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Gear for Staying Mobile

Lesson 9 from: Keep it Simple: Video for Photographers

Lindsay Adler, Jeff Rojas

Gear for Staying Mobile

Lesson 9 from: Keep it Simple: Video for Photographers

Lindsay Adler, Jeff Rojas

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Lesson Info

9. Gear for Staying Mobile

Next Lesson: Focusing Techniques

Lesson Info

Gear for Staying Mobile

so everything that we've talked about so far it's on a tripod it's on a base on the ground it's not you moving it's the camera moving but you can also move eso they're a couple different ways to do this and weave like I want to start with showing my favorite one okay this is what we use this is I'm addicted to this ok well I love the fact that synovate products integrate with one another other companies do the exact same thing what I like is that they incorporate the they incorporate the man from amounts so I can literally just completely adjust everything no questions asked the quick release for this system is a man from amount I don't have to sit there make adapters and figure out what needs to be done this is a a shoulder rig it's a duel simplest shouldering on the right hand side there it's meant to create three points accountable for points of contact once you have your face in here so ones on my shoulder right hand left hand and face inside this screen we talked about the fact th...

at this is almost like a forty inch screens it's really easy to focus handheld aiken sit here all day and be fine if I get tired and I wanted to focus I can focus my right hand if I get tired I can go with my left hand it just it's multipurpose that specific way with any shouldering you want to treat it like a shotgun so if you guys have ever shot a shotgun it's he's been make sure that you're not stephan rigid breathe relax and take it easy and as usual you're more stable at the end of a breath so you can breathe out and hold it there yes so one thing that I don't see up there on dh I'm sure somebody else out in internet land is thinking this too I don't see follow focus do you use it follow focus I personally okay so way have one and would've followed focuses for theirs look there's a no it's further so there is we do have a picture of it on so what it basically lee is is when you have your camera it is less stable and less fluid to focus well here is my focus will bring here so what actually does it makes it so it's more or less ah knob on the side into some of them how it's made is you actually can mark points so you can move from one point to the next and be able to know this's one focus point to the other sophie like racking focus which we'll talk about it a little bit so go ahead for me this is the only thing that I use and this is the only thing that I need because of using this just for me personally it's so crisp and clear I can see where my points are without having to mark points that makes any sense I know which way to turn my camera two focus either on the subject closer on the subject the way it's taken practice to figure out I couldn't tell you right off the bat like right now what I do I just literally hold it I can turn it with my left hand and I know it kind of comes into focus with the subject moving forward and then the second a racket back it kind of goes back it's been muscle memory more than anything like anything else like photography sometimes you switch a switching you like whatever I already know what my eyes saw you shoot that that's no problem with this it's more fluid than using your lens this literally for those of you that don't know what this is it clips to the back your lens on your focus I'm going to put it all away on their but it has more of a fluid motion as it moves across then your standard focus ring right so this would be your focus it's it's pretty short pretty jarring this almost extends it out a little further so you have more wiggle room more leverage so this would be my explanation of it um I experimented with a bunch of follow focus rings and a bunch of and a focus pulling mechanisms the only ones that I thought really work for were really expensive in my experience so this give me similar quality for what I was trying to achieve for significantly less cost I think I also got burned they bought some inexpensive ones right away that they fell apart and they wouldn't work there goes back to the government lost short you absolutely positively can uh use them and it's also cool if you happen to have an assistant who they can see the marks so what you actually do how they do it in the movies or bigger productions is you're holding it you have the ring there and so when you say go basically they just moved the ring between those two marks so I can move focus from you to the table it's somebody's job actually do that sunset there's a lot of weird jobs on set but that's focus puller that's somebody's full time paid job on set this to make sure as a subject's tracking in a specific shot that they're completely getting that person and focused every single time so what they'll do is pre marked different areas and at that point they'll say ok I know this person's gonna be focused here they'll make points again focus at that specific point while that person's doing that so it's it's the whole job for me personally that's too complicated so this is keep it simple that's the easiest way to keep it simple use a big screen see what you can see make sure it's nice and crisp and clear and use the focus ring if you have to there's um just okay sorry not get off topic but there's also a job of somebody who their entire job is at the end of the day if they know they'll have to pick up the set the same we're gonna start here tomorrow I have to write down every detail exactly how far up someone sleeve was rolled like when thiss the cigarette was halfway smoked when they ended so that there's continuity in movies so something this one is like a profession like fault fruit pulp fiction is like all over the place it's like messed up with the person was not paying much attention well I think that was a prop master that's generally the job of somebody who has to design all the things that make sure that they're all exactly the same yeah there's like there's just like when a person has to like write everything down it's really funny the other option for shoulder rig is this