This week Brandon demonstrates some tips about surviving and filming a natural disaster or extreme weather event. Last Friday Chico was struck by the storm of the decade that had some devastating consequences, some of the storm and aftermath were captured on video and used as examples for this vidcast.
Hi, I am Brandon Pinard from Videomaker presents, and this week we are going to go over some tips and tricks on how to film in extreme weather and to survive the extreme weather.
Last week, California was hit by one of the biggest storms in ten years and I was able to get some footage of that. So this week I thought I would go back and show you different ways you can capture extreme weather footage and to stay out of the way of the actual disaster.
If you don’t have anything available but a plastic bag, a plastic bag will do fine in protecting your camera. If you have a rain jacket for your camera, this will also work great and is the most ideal thing for shooting extreme weather. In order for the plastic bag to be the most effective, try completely encompassing your camera with the plastic bag, remove your lens hood and then screw your lens hood back on, and remove the piece of plastic in front of your lens. This will enable you to get the clean shot and you will also be able to protect the entire rest of the body of the camera from rain and wind.
If you have an umbrella handy, use it; but, be careful for high winds that can tear the umbrella from your hands and knock you over. Be extremely careful while driving, especially while filming and driving, which is not highly recommended. Constantly keep an eye open while you’re driving and looking for shots, especially trees can fall on you, power lines, debris, you never know; it is an extreme situation!
If possible have a friend drive while you film out of the window. You can use the car as a dolly and get some slow shots that actually yield some good results. And if you have to, let it go; it’s not worth risking your life just to get the shot.
Should you ever find yourself in a situation where you need to use a tripod and you are driving in your car alone, try this simple set-up: putting your tripod on your seat, securing down the legs. And this way I can actually move the tripod around while I drive and film and not have to have anything but my eyes on the road.
Friday, January 4th, 2008
The 10 year Storm…
So now I’m going to show you some example footage that I was actually able to capture last Friday morning during the 10 year storm.
With the rise in extreme weather conditions that the weather has been experiencing over the past few years, these tips might actually come in handy for you. Make sure that anytime you find yourself in an extreme situation, you always keep your eyes open and your head on a swivel. You never know what’s going to happen. Try to be as safe as possible and good luck using these tips and tricks to improve the look of your extreme weather videos.
I am Brandon Pinard, and that’s this week’s tips and tricks. Thanks for watching.
For additional information on shooting in extreme conditions, visit videomaker.com and reference article number 3156, “Neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow: How to protect your gear from the Great Outdoors”. Additionally, reference article number 7982, “Home Video Hints: Baby it’s cold outside”.
We would like to thank the sponsors:
Canon for the cameras,
Mackie for our audio board,
TDK for our blank media,
Samson for our mics and cables,
Sony for the HD TV, and
Focus Enhancements for the Fire Store direct capture devices we are using for our show.
