Sequencing and Storytelling

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Sequencing and Storytelling

You want to make sure that you let the subject's move not the camera so it's your subjects that have the action and one of the easiest ways to do this is expanding on your current poses and you kind of shoot the in between almost so if I have rob here and it's a typical you know, traditional portrait you've got this and you tell them to like you use and look at each other and kiss just how just record that part where they look at each other and kiss and it's just that in between the poses section yeah, I believe one of you guys had it concern about that's like, well, how do I know when to film? How do I know when to stop doing my photographs and when to start filming and if you're soloing invincible demonstrate this it's really just a matter of, like just timing it's a matter of making the client feel comfortable, I wouldn't necessarily say okay now miss you some video of you, right? Right? You know it's more like okay, guys pop up pop up I've got my shots and really happy this looks g...

reat. You guys look great, you know what guys turn and turn and face each other and at that moment you've kind of got your camera ready and you're in video mode and you can kind of capture that slow down just expand on things that you do already and catch what happens in between don't zoom in and out we talked about this already not a natural eye movement for you with your lens zoom in and out if you're going to do an emotion with the camera you want to make sure that it's deliberates ono zooming or panning you definitely can work with but it's just a little bit more difficult so you want to avoid these things and on lee make intentional moves with sliders or the flyers or some I think that yeah zooming is really important because it's it's it's very like it's almost commonplace now because every video camera since the conception of video cameras have zoom feature where you can actually zoom in it's it's attracted to use it you know you can get right in real close on something but the problem with that is is when you zoom out it's not the same as a truck in like in a movie when they move the camera to subject the whole entire camera moves with land ins because when I walked towards somebody my whole entire body is moving toward them not just my eye we're not just my brain going right into the just like a simple concept makes you again watch movies now you're gonna go home and watch movies and be like yeah I know it's the camera's moving toward them it's not a zoom like those sorts of things that are what make filmmaking look polished and professional and it's working spirt to like, look at movies that's how I get robbed, too come to romantic cos the light was really good in the trailer. You should watch the trailer and go, yeah, pressure value it's pretty good true story that's how we want to see the bow, which I didn't like by the way, I'm sorry. So storytelling robin's going to get into this. But do we have some questions before we get? Yes, this is a good time for some questions. He's going talk about storytelling and sequences and then I think we have about fifteen. Well, I actually have a question. You talking about watching movies? So, do you have a movie that you would recommend? That, yes, and all the guys that are really wrong? What extent? I appreciate it seriously, no book is beautifully photographed. You can't say I really like I watched that movie for, like, inspiration. It's. Gorgeous. Is that just white sheet with the guy on the dog farm that came in the woman, the one with the guy in the place, the girl that he was in the war, he found the picture of her while he was off at war and then went like find her. I remember the name, but if anybody in line remembers the name of that, please let us know because that movie it's more recent, it was photographed absolutely beautifully light. And it was any of the romantic comedies or romantic movies chick flicks. Seriously, they are really good for that because today's production values just amazing even in depends on the independent elms. That sense is really quite incredible what people are doing with light. So you look at the way that I look at look at the dimensional lighting, look at the way they're back late in the three point light is presented and just kind of get an idea of watch the motion to watch when they're walking through an office building, you know it's closed before us and light because most office buildings are for us and lights but their faces are like nice and because it looks like tungsten, right? Well, how did they like that? You see the fluorescent lights up on the ceiling but, you know that's, not a light source and a lot of times is a guy with, like, a big soft box in the following the guy with the camera like this on dh that's generally what they do so you will really start to take notice if you have dvds at home, watch the bonus featurettes watch the behind the scenes and see what they do in mimic that because that's how they get those images look the way they do it really is fascinating. I have tomorrow nor on the last day I pull a piece of video that I just shot with past weekend we didn't syriza outside shots for a promo film and we we lit it artificially outside, you have to kind of see it, I'll give you a good demonstration on how that works, okay? Questions over there, a question in the audience went back to her when you were recording outside and talk about the shutter speed and all that I know, like at least that's what I've learned so far, like you have to double your frame rate like fish in a twenty for you should keep it up fifty or something like