hokuto marauder that's a nice system it's extremely compact so you can literally fold everything in toe where it fits in a small tiny bag just told us all that would've folded I probably should've filled the other side first it's a very very small footprint so you can fit it in your camera back it's really nice it's about seven hundred fifty dollars it's considered a gorilla rick so it's one that you can keep in your bag take it out when you need it put it on your camera and you're ready to go my disposition on it's it's nice it feels a little awkward for the way that I shoot and that's just may it's built like a shotgun basically is to your shoulder and its one point so you have eh I can actually get this sword it's one handed your weight sits at the front if you guys look this way my my camera would sit on top of my head a little angle just fine philip bloom if you guys follow him at all shoots with the specific rig I personally you're supposed to use like your left hand hold it here hold the lens on top I feel that having the weight all the way out the front as a photographer is a little finicky because I'm not used to shooting this way I'm used to shooting with weight closer towards may so they have the option of literally just switching back to this way switching the quick release out to the front towards you using let's say this using the viewfinder on top which is great so if you want it too it could be nice and close and and crispy groups and actually locket and that would be smart so fine so there's zack kudo and synovate the shoulder rig's that they've created you can completely customize so they have all these different pieces you can look they're made so you can buy an ad pieces on and build it what you like so for example if you go to this innovate site they show you like fifty different ways that you can customize your rig so I think this is what I love they all intermix and intermingle but it's it's kind of cool to see the different variations that you have a downside to the zoo kudo stuff is they have their own quick release their own specific quickly so you have to either have you mentioned invent something so you can put it together or you can by the what to go there and throat amount mounted basically well this is an actual quickly mounted basically on top of this so now that's additional way it's additional parts that you need it it's fine if you're kind of choose okay my thought process choose a brand stick with it okay so either decide am I going to go with zoo kudo or am I going to go with sin of it and you kind of have to make that correlation beforehand because everything in the mixes with each other there's other bands as well but plenty I mean there's many each of these you can buy parts for you khun grow your specific women you're next okay okay so this is the same ring that I'm using the only difference is has a shoulder pad right over the back and I could literally just take off the back end of that that little tiny piece and add that whole extension over so it's almost like if you guys want po come on when you were kids you know they kind of evolve same thing same thing I told you when to nerd sample same thing with his dakota scorpion so you khun ad you know build a kit and a rig that feels comfortable for you you can start putting external monitors on there you can start adding things to it which is really really nice rhino rig is going to be the same thing that one doesn't release till january they're going to start putting things together just cool so psycho pete look at something shot with this regret here do you want to tell the story of this it's an ex lied okay this specific piece so you guys can laugh I'm gonna look down for a bit so lindsay and I met and we replicated our first date and this is kind of a stream of consciousness so we filmed a couple in the exact same park that we had our first date at so the video that way shot was in the perspective each of our prospectus for that specific day so you're going to see us ruin completely one hundred eighty degree rule because it's from our mindset we're both shooting you associate with each other and it's it's pretty and one hundred percent okay yes we're gonna watch it out and she was one hundred percent shot with this correct so we put between us we just turns out it was just taking turns basically so he could shoot his perspective on it and I could shoot my perspective on it so wait I just might put covet the playback was really jerky is actually completely smooth so I'm assuming in the final one you guys some bins this movement okay um but if you go to jeff rohaas is video if you look him up you can see it's up there so just check out him on video so the entire thing we took turns and was shot what an hour and a half two hours that's about two and a half hours something like that with the shoulder that's literally always that ineighty five like eighty five millimeter lens and nothing else on my shot because he likes to shoot a little bit longer I shot like anything that you saw that was a wide shot by shot because that's I was going for more that's my style is going for more overall scene so yes so that when you were doing more storytelling I'm wondering do you ever use text in any of your videos to give her ad well you know you're going to see that tomorrow you're goingto be there firsthand we'll leave it a little surprise but we're gonna have to do something with audio so you guys gonna help me put that together that uh all I ever do is having like a title come in midway through that's really about it except for okay granted uh myself where do interviews for clients so it's a client talking about what it was like to be an olympian you know and so it'll say for example cappie pondexter olympian like across the bottom things like that and then adding the credits at the end so that's a big sense of the word weird news and I use okay uh gonna back up real quick they went out of order slightly okay camera stabilizers um these are what you would know is like city cans glide cans there's what's the writer everyone called all right steady steady on there's a million different is actually the rhino studies what we're giving away that's another portion of the giveaway yeah so the giveaway if you go to my facebook page which is facebook dot com for it's less lindsay out there photography there is a competition on there