common mistakes on camera.
Well previously i did a post called "characteristics of great camera operators"
This time i thought i'd go the other way and do a post outlining some of the many common mistakes that can be made by a camera operator. Not that i like to focus on the negative, but it's very productive to our skill level to learn from our mistakes by highlighting them.
So here's 10 mistakes a camera op can make...
1. Zooming in or panning at a speed too fast or too slow for the tempo of the particular song...
2. Forgetting to re-crash focus once a speaker comes up after worship. the speaker will always stand a few metres in front of where the worship leader was standing... so it's important that camera 2 and 3 zoom in to the new speakers face and re-set their focus. This also includes praise and worship where often Camera 2 will zoom in to get a full close up of the electric guitar at the back of the stage.... After doing that shot they zoom back out wide to do another zoom in without re-crash focusing on the worship leader.... this makes for an ugly shot once they get in close to the singer to reveal it's actually out of focus.
3. Doing a "Pull focus" during a mix but starting the shot too far out of focus to successfully get back into focus by the time the mix has finished. It doesn't need to be a total blurred blob for the Pull Focus to be effective, a subtle one works nicely though.
4. Zooming into the worship leader from 2, 3 or 4 but not tilting upwards enough as they go to keep the subjects eye-line a 3rd from the top of the screen.
5. during a slow mixing song, pulling away from a shot too soon before the director has fully mixed out and gone off the shot. Very important in slow mixing songs to hold the same shot until the red tally light has fully dissapeared.
6. Trying to do a "pan down" or "pan on" from another object (perhaps a plasma screen or a painting on the back wall) and starting the shot too far away from the worship leader or the destination subject to get there quickly enough... hence there's just an empty shot for 2 or 3 seconds sometimes. Always practice these shots beforehand to make sure it can be done quickly enough to fit in with the tempo of the music. If you find you need to pan overly quickly to get there in time and it's a slow song, then it'd be best to either scrap the shot or start it much closer to the finishing shot.
7. On handheld, starting a shot on a close up of an instrument (often guitar) and then zooming out and keeping the subject directly in the middle of the frame. This will complicate things for the director because they won't be able to smoothly cut back to their Midshot without doing whats called a "Morph cut" which looks ugly. The 2 ways around it are to either stay tight on the guitar or to zoom out but consciously keep the guitarists body in far left or right of the frame.
8. Doing any shot that resembles a shot that Nat Brown would attempt.... hahahhaha. This involves spinning the camera ferociously through the air and very rarely having a shot that isn't upside down...... hahahaha (Just kidding nat, love ya mate..)
9. Zooming into a singers face and zooming too far that the shot becomes an extreme close up of their eye or nose... Try and slowly come to a stop on medium close up. Head and shoulders size.
10. Losing focus too quickly out of a mix... A nice effect you can do on camera is to "push focus" out as their director mixes out of your shot. However this looks really yucky if it's done to quickly. When doing a "push focus" hold down your preview button and make sure you time it with the speed of the mix.... Push focuses work the best in really slow songs when the director is doing nice long, slow mixes... I personally wouldn't try one if the director is mixing quite quickly.
I hope this may help some people in some way to improve their camera work and go to the next level. We are essentially there to serve, but we want to do it with excellence too.
HB
This time i thought i'd go the other way and do a post outlining some of the many common mistakes that can be made by a camera operator. Not that i like to focus on the negative, but it's very productive to our skill level to learn from our mistakes by highlighting them.
So here's 10 mistakes a camera op can make...
1. Zooming in or panning at a speed too fast or too slow for the tempo of the particular song...
2. Forgetting to re-crash focus once a speaker comes up after worship. the speaker will always stand a few metres in front of where the worship leader was standing... so it's important that camera 2 and 3 zoom in to the new speakers face and re-set their focus. This also includes praise and worship where often Camera 2 will zoom in to get a full close up of the electric guitar at the back of the stage.... After doing that shot they zoom back out wide to do another zoom in without re-crash focusing on the worship leader.... this makes for an ugly shot once they get in close to the singer to reveal it's actually out of focus.
3. Doing a "Pull focus" during a mix but starting the shot too far out of focus to successfully get back into focus by the time the mix has finished. It doesn't need to be a total blurred blob for the Pull Focus to be effective, a subtle one works nicely though.
4. Zooming into the worship leader from 2, 3 or 4 but not tilting upwards enough as they go to keep the subjects eye-line a 3rd from the top of the screen.
5. during a slow mixing song, pulling away from a shot too soon before the director has fully mixed out and gone off the shot. Very important in slow mixing songs to hold the same shot until the red tally light has fully dissapeared.
6. Trying to do a "pan down" or "pan on" from another object (perhaps a plasma screen or a painting on the back wall) and starting the shot too far away from the worship leader or the destination subject to get there quickly enough... hence there's just an empty shot for 2 or 3 seconds sometimes. Always practice these shots beforehand to make sure it can be done quickly enough to fit in with the tempo of the music. If you find you need to pan overly quickly to get there in time and it's a slow song, then it'd be best to either scrap the shot or start it much closer to the finishing shot.
7. On handheld, starting a shot on a close up of an instrument (often guitar) and then zooming out and keeping the subject directly in the middle of the frame. This will complicate things for the director because they won't be able to smoothly cut back to their Midshot without doing whats called a "Morph cut" which looks ugly. The 2 ways around it are to either stay tight on the guitar or to zoom out but consciously keep the guitarists body in far left or right of the frame.
8. Doing any shot that resembles a shot that Nat Brown would attempt.... hahahhaha. This involves spinning the camera ferociously through the air and very rarely having a shot that isn't upside down...... hahahaha (Just kidding nat, love ya mate..)
9. Zooming into a singers face and zooming too far that the shot becomes an extreme close up of their eye or nose... Try and slowly come to a stop on medium close up. Head and shoulders size.
10. Losing focus too quickly out of a mix... A nice effect you can do on camera is to "push focus" out as their director mixes out of your shot. However this looks really yucky if it's done to quickly. When doing a "push focus" hold down your preview button and make sure you time it with the speed of the mix.... Push focuses work the best in really slow songs when the director is doing nice long, slow mixes... I personally wouldn't try one if the director is mixing quite quickly.
I hope this may help some people in some way to improve their camera work and go to the next level. We are essentially there to serve, but we want to do it with excellence too.
HB
posted by HaRRy BoY at 10:21 PM
1 Comments:
Hey Awsome notes Harry Boy!!!
Keep-em coming!!
Post a Comment
<< Home