screen, following some geometric pattern.
WORM A device used to encode data onto a disk, using a high powered
laser. The laser causes a permanent change in the reflective
characteristics of the disk, and the resulting recording can be
decoded as a video image.
Wow Distortion in an audio signal caused by erratic tape speed.
WS Wide shot. A shot showing a broad view of the surroundings, often
taken with a wide angle lens.
XLR This lock-on three-pin connector is used on cables carrying balanced
audio signals. It’s the standard audio connector for professional
microphones, mixers and recording equipment.
Y/C The abbreviation used for the SVHS signal, which is separated out
into its luminance and chrominance componants.
Zoom lens A lens with a moveable element that enables the selection of various
focal lengths. A 12 mm/120 mm lens has a 10:1 zoom ratio.
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Index

Page numbers in bold refer to key entries

A/B roll, 174, 186, 463 satellite, 494–7 audio heads, see heads
AC (alternating current), 4, 6 aperture, 6, 15–18, 21, 32, 33 audio mixers, 130, 132, 143, 144,
adaptor, 3, 4, 5 priority, 33 148, 150, 174, 217, 223,
access grid, 504–10 archival footage, 77, 152, 501 232–4, 237–41, 247–55, 312,
computer schematic, 509 artwork, 344, 346, 431, 501, 530 321, 351, 398, 406–7, 413,
room layout, 505 aspect ratio 435–47, 470, 497
action, 57, 74, 75, 80, 338, 340 4:3, 43, 44, 45, 55, 104, 174, 192, assign buttons, 440
axis line, 80, 482, 485 196, 432 auxiliary, 440, 445
area, 262 6:9, 43, 44, 55, 62, 174, 192, 196, calibrated tone, 150, 174, 234,
actors, 57, 262, 274, 282, 315–16, 432 446
321, 326, 337, 339–40, 439, widescreen, 43, 44, 55, 62, 104, cascading, 239
459 196, 432 equalisation, 407, 438–9, 442,
Adobe Premier, 6, 141, 153 assessment sheets, 254, 464–5 445
AFM, 113 assign buttons, see audio mixers faders, 130, 232, 248, 406–7,
ALC (automatic level control), see ATF (automatic track finding), 113 414, 442, 444, 446–7, 475
audio: control audience, 311–31 passim, 479–88 fading, 247, 251
analog, 112–14, 165 passim, 499, 511–12, 514, 529 gain, 407, 437, 446
editing, 120–38, 168, 172, 186 audio inputs/outputs, 217, 232–34,
information, 167 adaptor, 148 237, 435, 442, 443–6
signal, 146, 166, 168, 170, 214, bit-rate, 224 normalising, 445
516 control, 397, 435–47, 453 pan control, 239, 250, 441
systems, 139, 167, 174, 175, 250 limiter, 131, 226–7 phantom power, 443
video, 141, 145, 149, 215 mix, 247–55 solo, 407, 441
angles, see camera angles; lens: monitor levels, 227, 444 audio mixing
angles pad, 104, 442 layback of tracks, 253
animation, 65, 178, 322 transitions, 188–9 layover of audio tracks, 250
animator, 150 wash, 247 lining up tone
cel, 192–3 audio connections live, 312, 435-47, 497
motion capture, 198 in (input), 23, 106, 107, 120, 148, music, 251
virtual reality, 195, 197–9 214, 238, 249, 436, 442 OMF (open media file
antenna out, 23, 104, 120, 238, 249, 435, exchange), 250
in, 23, 106 442, 497 spotting session, 25
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Index 557
sub-mix, 252, 445 problems, 2, 3, 207, 230, 383, broadcast, 321, 440, 466, 469–70,
tracklaying plan, 248 475 490–3, 509, 512–13
tracks, 190 NICAD, 2 broadcaster, 147, 154, 490
audio recording levels, 131, 223, NMH, 2, 3 news, 181, 183, 494, 515
224, 226, 234, 444, 530 recycling, 3 quality (standards), 88, 138,
ALC (automatic level control), strength, 9 407, 487
225–7 terminals (contacts) positive and budget (budgeting), 321, 341, 344,
riding the levels, 233, 237, 312, negative, 2, 6 369–75, 409
442 BCU, see big close-up buffer
audio signal Betacam, 86, 138, 529 server, 513
Att (attenuate), 234 Betacam SX tapes, 87 video, 22, 136
balanced, 249 digital Betacam tapes, 87 burn-in, see timecode
distortion, 203, 224–5, 227, 231, recording, 114, 124, 125, 126, byte, 87, 160
247, 435, 437, 444, 530 227
dynamic range, 237 SP Betacam, 86, 126
cables, 218–21, 493
line level, 104, 233–4, 238, 437, system, 87, 155
audio, 200, 207
442–3 tapes, 88, 89, 94, 155
balanced, 217, 219
mic level, 104, 233–4, 238, 437, bi-directional mics, see
microphones unbalanced, 217, 219
442–3 camera, 108
mono, 238 big close-up (BCU), 52
binary system (and data), 166, 168 care (and safety), 221, 265, 389
most important, 125 damaged, 106, 230, 475
stereo, 238 bins, see digital editing
bit, 156, 160 dielectric, 219
unbalanced, 249 DV breakout, 220
volume level, 104 black
balance, 38 ground, 219
audio tracks, 112–14, 224, 249 inputting sound to audio mixer,
hi-fi audio, 113–15, 133 fade to/fade up from, 181, 423
generator, 127, 403 217, 436, 475
inside track, 125, 136, 136 multiple signals (multi-pin),
longitudinal, 113, 124, 133 level, 35, 102, 397, 407, 412
signal, 127, 128, 244, 421, 427 220, 397
audio, types of RF, 219
AFM, 112–13 black and white (monochrome),
41 shielding, 219
digital, 112, 114 Siamese, 220
hi-fi, 113, 131, 227 monitor, 421
recording, 155, 430 video
normal (longitudinal), 112, 114, BNC, 108, 214, 479
131, 227 setting, 77
viewfinder, 7, 9, 73, 384 Coaxial (coax), 219, 493
PCM, 112–14 IEEE1394 (FirWire or i.Link),
AVID, 14, 141 blacking the tape, see striping the
tape 215
Azimuth, 113, 115, 125 call sheets, 359
blondies, see lights
blue screen (chroma key), 192, camcorder, 26, 88, 89, 90, 150,
back focus, 28 194–5, 427–8, 516 157, 216, 225, 227, 257
background, 65, 69, 192, 279, 287, BNC, see cables; connectors camera
303, 427, 471–3, 516 body language, 388, 476, 480, actions of (movement of ), 57,
light, 283, 287 485, 487, 502 58, 61, 64–8, 70, 75–7, 79,
sound, 201, 241, 252 boom 190, 316, 337, 395, 415–16,
buzz, 226 handling noise, 229 449, 473, 479–88, 516
cyclical, 236–7, 245, 350 operator, 202, 229, 237, 262, cards, 415
music, 247 414, 447, 448–9 control unit (CCU), 16, 216,
noise, 222, 226, 237, 516 pole, 68, 201, 207, 225, 229, 397, 399, 412
bass, see sound: frequencies 239, 351, 385, 414 mic, 201
batch capture, see digital editing bough shelters, 279 mounts, 399–400, 505
batteries, 377–8, 392 boundary mic (PZM), see operators, 59, 76, 187, 233–4,
behaviour, 4, 378 microphones 279, 344, 346, 389, 395,
belt, 5, 348 break-out box, 146, 220 397, 415–16, 447, 472, 483
