|
 This phase in the workflow is creating or gathering your raw material. This may involve selecting pre-recorded footage or shooting original video. It may also involve gathering slides, photographs, illustrations, graphics, charts, etc. to incorporate into your streaming project.
Depending on your pre-production, you may be hiring a production company for a multi-camera shoot, or you may be shooting a simple interview with your DV camera. Whatever your requirements dictate, good production techniques are vital to getting quality content to use for your streaming application. If you'll be streaming, remember that you'll be compressing your content drastically to be properly delivered over the Web, so the better the quality is to start with, the better your final product will be. And if it will be purposed for TV, your video may be shown on giant monitors so any imperfections such as lighting and color balance will be very noticeable.
A couple of must-do's whether you're streaming or going to tape.
- Lighting – Video or film does not happen without light. This is a very deep subject with hundreds of books on the subject. Your pre-production should yield what the lighting requirements will be, whether you'll be shooting outside, using available light, or creating your own. Using a 3-point light system is always best (front or "key" light, side or "fill" light to cast a small amount of shadow, and a "back" light off to one side to highlight hair). Sometimes however this isn't desired from a speaker's perspective... with lights in their eyes when trying to communicate with an audience. In this case, set the iris (or exposure level) high enough to look acceptable. Just make sure that you have consistent lighting... don't mix fluorescent with daylight, tungsten with fluorescent, etc.
- Camera – Use a good 3-CCD camera. Three CCDs make a huge difference in the color quality. Canon XL2 and GL2 are great for DV. If you can't afford one, rent one. They're only around $125/day and come with a good tripod. Shoot in DV, DVCPRO, DVCAM or Beta SP.
- White Balance – VERY IMPORTANT! White balancing the camera tells the camera what color temperature to set its CCDs to. Our eyes do this automatically, but cameras have to be told. Yes, there's auto-white balancing but it's not near as good as doing a manual white balance. The way to do this is:
- Setup your lighting
- Position a piece of white paper where the speaker will be standing
- Zoom all the way in so you don't see anything but the white piece of paper and focus
- Lock the tripod down
- Press and hold the manual white balance button for a couple of seconds until the camera indicates it's finished.
- Settings – Turn off auto-focus and auto-iris as it's difficult on stream encoders.
- Tripod – Use a good tripod with a fluid head that locks and unlocks without movement or jerks.
- Audio – You'll be forgiven for bad video. You'll be abandoned for bad audio!
- Verify good audio levels before recording – should occasionally hit red
- Use headphones to check sound quality, room noise and air conditioning
There are a few differences between producing video that will be streamed and producing video for tape or DVD / CD. This should be clarified during pre-production as it makes a difference how you shoot. The differences are important—even vital—and demand that you make a number of judgements in their service throughout the process, especially if your program will be purposed for both mediums. If you want to make your final product effective on the Web, you need to call these shots right. Bottom line is, you shouldn't neglect either the traditional or the Web side of the process.
- Keep it simple! – keep the background simple
- Minimize movement – pans, tilts, zooms
- Use close-ups – tight shots work best, keep subjects within the frame as they move, allow proper headroom
- Use a lot of depth of field – the distance between the subject and the background. A blurred background helps the subject stand out more
- Consider blue- or green-screening
- Consider shooting with 2 cameras
- Use a 3-pt light kit with gels and diffusion filters
- Keep the lighting as even as possible and soft
- Avoid complex textures and stripes
- Avoid trees or foliage with moving leaves
- Avoid “hot” colors – recommend dark colored / earth tone clothing
- Avoid harsh contrast
- Create plenty of background space for titles if they have to be used inside the video frame
- Use good lavalier mics or a handheld mic with a windscreen
- Position lav mics properly – 6” below chin straight up or towards the head direction
- Record 16-bit stereo as loud as possible but without distortion
- Pre-test and confirm audio levels before recording!
- Take plenty of adapters, extension cords, and power strips
|
