Saturday, January 10, 2009

Quick tip for one-man-bands

Okay, I'm seeing lots of work from those of you who are one-man-bands in which the person being interviewed is staring directly into the camera.

You can avoid this (and you should, as it always looks weird) by framing up the person, rolling tape, then standing next to the camera as if there were a photog next to you. Make sure the person talks to you and not the camera. Your interviews will look a lot better.

Of course, this only works if you use a tripod, and you always should do so anyway.

As an added bonus, NDs looking at your tape won't be able to tell if you're a one man band... so you won't get "typecast" in that role.

1 comment:

Joey H said...

Adding to that....most of the small DVcams allow you to flip the lcd screen so that it faces out when locked against the side of the camera. If you stand on that side of the camera, you are able to quickly glance at the screen to make sure you shot is still framed correctly.