car, 6, 348 Breaks (at shoots), 381, 412, 477 originals, 93, 94, 120–1, 425
charge (and chargers), 3, 4, 6, brightness, 7, 15, 17, 18, 21, 35, positions, 80, 262, 339–40, 350,
348 99, 102, 185, 273, 276, 279, 385, 479–88, 498, 505
cigarette lighter adaptor, 5 412 settings, 9, 57
dischargers, 3 electrical signal, 108, 167, 397, stationary, 59, 65
eject, 2 427 set-ups
lithium ion, 2, 3 hot spots, 35, 274, 281, 283 crossing the line, 80–1
mic, 230, 234, 383, 475 LCD, 10, 384 interviews, 479–88
power, 14, 22, 88, 210 see also luminance videoconference, 498–502
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558 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

camera angles, 68–70, 79, 312, grade, 168 lab, 151, 508
473, 479–88, 500 information (RGB), 157, 158, laptops, 152, 501, 514, 516, 518
angled shots, 45 159 operating system, 143, 153
eye level, 68, 69, 79, 338, 483 mixing (additive), 102 processing power, 160–1, 197,
high angle, 68, 69, 70, 79, 82, video signal, 99, 102, 384, 397, 514
483, 488 408, 412, 421 software, 141–6, 152, 157, 175,
low angle, 68, 69, 79, 82, 483 colour bars, 7, 8, 10, 102, 127, 191–9, 249, 431, 504,
neutral angle, 70, 338, 395, 131, 244, 276, 384, 421, 427 512–14, 517
472, 483, 488 colour temperature, 33–4, 36, 280, storage capacity, 160–2, 169,
objective, 74 349 172, 514
telephoto (tight), 12, 13, 29, 32, adjusting for mixed, 37, 281 system, 90, 152, 249, 505, 507,
33, 57, 59 lights, 294 509, 511–19
tilted, 69 cometing, 41 workstation, 152
wide angle, 12, 13, 28, 29, 32, commentary, 22, 70, 181, 190, computer generated (CG), 191–9,
33, 57, 70, 72 201, 244, 317–18, 478 427
camera’s view, 57–73, 350 see also voiceovers computer graphics, 191–9
capture community broadcasting, see titles, 38, 121, 168, 192, 194,
video capture cards, 145–6, 157 public access TV 431, 433
video footage, 150, 153, 168 compatibility of equipment, 150 2-D, 191, 192–7
see also digital editing backward compatibility, 104 3-D, 138, 191, 197–9
cardioid, see microphones compilation tape, 127 condenser mics, see microphones
cassettes (videotape), 88–90, 94 component video, 142, 214 connectors, audio
miniDV, 87 RGB, 102 mini (3.5 mm), 148, 214, 217,
smart cassette, 90 composite 220, 229–30, 233
standard DV, 87 images, 178, 193–4, 516 mono, 217
cast, 345, 386, 462 shows, 310 phone (6.5 mm), 214, 217, 233,
casting director, 417 video, 142, 149, 150, 214, 401, 437
CCD (charge coupled device), 25, 406, 431, 489 RCA, 216, 220, 233, 249
98, 99 composition, 43–56 stereo, 217
CCU, see camera control unit compressed image, 157, 403, 512
XLR (Cannon or 3-pin), 217,
CD (compact disc), 95, 142, 150, compression, 156–63, 171–2,
233, 249, 437
151, 195, 197, 250, 321, 324, 515
connectors, computer
501, 512–13 artefacts, 193
channels (audio 1 and 2), 112, data bit reduction, 171 IEEE1394 (FireWire or i.Link),
114, 117 decompress (uncompress), 156, 218, 518
character generator (CG), 150, 157, 162, 170, 512 port, 218, 518
244, 396, 405, 410, 421, 431, methods SCSI, 162
433, 453, 463 inter-frame, 159 USB (universal serial bus), 218,
characters, 83, 319–20, 322, 337, intraframe, 116, 158–9 501, 517–18
338 reducing colour information, connectors, power (4-pin), 217–18
development, 187 158–9 connectors, video
computer-generated, 192, 197 reducing data rate, 514–15 BNC, 214, 404
chip (CCD), 99, 116 reducing frame rate, 158–9, 8-pin, 216–17
chroma, 408 172, 514–15, 517 IEEE1394 (FireWire or i.Link),
artefacts, 115 reducing frame size, 158–9, 215
key, 394–5, 413, 427–8, 516 514 multi-pin, 216–17
chrominance, 38, 114, 214, 215 VBR (variable bit rate), 515 SVHS Y/C, 215
cinema (camera mode), 43, 44 Wizard interface, 515 UHF, 215
clip, see digital editing rate, 95, 116, 157, 171 connectors, video/audio, 215–17
close-up (CU), 12, 31, 33, 51, 52, DV (5:1), 157 RCA, 216
53, 57, 70, 71, 76, 78, 79, fixed rate, 157 RF, 215–16
183, 223, 279, 311, 312, 340, variable rate, 157, 515 consent form, 360
380, 473, 478, 480–2 ratio, 194 contingency
CODEC, 157 computer, 139, 140–6, 152, 153, budget, 373–4
colour 165, 270, 469–70, 498–9, time, 345
artefacts, 158 501–2, 504, 507–9 continuity, 385
compression, 159 compression, 157 audio, 226, 236, 237
controls editing, 141–6, 164–78 lighting, 38, 340
hue, 423 hardware, 142, 249 person, 341
luminance, 423 home computers, 151, 161, problem, 185
saturation, 423 191–9, 248, 517–18 screen direction, 80, 315
fade to/fade up from, 423 input, 146 storyline, 83, 315, 340
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Index 559
contrast DBS (direct broadcast satellite), digital effects, 41, 77, 143, 144,
control (EVF and by TD), 7, 495 168, 191–9, 403, 429–31
384, 397, 412 DC (direct current) power, 4, 5 digital format, 151, 196
ratio, 16, 17, 35, 274, 276, 474 definition, 9, 35 information, 166, 167
control room, see studio demo reel, 52 production facility, 151
control track, see tracks depth, 50, 82 signal, 118, 142, 146, 511
convergence, 166, 169, 218 depth of field, 16, 31–3, 276–7 storage systems, 150
converting design, 346, 350, 409 tracks on videotape, 114–16
formats, 116 designer, 191, 346, 371, 396, video, 108, 113, 114–16, 511
from film, 154 410–11
signals, 146, 170 digital networks, 502–4, 511–19
diagonal
copy digital tapes, 85–8, 90, 95, 151
lines, 47–8, 50
copying damaged tape, 90 tracks, 111–18 passim, 124 digitised media, 173, 178
management, 96 dialogue digitising
see also dubs covering live, 346 analog video, 145, 149, 170
copyright, 508, 512, 520–8 editing, 136, 190, 236, 237, 246, shots, 169, 172
countdown, 131, 386, 412 250 the signal, 104, 150, 168, 170,
counter number, 122, 128 see also scripts 191
coverage, 77, 79, 339–40, 478 digital audio, 235 diopter, 10, 11, 26
cranes, 68 bit-rates, 224, director, 344, 346
credits, see titles recording levels, 227 coverage decisions, 77, 79, 187,
crew (team), 256–7, 262, 306–16, see also audio; sound 312, 337–40
326, 339–42, 367, 385–6, digital audio workstations framing decisions, 43, 48, 50
390, 476 (DAWs), 248–53 giving direction to actors and
choosing, 344–6, 354–6 digital cameras, 18, 62, 68, 76, 77, crew, 65, 187, 315, 339,
communication, 1, 51, 341–2, 103, 147–50, 157 342, 380–1, 385, 389–91,
