What do the Buttons on Your Camcorder Do?

Adding great audio to your video is an easy way to raise your production value. Foley sound brings details into your mix to make your video sound more professional. We show you how to create footsteps, clothing rustle, breathing, and unique barn door sounds. With some ordinary items as props, you can create some extraordinary sound for your next project.

We took the Canon XA25 into various shooting environments to test its color reproduction, fine detail and texture, contrast, dynamic range, rolling shutter, moire, image stabilization, infrared, autofocus, and color correction.

We took the JVC GC-PX100 into various shooting environments to test its high-speed frame rates, autofocus, detail, moire, rolling shutter, low light capabilities, dynamic range, color, saturation, and image stablization.

Great video is just the beginning of a well produced project. Well placed sound effects and music can help provide context for your scene, and give your character's action more meaning. In this segment, we walk through the process of adding sound effects and music to help intensify a scene.

Shooting your footage properly is only the the beginning of the day-for-night process. Using simple editing techniques, we take uncorrected day-for-night footage and finish the look in post production using simple techniques. Plus we show you how to fix some of the common errors encountered in day- for-night footage.

Watch Shooting Day for Night

With careful planning and execution you can turn footage shot during the day, into night-time magic. In this segment, we show you how to shoot day-for-night by using exposure, white balance, and creative framing. Plus we talk about choosing your shoot time to get the look you want. Following a few simple guidelines will help you avoid common pitfalls, and gather footage that’s ready for the final touches in post-production.

There are many factors that contribute to getting a good looking shot. Setting your white balance correctly saves time and frustration when it comes time to edit and opens up artistic options in the field. In this segment, we talk about the basics of color temperature, when to use auto white balance, setting your white balance manually by dialing it in or using a white reference object and how to ensure good results in tough situations.

Go behind the scenes as we break down how the opens for our latest Videomaker web videos were created with Adobe After Effects.  From start to finish, we show you how we built a basic two dimensional graphic title, and then used camera movement and expressions to take it into the third dimension.

Choosing and using the right mic for the job is an important step in any video project, and understanding a microphone’s directional characteristics is one determining factor. In this segment, we talk about a microphone’s directional response and sensitivity, how to interpret a polar response chart, and we listen to examples of various mics to hear how response works in practice. Knowing how to determine the directional characteristics of a mic, and understanding how this affects the sound your mic picks up, can help you make an informed choice for your next project.

The basic concepts of controlling depth of field with aperture, focal length, and distance are fairly easy to grasp, and we covered those topics in part one of this series, but now it's time to dig a little deeper. In this segment, we talk about perceived depth of field, how sensor size and angle of view can affect your ability to get the depth of field you want, and using depth of field to rack focus. There's a lot of confusion surrounding these topics, but a little common sense, and of course a bit of math and science can help us break it all down.

Every shooter wants to be able to direct the viewers' attention to the important aspects of a shot, and manipulating your depth of field is a great way to do it. In this two part series we talk about controlling your depth of field with aperture, focal length, and distance. In part two we talk about perceived depth of field, how sensor size and angle of view might affect your ability to get the depth of field you're striving for, and rack focusing. Knowing the different ways to achieve the depth of field you want for your scene will ultimately help you to craft more effective scenes.