READING & WRITING
Summary of Chapter Seven -Lighting and Chapter Nine – Doing It from The Bare Bones Camera Course for Film and Video by Tom Schroeppel
Chapters three and four continue Tom’s straightforward coverage of photography. As opposed to the more technical workings of the camera itself, or say the mechanics of sound or lighting techniques, these two chapters focus on important shot sequence and screen direction considerations.
Chapter Seven – Lighting
Below are some things that I got out of this chapter. Watch out for my questioning attitude if I don’t quite get something at present. I call it a Sanity Check!
In chapter seven’s opening Exterior Lighting section Tom Schroeppel explains the power of and the centrality of the sun. This includes how the sun moves from east to west and how most people look their best when the sun is no higher than about 45 degrees above the horizon. When the sun is higher, Tom informs, it can cast ugly shadows.
Speaking of ugly and the sun, I learned something the hard way when shooting B roll and a potential outdoor interview for my final Dragon Boat race-related human interest story recently: The bright sun often blinded me from not only seeing the red “on” dot on my camcorder but also from seeing the scenes and subjects that I was video taping as well. Try as I might to cup my hands around my camcorder’s viewer finder and so forth to block the sun, this challenging situation posed from the sun was problematic virtually the whole shoot! Lesson learned. I will try something different next time!
In chapter seven Tom goes on to explain how the sun’s shadows can be mitigated by the use of either reflectors or fill lights. His simple graphics well illustrate the workings of each of these items. An advantage of the fill light? It’s not, unlike a reflector, dependent on the sun. A disadvantage of the fill light? It is dependent on an external power source for power like a battery or portable generator. Sanity Check: I’ve never really seen or noticed any kind of light, (fill light or otherwise) being used in broad daylight where the sun is already present. I’m learning, but such outdoor use of lights in the daytime is counterintuitive to me!
Turn the page and Tom get’s into the Exterior Lighting section of chapter seven. Here he identifies and expands on three basic type of traditional types of interior lighting: focusing quartz, broads, and softlights.
Tom’s final best tip of setting up lighting that I found the most useful was to go slow. Put up one light at a time and if you get confused, turn off all your lights. Then turn them on again one at a time to regain control. Sounds really good to me!
Chapter Nine – Doing It
In chapter nine Tom begins with Planning and Shooting a Sequence. Like the spirit of an extremely shortened version of the Pre-Production Plan that we have been using in class, Tom indicates that you should ask yourself basic questions here. Questions like What do you want to end up with? What sort of story do you want to tell?, Who’s your audience?, and What things should you emphasize?
For short sequence of the type that we’ve been shooting in class Tom duly advises to use a wide (establishing) shot, then a medium shot, and then a close up. Then shoot your cutaways. I sort of agree and it may be somehow less efficient but I’m thinking for various reasons you may find yourself going out and shooting lots of B roll cutaways first — if I’m using these terms correctly — then bringing in and fixing the flow with the other shots in the editing process later.
Tom also discusses Shooting Scripts and Storyboards in chapter 9. He says it often helps to make a shooting script. In my case I find it almost impossible to visualize and get to what I think I want for a shoot without having an almost shot-by-shot visual storyboard first. This, even if I have to sort of draw visual cartoons out first. With my visual cues on paper, I find the written script (or “script cues” that I might use) much easier to flesh out. Finally, Tom offers a has a good word or two on Shooting Out of Sequence (which, now that I think about was probably what I was trying to get at earlier), Communicating, and Working in Uncontrolled Situations.
RESEARCH TO INFORM
Call me an old fogey, say I’m a behind-the-times Baby Boomer but for my money network magazine format news shows like 20/20 and especially 60 minutes are some of the best produced newsworthy, informative, and hard hitting shows on television today. These shows have stood the test of time. No brainer, right?
Below I feature two well-produced human interest-related shows from 60 minutes. Such thorough investigative shows expose and inform me to a wide variety of note-worthy, in-depth and interesting current-event stories of our times. 60 minutes is sort of running global diary that chronicles and often emotionally moves the world!
And now, as an aspiring storyteller with notions of crafting stories that also move folks in some way, I’m more consciously viewing such news shows from the perspective of what makes them — and us — tick. In a flighty world we need sober journalism of the 60 minutes variety. If cooler media heads continue to prevail within our democracy, such thoughtful, news coverage will continue to stand the test of time!
“Make them care” was one of the points of one of our video “lectures” this week when producing pieces that connect with your audience. ….. So why do I care ? ……The two 60 minute stories below are ostensibly about “events” but what about the human interest side of things? That’s what I care about. Are there, say particular individuals and their stories that make these 60 minute piece tick? …… make the pieces go? …… perhaps a continuous human thread that binds each story together and makes them engaging? Where’s the hook? Those are the main questions I had and the reasons that I choose these particular 60 minutes episodes. This is why I searched for the full length versions of these particular 60 minute episodes – to study them more fully!
“Hook” — I think that I have finally “sufficiently” found and settled on my hook for my Dragon Boat Race “event” related video. Use the YouTube visual link below to watch the video and see if you get my hook. Still my nature is to continuously dig deeper. Perhaps I can enrich or expand on “the hook” within the piece further at some point in the future “in my free time”.