380, 386–7, 390, 448–55, Canon XL1, 5, 6 397, 448
463 Canon XM2, 143, 147, 149 interview coverage guidelines,
getting to site, 376–9 digital Betacam, 43, 147, 194,
studio productions, 405, 182, 477
196, 227 lighting decisions, 276
409–10, 415, 477 digital stills cameras, 77
well-being, 381, 392, 462 location shoot, 65, 70, 326, 346,
miniDV, 44, 227, 234
crossing the line, 80–2 Panasonic DVCPRO, 87, 95, 380, 384
cue, 477 111 studio procedures, 396–8,
bounced cue, 459 Sony DVCAM, 4, 7, 8, 20, 87, 409–16, 433, 448–55, 477
performance cues, 457–60 147, 200 director’s assistant, see studio roles
studio operations, 442, 452–4 digital editing, 37, 141–6, 147, dirty
tape, 90 164–79, 514 heads, 118
time cues, 455–7 auto capture, 177 lens, 378
written cues, 461, 462 bins, 172–3 dissolve, see effects
cultural awareness, 53–4, 476–7 batch capture, 170, 386 distance
cut, see editing techniques; vision capture, 168, 169, 170 between subject and lens, 31
mixers clip, 143, 169, 172–3 from camera, 30, 47, 76
cut-ins, see editing techniques clip files, 178 from lens, 25
cutaways, see editing techniques compress a shot, 178 viewing mode, 11
cyclorama (cyc), 395, 472, 474 cut and paste, 169, 174 distribution, 344–5, 466, 511,
device control, 215 529–31
D1 video, 159 drop icon, 175 budget, 370, 373
DA (director’s assistant), see studio DV breakout box and cable, copy, 94, 122, 344, 529
roles 146, 220, 249 tapeless, 179
damaged tape, 90, 92, 125, 136, edit in and out points, 175 docu-drama, see production
383 folder, 169
options
DAT recorder, 235 history, 175
label, 169, 170 document camera, 469, 499–502
data
management, 144 lock and unlock tracks, 178 documentaries, 74, 75, 519
storage, 87, 90, 95–6 render, 144, 197, 433, 530 crews, 75, 354
stream, 145 sound, 247 scriptwriting, 319, 325–6
date and time, 40 stretch a shot, 178 shooting ratio, 190
DAW, see digital audio thumbnails (tiles), 173, 174 dolly, 65, 66, 399, 416, 480,
workstations timeline, 143, 169, 173, 178 482–4
dB undo (and multiple undo), 175 download, 512–14, 518–19
audio, 227, 234 up-resing, 169 downstream key (DSK), see vision
video, 19, 33 video tracks (multiple), 178 mixers
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560 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

drama, 52, 75, 79, 83, 189, 201, connections, 217 transitions using, 143, 400, 433,
237, 315–17, 319, 322–3, digital, 141–6, 164–78 517
333–42, 354, 409, 453 edit controller, 120, 132, 133, wipes, 41, 138, 143, 187,
blocking, 66, 339–41 136 423–6, 517
crew protocol, 341–2 input select, 131–2 electricity, see safety
deciding camera coverage, lab, 162 electron
339–41 memory, 130, 131 beam, 116, 167
dry read, 339, 341 off-line, 138, 177 gun, 116
mark up script, 340, 384 portable, 154, 514 electronic viewfinder (EVF), see
drive settings, 130–3 viewfinder
computer, 153, 170, 512 suite, 121, 152, 419 elements (in picture), 44–56, 57,
external, 144, 161 sync, 133, 186 69, 192–9, 275
firewire, 144, 162 editing, 77, 79, 344, 391, 415 see also lens: elements
hard, 157, 161, 169–72, 175, analog, 120–38, 140, 186 emulsion, 84, 92
250 digital, 62, 140–6, 164–78 irregularities, 93
holder, 162 edit, 113 encoder, 142
hot swappable, 163 in-camera, 21–2, 57, 307 ENG (electronic news gathering),
portable, 151 time manipulation, 181–5 116, 155
drop-out, 84, 85, 91, 92, 93, 115, pace, 187 environments,
383, 530 programs, 157 computer-generated, 191–7
DSK, see vision mixers script, 77 production environment, 257,
dubs, 90, 93, 94, 104, 127, 142, shooting for, 63, 77, 80 262, 339, 462
167, 253, 477, 530 software, 141–6, 176, 177 equalisation, see audio mixers
distribution copies, 344, 529 sound, see audio; sound equipment,
dubbing suite (dubbing rack), tracking, 117, 130 booking, 346
150–2 editing techniques, 180–90 checking, 377–8
security dub, 393, 529 A/B roll, 186 checklist, 379, 382
submasters, 178 conceptual, 121 erase
work dub, 121, 126, 152, 393 cut, 186–7, 244 protection, 137–8, 529
DVD (digital versatile disc), 95–6, cut-ins, 79, 183 tape, 89, 91, 530
142, 150–2, 159, 172, 179, cutaways, 79, 83, 178, 183–4, ergonomics, 141
195, 501, 512, 530 187, 243, 311, 385, 488 ethics, 183, 316, 487
DV video, 108, 113, 114–16, 160 dissolves, 187 ethernet, 152
dynamic mics, see microphones establishing shot, 184, 481, exposure level, 16
484, 486 extreme close-up (ECU), 52
edge exit and entrance shots, 184 eyecup, 10, 11, 73
damage, 92, 125, 136 fade to black, 181, 244 eyes
of frame, 54–6 jump cuts, 79, 181, 183, 311 contact, 388
of key effects, 192, 427 master shot coverage, 184 eyeline, 80, 311, 412, 457, 459,
of wipes, 187, 423–4 noddies, 182 472, 485, 500
edit commands (functions), 113, parallel action, 184 framing, 53–4
133, 134–6 reaction shots, 182 f stops, 15–16, 17, 35, 77, 276–8
edit decision list (EDL), 77, 123, transitions, 185–9, 195 fade to black, 41, 181, 186, 244,
138, 169, 175, 177, 178, 250, editors 423
530 person, 94, 139, 152, 157, 165, fast
edit master (fine cut), 93–5, 121, 181, 183, 187, 237, 338, forward, 90, 136
124, 132, 169 340, 388 search, 89, 136
see also master: edit tapes VCR, 120–38 passim fibre optics
edit modes, 126–30 effects, 396, 400–1, 419, 421 broadband, 493
assemble, 127–9, 133, 244, 530 colour mattes, 138 internal reflection cable, 72
insert, 111, 127, 128, 130, 133, dissolve (mix), 41, 138, 143, wiring, 152
136, 243 186–7 field
mode select, 131 fades, 138, 186, 517 audio, 125, 136, 250
selecting tracks, 133 generator, 150, 434 footage (material), 93, 94, 121,
edit points (in and out), 21, key, 174, 423, 426–9 152, 196, 250, 318, 393
133–7, 175, 181, 183, 185, chroma, 143, 194, 413, 516 tape, 117
243, 251, 386 downstream, 429 work, 88
trim, 135, 247 external, 429 fields (half frames), 100–1, 110,
edit systems, 21, 57, 83, 90, 95, internal, 428 111–13, 118, 124, 130, 172
111, 113, 150–1, 244, 530 luminance, 426–7 file size, 157–63, 514, 516,
analog, 120–38 passim, 155 strobe, 41, 403, 430 518–19
audio, 130–1 superimpose, 423, 426, 478 fill light, see lighting
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Index 561
film, 121, 154, 165, 185 frames (of video signal), 18, 98, record, 119
filter wheel, 35–6 100–1, 110, 113, 125, 156, stationary (fixed) 112, 113
