But Officer I Was Framed

I’ve found, over the years, that the most fundamental mistake video people starting out make is incorrect framing of the shot. Good framing gives balance to the image and subtly tells us where to look. Usually that’s at the people talking or the action happening. Film people make the same mistake, in addition to poor exposure and a few other problems I'll talk about sometime.

It’s surprising camera work isn't better though given the number of photos we all take. In Photography we call it composition and it's job is to find that "decisive moment", both in time and space, and capture the shot. Quite frankly that moment is really found later, looking at the negatives, or more currently, going over your images in Aperture or Lightroom (software for the digital photographer who can take 2,000 to 3,000 shots for a project. The number of shots we take now is a significant difference between the film way and the digital way - also something we should talk about later.). You're always trying to get the shot, but, as a photographer, you only know about it, really, later.

In video, it too, is an ongoing task to find the correct composition, but it's continuous and lasts over time. In this situation we call it framing, but we also talk about composition. We know if we have the shot while we're shooting. When we stop shooting we know, right then, if we've got it or have to shoot the scene over again, or with documentary work simply have to keep shooting. True, we may not know if we have all of the shots to tell the story we want to (that's sometimes because the story changes on us), but we can decide if we have this shot done well or not.

With both, we have, right up front during the shooting process, the power to draw the eye and help the viewer focus on what we think is the important part. That is if we frame the shot that way. If the shot is too wide we start to wander around with our eyes checking out what’s in the frame. You know I used to have a floor lamp just like that one in the back and look at those drapes, they’re terrible, wait, what did she just say. Missed it.

Good framing allows us to edit out the extra visual elements that draw attention away from what we’re supposed to follow. Too little information in the image and we start making up things, too much and we’ve got way too much information to process. Yes, it’s a balancing act. (The other tool we use to draw the eye and direct attention is lighting, but that’s still yet another topic for later – hey, how many is that now.)

If you’re shooting with a tripod it’s not going to be that difficult to keep stuff out once you decide on what the frame includes. If you’re shooting on a tripod, turn off auto-focus and set it manually; otherwise the camera starts to “hunt” with the lens and that’s really distracting. You zoom in all the way, focus on the persons eyes, then pull out and adjust the placement of the subject in the frame (with the camera, you don't move the people, well you do move the people, but that's before and that's all about directing and that's, yes, you guessed it, a topic for later.). Think what would make a nice photo for their mother to have. That’s it.

We don’t center a person in the frame, but slide them off slightly to one side or the other giving them empty space to talk into (this is particularly true now with the 16:9 aspect ratio of the frame). The empty space is in front of them, not behind their head. You don’t want someone's nose pressed up against the edge of the frame – that hurts. Slide over to the side to open up empty talking space. Think of a cartoon speech bubble floating in the frame (not above them, but to the side). Is there enough space for their words? Conversely, we don’t want them to feel lonely in a big wide shot that they’re only a little part of. Make the subject the star of the show, an important person, the center of attraction (rather the off-center of attraction).

While you usually don’t want to cut off the top of their heads, the most important element is placing their eyes. They should fall about 2/3rds of the way up the screen and the rest of the face falls where it may. OK, we don’t want to cut off their chin either – watch TV, see how they do it. Watch where the eyes get placed. Finally, TV is good for something after all.

Now here’s the hard part, you want to change the shot occasionally while you’re shooting. What? Well, not while the person is talking, but in between the responses, while you’re asking the questions. Just zoom in a little, but enough so it’s noticeable. It can’t be too little because when we edit those shots together if there isn’t enough difference between the two it looks weird – it jumps instead of cuts. It has to look intensional, not like you bumped the camera.

Generally we start wide and work our way in closer and closer. Then you may want to zoom way out wide again and start over. Remember when we edit this later the answers may not end up back to back in the order the person said them, but in the order that makes the most sense for the story we’re trying to tell. That’s why we edit, to make more sense of reality or at least to improve it. We’re like gods. OK, my therapists says the same thing, but I say filmmakers, gods, what’s the difference.

When you get really good with the camera you could try zooming in while they're talking, but only with a lot of practice. If you feel uncertain about it, don’t do it.

I actually often add a little zoom-in to a shot in the edit room to give it a more intimate, personal feel, but only by 10%. Beyond that much the image starts to fall apart, with that much it adds a layer of emotion to the ending of a shot; like you're leaning in to hear what they're saying. In Final Cut you do it in the Motion Tab under Scale. Set a keyframe 15 seconds before the end of the cut for 100%, then jump to the end of the cut, make a keyframe and set the Scale to 110%. Play it back and the image zooms in slightly just before the end of the cut and adds a little “oomph” to the feel. Cool.