1 —— A visit to Söngvakeppnin, Iceland’s Eurovision qualifying event –- (“WELL PRODUCED”) I want to focus on “the hook” for this 2022 60 minutes news story.I usual think about the potential for engagement and “the hook” first, before I take on most any assignment. I think that part of the human interest hook here is two-fold. First, early on in the piece 60 minutes does a brief interview with the president of Iceland, Gudny Johannesson, to get his perspective on Söngvakeppnin and why it’s so dam popular. I noted the conservative, traditional setting of the president’s office and his conservative suit and tie attire. I did not expect the head of state being essentially interviewed about the popularity of what we would call American idol.
I also noted based on one of the 60 minute interviewer’s questions, how precisely and effortlessly the president was ably to rattle off and use a statistics in estimating the approximate how many Icelanders were watching the qualifying event. Very instructive and inspirational: I got some potential ideas there for my Dragon Boat Race story! Second, by contrast, I duly noted how 60 minutes carefully advanced this American Idol, rock band type of story through the eyes and stories of Iceland’s Eurovision actual contestants as you might expect. All-in-all for me one main engagement technique was how 60 minutes juxtapositioned their conservative interview with Iceland’s president with digging equally and interestingly deep with its brief interviews with some of Iceland’s colorful contestants – literally and figuratively. That juxtapositioning was very useful and confirming to some of the ideas that I had about my Dragon Boat Race piece. Again Very instructive and inspirational.
CLICK ON THE IMAGE BELOW to access a less than 3 minute clip of Söngvakeppnin, Iceland’s Eurovision qualifying (American Idol type of) event
2 —— Saving the children from the Holocaust | 60 Minutes Archive –- (“WELL PRODUCED”) This 2014 second 60 minutes show, Saving the Children, is indeed a human interest story of a very different kind than the Söngvakeppnin story above. It’s central figure is decidedly more obvious: One Nicholas Winton, a 105 year-old former British stockbroker who in 1939 traveled to Czechoslovakia and saved 669 children from the Holocaust. So “the event”, the backdrop is the well-chronicled Holocaust. Here, however, 60 minutes deftly reveals a particularly obscure story that is both singular (Mr. Winston) and collective (the children). A story, as most humans can relate to even long for heroes who are underdogs, that has universal appeal. The hook? Drawing the viewer in, the hook is revealed through the eyes and actions of Mr. Winston!
The initial hook, as it often does from my point of view, germinates from 60 minutes very selection of such stories. When you add the skill and craftsmanship of good story telling — well you have the makings of something special! In this piece we quickly learn that Nicholas Winton, whose diminutive stature does not seem to particularly qualify him for such historic life saving success, was able to get 669 children out of Czechoslovakia under extra ordinary and trying circumstances. Do children and families feeing their country ring a bell given the current Ukraine situation? Who single handedly does that? And how and why does it get done? I’m already hooked!
CLICK ON THE IMAGE BELOW to get a flavor for how the 60 minutes producers, writers, cinematographers, and editors craft and weave this worthy tale which offers new depth, richness, and texture this historical event.
3 —— Who needs a movie? –- (“NOT WELL PRODUCED”) This is a video commercial for a company advertising their video services. Granted its an old video. It’s dated, poorly conceived and shot, and has a non-smooth script. Also the “acting” and editing of the video could be greatly improved as, for one thing, it’s transitions are mostly choppy.
The awful singing of the male pitchman doesn’t help. I will say as gently as I can that it does have one thing going for it: comedic value! ‘nuff said!
CLICK ON THE IMAGE BELOW to earn in only about 2 minutes some of the cinematic things that you may not want to do if you are interested in producing good films or videos.
(Warning — you may need to rewind the video but to learn what not to do but it will be worth it!)
Module Six: TELLING A STORY I – Mini Doc ———
***Pre-Production Document***
***Short Progress Report***, and Some
***Raw Footage***
Ok —– So my completed “Pre-Production Planning Document (MINI DOC) and a short progress report can be found below. Some raw, un-edited B-roll footage is also below. Hopefully you can figure out how these clips might be candidates to fit into my Dragon Boat Racing / human interest piece!
***Pre-Production Document***
***Brief Progress Report***
Some Primary Items That Were Done:
- Shot most, probably all of the footage that I’m going to shoot to date for the class assignment part of this production.
- Created and Uploaded my Module 6 “Title Page” graphic
- Completed and submitted the completed the Readings and Research to Inform requirements
- Completed and submitted my basic Pre-planning document
- Identified, brought into my PC and uploaded some of raw, unedited Dragon Race-related footage as part of my progress report. (see below)
Some Primary Items To Be Done:
___ Plan to do at least the quick and dirty, optional story board which is
not likely to get submitted for this earlier “class” version of this
production
___ Have done an off-the-cuff “field interview” with the president of
or company’s Asian American Resource Group (AARG) however, due
to the second interviewee’s last minute availability constraints,
I have to do my 3-point lighting interview with this second, senior
AARG member on Monday 5/9/22. Accordingly, this second
interview may or may not make this earlier, class assignment,
version of my production.
___ Bring it all together/ Do Post Editing in Adobe Premier ! —- Video, narration, possibly
music, possibly graphics, do L cuts, J cuts! etc and submit! — Do/finalize anything that I
may have missed and submit the Mod 7/ project requirements to the best of my
abilities! …..… Whew!!
P.S. ( _x _ Do and _x_ submit my Official Course Evaluation — Due Sat 5/7/22 —
***Raw Footage***
Kevin