filters, audio 157, 164, 168, 171, 172 video, 89, 90, 92, 108–11,
bass roll-off, 209 slip a frame, 135, 136, 178, 243 113–17, 129
notch, 439 freeze head drum, 20, 86, 108–11, 116,
pop filter, 231 field, 403, 429 130
filters, video, 35–6, 38–40 frame, 41, 150, 186, 403, 429 head room
ND (neutral density), 35, 278, French brace, 269 picture, 53
280, 349 frequencies, see sound sound, 235
FinalCutPro 3, 14, 141–3, 175, 178 fresnels, see lights head-to-tape speed, 109, 111, 115
Fine cut (final cut) 123, 139, 157, fuse boxes, 291–2 headphones (headsets or cans),
165, 168, 171, 172, 177, 188, future-proof, 55 217, 226–8, 230, 237, 245,
250, 344, 393 FX, see digital effects; effects 412, 416, 441, 444, 447, 449,
see also master edit 459
Firewire drive, 150, 162 gaffing down cables, 265, 298, helical scanning, 111–15
FireWire 382 helicopter cam, 72
cable, 146 gain Hertz (Hz), 208–9
connection, 150, 163 audio, 407, 437 Hi-8
first AD, see studio roles video, 19, 21, 33 recording tracks, 112–14, 124,
flare, 16, 40, 42 gels, see lighting controls 126
flats, 269, 287, 316, 395 generations, of video, 93 resolution, 103
fluorescent lights, see lights first, 93, 186, 196
tape, 87, 89, 115
FM signal, 113 second, 93–94
third, 94, 529 hi-fi audio, 113–14, 117, 125
focus, 25–31, 35, 77, 313, 384, high angle, see camera angles
398, 469 going down a generation, 93–4,
111, 145, 158, 165, 167 high-definition TV (HDTV), 28,
auto focus (and push-auto 43, 104
focus), 26–7, 31 transparent, 158
genlock, 397, 401, 419 high-speed shutter, 18, 19, 33
connection with zoom, 29, 277 horizon, 45, 46, 63
how to, 27 geometrical integration, 98
gigabytes (GB), 87, 95, 160, 162, horizontal
ring, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31 retrace (blanking), 101, 401
163, 171, 249, 506–7
searching for, 26 scan lines, 98, 99, 101, 103, 116,
globes, see lights
settings, 25, 30, 31, 76 graduated filters, see filters 118, 156, 167
soft, 9 graininess, 19 525: 98, 100, 103
viewfinder, 10, 11 graphic equaliser, 143 PAL and SECAM 6, 25, 98, 100,
foley, see sound effects graphics, 138, 321–2, 429, 453–4, 103
footage (recorded video material), 478, 482–3, 486–7, 501–2 scanning system, 99–100, 108,
24, 90, 150, 152, 187, 192, computer, 138, 150, 178, 116
196, 425 191–9, 406, 469, 507 synchronising pulse, 101, 401
stock, 183, 321 superimposing, 331, 432 hot signal
formats titles, 174, 192, 425, 432, 469, audio, 238, 437
program, see production options 501 microphone, 203, 228
shooting, 43 Waycom tablet, 193 video, 274
videotape, 88, 108–18 grid, see lighting HOT studio, 466–71, 498
forms and lists, 254, 357–66, gun mics, see microphones host desk, 468–70
370–3, 378, 464–5
layout, 467
frame half-gun mics, see microphones hue, 38, 102, 423
accurate, 172 handheld cameras, 9, 11, 57–9, hum
numbering, 125 203, 316, 390, 415
reduction, 172 electrical, 130, 230, 382, 439,
keeping steady, 9, 12, 66, 70 441, 467
sequence, 115 unintended angles, 70
size reduction, 158–9 video, 382
hard drive, see drives hyperdirectional mics, see
frame rate, 154, 158–9 hard light, see light
rates (fixed), 517 microphones
head, 21
rates (variable), 18 audio, 89, 113, 129
24 per second, 97, 107 cleaning, 92, 119 IDVD, 95
25 per second, 97, 107 clog, 118–19, 383, 530 identification (ID) of programs and
30 per second, 97 erase, 128–9 segments, 463
frames (composition), 7, 26, 35, flying erase, 111, 130 ident board, 131, 385
43–56, 57, 63, 70, 76, 82, gap, 109, 116, 118 idiot check, 392–3
187, 201, 205, 225, 338, 425, playback, 91, 400 illuminate, 29, 274
457, 459, 469, 482, 485 read/write, 84, 116, 124, 153 iMovie, 141, 142
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image Kelvin (degrees), 33, 37 overhead, 282

computer-generated, 121, key effects, see effects side (edge or rim), 273, 282
191–9 key light, see lighting under, 282
control, 35, 44–56, 45, 65 kilobytes (KB), 160 light sources
manipulation, 38, 41, 192 firelight, 283
complete pictures, 97, 98 labels (labelling), 122, 137, 138, incandescent (studio and
ordering, 83 150, 170, 172–3, 244, 392, portable), 281, 300
quality, 15, 57, 62, 84, 93, 103, 415, 446, 530 natural light, 277–9
116, 122, 140, 277, 282, ladders, 260, 302 reflected light, 77, 272–3, 275,
382, 512, 530 lavalier, see microphones 280, 349
sensing, 108 LCD screen, 9, 10, 73, 76 sunlight, 34, 273, 274, 277–80,
index pulses, 114 left-eyed or right-eyed, 8 281, 290, 348–50
in-camera editing, see editing lens, 149 cloudy days, 34, 274
infra-red beam, 26, 27 angles dawn and dusk, 34
insurance shade, 34, 279, 349
connection with depth of
coverage, 367
field, 32 windows, 277–9, 281
indemnity, 357, 366
telephoto, 12, 13, 29, 32, 33, lighting
interactive satellite
communication, 495–7 149 depth of field, 277
internal wide, 12, 13, 28, 32, 33, 76, director, 396, 409–10, 414,
key, see vision mixer 149 449–50, 454
voltage regulator, 5 back focus, 28 gaffer, 294, 417
Internet, 96, 142, 179, 504–9 barrel, 16, 25, 53, 98 grid, 300–2, 395, 467–8
passim camera lens, 74, 98, 272, 482 interviews, 473–5
video on the Internet, 511–19 cap, 6, 42 location site conditions, 316,
interviews, 322, 325, 346, 387–9, choosing the right one, 71–2 339–40, 348–50
472–88 cleaning, 42, 73 mixer, 407
camera set-ups, 479–88 condensation on, 73 safety, 77, 290–8, 301, 302, 467
editing speech, 178, 181, 243 diopter, 11 site check list, 349–50
ethics, 487 distance to subject, 31 lighting controls
eyelines, 182 elements, 13 barn doors, 284, 287–8, 294,
guests, 479–88 endoscope, 71, 72 304
host, 477–88 fresnel, 303 bounce cards (and polystyrene),
interviewee, 70, 231, 387–9, hood, 29, 35, 40, 77 277–8, 280–1, 290,
476, 481, 488 interchangeable 299–300, 349
interviewer, 182, 354, 477 macro, 28–9, 42, 59, 71 C-stand, 284, 299, 300
lighting, 280 movement, 64 cucaloris (or cookie), 304, 468
mics, 200–12 passim probe, 71 cutter (black flag), 276, 299, 304
noddies (reaction shots), 182, quality, 116, 149
diffusion, 274, 275, 282, 299
488 zoom, 13, 71, 149, 518
dimmers, 230, 305, 407
on-camera, 182, 479–80 letterboxing, 43–4
lies and videotape, 316, 325 dingle, 304
on-site, 316 flexifills, 280, 300
on-the-street, 223, 228, 310, 439 lifesaver power boards, see