Because we may find ourselves with the dilemma of having to use shots that don’t actually cut together well due to a mismatch in size or framing or whatever, we’d also like to shoot cutaways or cut-ins to cover over those jump cuts if we have to. Maybe a really wide shot of the room, or a shot of a hand on the chair, or some action illustrating what’s being talked about.

Same for audio. We need “room tone”. That’s just the ambient sound in the room with no one talking. We need it. Just have everyone stand still for 30 seconds and record nothing. Do it right after you finish shooting, but don’t let people leave, that changes the sound of the room. Later in the edit we’ll use that sound to cover over any audio edits we do that might not be perfect. Isn't it always perfect? Well, no, it's seldom that. Editing is trying to move us closer to that.

So like all of production, or all of life for that matter, it’s just about practice. The more you do it the easier it gets. Then there’s the lighting. (And that growing list of things to talk about later.)

gunther (5)

Making A Movie

I go back and forth about whether we’re making a film or a movie. Sometimes people are actually talking about film with sprocket holes in it, other times it’s just something projected on a screen. The words are no longer as descriptive about what we’re doing. Just as some of the best music performances I’ve ever seen were open mic nights in a bar (I once saw a drunk homeless guy play a 12-string guitar that was a jaw-dropping performance); college level independent short films can be the best of class productions, but is it a film, is it a movie, is it something else – who knows?

In the old days (5 or 6 years ago) every project was a big production. You bought tapes, planed things out, maybe rehearsed, got the equipment, lugged it to the location, set everything up, shot the footage, packed everything up, took it all back, logged the tapes, captured the shots you wanted, and started to edit.

Now the equipment side is much easier to deal with in number of items, weight, complexity, and cost. You go some place, pull out your camera, shoot, then put it away. Later you capture the footage and cut it up. It’s more relaxed, more inviting – just easier.

However, one part is just as hard - really hasn’t changed – is telling the story. What is your story? Where does it start? Most stories can begin at different times in the unfolding of events. Some times you have a long lead in, other times you’re quickly in the middle of the action. They each have different effects on the audience and thereby different outcomes.

The usual rule of thumb is you join a scene (cut into it) as late as possible and you leave it as soon as possible (but not always); you string all of those scenes together to make the film. The effect is that it moves along. If it’s confusing cutting from one scene to another you add a transition of some kind to help it flow, to make it work. You frame the beginning with enough information to make it just understandable and you end with enough ambiguity to keep us thinking.

Needless to say there are a lot of variables all of which can be fine tuned for various effects. Consistency of look and tone allows the work to feel like a single experience, one cohesive whole, but with both the feel of inevitability and, at the same time, surprise. There’s the really hard work - surprising inevitability.

Just as in music, the story needs dynamics of scale, emotion and complexity. Most of that comes from how you arrange the footage (pacing comes from the cutting, not the action), but the catch is you can only work with the footage you have. Often we find that we’re actually short on footage of one kind or another and have to go back out and shoot it. The film can only be made from footage that you have on your hard drive, not what’s in your head, not what’s written in the script, not from wishes. You sometimes even have to give up on the script and make what you can with what you have. Now it’s a different film, but that’s OK. It’s what it takes.

For most narrative work you end up using one camera and doing multiple takes, but for documentary films it may be expedient to use more cameras since it’s a one time event and you might want several angles to select from later in the edit. That used to be a big problem for us, but it’s a little easier now with an inexpensive camera like the Flip. A couple of Flip cameras placed in strategic locations can give you a lot of coverage that’s really handy to have later. It makes it seem like a more “produced” movie. You end up with a more polished higher end feel. Cool. (The Flips are nice because there are so small it’s easy to carry a couple of them in your pocket. Having two of the same camera also makes it easier to have the look of the shots match up in the edit. And yes, they’re inexpensive, too.)

Similarly, getting good audio is a little easier on a narrative shoot. You know where everyone is and where they’re going to go. No so with documentary. You may need the “reach” of a shot gun mic because you can’t actually get close to what you want to record. You can “place” mics in the scene either by using a wireless lavaliere microphone on a person wandering in a crowd or use flashcard based Wave recorders, like the Edirol, placed as close as you can get. Later in the edit you “sync up” these loose audio tracks with the video you shot and cut it all together. (There’s even software now that makes that syncing up of audio and video really easy: PluralEyes. That’s what an editor’s assistant used to do, now it’s software – remember that.)