were just entered when you don't have to do anything for it on there's over a thousand dollars in that giveaway of miscellaneous things including expert disc and a rhino steady on so you can find out all there and if you guys have watched a couple other instructors teach they usually teach we like body riggs and this is the which is nice it's fine but it's not feasible for us as photographers so this is your alternative to body rig to replicate movement in regards to a nice clean crisp steady shot across a plain so since this is keep it simple video we do not have it here and we're not going to teach how to use it because it takes a lot of practice I have never met somebody who picked it up and got it to work right away at all what you're doing is you're holding this back handle and you're adjusting the weight system based on your camera and lens so you actually can't even change your lens because you're very specifically balancing that rig for the camera lens set up so if you want to be a photographer and shoot fusion you're not going to do it if you have one camera you would have basically have to have a camera designated for that war a camera and lens the combo there's jobs specifically that's a steady candidate came operators right so there's body riggs there's tools as techniques for these people to use the specific tool glide cam itself we went to turkey took it with us for a music video and it took me forty five minutes before I got frustrated decided not to balance it not to use and find something else to shoot because you have like you said used two seconds which lends you have to re balance the whole thing and it could take you half an hour to balance it correctly there are people that can do it very very quickly but that's if you're not willing to put in the time it's not gonna happen kind of like if you get one of those retouching tablets and you don't learn how to use it and I don't just sit there forever same exact theme rhino studies a little easier it could take like five to ten minutes to set everything because a little plates that go across the whole unit so they make it a little easier for you to build it's difficult the glad campaigns that little balancing plate that's very difficult to find their currently out of stock and regards for the last eight months they've been out of some of those little balancer that sits on top of a uh what's called a light stand and you could just balance the whole thing it's extremely easy to use but yet you can't find it right now unless you go to ebay okay so just take a look at what that does this is just from the behind the scenes video you saw before we use the jib same thing where who it's applicable for and when you would want to put the effort and I would say for event photographers to me it doesn't look cinematic to me you don't think that the whole thing is that you're experiencing a space so if I'm walking into the church and I'm holding it it's almost like the perspective the perspective you have is a person walking through that specific space you could walk in look left look right um the one I see it use very very often for is the first dance so the first dance they're walking around the couple and if it's balanced you can walk change your angle change your direction it stays perfectly smooth so you could just do circles around them you're not going to get that whatsoever with a shoulder rig because it's your steps the whole time and I don't know the chatrooms going to say this but the movie the thing that's been on tv which is that that political it's basically a gyroscope that you hold on with both hands it's fifteen thousand dollars just knows amazing that it goes from a couple hundred to fifteen grand so the stabiliser the glad hand that I have I think that was it was with four maybe and like I said there are other brands in their different price points but yeah if you do weddings and events and that's when I would say maybe learn it and investigate the rhino studies anywhere from like two fifty two three hundred so it really depends on what you're trying to do it's one of those things where if you like it and that's your thing by all means invest in it if you don't feel like you will feel like practicing this technique by all means it's just an option for you for movement just a simple question I know we're not going to get into like all of the many different various types of things but pixie crimes specifically how do you feel about the fig rings have you used those at all I haven't just having no perfect amazing um okay so we're talking about mobile right shoulder riggs and steady cams and glad handing all of this up okay so here's how I feel about these lovely things you may have seen these perhaps with the guy that ran it into the bride and groom's head and I won't see them you won't see a thing there's this wedding photographer who he was doing a wedding video and ran right into the groom's head and so you see the second half of the video he's a big gash of blood for the rest they cleaned him up he hasn't like on his cheek and stuff like that and they're they're really cool about it and like how uploaded to youtube it's hilarious I'm like you almost cut the guy's head off my mind I mean it's it does not do it but anyway so this just called the deejay ay phantom and the high end ones you could actually get so that well this is a it's a copter okay so flies over things when we use that he uses it because he's a video game nerd and I don't know like I'm not as intuitive with I'm not is intuitive for how they work but the ones that most of us would use because those air like seven eight nine grand actually have your five year whatever mounted in comparison the reason it's so difficult because three hundred sixty degrees as it's moving in a plane it's not like it's not this access it's everywhere all at once you have to kind of be spatially aware yeah and the base price is like five six hundred for youto have it for a production value like four thousand so it's worth more than our first cars like that's what we've concluded but it's a toy if you want to play with a toy it can be used it just needs a lot of investment to be consider for production value yeah so just to reiterate that the high end ones are intended for de solares but they're going to be many many thousands the less expensive one so the gj fan that we have here works