PACA Update – Part 2

Footage Shooting Tips

While watching the stock footage shoot at the PACA International Meeting Sunday session, we got a chance to watch and talk with the participants for 3 hours as they went about creating several different stock footage clips.  Here is what I gleaned from the assembled practitioners.

The Red ONE is an extremely good camera for the price. They love it. However, it is not easily portable in the sense of travel photography.  The tripod is enormous and the ancillary gear such as hard discs, field monitors, etc. requires having a multi-person crew.  In addition to the 2 models there were 6 others involved in the shoot.

Focus is extremely important. The depth of field with a 135mm lens at about 15 feet was between 3 and 4 INCHES!  A turn of the model’s head and his beard went out of focus.  The 5D Mark all which was used to get the “B roll” shots had a much larger DOF and a different look because of the sharpness of the background.  This is both a limitation and a benefit of the DSLR hybrid that can be used for good effect.  Focusing the Mark all was very easy compared to the Red ONE.  The resulting “boca”, or area that is out of focus, is better with the DSLR.

Canon 5d Mark II histogram

Expose to the far right of the histogram whenever possible. The result looks overexposed on the viewfinder and on a monitor but can be easily corrected in post.  This technique saves the details that might otherwise be lost in the shadows.

Other tips included:

Think like you are shooting a silent movie (which you are!).  Tell the story without the sound.

Shoot multiple compositions whenever possible. Do a close up, a wide angle, leave room for copy in one version, etc.

Pans and zooms can be added in post if the original composition is created with this in mind. Shoot wider than you want for the final product and do the pan or zoom in post similar to the way you would do a crop in Photoshop or turn a still into a moving image.

Avoid logos and trademarks. These can be removed in post but it requires a lot of work.  There is a list of places and things that are problematical on the PACA website.

Get Down! The DSLR can get closer to the ground than a regular video camera and can also be more easily elevated with poles or booms to get unique perspectives.  Be creative, get unique shots.