that? What if you like if freshens like you were shooting outside and no, it wasn't like the cloud goes away and then you got a big, you know, a lot of like if you were using and on the field, so you could just like, you know, dark on that a little bit, right? Yeah, andi filter if you don't know what it is, it's a neutral density filter on there, basically like some glasses for your lines okay, so it cuts down on the amount of light coming into camera. So rather than changing your exposure inside the camera and altering the look of the shot, because if you change your aperture, obviously it's gonna look, you know, change the depth of the shot the nd filters a lot of times have this a focus, a bull ring that allows you to cut down or increase the amount of light that's a lot of into the lens as a great way to compensate for exposure when the light changes outside and then if if you were, I mean, I know you shouldn't do it why you're recording, but if if you were to have two in the, maybe you could just cut in between that all those little cliques, you know, like when you mash in to get him with, wouldn't it like change? The look of it, and michael would be like a sharper it's going to change their look every time we change exposure, you're changing the look of your shot. And this is something we have to deal with when dealing with circumstances that are outside of our control. We can't control the clouds so you know it's sort of like you just have to deal with it that's why movies and again I keep going back to this because having a controlled environment is so much different than shooting on the fly like we do when you watch movies outside they're controlling the light they have a huge amount of control over the amount of phil and what they can do what you know using this the sun is just another light source it's another one of the lights I mean that's how control they have we don't have that luxury so we have to be really careful to just gotta choose places that won't be that drastic the dress that we won't have the drastic changes if possible we try to shoot the shade as much as possible outside and look for some flair trying to shoot in the sun flare and things like that that's more of our style but you know you don't always have that some days you have great overcast days with peaks of sun and some days you just have bright sun directly overhead at twelve off its you know is what it is so by the way folks in the chatroom are saying that the movie is the lucky one thank you internet always has no lucky one absolutely beautiful lighting yeah it was cool so another question from same cocks in loveland, colorado is regarding action shots do you always shoot natural onstage action or do you sometimes ask people to do certain things or repeat certain actions? Definitely, yeah, you'll see you'll see we'll me shoot in the next segment. I'm intentionally asking them I'm definitely working with my client or my clients, and they know that they give me the time to do that, and they enjoy giving us the time to do that, and a lot of times we'll repeat things and just make it look there's also a time in place during bride's crap, I'm gonna let the bride get ready. If I need something, I'll wait till there's a moment of downtime in alaska, help me do something. Ah, first, look, when the bridegroom see each other before the wedding for the first time, I tell my clients I need complete control over that, and I called photographer. I'll let them know. Hey, man, just we're gonna work together on this because it's really important for the video that that comes together with a sequence of shots, which is perfect leads, leads us right to the next thing that we're gonna talk about that I've got to make sure that I'm getting all these different angles clean with no obstructions and no other people in my shots, so we definitely always ask for that freedom and because our clients know what to expect from our work they don't mind giving us that control so yes alright so you want to get into sequences with about ten minutes yeah let's do this we have so probably about five minutes for sequencing and then section after that yeah, I think we have about twenty minutes good before better break perfect even better I'm gonna need a battery so of you you're better they're over there one charging on the wall right there is all of you let's talk about sequencing what is sequencing? Well if you ever watch a movie thank you so much appreciate there's usually whenever you're there showing something let's say the movie starts and we fly down from the sky into this window. Okay then we cut to the interior and it's a bed and it's a guy laying in bed. Okay, well, we don't know who the guy is yet were being introduced to our main character. Okay, the guy rises up out of bed and he stretches and puts a skit on the floor. Then he walks into the bathroom and he opens up the medicine cabinet. He pulls out his toothbrush when he turns on the faucet he put his toothbrush under the faucet he put toothpaste on it and start brushing his teeth we for you see his face for the first time in the mirror as it closes that was a sequence ok, I've taken eight or six to eight shots or something that they could be three to four shots whatever it is and I've made a story visually nobody said a thing there may not have even been music but we told the story what was the story I get nothing right were being introduced to the main character that's a sequence I shoot that pretty much whatever I'm doing okay and not necessarily do I tell them ok, do this and then do this and you're gonna do this we're gonna do this but I'm thinking sequence when I'm filming something for example if we could go to the tether