What makes you you? Are you afraid of heights? Do you love bright colors? Or soft light? Do you often have to make due with less equipment than you’d like? When’s the first time you remember feeling loved? These things, and many, many other things, are what make you you and different from ever

The long take or the ‘Oner’ as it’s also known has been getting a lot of attention recently with the release of Alejandro Iñárritu’s “Birdman,” a new milestone in its use. In the tradition of Alfred Hitchcock’s classic film “Rope,” “Birdman” is filmed in what looks like one c

The action camera market segment, popularized by GoPro, has made point of view (POV) filmmaking accessible to the masses. There’s something compelling about watching filmmakers share their adrenaline rush with an audience. An action camera’s stunning image quality and ability to mount to

It may seem a little counter-intuitive, but in slow motion, you actually take more frames during the same period of time, so a “high” frame rate means “slow” video. Normally a video camera takes 30 frames per second and then plays back 30 frames per second. To slow down what we see on the screen, we

When most people hear about action videos they think of extreme sports videos showing people doing really crazy stunts in some of the most beautiful parts of the world, but one thing that identifies an action video is the style in which it’s filmed — usually through the use of a wide angle lens and

As your grasp of videography grows,  you’ll start to understand how you can control emotion and design through the use of depth of field. This article talks about what determines bokeh and what makes one type more pleasing than another. I once showed a veteran cameraman a shot I was particularl

Wedding videos can be very lucrative and rewarding, if you do it right, but disastrous if you do it wrong. A good wedding videographer is prepared going in, has spent weeks going over things with the bride and groom (and very often their parents), has a working, or even intimate knowledge of the ven

Recently we’ve discussed several how-to’s about HD video and action cams. However, one of the easiest ways to make your action cam HD video look professional is to set it up correctly utilizing the right background. “So I need to bring a green screen with me when I take video?̶

Most of the time, most people producing most videos shoot most of their shots from the same single perspective: standing up, with the video camera leveled eye-high. While one could certainly shoot every scene with the video camera perched between 5- and 6-feet high, a dramatic change in camera heigh

Some years back, I worked extremely hard on a short film. I wrote the script, got some actors, shot it and debuted it to my family. Nervously, I would wait for their reaction. My grandmother loved everything I did, my little sister told the truth, but one of my older sister’s had one response. “It d

Controlling your audience's perspective can be challenging when working with a limited budget. When shooting a scripted piece or a documentary style project, you may not always have as much control as you’d like over things that affect the tone of your shots such as lighting, locations an

Paisley wallpaper. Billboards. Flashing lights. These are the backgrounds that video shooters dread. Not every shooter has the luxury of scouting locations in advance. When we arrive at a location for the first time, we’re faced with a wide variety of issues including sound and lighting. Many

When you’re starting out with filmmaking you learn many things hands-on, but without some formal instruction, the information you discover might not be accurate. Whether it’s knowledge gleaned online, or something you’ve heard from fellow videographers, inevitably you’ve come

In its most practical form, compositing breaks down communicative barriers and makes a statement when needed. It overcomes technical barriers that otherwise limit production. It sets the stage for wild creativity and brings imagination to life. It allows the creation of more compelling images, ones

What's in YOUR background? Recently I wrote about 5 Poor Excuses for Bad Video and today I'm going to break one of them out into deeper study. Backgrounds. I'm not talking about green screen or computer generated backgrounds, I'm talking about the natural elements you'd focu

Are you ready for your closeup? An extreme closeup is exciting, mysterious, dramatic, intimate, detailed, perspective-changing, and disorienting. OK, so maybe your closeup is one or none of those, but that’s the beauty of getting a good tight shot – you decide what to express. What’

  Getting low camera angles is one sure way to engage your viewers. Using those low angles in an effective story can be a challenge, so we're bringing you 7 tips for shooting low camera angles, hopefully they'll get your brain working toward even more creative uses. In no particular o

When shooting live events, there are two markets for recorded stage presentations: (1) people personally involved with the show: the performers, their friends and family; and (2) the general public: people who aren’t related or don’t have a personal stake in the people on stage. Who your

“Many hands make light the work,” the saying goes. This is particularly true in video productions. Video directing is a tough business, and it’s tougher when you’re the crew as well. Sometimes, for whatever reasons you can’t have an assistant with you. In this feature,

Video is such an illusion. We're a bunch of tricksters, just fooling audiences by the second. Yes, you may have heard us mention frames per second or even 24p and 30p. These terms in our vocabulary are so basic because we create the visual perception of motion with many images shown in a second