with the gopro okay the gopro hero three and the base rig that you get you can fly it around and it works great and she said he said it's like five hundred bucks but it's not stabilized so when it takes off it shakes and when you turn it shakes and so okay so that's problematic so what you do is you send it back in to them and they add basically gyroscope gimbal to it so it balances that hell of a sudden it's perfectly smooth but you can't see where you're pointing it so then you get an adapter which talks to a little screens I see where you're pointing it but at that point you're at three thousand so this is just what I would say to you uh some people use this amusing beautifully and there's nothing wrong absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to buy a random photo toys to have fun with but chances are this isn't going to make you money unless you make this your thing because there are people that are aerial specialists that's what they do I'm going to show you a clip actually from a friend of mine who that's what he does but that focuses on if you guys do have to install this by the way since you do have because you have to sort her stuff back and you don't have to send it back in but if your experience isn't suffering dslr pros actually put ours together on day were gracious enough to do they have like a two month waiting period at this point because they have so many going in but they're gracious gracious enough for us to get ours back so we can practice again with so in other words they're awesome but they kind of are awesome and I know that you feel this is so awesome by their stupor there so so so off with the deejay but the phantom which costs less than five hundred like you said if you really wanted to work while you're saying it's going to be three grand it's about that make it okay work well enough that you would use it in a production it's not stable enough not smooth enough anything until you added all those things this is what we'll probably get away from me seventeen hundred to make it use this is like a mini movie right so it's a complete stabilizer that's seven hundred bucks okay and then you can't see anything once it's up there you're literally looking at it so now you want ftv now you want to see what's going on over there that's another four hundred dollars plus installation plus sending it out plus making sure that everything is well it is using this in the city yes yes way don't know about the laws that I should live in manhattan so I'm asking them if they buy these helicopters there are people who are jumping in the chat room and letting us know that apparently you do need an faa license to do it commercially so if you're making money from your work you need to be able to have a license from the faa to actually use one but they're just doing it personally for fun than you could do it and it's so I think we're going t o is the same people guerrilla shooting and jumping over a fence is to get the shot so what I would teo we're in we're in central park we live on central park so you go fight in central park but like I'm sure they're all crash sure there's laws that were not but there's god can't fly because you can lift it up faa you're not around to fly it over four hundred feet right you can't use it for commercial use that way but at the same token new york city there's so much crime going on the last thing they're gonna think about this question is very versatile with little you heard it here first so don't mess with the faa everybody no it's all right mom right along so what I want to show you is so this is a clip by a photographer videographer focuses on video his name's aaron grimes and so that's what he's devoted his time to recently young guy like early twenties way just grabbed a little clip and this is shot with the gopro hero three and this setup that you see right here he doesn't have those regulations thing I personally think that's pretty incredible two shot with a gopro it looks amazing so you can add production value for sure if that's what you're interested we're just going you're just just find buying a toy oh please you were the one thing that I'm good there suzy q was like I need it and then we get it and I'm like he's like a hot shake he is that way yeah yeah yeah I think your your position there like I need to use it as much as possible oh and so the last thing for staying mobile mobile moving around you could use a mono pod we just included this because it's funny this is my first clip ever he held the model pot above his head in the tree that's the shot that it looks like ten feet above my head I mean way of that focussing infinity and just dragging it into the tree that was like my first clip that I was like oh my god this is amazing I look back now and I'm like what is that

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Ratings and Reviews

a Creativelive Student
 

This great workshop helps me to start a new experience with video, Lindsay and Jeff are so clever with a teaching very easy to follow, now I know the basics to work with movement, I got a new vision on how to take advantage of many years of photography experience, this is a new medium but image itself is the same, I recommend this to any newbie interested on getting a solid base to start.

Elly Alenka Dream
 

Fantastic class! Watching it in 2019 - and still finding relevant. Excellent way to ease photographers into the scary waters of video footage and production... and perfect for somebody who already has some basics to take it up a notch and challenge themselves quite a bit! Loved this class, very helpful.

a Creativelive Student
 

I bought this class because, I recently bought my first DSLR with filming capabilities. But when I start looking at it and after watching a couple of instructionvideos on YouTube I kinda got overwhelmed. This class broke it all down into clear pieces for me. Lindsay and Jeff have nice and clear teaching style. They covered everything but didn't get to far into the nitty gritty details. They always told how important something was and if you have to do it in a certain way or that is your artistic choice. I certainly can start off with making video with a lot more confidence now. The course is packed with information. It took me much longer then 3 days to watch and take 37 pages of notes!

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