here I'm just going to try to do this the best like it all right? So let's pretend vanessa is getting her makeup done. Okay? Can we have somebody standing? Would somebody mind coming up stepping up and just being on camera? Anybody being a makeup artist? Anybody anybody you wanna switch here let's do this? Yeah that's your makeup brush I think that your makeup okay, so just like start rubbing on her like kind of like ok, so this is one shot in my sequence, right this's two shots in my sequence this is three shots in my sequence and again not going for beauty that's three shots in my sequence and then if I could stretch around here keep going that's four shots in my sequence you see the tv in there but basically that's that's a sequence I shot four shots from four different angles but it tells a story of what's going on what do we show the nest is getting your make up done who's doing the makeup oh, this person is doing the makeup what kind of tour they're using there's that close upon the tool and then why shot just to save the environment to sequence okay, everything I shoot is a three or four shot sequence everything that I do. So even if it's just me even if I didn't have a team of cinematographers okay, I'm still gonna shoot for the sequence. Okay? So bride getting dressed same thing zip up the back of the dress let's cut to a wide shot of mom and the bride silhouetted against the window. Then we'll cut to a closeup of the bride's face she's getting nervous is getting excited we cut to a closeup of mom smiling gotta tear running down her face what it also does make the appearance that you have more than one camera person there is well, right because you see all the sunday all these different angles of the exact same I think I remember the first time you saw sequencing it was like, well, he had to have three cameras there no, no and that's the thing a lot of people say well, I watch your films behind when you have like, eight guys know I have three in an audio tech but we cover a lot of ground, you know? And even if you're shooting fusion which is what this whole thing is about and you just one person you saw what I just did with one camera and how long did I hold the shot for four or five seconds max but that will cut together really nicely if I want to create a sequence out of it and when you're dealing with futures and a lot of times what is putting one of those shots next to a photograph and that becomes your sequence so we could be close up of vanessa getting our makeup done and maybe the photograph is the silhouette of them in the window. Okay, that is sequencing use it study it really makes a huge difference in your films watched some of the best event film makers in the world still motion and roman these guys are masters at sequencing they know how to tell a story visually the audio is even secondary it's like maybe during that part we're hearing the groom read his vows not at church but at the house prepping them right so we see this makeup being done we hear jeanette, you know you're the love of my life I'm just so excited to see you later on today, and then after we showed that sequence, we're cutting to the him doing his his vast that's sequencing you're telling a story with multiple different things going on, so yeah, so that's a s'mores you really need to get into that because it really applies to any situation. I could be taking the gorilla pot off of this camera, and I could do a six shot sequence of me taking this thing off the bottom of the camera just because there's a lot of different angles. You know what you think in four dimensions? You gotta think, like, three dimensionally to when I shoot something. I wasn't just standing here the whole time. I wasn't just standing here with this angle. I went from here to here to here, tio, here and by doing that, it kind of created environment of world around them. So you want to think and freedom in three dimensions, everything that's going on around? Yeah. Think three sixty around your subject or even that was really just one. Eighty. Yeah, that was really one. Eighty and a lot of times, it is mostly just won it because a lot of it is a wall. You know, a lot of times things happen up against walls and we have to work around that so that's fine you'll see this in action tomorrow and I want you to remember this tomorrow tomorrow when I turned even going member I was talking about sequencing I'm going to show you exactly how I do that when we mock the wedding okay you really see that action so we could go back to the point now thank you so that mimics movies way we talked about that opening scene of a movie that really does kind of mimic it three or four shots per sequins and find a theme what is the theme of what I just shot your make up done right pretty simple you're going to see when we shoot the senior in a few minutes he's gonna have things he's doing that's the theme we're going to focus on the theme and tell a story using different shots and angles close ups wide shots medium shots all those air going to prise the story so shoot for the sequence three to four shots different angles variations of close ups mediums and why shots that makes the story interesting to the I try to keep continuity so here's a perfect example let's say she was over here she had the makeup brush right and it's it's it's a it's a it's a it's a blush brush big fat brush right so I'm still me well, I've been waiting industry, so I know how the bustle address it's scary, so basically so I'm filming that and we see this big fat brush. But then when I come over here to cut to that or along the usa's shot from over here and she's using on eyeliner pencil you, now you've broken continent it's not that