Real Progress

I've made real progress this week. OK, I had to re-film everything I did last week, but we got through it much more quickly, the sound is good and the lighting is much better too. It should be, I have a total of 6 tripods set up in a very small space!











With just this one light on, you can see how dazzling it is, so you can imagine what it's like with all six on!















Doing the close-ups is more difficult than wider shots. Not only do we have to make sure that important things don't fall off the edge, as it were, I also have to remember what illustrations are going to be put onto the screeen with each shot, and make sure I leave room for them in the picture.








I've improved the sound by using a conference microphone. The sound is clear, no popping, but it is in mono. Fortunately the editing software can deal with this and map the left channel onto the empty right channel. I'm getting a short extension lead made up so that I don't even have to do that - it will feed one signal into both channels.

I have one last technical problem to overcome - Colour-matching. I'm finding that with some of the close-up shots in particular, the colour on the film is very different from reality. My hands are bright orange and the mat is very dark. In other shots the colours are more true, and I don't know why this is. I can tweak the colours almost indefinitely on the computer, but this wide level of control is itself a problem - what parameters do I change? Such control makes it easy to screw the image up completely, if I'm not careful. Less green, more blue, dim the highlights, lighter overall, darker overall - the possibilities are endless.

I'm doing some more filming tomorrow, and some of that needs to be outside, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the weather.

The pros have gone up in my esteem!

I've been filming. Of sorts. I'd already done some test shots to get the lighting right, camera angles, that sort of thing. One thing has become obvious, my tripod, which has served me well for my SLR, is woefully inadequate for video use. So on Tuesday I went out and spent a lot on money on a Manfrotto. It is superb, as indeed, it should be. Rock solid, and smooth as a baby's whatsit.

So I've filmed the first proper scene of actual workshop stuff. It's mainly me at the drill-press and overhead shots of my hands. I'm particularly pleased with the latter, the higher tripod makes all the difference. I haven't got the lighting right yet, although it's better than it was.

I'm learning so much. I had been using a non-slip mat as a work surface, but I discovered that the regular pattern created horrible Moire patterns. You sometimes see them if people are wearing strange patters in their clothes on television. Also the white mat was wreaking havoc with the white balance of the camera, so everything else appeared darker than it should. I've solved both by using a piece of green capillary matting as a surface, and I'm pleased with the result.

I shot an entire sequence yesterday without the mic plugged in. I couldn't believe it. But to my amazement, the camera mic quality is superb. A bit cavernous, that's the only problem, but very clear and not at all tinny, as I'd supposed it would be. In some respects it's better than with the radio mic, I'm getting problems with "popping", so much so that I think I'm going to have to do the whole sequence again anyway.

But the biggest problem is that of talking to no-one. I'm not renowned for my inability to speak, but presenting to an invisible audience is astonishingly difficult! I have a renewed respect for people like Paxman & co, where they talk like it's just to you, but you know that really there is no-one else there except the camera. OK there is a floor crew in that example, but you know what I mean. I was watching him last night, and I take my hat off to him and his like.

I've got plenty of Blooper material, even if I don't have much footage yet! So far I've shot about an hour and a half of raw material, and distilled it down to just over ten minutes. It needs to get to half that, really, or it will be like watching paint dry.

I'll try to post some pictures next time.

Titling

If I've been quiet this past couple of weeks, it's not because I've been idle! I've been getting to grips with BluffTitler , a rather nice package from Holland. It knocks spots of the basic titling tools in Adobe. It is easy and fun to use and has an excellent introductory online tutorial. After that you are on your own though, so it takes a while to find out how the various controls affect the image. The whole package has the feel of work in progress. For example, you can make changes to one layer or all, but not to, say, just two layers (or at least, if you can, I've not found out how). You can display the timeline for only one layer at a time, even though it can play all layers at the same time. You can play sound while you are editing but not export with sound. Not all the settings are visible on the main interface, some are only available via the menu title bar. Even so, with all its shortcomings, it is excellent.

Fortunately there are dozens and dozens of sample files for you to trail through, and an automatic demo which plays them randomly. So the easiest way to learn is to play the demo until you find a title that interests you, then stop the demo and have a look at how the controls change the image. It's time-consuming, but very enjoyable.

It's also very easy to get very tacky very quickly!

My first attempt (complete with twinkles, sparkles and dancing letters) was dismissed by SWMBO as "not very manly", so this is the second version.


I do want this to look professional, not like a home movie, so I think it's important to get this sort of thing right, don't you? Of course, it's no good if the actual content is rubbish, but I am confident of the quality of that, so it's just a question of presenting it all in a professional manner.