The Video Animal’s Cave

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XOWbj3UJEI]

There are two major issues facing every outdoor videographer

The Elements

Time

During the principle shooting for ‘Kayak Fishing’ I got a crash course in these issues… it took a bit but here are my solutions. Feel free to shoot back any of yours.

Dealing With The Elements

Funny thing… big studios blow billions of dollars to make nice sun, snow and rain in doors. For the outdoor videographer you would think that we would have an advantage because we can nab all that stuff for free.

Not the case. Why? ‘Cuz we don’t control it. In fact, it controls us.

This explains why studios exist… control… specifically when it comes down to weather control

With a studio you can get good light whenever you need it, make it snow on command and very rarely will you ever have to deal with errant wind blowing in to your Sonnheiser.

Time

We small guys with our Sony handhelds and our masses of DV tapes don’t have this advantage. This season I had two major problems… the sun never lasted long enough and the wind was constantly screwing up our audio tracks. On top of those major issues, we shoot all our film on the water. This poses its own set of conundrums.

Dealing with sun is fairly simple. I learned from photographer Jock Bradley an important lesson while we shot in the Thousand Islands… start early… end whenever the light goes, and don’t start again until the time is right. Actors are gonna hate it; trust me, no one wants to jump in a boat at 4:30 in the morning. But this is the only way to get the money shots. As a side benefit; on cloudy days the sun often can get under the cloud cover. This saves a lost day of shooting and can end in some spectacular backdrops.

The optimum time for light in the summer is from about 5 in the morning till around 10:30. You can stretch your time frame after that, but you will find that the sun is too high. The intense sun will make all your shots seem blown out or full of shadows. Ideally you want the sun to be low so the shadows are long or diffused. The benefit is that you will always be up to shoot the sunrise, and the sunrise shot is always a money shot.

Your next window is from around 3pm till 7pm… or just as the sun starts to go down. Sunset is nice, but for some reason it is never as nice as a sunrise shot. In any case, morning always seems better because less people are out on the water to ruin your shot. Never a problem in a remote location, but you will find when you are somewhere like a campground or major waterway, motor boats and jet skis are always worse after around 10am. No one really wants a jet ski in the middle of their tranquil paddling shot… and for some reason the guy on the jet ski always thinks it is cool to be near the guy with the camera.

Wind.

There are not a lot of solutions for wind. Wind sucks. The best thing for you is to turn your microphone off and film without sound — you will be deleting the audio track in the end anyway. A decent wind sock for your shotgun Mic will cost about 100-200 dollars and doesn’t really solve the problem if you are trying to get quotes. If you are using a lav… Try turning your back to the wind, or finding a sheltered area.

Wind tends to die down around 3:30 in the afternoon every day, on top of that, your ‘talent’ will be awake. So try shooting any narration or quotes you need first thing in the afternoon.

Dealing with Weather

Switching to High definition video actually solves a major problem with standard video — overcast days used to look ugly. They still look crappy, but at least the footage will be usable if someone does something cool.

However… rain is still rain. The funny thing is that most beginners forget that weather is a problem. They schedule a shoot for Thursday because that’s a day everyone is free, and then lose a whole day to wind and rain… by beginner, I mean me of course…

So valuable lesson learned. Your first priority when scheduling any shoot is to watch your local weather. The reports are NEVER accurate, but at least it will give you a clue.

Allright! That’s it for today. Next week let’s look at setting up your HD editing rig on the cheap!

The Animal