We’re shooting to get footage that describes, illustrates and contextualizes the story we’re trying to tell. That usually translates into a wide establishing shot (where are we), closeups (shows us some elements, parts, examples), action (what’s happening, unfolding, ongoing, changing and reactions, too), and good old beauty shots (people, things, events, places).

If you can’t record an explanatory shot that tells us or shows us what’s going on you’ll have to tell us about it later as a voice over in the edit room. A lot of people, particularly in college, think that’s a cop out and we should only use what the footage shows – for it’s purity. My view is if I can’t figure out what going on, I’m no longer interested in watching. I don’t have the time to struggle through a film that’s incomprehensible even if it’s arty – sorry. So help me understand. Talk to me.

Another false presumption is having a strong point of view, but not showing it. Letting the viewer decide what the point is or who’s right or wrong may be a nice liberal sentiment, but it makes for dull movies. If you don’t believe in your own point of view and tell me what it is I, again, don’t have time for your dull (slow) film. Stand up for what you believe in. Tell it. Show it. Make a point. I don’t have to agree, but it’s usually much more interesting to hear what you really think. That’s why I want to watch your film in the first place, to learn what you think.

After all the shooting is over, annotating the footage is both a lot of work and really worth while. It’s a chance to see it all over again more dispassionately and take notes about what your really have. I’m a firm believer in making subclips from your footage. In Final Cut (that’s the editing software), in the Browser (that's the area where all of your footage shows up), double click on a clip to load it in the Viewer (that's where we watch the footage). Then mark an In and Out point (start here, end here) to describe a “shot” (a unit of footage). Press Command + U and you get a subclip of that master clip sent back into the Browser, highlighted for you to enter a new file name. It’s a little awkward at first and you might be tempted to not do it, but this is the most powerful way to edit effectively - particularly with long form work. Go through all of your footage, break it up into shots that you name; then you can sort those clips into bins (folders) to make it all more orderly and understandable. If you can’t find a shot, your can’t use it.


I think of subclips as being able to see all of the elements I have to work with laid out to sort through. Not to use subclips is as if you were building a house and kept all of the lumber stacked on the truck that delivered it. Each time you wanted a 2x4 you would have to re-stack all of the lumber to find one. Painful. With subclips you unload all of the lumber, stack it up by size, or color, or shape, or reference number making it much easier to find anything, everything. The effort in unloading it all is greatly made up in the ease of finding it later.

One of the most exciting aspects of working in Final Cut is the ability to have multiple versions of the work. You can cut a sequence, duplicate it and then go wacky with changes and not have to worry about fixing it back to the way it originally was. What an opportunity.

Work in sections. Often what we thought would be a great ending we discover is really a great opening. We can pick sections up and plop them down anywhere we want in another master sequence and, yes, have different versions of that, too.

Work as quickly as you can and don’t bother to fix problems along the way. Do that much later after you’ve seen the whole thing from beginning to end. Most of the time we change things so much that any work we would have done fixing things gets thrown out anyway, so it would just be a waste of time. Save fixes until you know what’s actually in the film. It’s often on the second or third pass that we start taking the time to fix things.

Usually on a first past (rough cut) I cut only for audio. I don’t even have the video window visible. It’s really fast to look at the audio waveform (it's wonderful to be able to see audio) and see when a sentence starts or ends. Mark your In and Out point, do the edit and move on. The most important thing to discover is what the film is really about and you’ll only know that by playing it back. Then you start all over again with that information in mind and make it work – better.

I eventually change most of my edits into L-cuts. That is I lead with the audio track and after a beat or two I bring in the video track. (That’s why it’s easy to cut for audio first. That's also why it's smart to shoot a little long at the end of a scene. It gives you more time to hold on the out point of a clip. End of action, hold, hold, hold, hold, hold, cut.) That smooths out the feel of the editing and makes it more flowing, more invisible. We’re drawn into the next shot by first hearing the audio, then seeing the image.

At some point we start adding graphics and music. If you have a montage section drop in some music to cut against for pacing and rhythm. You can change it later, easily. Musics job is to unify separate picture elements and make them seem more connected. An audio track under a bunch of image cuts makes the whole thing seem locked together. You delete the ambient sound from each cut and edit in a continuous audio track that covers the entire length of the edits. Now it's all happening in one place instead of many.

