I had the pleasure of auditing a portion of the Videomaker “Basics of Video Production” workshop a couple weeks ago. There are many basic rules when it comes to video, and there is a wealth of basic knowledge that continues to be the foundation for great production. Though I had been exposed to all of this before, it had been years since I had seen the fundamentals of good video production laid out so methodically. It caused me to really think about the basics again.

As my experience has grown, I have developed a tendency to wing-it much more often than I would have when I was just starting out. The video portion of my scripts began to dwindle, and the fine details of the script were often left to be finalized on set. I was still proud of the final product, but as I sat in the workshop, I was reminded that proper planning, and a concise vision of what you want out of a given video project can really be the difference between good and great video production.

While there is no substitute for experience, remembering to follow those simple rules makes your chance of success so much higher, so write that script and edit it until it’s perfect. Make that storyboard a true reflection of what you want to see in your video. Keep shooting takes until the shot is right. White balance properly for every shot. If you think there might be some distracting backround noise, do your best to minimize it on the set. Move the lights that extra inch to get it just right, and help your talent give the performance you know they’re capable of, even if it feels exhausting at the time.

Take your time, because what only takes a few seconds in the field, can take hours to fix in post-production. Doing all these things will make the the video production experience much more enjoyable for you and your crew, and it will show in the results.

Greg has 15 years of experience working with video professionally, and has recently joined the Videomaker team.

With more and more devices crowding the airwaves it can be hard to find an available frequency without interference while setting up your wireless mics. Sennhesier has a solution, an audio tool for finding open frequencies that incorporates the FCC TV broadcast database.  Simply enter either a City or Zip Code and the application provides you with a list of available and used frequencies. This is another one of those must have tools for any filmmaker serious about getting great audio without spending time looking for an open frequency which we all know can be very time consuming.

Over the last year alone, posting on this very blog has been quite eye opening. One of my favorite experiences has been all of the various new types of technologies that have come out recently. Some of them made me scratch my head, some of them made me think, some of them solved my problems and some of them created new ones. One of the most intriguing of all of these posts, was the story of the “eyeborg.” This was basically a tiny camcorder, that was inserted into somebody’s eye! The long term hope being that it would become attached to a blind person’s brain to see. While the short term plan? Yup, to create a reality tv show.

Another interesting blog came with an editing system called “Tamper” being created by Oblong Industries, a software company that’s is trying to create an entirely new editing work flow and interface…. That is just well, remarkable to say the least. It involves users editing in a fashion more representative of something out of the movie Minority Report rather than a standard NLE. The company is the creator of what they have deemed “g-speak” which is a spatial operating environment, used for a computer program.

Read the rest of this entry »

iStockphoto.com sent us a nice little note today that their new Royalty Free Music section iStockaudio was now open for business. They’re not announcing it to the wide world until March, but figured Videomaker readers might want to get a heads up, and get a chance to upload some of your original scores to the site before everyone comes knocking. It’s also a good place to look for new royalty free music for your video projects.

The new site works similarly to their stock footage and stock photo sites.  You pre-buy credits from iStockphoto and can spend them on downloading royalty free tracks directly. The cost of the tracks is tied to “complexity” which may be a bit more subjective than how they charge for photos and audio (based on physical size). The tracks themselves are in .wav format, 16bit, 44.1kHz or 48kHz, the latter matching the audio sample rate for video.

So if you have some audio tracks or sound effects you wish to sell, or if you’re in need of a piece of audio you just can’t make yourself, head on over and check out iStockaudio.