Reader Profile - Sonia Helman

Name: Sonia Helman
Camera: Panasonic NV-GS65
Editing Platform: Adobe Premiere Pro, Canopus Imaginate, Pinnacle DV500
Microphone: Two TEAC stereo mics
Other Gear: Two Manfrotto tripods, a dolly, several DIY lights

It all started in Rosario, Argentina, when I was 12. My parents gave me as a birthday present an 8mm silent Yashica Yashimat zoom film camera (Super 8 film was already on the market, but I got this one). When I turned 15, when most girls forget their childhood toys, I bought the book - How to Make Better Movies, by Myron Matzkin. I learned to edit my films with small scissors, so I could cut out all of the out of focus and badly lit shots, and then I started to learn camera moves and techniques.

Fast forward some years. I married a man who is - not surprisingly - a fan of making movies. He even has introduced me to a new term - video camera. I was studying art by then, and we made our first video together: a documentary on classical guitar music.

Time passed, and I finished art school with a documentary on Lola Mora, Argentina's first woman sculptor. This video was projected to the public several times, and slowly the jobs came in, mostly documentaries and videos for the University, the Town Hall, the Sculptors' Center, the Biochemical Guild, and more. This was in the 1990s, and we worked with a super VHS camera, two Panasonic FS88 S-VHS decks and a mixer.