Use an exterior monitor????

[Chino]

Recently I was told that I should be using a monitor when taping video. The person meant an external monitor instead of the LCD viewer. He is adamant and says it’s very important. The fellow is a professional Hollywood lighting engineer and has been around all aspects of movie making. I respect Videomaker and have never seen this addressed in their magazine. Can anyone tell me if an exterior monitor is really necessary?
THANKS!

[TomScratch]

Hi,
You are right. Videomaker should address this if it has not.
Using a monitor is a good idea for controlled environments, such as staged scenes indoors, including interviews, music videos. (For sure, impractical for a lot of situations. If doing a doc involving on the fly shooting, imagine dragging a monitor along on the streets of Iraq or even at your best friend’s wedding …) Having a monitor is another tool to help you to achieve the best possible video images. A monitor is very helpful in setting up lights for an interview for example. When doing my own on-camera work, it has been invaluable in the trial and error process of lighting the subject, e.g., making it easier to minimize reflections on eyeglasses. The viewfinder and flip out viewer are small. It is easy to overllook controllable details that can be the difference between O.K. video and professional looking video. I have had situations where I was recording lighting flare but could not see this problem in the viewfinders. If I had a monitor, I would have corrected this immediately. Only when I got back to the studio and watched on the monitor there, did I discover the problem. (Problem was caused by a UV “lens protection” filter, when I was shooting performances primarily lit by colored stage lighting. No more filters for these shoots!!!) The higher you go in this field, the more you will see the advantage of full size monitors at the shoot. BTW, many years ago, Hollywood film directors, shooting in 35 mm film and bigger formats, started using video monitors to check shots on the spot as they went along, a departure from 100 years of waiting for the day’s footage to be processed by the lab and returned to the director that night for review of the day’s film footage, called “dailies.”
REGARDS … TOM 8)

[Chino]

That makes perfect sense. Thanks, Tom!

[Anonymous]

Ditto the above on the use of a monitor. It sure can make life easier.

One of my young videographers hates dragging along a monitor. One day he spent two hours on a shoot for a training video. The viewfinder was bright so he darkened the view finder vice stopping down. Then he shot for two hours. He said it looked fine in the viewfinder. If he had taken the external monitor he would have seen his mistake immediately. Reshooting the footage he disliked even more. He learned.

I advocate using the external monitor whenever practical.

[Anonymous]

i shoot now 5 years, mostly in a theatre/ studio setting, could not do it without my monitor and camera mounted lcd.

greetings

[Anonymous]

With the falling prices of large LCD/HD moniters, even the Independent videographer should be able to afford a decent sized flat (thin) LCD or HD moniter.
As previously stated having an external source to view (particularly one that has been tuned to the proper color setting prior to the shoot) can save you and your projects loads of time and money. The investment is definitly worth it. If worse comes to worse, go out buy a cheap tv, adjust the color in a controlled setting, and use that as your external.
Except for the Iraq cenario, it’s not that absurd to have one around all the time. If you’re really confined to a space consider using a uhf broadcaster/receiver setup and have your DP/etc view the moniter up to 200 feet or more from the camera. This style of setup is used prominently in the news medias and ENG shooting.

[basill]

This is great information, I thank you all for your input. Question: How can i go about setting up a monitor on set? For example I have acess to either 2 canon XH A1 or 2 Sony HVR V1U cameras so what is required to connect these cameras to the monitor in order for me to view what is being shot from both cameras?

I have a 22″ flat screen monitor and a 19″ flat LCD monitor. How can i view on the monitor what is happening on the cameras? Are there wireless devices for the cameras. I have only been shooting video for a little over a year and now I am thinking about getting serious with this great hobby!

[bpetrarca]

Can anyone tell me how to connect an exterior monitor to a camcorder? I would like to use a hard drive camcorder but wouyld like to be able to see footage numbers on a remote monitorsitting at a desk in a classroom environment while the camera is recording.

[MTZTX]

Adobe’s Production Suitehas bundled the new software OnLocation (not sure if it is sold seperately, but right now it only works on PCs not Macs) where you can hook your cameradirectly toa laptop and make all of your adjustments and correction to you camera before you start to film. Plus it records directly to you hard drive, so you dont have to capture!!!It also has an effortless control for replying when you are on location filming, if you need to go back and review something or you need to show your client a particular clip. I have mine on order and it will be here Thurs.not sure if anyone else hasused this software, but it does eliminate the need of carring a tv to your shoots.

[Anonymous]

another capture option from Applied-Magic is HD Direct:

[videolab]

I would like to note that inexpensive LCD monitors are NOT good for monitoring color. CRTs are much more reliable, and then must be calibrated on bars to ensure that they are trustable.

[faqvideo]

There are some industry standards. Usually ENG cameramen never use monitors. It takes skills, but normally people hardly ever screw it up. Look at major TV network – there is no monitors there except for the studio work.

Production houses often use monitors. Director, producer and probably the customer, all want to see the picture on the monitor to make sure the cameraman knows what he is doing. It makes some creative opportunities as well, like little brain storms on the shoot, etc.

DIY Wedding Video

[Author]

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