I’ve always found it useful to cut a "trailer" (preview) in the early stages of the process to act as a device to help figure out what the piece is about or to verify that I have the footage to tell the story I think I’m telling. A good trailer, even for a documentary, can help you clarify what the story line is and the tone of the work. Pull out some still images and make a poster too. It’s inspirational, well at least it allows us to be hopeful. See, it could work, it’s on the wall – coming this summer.

After it’s all over you need to make copies to hand out. For all our pretense of living in an HD world, good old standard definition DVDs are still what people want. Make Reference Movies and drop them into iDVD. Pull still images out and use them as the background for the menu. The more sophisticated the DVD menu the better the setup to your film. Really. Wouldn’t you prefer to have someone dressed up nice coming to your showing instead of arriving in their pajamas?

See, it’s all so easy.

gunther

Just Back From New York

I arrived home last night at 3AM from a long, yet fun, trip to the big Gotham for an alumni film and video event. John Bruner drove a van of ten Hampshire students and myself down and back - a 14 hour day. I had thought it would be a grim trip stuck in such a small enclosure, but the students had a good time talking, telling stories, comparing favorite films and just chatting the entire time. They were great.

Every year alums send us a short clip of what they're currently working on, I cut them all together, try and match the audio levels and burn it all onto a DVD that the Alumni Relations people travel with and use as an event promotion tool. It's fun. I get to see great work, send hasty e-mails asking for a different codec, or what's the password for your download again, and be pleasantly reminded that students do turn into pros out in the world and continue to get better and better. Cool.

The current students that we brought down did a good job of smoozing with the older crowd. One of the first alums in the door was Anna who plopped down on a bar stool and told them all of the amazing things she's doing: working for whom, working with whom. They seemed a little taken aback by the fact she's just been out of school for two years and she's got a list of what she's doing and where she's going a half mile long. I was impressed.

The place was packed this year which always makes it seem more exciting, but also makes it harder to move around and mingle. There were also a lot of parents there reminding me who their student is and the previous conversations we had way back at the beginning of the year. My memory finally clicks in and I say, oh yes I remember you. I think it's nice that parents are interested and want to feel involved with their students progress and thankfully no one is over doing it. Just enough.

The alums were really the center of the show, fun to see again, hug, laugh, talk a little and move on to the next. That's both fun and emotionally taxing for me. Remember my passport says "shy, quiet guy" or something like that.

Larry Blume talked this year and showed some of his work both recent and a little older. It was nice to see clips and hear him speak. He mentioned briefly the inevitable demise of film as a production medium and the equally inevitable rise of HD digital cinematography (not using exactly that phrase) as a replacement. It's nice to hear a pro with real perspective say the same thing I keep saying back at school. Those old days are over and we need to run fast to either jump on the new cinematography bandwagon or build still yet a newer one ourselves.

My biggest complaint at these events, which in the cosmic realm of things is quite small, but in the more practical part of my day has an effect, is that I usually miss all of the food. OK, I get a little here off the tray, then some cheese, here she comes again with that tray, then a beer, what's that on the tray now - no thanks, another beer, she was just here with that tray again, but she didn't see me. Then I have to go set up some equipment, restart a computer, run the audio cables, etc. I go back and they're all wiping their mouths with napkins and the trays are all empty. Those lamb chops were perfect weren't they - what lamb chops? Story of my life. So I have another beer. Good thing I'm not driving back isn't it.

So in the end it was more fun than I expected. After a cell phone call to round up missing students and a cold walk down the street, we got the van out of the parking lot, started up the GPS and headed off back home.

Finally back at Hampshire, Bruner dropped all the students off at their different mods on campus (nice guy) and we returned to the parking lot behind the library to find that he has a flat tire on his car. It's 5 degrees and we're beat, so I drive him home to Easthampton in my car. I get home at 3AM and to bed after briefly talking to our befuddled cats who wonder what the heck I'm doing outside at that time. Where's he been anyway?

The photo at top is from Dan Epstein. That's Larry Blume on the left in the white shirt and the guy with the bald spot is me. One year, after returning from Paris, I was going through our photos and found this useless image of an old, bald, fat guy looking at a wall. I asked my wife why she had wasted a shot on someone we didn't even know. She paused a moment, smiled and said, "That's you." We all need a photo of ourselves that way at times.

gunther