lighting: safety flood, 284–5, 286, 294, 302–3
questions, 182, 387–8, 477 gels, 38, 276, 277, 281, 283–4,
reaction shot, 478, 480, 488 lifting and carrying, 259–60,
295–6 305, 349–50, 414, 468, 474
recording, 111, 125, 230–5, 315, gobo, 304, 468
354, 478 light
heads, 297–8, 300 reflective umbrellas, 294, 300
research, 387, 476–7
script, 182, 478 gathering surface, 97, 98, 99 reflectors, 285, 294, 303, 349,
iris, 6, 15–17 intensity, 272, 286, 288, 414
auto, 6, 16, 17, 276, 279 298–300, 474 scrims (and half scrims), 276,
control, 18 low light, 18, 32, 33, 277 280, 288, 294, 298–9, 304
depth of field, 32–3 levels, 9, 76 snoot, 304
manual, 6, 16, 19, 186, 279 meter, 17, 276 spot light, 284–5, 294, 302, 303
push auto iris, 16 pathway, 194, 299 spun, 299, 304, 414
ring, 16 light, direction lighting, ‘three point’, 280, 285–8,
setting, 16, 32–3, 277, 399 back, 282, 287 473–4
ISPs (Internet service providers), bounced, 274, 276, 278, back light, 283, 287–8, 473–4
513, 518 280–81, 288, 300, 349–50, background light, 287–8
ITI (insert and track information), 395 fill light, 278, 281, 286, 288,
115 direct, 280, 287, 299 300, 473–4
frontal, 273, 282, 474, 480 key light, 282, 286, 300, 303,
jump cut, see editing techniques indirect, 274, 283, 286, 474 473–4
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Index 563
lighting types lossless (and lossy), 158 level signal, see signal: levels
incident, 272–3 LP (long play mode), 110–11 placement, 206
reflected, 272–3, 276, 280 luminance reach, 205, 206, 224–5
quality, 273–5, 299 brightness control (EVF), 16 response characteristics, 209
hard, 273–5, 286–7, 299 colour, 423 stand, 239
soft, 273–5, 286, 299–300, key, see vision mixers microphone construction
474 signal, 102, 114, 214, 215, 397, condenser, 210–11, 223, 234
silhouette lighting, 279–80, 283, 407, 429 diaphragm, 210
311, 471, 480 dynamic, 210–11, 443
stage lighting, 277 M & E track, 136–7 microphones, 200–12, 351, 475,
lights macro, see lens 499–500
blondies, 294–5 magnetic auxiliary, 200, 383
fluorescent, 34, 37, 38, 230, 293, fields, 84, 91, 109, 116, 210 bi-directional, 204
311, 350 layer (coating), 86, 92, 113 boundary, 204–5
fresnel, 285, 301, 303 particles on videotape, 84, 91, camera, 200, 201, 223–24, 238,
HMIs, 294 109, 111, 116, 128 382, 518
incandescent, 34 radiation, 73 cardioid, 148, 201–5, 228,
portable, 19, 77, 241, 277, 294, recording, 154 230–1, 311–12, 388, 470
298, 302, 349, 395 tape depth, 113 connectors, 148
redheads, 280, 290, 294–5, magnetism, 84, 109 directional, 239, 245, 475
299–300, 302, 380 magnets, 91, 210 external, 200, 207, 223–4, 229,
softlight, 282, 303 mailing list (Internet), 519 382–3
totas, 292, 294, 300 make up, 385, 396, 411, 417–18 gun mic, 201
lightstands, 294, 296–7, 300, 468, marketing (and publicity), 345, half gun mic, 201, 202
474 389 hyperdirectional, 201
line level signal, see signal: levels masking (framing), 42, 56 lav (lavalier), 148, 206–7, 223,
line in/out, 106, 216 master 239, 311–12, 392, 475
linear editing, see analog: editing clips, 144 mounted, 500
lines, 45–50, 63, 100, 103 edit tapes, 94, 121, 132, 137, boom, 201, 202, 223, 351,
landlines, 219, 493 138, 244, 252–4, 317, 529 475
see also action: axis line field tapes, 93 hanging, 204
lining up tone, see audio mixing shot coverage, 340 table, 204, 311–12
link matrix (binder), 84 omnidirectional, 200, 206–7,
Internet, 512 media, 100, 141 223, 228, 238
ISDN, 504 media centre, 150, 151, 213, 377, ports, 201, 202
live, 154 393, 436, 445 PZM, 204–5
microwave, 154, 493 medium close-up (MCU), 52, 79, radio mic, 207, 311
person, 322 478 shotgun mic, 201–2, 205
satellite uplink/downlink, medium long shot (MLS), 51 studio, 398, 406, 454
494–7 megabits, 157 super-cardioid, 202, 238
lip sync, 243 megabytes (MB), 95, 156, 157, super-directional, 201, 475
lipstick cam, 72 160, 170 unidirectional, 201, 203
location memory 154–63, microwave links, see link
adjusting site lighting batteries, 2–3 mid-range, see sound: frequencies
conditions, 349–50 capacity (storage space), 153, mid shot (MS), 51, 52, 78, 79,
rearranging set-up, 352–4 156, 171, 249, 403 279, 480–1, 484, 486
request for use of, 362 chip, 90 mini connectors, see connectors,
safety, 256–71 computer, 145, 249 audio
shoot, 57, 321, 376–93 devices, 161–3 mirror image
site agreement, 363 portable (plug-in), 161, 162, 249 digital effect, 403
sound recording, 201, 222–42 RAM, 160–1 of hands when carrying flats,
passim, 246 requirements, 171 269
strike (pull down and move to ROM, 160–1 mixer, audio, see audio mixers;
new site), 261, 385 menu (in viewfinder), 9 vision mixers
survey (recce), 261–2, 318, 346, metal evaporated, 86 monitor, 7, 22–3, 28, 44, 68, 76,
347–54, 364–5 mic 82, 90, 91, 103, 106–7, 116,
log (logging), 121, 122–3, 126, cables, 200 137, 144, 196, 197, 276, 396,
150, 152, 169, 170, 172, 177, cage (turtle clip), 206 404, 415, 421, 425, 453, 470,
246, 250, 340–41, 393 handling, 203–4, 228–31, 383 488, 498–502, 505–6
long shot (LS), 51, 78, 499 in (input), 148, 200, 207, 224, field, 9, 276, 384, 389
longitudinal audio tracks, see audio 229 multistandard, 103
tracks internal, 200 NTSC, 103
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player, 120, 134, 136 pan, 37–38, 54, 62, 63–4, 66, 77, players
receiver/monitor, 106–7 399, 480–1, 499–500 in edit system, 120–38 passim,
recorder/program, 120, 128, and scan, 55, 174 150, 530
134, 136, 469–70, 478, 488, friction, 400 tracking, 117
530 lock, 397 plug-ins, 144
waveform, 171, 404, 412 parallel action, see editing point of view (POV), 57, 74–7, 80,
monitoring picture, 58, 76 techniques 82, 83
montage (collage), 56, 77 particle posterisation (paint) effect, see
mosaic, 41, 403 emitter, 198 digital effects
mouth (subject’s), 54, 203 metal particle tape, 86 post production, 194, 307–8, 310,
movement of problematic, 92, 118 315, 326, 344–5, 357, 433
people, 65, 80 see also magnetic particles: on budget, 370, 372
vehicles, 54, 59, 80 videotape fixing during, 37, 236, 391
MPEG, 104, 116, 142, 159 patch bays, 152, 302, 397–8, houses (suites), 86, 138, 177
multi-pin connectors, see 404–5, 407 studio, 174
power supply
connectors, video pause mode (camera), 21, 22, 90
