Video Production Tips

Jim Stinson
October 2005

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True story: to get maximum production value for a medical program I was to edit, the director secretly set up a "heart attack" in the stands of the Ohio State football stadium during an actual game, while stealth cameras recorded the sequence. On cue, the "victim" clutched his chest and crashed to the ground as his "friend" jumped up, shouting, "He's having a heart attack! Is there a doctor?"

Before the fake "doctor" could even move, 20 real physicians leaped up and surged to the rescue, spoiling the whole enterprise. The director had unknowingly bought seats in the section allotted to the Ohio State Medical School. Thus, I learned the first of video's many small lessons about life: plan, then plan some more! About the other lessons I could write a whole book, but here are just ten more. (Careful: that clay may not be dry yet.)

Within about a minute, the fuss around the "heart attack" had died down and everyone was seated again; but some time during the first five seconds of that minute the director had figured out how to exploit the disaster. Even before pulling all those docs off the hapless "victim," he sent both cameras running to opposite aisles to capture wide shots of the whole scene.

Back in the edit suite, the director supplied me with dramatic pans of the game and its thousands of spectators -- pans that ended up zooming in on the isolated crowd of people standing up and milling around the "victim." (At that distance the audio didn't pick up the director's red-faced explanation to the wannabe rescuers.) By using these shots instead of the original establishing footage, I was able to enhance the illusion that the "heart attack" occurred in the middle of a real football game.

Nowadays, you'd probably be in big trouble if you staged something like this, but we learned some valuable lessons that day. Life doesn't confine its surprises, good and bad, to video shoots. The faster you think on your feet, the better you can exploit the unexpected.

Back in the stadium, my director still didn't have a heart attack sequence; so by the time the game was over, he had devised an alternate plan and bought Ohio State scarves and pennants to implement it.

When he got home, he staged all the close shots in the empty concrete stands of a local high school. To conceal the mismatch, a bunch of us donned wool pants, overcoats, hats, and those scarves and pennants. The director shot the "attack" from high and low angles to frame off the fact that we extras were the only people sitting or standing around the victim. By inter-cutting these shots with the location material and laying continuous game audio under everything, I was able to build a convincing sequence.

It was those authentic scarves and pennants that sold the gag. The director bought those essential props before leaving Ohio because he'd immediately developed plan B. The moral is clear: in life as in video, you're safer with a backup strategy.

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