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December 2008 Cover Image

December 2008 Table of Contents

There are many benefits to shooting nighttime scenes during the day. If you have ever wondered how to shoot a day-for-night scene, or why you would want to in the first place, check out this month's tutorial for everything you need to know about achieving that nighttime look in broad daylight. Also in this issue, you will find tips on shooting in the wild, distributing your videos by way of mobile devices, and how to use a 35mm lens adapter to create that desired film look. Our annual Camcorder Buyer's Guide and our Buyer's Guide to Lens Adapters and Converters will assist you in making decisions for your next camcorder upgrade.

Feature Stories

Tutorial
Night Light

How to turn the light of day into the dark of night... The technique of shooting outdoor night scenes in broad daylight has been around since the early days of film. It is commonly called Day for Night (DFN), and you can spot it in films like It's a Wonderful Life, Planet of the Apes and Jaws; documentaries like The Creation of the Universe; and, of course, the French film, Day for Night.

Expanding your Horizons: A Buyer's Guide to Lens Adaptors & Converters

Most consumer and prosumer video cameras come with only a permanently-affixed, built-in lens that lets you zoom in and out. While this works in most circumstances, there will be plenty of times when the built-in lens simply isn't enough.

Camcorder Buyer's Guide 2008

Back in the early 1980s, when Howard Cosell was wrapping up his hosting duties on Monday Night Football, MTV still showed videos and the internet was still confined to colleges and army bases, the first camcorders came in exactly two flavors. But these days, both the quality of camcorders and the sheer quantity of available features and prices have grown exponentially. So, before you whip out your credit card and go shopping online or at the local big box store, let's try to make sense of those options.

Wild Things: Shooting in the Wild

Shooting in the wild changes how videographers would normally capture events. You have to slow down, take your time... and wait... and wait some more... and wait even more. But the video is well worth the time.

Reviews

Camcorder Review
Canon XL H1A HDV Camcorder

Ready, Aim, Shoot! Whether you feel you're ready to enter the professional realm of cinematography or you're a serious amateur, Canon's XL H1A is here to meet your expectations.

Software Review
SmartSound Sonicfire Pro 5 (Scoring Edition) Audio Creation Software

The Sound and The Fury... Everyone knows that the musical score is responsible for a lot of the emotional impact of your video. The score underlies the emotional cues that you want the picture to express.

Software Review
Corel VideoStudio Pro X2 Video Editing Software

Edit Easy... It's interesting that editing software of all levels has gained features unimaginable even a couple of years ago, while becoming easier to use at the same time. This is the case with Corel VideoStudio Pro X2. For a lot of quick editing jobs, there's really not much this program can't do.

Storage Device Review
Synology Disk Station DS408 Network Attached Storage Device

Easy and Powerful... The Synology Disk Station DS408 is more than just a simple network attached storage device (NAS). With its 800MHz processor, 512MB RAM, Linux Kernel, USB and LAN ports, it's also a media server.

Columns

Viewfinder
A Few Years Down the Road

The world of video is moving swiftly through two unprecedented changes. The first change is our encoding system. Most people are not familiar with encoding systems, but they have been viewing an encoded analog video signal whenever they've watched TV, a videotape or often a DVD.

Basic Training: 35mm Lens Adaptors for Video

Why on earth would you want to put a 35mm camera lens on your video camera? It's already got a perfectly good lens on it. One word - bokeh. bokeh is a Japanese word that has no English equivalent - it means...

Distribution
Stellar Video, Just Smaller

Tiny viewers are everywhere, allowing you to show a video from the palm of your hand. Learn how to creatively shrink movies and launch your career the micro way.

Directing
Directing Children

Directing children for your video can try your patience, as they are easily distracted, need plenty of visual instruction and communicate differently from adults.

Producer Profile
behind the lens

Christion Schnobb - Dolly Grip, Screenwriter, Independent Producer

Editing
Editing Dirty Little Tricks

Editors are dirty little tricksters. Yes, we pull all sorts of illusions behind our viewers' backs. Some people might even say all editing is a "trick."

Audio
Microphone Tech Specs

Buying a microphone can be an ordeal. You have to balance features and price, and part of that is having to wade through the many technical specifications.

Departments

Quick Focus

Great Resource for Video Producers... Adobe CS4 Now Shipping... FCC Proposes Ban on Wireless Microphones in the 700MHz Spectrum

Latest Videos

Green Screen Video Tutorial Green Screen Video Tutorial
In this green screen video tutorial, we show you how to set-up a green screen for chromakey and how to best sell the green screen effect to your viewers.

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