How do I shoot like HGTV?

[Anonymous]

I see some beautiful video of home interiors on HGTV. Fluid pans,?????? tilts, pedestal and dolly shots (I’m guessing) with wide lens. Sometimes the lens shows distortion but on other HGTV videos the lens does not seem to be distorting.

Any advice on what equipment would help “a one-man band” emulate the the HGTV look when video recording interiors? Type of lens? Camera? Type of tripod? What sort of dollies are better (if I have an assistant to move it)? Is HGTV using equipment more sophisticated and expensive than a serious hobbyist like myself or is their shooting technique simply better? Thanks for your thoughts.

For an example of one type of HGTV shoot, check out on YouTube: HGTV Top 10 Lifts – MARTIN RAFFONE interior

[pseudosafari]

I watched it (typo above, it’s Lofts not Lifts, but no biggie, easy to find here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOZI_iNsfwE). I saw some fisheye in some clips like you said, suggesting a wide angle lens.Just throwing this out there but the ones without distortion might be pans across photographs, and not video (it’s easy to photomerge photos in photoshop and have the whole room in one photo). I saw a slider in use there, too. Other than that, I’m interested in hearing what others have to say.

[Grinner Hester]

light it, shoot it smooth… make it look nice.

[Author]

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