important infusion, but it is important in films and it's something to be aware of. So when you're shooting it's, just you and your doing photographs of you and a senior and he's bouncing the ball in his left hand, and then you go to another shot bouncing in his right hand that's a break in continuity, so try to keep continuity in mind when you are shooting. Differentiate your movement. This is also important here. You just watched me do that entire sequence with my mama pod, okay, if I wanted to break it up and I normally will do this, I'll do three shots with the mono pod and I'll grab the slider, pop it on the floor, and then you have the makeup artists, feet and vanessa's feet, and they do a slide of just their feet. I don't know it's just different, okay, but it breaks up the monotony of the same thing you shot from different angles. Like I talked about before think three dimensionally okay think all around your subject three hundred sixty degrees what can you get to tell the story in three hundred and sixty degrees? Okay, questions about sequencing anything thing is so much fun, it just it adds ah higher production value to what you're doing you can definitely use it, you know you can string like two or three clips together near fusion piece like that watch my films go to my website rob adam's films outcome don't do it now, but later on if you get a chance to go look at the films you'll see sequencing in every part whether it's the ceremony, whether it's, the bride even getting ready photo session, everything sequence everything sequence and it really adds to the story. Wait, do you have a couple questions? So d dennis from italy asks, do you follow one hundred eighty degree camera rule when shooting or do you just get us many angles as possible? No that's a great question again, this doesn't really apply to fusion so much because a lot of times using just one camera, one video on photo or one person but let me answer that question because it's important there's this one eighty rule called the z axis rule okay for example, these guys are filming and they're all on one side of us okay our behind the scenes crew here if one of them was over here filming the same thing they'd be crossing the one eighty line so if you have would you mind again honey I'm sorry let's say these two young ladies are my bridegroom ok and they're sitting watching a toast somebody give a speech okay? And vanessa is the person giving the speech and I want to film them in such a way that when we cut the shots together they're looking at each other okay this is looking for the right of the screen from my perspective and my bridegroom are looking to the left of the screen from my perspective for you it's back okay so I'm going to shoot one one camera here and one camera here okay so when we cut these two shots together they're looking the correct way if I put one camera here and one camera here what happens there both looking the same direction on camera so we cut the vanessa she's looking to the right cut to them they're looking to the we're looking to the right as well that doesn't look right it should be like this like this so the one eighty rule is anything that you're shooting you want to imagine a line just going straight down the middle of their forehead and you don't want to cross if you have two cameras they should be on the same side of that wall that's right? A question from osi lauren when shooting your different angles for sequence do you record continuously or did you stop according between the shot good question if the action is happening very quickly I will leave the camera rolling it just depends I wouldn't recommend that at first because they want to make your editing a little bit harder you have to try to find like where was I know I shot some good in this clip right find it the difference is I'm using final cut pro seven and it's like I'm really quick with it and going through my clips and finding things if you're new to video editing it's gonna be very difficult for you to navigate to those specific points so investing to do is go one, two, three, four stop move one, two, three, four and just do that and then you'll find that when you look at your clips and whatever program your thumb now will be of that shot so you know the first shot is the close out the second shot was the makeup brush the third shot was the wide shot and that'll just make navigating and everything so much more simple so I have one more question frank from the netherlands I think this is a great question my thought, but when I shoot video with my dslr, a lot of people freeze because they're thinking I'm taking a still photograph so how do you make it clear that you're shooting don't look at me, I know it's a tough thing way eyes this time especially because it usually happens during the reception where you could say something and they can't hear you anyway because the music is too loud or they're too drunk so you just I mean, I'd like to just like, okay that's so great and move on and kind of go onto the next thing it's one of those things you just have to be nice don't don't be mean but just you know, I'm just shooting video here you just ignore me happens all the bridesmaids in the morning my bride's I'm like, listen, you know, just tell everybody like the night of the rehearsal dinner just to ignore the videographer when he shows up and I like you when I walk into a house and nobody even acknowledge my existence and like it's kind of weird but it's good, because now when I point the camera at somebody nobody's gonna freeze up on usually tell somebody if I catch them like if if you're looking the other way and I'm filming you and then you look at me and you go like that