AC adaptor, 2
music, see sound recording PCM audio, see audio, types of circuit, 130
peak program meters (PPMs), 227, electrical load, 291–2, 348
narration, see voiceovers 443–4 electrical safety, see safety
narrow lens angles, see lens: angles peak white (signal level), 35, 102 generator, 349
negative image, see digital effects performers, 409, 415, 416, 451, location check list, 348–9
networked, 152 460 mics, 210
neutral density (ND), see filters, clearance form, 361 pre-production, 343–68
video; lighting controls: gels competency, 367, 410, 416 arranging travel/food/
newsgroups (Internet), 518–19 cues, 455–61 accommodation, 346, 377,
NICAD batteries, see batteries insurance, 367 381
noddies, see interviews marking positions, 278, 461 budget, 369–75
noise performance level, 277, 315–16, development of project (pre-
background, 222, 224, 444, 471, 326, 416 preproduction), 344, 370,
516 thanking, 392, 412, 477 529
handling, 202, 383 permissions equipment (choosing/booking),
reduction, 143, 203, 224 forms, 360–2 71, 346
tape, 115, 224 location site, 352 facilities (locating/booking), 352,
video noise, 85, 89 persistence of vision, 97 411
nonlinear editing (NLE), see digital perspective interviews, 346, 387
in image composition, 48, 50, meetings, 346, 477
editing permits and clearances, 346,
NTSC, 8, 18, 97, 98, 103, 104, 68, 75, 79
inner, 74–7 361–3, 366, 377
105, 106, 107, 108, 115, 157, production timeline (and
158, 171, 408, 515 on editing, 137
your own, 75–6, 390 deadlines), 344–6
phantom power, 162, 163, 211, props and staging, 345–7,
OB van (outside broadcast van), 234, 443 410–11
16, 232, 309, 396, 398, 401, phone connectors, see connectors, storyboarding, 77, 345, 348
410, 414, 419, 490 audio presenter, 22, 70, 189, 201, 236,
omnidirectional mic, see photo mode, 77 257, 279, 322, 406, 439,
microphones 455–61, 507
photographs, 76–7, 121, 192, 315,
on-line preview, see edit commands
321–2, 389, 478 producer, see studio roles
edit, 14, 138, 146, 168, 172 photosensitive, 98, 116
Internet, 140 production
Photoshop, 196 budget, 370, 372
suite, 123, 126, 138, 169, 170 pick-up patterns (microphones),
on-the-street interview, see design, 25, 322
200–5 house, 150, 151, 163, 193–9
interviews pilot tones, 113
one-inch tape, 86, 88, 94, 126, 138 time, 344
PIP (picture in picture), 499, 505–6 production management, 342, 502
optical converter, 44 pixels, 103, 167, 195–6, 512, 514,
orb cartridge, see memory devices manager, 345, 376, 385, 417
517 schedule, 385, 462
outputting end product, 151 playback secretary, 417
machines, 84, 120–38 passim, production options
pace, 121, 168, 478 396, 406 composite show, 310
PAL (phase alternate line), 18, 97, mode, 22–4, 89, 90, 116–19 concerts, 277, 310, 390
98, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, signal, 90, 108, 120, 230, 389, demonstrations, rehearsed, 313,
108, 115, 158, 171, 515 415, 429, 477, 487 472
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demonstrations, live action, 314 recording trolleys, 261
discussion, 233, 311 protection of, 94–95 sample, 166
docu-drama, 316 session, 89, 94 sandbags (and counterweights),
documentary, 189, 313, 314, starting and stopping, 20–2, 76 269, 468
316–17 video signal, 84, 86, 104, satellite transmission, 154, 159,
drama, 189, 313, 315–16, 108–119 493–7, 498
333–42 red button (Umatic cassettes), 94, saturation, 102, 423
ficumentary (mocumentary), 122, 137, 530 scanning beam, 100
316 reel scene
lecture, 311 number, 90, 126, 128 number, 90, 329, 463
multi-camera, 308–10, 338, reel-to-reel formats, 155 sequence, 180, 315, 319–20,
421, 453, 498 tape holding, 155 338, 340
music clip, 317 rehearsals, 31, 54, 65, 306, screen
news stories, 74, 181, 183, 348, 310–11, 339, 346, 385, 406, composition, 82
494, 515 410–11, 414–16, 431, 445, language, 181–9
oral history/life history, 315 449–50, 454, 461, 478 scrims, see lighting controls
realtime, 310–11 remote control, 76, 498–500, 502, scripts (scriptwriting), 79, 310,
single camera (one camera), 518 319–31, 347, 410, 413–14,
307–8, 338–42, 395, render, see digital editing 417, 469
479–80 resolution, 103, 517 action, 326
training tape, 189, 313, 317, digital, 195–6 brief, 321
322, 326 horizontal, 157 camera script, 327–8, 344, 380,
professionalism, 326, 339, 355, vertical, 44, 157 415, 433, 449, 452, 454,
381, 386, 390–1, 451, 477, response characteristics, 209 462–3
530 return/jump, see edit commands characters, 325, 334
profile shots, 54, 79 review, see edit commands development, 325–31, 345,
progressive scan format, 104 rewind, 22, 90, 92 370–1
project, 94, 127 mode, 90 dialogue, 316, 319, 325–6, 337
props, 316, 339, 346–7, 371, 385, videotape, 22 draft script, 326, 327
395, 411, 478 RF elements, 322
prosumer, 116, 147 converter, 106 format, 334–6
proximity effect, 203 in and out (on monitors), 23, big print, 336–7
PTT (push to talk), see talkback 106–7 slug line (scene heading),
public access TV, 177, 313, 394, signal, see radio frequency (RF) 335–6
396, 466–71, 490–1, 529 signal humour, 323
pulses (electronic), 124, 127, 129 RGB (red, green, blue signals), 8, interactive, 321, 323
PZMs, see microphones 102, 157, 397 interview script, 182, 477
right-eyed or left-eyed, 8 key questions, 321–2
quadruplex, 111, 155 rollback time (backspacing), 21–2 obstacles, 334
questions in interviews, see rolling-in sequence, 463 outline, 325, 327
interviews rough cut, 93, 121, 123, 138, 157, plot (story), 320, 325, 334
Quicktime file, 104, 142, 516, 518 165, 171, 172, 174, 175, 188, rehearsal, 327
383, 393 research, 324
radiation, 73, 137, 176 routing switcher, see studio scriptwriter, 326
radio frequency (RF) signal, 106, equipment structure, 323
138, 207, 216, 384, 489, 492 theme, 320, 325, 334
radio mics, see microphones safe titling area, 432 treatment, 325–6, 327, 344, 370
RCA connectors, see connectors, safety TV script format, 329
audio action plan, 259–62, 412 workshopping, 326
RCD, see lighting: safety chains, 267, 301 search mode, 22, 90, 92, 118
record crew, 66, 68, 350 SECAM, 97, 98, 103, 105, 106,
heads, 84, 86, 109 electrical, 265, 348, 389 108, 115
mode, 21, 22, 89, 90, 108, 108, fire, 263, 267, 467 SEG (special effects generator), see
