Back in February my boss, with an
ever-increasing workload of film-based project, he asked me to expand my job
role from just stills to taking on filming and editing duties. I’ve done a
little bit of filming over the past few years (but no editing) so it was
something new that would hopefully allow me to capture parts of a shoot that
stills just didn’t do justice. He was adamant that it was as simple as me being
able to take a photograph qualifying me to take up filming – I saw it in a more
complicated fashion.
For one, I knew nothing about editing,
other than some rubbish holiday clips I’d done on my phone. I knew the edit
would be the key to good film-making (for our needs) and not just relying on
taking some jazzy shots. The other concern was that I knew our (then) video
cameras were pants; consumer levels jobs that captured on HD but had poor
autofocus and limited focal range, adding to a small sensor that would limit
creative use of depth-of-field. For that I new I had to shoot with a
video-enabled DSLR so a long story short, I ended up with a D7000 to replace
one of my D2x bodies (I’ll write a review at some point)….
So far I’ve enjoyed shooting more and more
video as I’ve become confident with the equipment and more confident in knowing
what shots I want (and need) to take back to the editing suite. I’m using Final
Cut Pro X, a ‘marmite’ piece of software in editing circles; personally, aside
from performance issues that stemmed from too little RAM in my MacBook Pro,
I’ve found it to be a decent buy, although I’m finding the built-in default
effects and transitions a bit basic at times – Apple’s Motion and Adobe After
Effects are next on my learning list – but for piecing together 60-second clips
for our magazine apps, it does the job quickly and efficiently.
As far as the equipment goes, I only
recently turned on to the idea of DSLRs as serious video kit. A mate had a 5D2
for the last few years but rarely used the video function. I don’t like the 5D2
as a camera anyway so never wanted to investigate its ‘dark side’, despite so
many reports of it being an awesome video machine. More and more cameras have
come along featuring HD capture, although Nikon have been slow on the uptake,
with the D7000 and D3s being the only models of note that were seriously useable.
Now, I’m sold on the technology… but it’s not without its faults: a lack of
built-in audio monitoring on the D7000 is a pain, although erring on the side
of caution (mic set well away from mouth, mic level set to ‘1’) seems to work
well enough, and the lack of aperture control in manual mode during Liveview
being two main hurdles. Mind you, for an £800 camera it is still impressive and
the quality is more than adequate. I’m sure the recently announced D600 will
improve on these faults….
One thing that has captured my imagination
when it comes to filming (aside from those jazzy angles I mentioned earlier!)
is the plethora of kit that’s available – dollies, stabilization gadgets, cool
microphones, follow focus rigs, LCD magnifiers…. loads of stuff that will keep
me skint for a long time but will ultimately help me find my creative ‘mojo’.
I’ve got a few interesting ideas floating
around in my head for work and for personal projects, although at the moment I’m
pretty much just focusing on honing technique and getting fully to grips with
making film-making as automatic as stills photography has become.
Here’s to learning and evolving, things
that are essential if you’re going to make it in this business….
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