with a deer in the headlights look, I go no, don't worry about it if I'm shooting you, it means you're doing something right ignore me and they will and they'll just go back to doing what they do which is good so we have about five minutes before break did you okay wanna keep going or I think you want to expound upon anything like way doing more expressions right? I'd rather questions there was more condo before break. Okay, great. So a question from mallee photo was s so you were talking about continuity if continuity is broken would you just trash the whole sequence or re stage to complete the sequence if I know continuity is broken and I have and I feel that comfort level with my client but if it's a senior chute or an engagement shoot I know I have that ability say hey guys let's do that again but if it's a wedding and the bride seems stressed out and there late and the make up artist is running long and I know she wants to get your dress I'm not going to stop them I'm just gonna deal with it in the end I'm gonna figure out a way to make it work now lot of the times nobody's gonna notice those continents nudie issues except me but it's what I like to be a perfectionist with these things so if I showed you guys my films, you probably wouldn't see things that were wrong that I go oh my goodness that I screw that up but like viewers don't really pick up on it unless it's blatantly obvious she has a hat on now she doesn't have a handle on you know things like that so may continuity something that's in the foreground of your mind but same time break it you don't have time to fix it it's not the end of the world right just use the first two secret shot yeah just you shorten the sequence so this is going back a bit tio exposure on kanto asks in exposure if you're shooting an aperture priority instead manual and changing your amateur while shooting will you still get that click and that that darkman and bright no you won't it's a matter of fact well it's ok if you are changing your aperture yes you will get the click if your camera is changing your exposure and shudder no we never shoot on these modes but I have played around with your right yes you will see the click but when it's changing it for you if you find that the cameras doing before you is not generally changing your shutter it's boosting or decreasing your eyes which is bad it's bad that means you could be outside and if it gets dark we need to compensate it's gonna jump your eyes go up and then you just get noise so be careful on aperture and shutter priority moods when shooting video I don't really recommend it try to shoot manual whenever possible and a question from them in studios how much b roll do you shoot for a wedding or engage session? Okay fusion were wedding eyes again fusion fusion really whatever how many poses that we do with the photography for the stills? I'll have about three or four shots of video for each one of those so let's say we did sixteen poses I guess with that being normal announced or I usually think about it in the bigger picture if I am showing about thirty pictures in the slide show, I usually end up having four or five video clips in there so I kind of think big picture not really poses but you can kind of look at that so maybe twenty percent of what you're shooting is video clips right? A cz long as your clips are short and you're not rolling at length and making these really long files, I don't think you can shoot too much, so he asked like how much b roll dough I shoot it depends on what I'm shooting if it's going to be like a senior portrait, which we don't like engaging sessions or something like that it's a lot probably like a hundred video clips or something like that it's hard to tell I've never really counted I just know when I get back I know I have good stuff to work that's what I tried to go for, alright, any more questions in the audience? I know how you guys feeling with a ce faras absorbing the information. Are you finding that you're picking up on concepts and not to confuse the oh good, good this, she said, they're getting excited. That's, that's what we want that's very good, so because we're going to shoot next week. So ian upstairs has told me that a lot of people are asking about the best memory cards, did you? I don't have any way to talk about that or yeah, obviously the faster they record, the better and as faras like, read and write speeds and if you're shooting ah, whole wedding and you plan on shooting video clips, you probably want to go with the least like a thirty two gig card for a portrait sesh shin, I'm going to go with the sixteen basically, just like anything else, the more the merrier, you know you're going to end up having really big files from these video clips. They are large files, so the more memory have, the better. We like to use the brand sandisk I love sandisk recovery portion of sandusky is awesome um, that's, what use abroad uses thirty two good car was nigel sick? Thirty two thousand. Sixteen's. Depending. I don't put all my eggs in one basket, and if I'm doing a wedding and I'm shooting video, we're dumping off to a external device as we go. Cards have been known to fail, but hard drives have been known to fail, too, so we try to back up as we go. Yeah, I I don't want to. I don't want to lay slam any brands, but it seems to me that go with the name brand for memory card. I've heard a lot of stories about lower end or, you know, off brand memory cards, giving more problems than they all are prone to problems. But I think the lower end ones tend to have slightly more problems, so protect yourself, spend a little bit more money and get a better car.

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