117, 386 first aid, 261, 263 vision mixers
protected, 94 ladders, 266, 302 sensitivity
recorded material, 91, 93, 104, lighting, 266–7, 290–8, 301–2 camera signal, see gain
111, 472, 478, 502 lifting, 259–60, 295–6 during productions, 314, 356–7,
recorders (editing and control occupational health and safety, 476–7
room), 90, 91, 111, 120–38 257, 262, 270–1 microphone, 201–5, 211
passim, 150, 151, 400, 415, officer, 346, 412 sequence
419, 442, 444, 446, 450, on the set, 256–71 edited, 93, 121, 136, 164, 182,
469–70, 530 scan, 258, 262, 268, 412 183–99 passim, 388
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images, 83, 175, 195, 340, 413 editor, 250, 252, 270 stabiliser
story, 52, 77, 80, 325, 331 foreground sound, 201 using arms, 58, 66
timeline, 174, 177 frequencies digital, 59, 62
sequential image transmission bass, 203, 207–9, 407, 438 optical, 59
system, 97 high, 236, 438 staging, 347, 371, 411
server, 152, 504, 511–13, 516 low, 439 standards conversion, 104
servo, 16, 216, 398, 425 mid range, 407, 438 standby mode (cameras), 22
set-up treble, 207–9, 407, 438 steadicam, 58
interviews, 387 mix (mixing), 168, 189, 246–7, steady shot, 14, 70
lighting, 298 250–3 stop mode (cameras), 21, 22, 90
tasks, 382 quality, 148, 317, 398, 438, 487 story, 70, 74, 83
sets, 256–71, 275, 282, 295, 316, operator (supervisor), 398, storyboards, 51, 77–80, 83, 339,
338–9, 346, 350, 371, 395–6, 409–10, 413–14, 416, 435, 345, 348, 384
410–11, 416, 471, 472–3, 477 435–49, 454, 475–6, 480 striping the tape, 127–8
shade, 34, 279, 286 recordist, 211, 234, 245, 250, strobe, see effects
shadows, 194, 273–5, 278, 349, 270, 346, 351, 390 studio
416, 427, 459, 474 source, 202, 224, 398, 435, 441 based recording, 155, 415
edges of, 274, 299 surround, 223 control room, 152, 396–9, 406,
shaky shots, 20, 57, 59, 62, 70 transfer, 104 409, 416, 444, 451, 463,
shock mounts, 202, 228–9 waves, 207–10, 236–7, 350 497
shooting ratios, 189 see also audio floor, 394–5, 397, 447–9
shot sound effects, 136, 240, 246, 252, interviews, 472–88
angle, 82 321–2, 331, 351, 413 layout, 394–7
coverage, 318, 339, 391, 451, bouncing down track, 252 productions, 150, 316, 516
459, 474, 479–88 foley, 246, 351 risers, 472, 483
editing, 173, 180 library, 246 rolling in sequence, 463
list, 21, 449 reverberation, 443 studio equipment
selection, 121, 340, 396, 400, sound postproduction, 237, cameras, 396–7, 398–400
413, 433, 450, 483 239–41, 243–55, 317, 351, frame store, 396, 403, 421
sizes, 44, 51–2, 57, 64, 70, 79, 435 intercom, 217
sound recording
207, 335, 337, 415, 451, routing switcher, 404
foldback, 317, 443
478 sync pulse generator, 401
level, 207, 398, 442, 446, 480,
shotgun mic, see microphones 487 teleprompter, 406
shotlister, 123 location, 222–42 passim time base corrector, 150, 174,
shutter priority, 33 music, 242, 321–2, 323, 331 403, 530
shutter speed, 9, 38, 77 acoustic guitar, 239, 442 vectorscope, 171, 404, 408, 412
signal clips, 68, 317 video distribution amplifier
conversion, 103 concerts, 238, 390 (VDA), 404
levels (line and mic), 104, 216 live, 317, 480 waveform monitor, 171, 404,
path, 495–7 music and effects track 407, 412
signal to noise ratio, 145, 211, 224 (M&E), 245–6 see also audio mixers; vision
silhouette lighting, see lighting with voice, 190, 517 mixers
types off mic, 202 studio procedures, 448–65
site on mic, 202 studio roles, 409–18
agreement, 345, 363 rolling in sound, 189, 445 camera operators, 415–16, 448,
check (recce), 211, 223, 261–2, soundtrack, 200, 201, 246–7, 451–4, 472, 479–88
318, 345–7, 348, 387, 412 249–53, 317, 344, 413, 414 director, 396–7, 409–16, 433,
recce checklist, 364–5 buzz track, 241, 245 448–55, 461–3, 477, 481
request for use of, 362 see also sound effects director’s assistant (DA), 310,
sixth channel, 491 source 384, 396–8, 410–11, 416,
skin tones (lighting for), 37, 471, camera, 427 448, 450–3
474 machine (edit system), 90 first AD (first assistant director),
slate (clapper board), 340–1, 385, tape, 111, 117, 120–38 passim 263, 340, 385
463 SP (standard play mode), 110–11 floor manager (FM), 263, 384–5,
snow, 89, 118, 128–30, 530 special effects (SFX), 77, 138, 194, 397, 411, 415–16, 448–9,
Sony, 96, 156 321–2, 412–13 451, 454–63, 475, 477–8
sound specification producer, 321, 326, 344, 384–5,
ambient, 201, 211, 224, 230, computer, 143 409–11, 463, 471, 490, 498
238, 245, 348, 350 international, 116 technical director (TD), 396–7,
atmos, 201, 237, 241, 245 spotlight, 499 399, 404, 407, 411,
checks, 414, 444–6 digital effect, 41 412–13, 416, 450
concepts, 207–9 follow spot, see lighting controls vision mixer, 396–7
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subcode, 115 standards (PAL, NTSC, titling area, 432
subject, 26, 28, 30, 31, 48–56, 57, SECAM), 103–7 tone (calibrated signal), see audio
65, 66, 69, 70, 79 transmission, 73, 88, 108, 138, mixers
super-cardioid mics, see 219, 419, 461, 466–70, toppy
microphones 489–97, 513 lighting, 280, 311, 499
super-directional mics, see TV broadcast, 44, 51, 53, 62, 88, sounds, 209, 438
microphones 106, 154, 179, 309–10, 321, tota lights, see lights
superimpose 396, 400, 408, 419, 487, 490, tracking
effects, 41, 65 492–3, 529 adjustments, 122, 530
text, 40, 478 cable TV, 216, 219, 419, 470, meters, 117
SVHS 489–91, 529 of video heads, 117–18, 122
compact (SVHSC) tape, 86, 87 closed circuit, 219, 419, 489 tracking (dollying), 20, 65, 66,
format, 151 digital signals, 104, 159 337, 399, 474, 481, 484, 486
players, 86, 117, 130 stations, 86, 147, 155, 179, tracks (for camera movement), 66
record machine, 152 409, 420, 433, 466, 493, tracks on videotape, 87, 112–18,
recording, 112, 115, 122, 124, 497 124–6
126, 137–8, 420 test address track, 114, 125
resolution, 103 recording, 230, 380–1 audio
signal, 149, 215 signal, 7, 102 hi-fi, 113, 114, 125
tape, 84, 88, 89, 94, 112 thirds (dividing frame into), 46 longitudinal, 114, 124, 127
Y/C connector, 215 three-dimensional, 43, 68, 197–9 azimuth, 113, 115
symmetry, 49 three point lighting, see lighting, ATF (automatic track finding),
synch (or sync), 400–1, 407, 507, ‘three point’ 113
530 three-quarter inch tape, see Umatic control track, 21, 113, 124, 128.
in synch (synched up), 22, 136, thumbnails, see digital editing 244, 386
185–6 tight shot, 13, 55 breaking the control track,
synchronous (or non- tilt, 53, 62, 64 128–9
synchronous), 400–1, 419 tilt friction (tilt drag), 399 diagonal, 113, 124
sync pulse generator, see studio tilt lock, 399 digital recording, 114–16
equipment time ITI (insert and track
considerations for shoot, 352 information), 115
management, 252, 384–5 sectors, 115
take (a recorded shot or scene), 90, manipulation, see editing signal, 127
244, 340, 453, 461, 463 needed for editing, 137, 515 subcode, 115
talkback shifting, 493 timecode, 113, 125
muting, 451 time base corrector (TBC), see video, 111–18, 124, 127
PTT (push to talk), 451 studio equipment transitions, 41, 77, 138, 143–4,
system, 397–8, 412, 416, 445, timecode, 90, 123, 125, 128, 171, 174, 185–7
447–52 250, 253, 386 treatment, see scripts
talking address track, 125 treble, see sound: frequencies
heads, 243, 346, 472 burn-in, 126 trim, see editing
room, 54 continuous, 170, 386 tripod, 59–70 passim
tape drop frame, 171 legs, 60, 338, 382
carriage, 19 LTC (longitudinal timecode), mounted, 11, 60–3, 468
drag, 84 125 ped up/ped down, 399
guides, 110, 111 non dropframe, 171 servos, 398
length remaining, 9 number, 122, 128 tilts, 60, 62, 64, 399
path, 92 reader/generator, 128 using, 59, 76, 183, 315, 380,
see also videotape timecoded tapes, 131, 250 382, 425, 516
tape sizes, 86–8 track, 114 TV/VCR switch, 107
tape-to-head speed, 109, 111, 115 VITC (vertical interval two-dimensional, 50, 192–7
tapeless storage and distribution, timecode), 126
179 timeline, see digital editing Umatic, 86, 89, 90, 94, 122, 124,
technical director (TD), see studio titles 125, 130, 137–8, 155
roles cards, 432 BVU (highband), 86, 94, 125
telecine, 107, 154, 396 generating, 143, 192, 194, 405, uncompress, see compression
telephoto, 12, 13, 29, 32, 33, 57, 410, 469 underwater (camera work), 52
59 scrolling (rolling or crawling), unidirectional mics, see
see also lens: angles 143, 405, 432–3, 480 microphones
television (TV), 22–3 superimposing, 331, 431, 478, URLs, 140, 144, 150, 156, 157,
antenna, 219, 492, 494–7 517 163, 177, 199, 509–10, 513,
reception, 216, 492 see also graphics 516, 530
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568 Producing Videos: A Complete Guide

userbits, 126 formats (and tape sizes), 86–8, web

UV filter, see filters, video 155 cam, 504, 517–18
operation in studio, 397, 410, casting, 142, 158, 172, 511–19,
VCR, 22, 88–92, 104, 106, 107, 414–15, 448, 450 513–14, 516
117, 119, 120–38 passim, 499 metal particle, 86 page, 519
quality, 93 site, 140–3, 150, 156, 157, 163,
multistandard, 103
recording, 108–19 177, 178, 199, 501, 509–10,
vehicles, 351 513, 516–17, 519, 530
access, 351 viewfinder, 6–11, 20, 22, 26, 27,
28, 29, 31, 36, 58, 62, 378, wheelchair
packing and unpacking, 260, as dolly/tracking device, 65, 66
295, 351, 379, 392 382, 384, 398
virtual whiteboard, 507 wheelchair-mounted camera,
parking, 351, 377 387
vertical vision mixers, 186–7, 338, 396–7,
400–1, 404, 413, 419–34, white balance (WB), 9, 36–8, 190,
retrace, 101, 401 280–1, 382, 397, 399, 412
synchronising pulse, 101, 401 468
buses, 421–3, 428 wide lens angle, 11, 14, 57, 66, 70,
vertical interval time code (VITC), 72, 76, 225, 277, 312
see timecode clip level, 428–9
wide shot (WS), 12, 13, 52, 57,
very long shot (VLS), 51, 78 effects 207, 279, 311, 340, 499
VHF (very high frequency), 106 dissolve/mix, 422 widescreen, 43, 44, 55, 62, 104,
VHS (video home system), key, 426–9 196, 344
format, 151, 155, 529 wipe, 423–6 wildlife, 71, 72, 76
record machine, 152 see also digital effects wind
recording, 94, 112, 114, 115, faders, 420–22 gags, 229, 235–6
122, 124, 137–8, 142, 420 functions noise, 235, 383
signal, 149 cut, 421 windows (shooting near), 37–8,
tape, 86–9, 112, dissolve/mix, 421 77
video, 8, 87, 89, 112–15, 124 fade, 422–3 wipes, see effects
capture cards, 145–6 wipe, 422 wireless network, 152, 504, 518
data, 156 live switching, 433, 452, 470, wobbly cam, 62, 75, 190
festivals, 529, 531 478, 502 World Telly programs, 495–7
in, 23, 106, 107, 404, 468–9, operator, 421, 481 wrap party, 381
499, 508 positioner joystick, 424–5
levels, 415 program out (line out), 419–20, XLR connectors, see connectors,
live, 400, 406 429 audio
out, 23, 404, 468, 479, 499, 508 take, 421
pre-recorded, 400, 406, 427 visual language, 43–56, 70
visualisation, 79, 319 Y/C connector, see connectors,
return video, 425, 499 video
signal, 84, 91, 97–119, 124 visually suppressed, 100
streaming, 95, 516 voiceovers
language and script, 317–18, zebra function, 16
progressive streaming, zoom, 11, 12–14, 21, 27, 28, 29,
511–12, 515 330–1, 389
recording, 136, 189, 190, 244, 53, 64, 70, 76, 77, 79, 480–1,
real time streaming, 511–13, 499–500, 502, 518
515 396
VU meters, 117, 131, 225–7, 237, connection with depth of field,
see also editing 32, 277
videoconferencing, 498–510, 517 247, 415, 443–4
connection with focus, 29
videotape, 84–95, 156, 172 control (stick or server), 14, 398
AME (advanced metal walking room, 54 extender lens, 13
evaporated), 85, 86 wardrobe, 346, 385, 396, 410–11 digital extender (pseudo
caring for, 91–2, 529 water (and video gear), 72 extender), 13, 14, 149
cassette, 20, 21, 91, 93 see also safety ratio, 149
depth, 125 waveform monitor, 171, 404, 407, ring, 14
DV tape, 86 412 rocker switch, 13, 14, 15
emerging formats, 95 wavelengths, 39 see also lens
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