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Hi my name is D J Clark I am a mult-media journalist and
educator based in Beijing but I'm here in tunis right now
to talk to you about equipment we're here in a multimedia workshop with
World Press Photo I have got here Matt Ford who is one of the other educators and
also multimedia journalist based in Istanbul so
we're gonna do a series of four videos talking about equipment. In this
first I want to check with you what would be the
basic equipment that you would bring with you if you had to strip down to the
bare necessities
but still need to produce a professional product. Right if I m going super super
light
this is basically it right here. Now I get my camera
got an onboard shotgun and I have got
a monopod for stabilization and I have got
some kinda of headphones, earbuds if I need to be like
aware of what's going on around me keeps situation awareness.
Probably quite important in Egypt in places like that... Absolutely!
But if I'm doing an interview or something else I go with a more robust sort of headphones
and these are closed back headphones these will
mask out everything else and you don't wanna take these headphones that can
cancel the sound around you because it means you don't actually hear
exactly what you area recording. right like when I am getting clobbered around my head or something if
I am canceling everything of what is
going on. yeah okay so tell us a little bit more about
this basic kit that you've got here. Well this right here is the 5D mark III but if
I was actually going out on a protester or something where
there are stuff flying, I would probably go with my 60D or 70D
The 60D is nice because it has flip out screen and you can keep it really close
people may not notice
that I'm shooting video from keeping it nice inside like this
I can keep it stable. This microphone is the
the short-length topper and what I like about it is that actually
is a recorder. It has a micro SD card and is recording audio in here
and also runing into the camera so it's got the same
wave form in both the microphone and the camera makes it really easy for
synching after the fact
and if it gets bumped and jostled or if the cord get pulled out
you still got sound. Yeah. So you have a backup you have two
recordings. exactly. Why have one when you can have two?
okay and so for this particular course
we are asking you to start with a basic
amount of equipment and that is
a DSLR camera now most of you will be photojournalist so you probably have a
camera already that shoots video.
What are other advantages and disadvantages of shooting video with the
DSLr?
Real advantage is that it's really compact its lightweight
you can move around really easily when on a monopod
I can get shots that I might not be able to get otherwise
you know you can go lower or go high it is also you can get like cinematic look with
some of these
lenses you can change your lenses more easily than some video cameras
so it is in its lightweight, its compactness and in the mobility that
I really like about the DSLR cameras.
Second thing is a shotgun microphone. Now a shotgun microphone
has got to be a little shorter than they normally are
so by putting this onto my camera
I have two problems one is on the front if it's too long
I get it in my wide shots and if it's too long at the back
I can't come up and focus because
the battery pokes my eyes out. You don't want to do it.
But a shotgun will give me much better sound than I will get
from the camera, for the ambient sound so again not too expensive if you go to the
low end and it will make a huge difference to what you do.
The only thing I want to add is that you really wanna figure out what the suspension system is
on these
because camera you know the handling noise really does pick up on some with
them
so both of these have different variations if you're trying out mics if you are in the store
put it on put your ears on and really touch everything
and see what gets picked up and it is important to note as well a lot of the DSLR
don't have headphones sockets as well you have to
be very careful with sound you because you can not hear what
you're getting
and you may be missing something. It is like shooting without a viewfinder.
Okay the second thing is a tie clip microphone.
These are really important because it enables you when you're doing
interviews
to get the microphone really close and sound is all about proximity
and so with this these can be bought relatively cheaply
and with the wire obviously and other options we will talk about later in
other editions by having an extension cord just
paying an extra few dollars or whatever to have that extra length
it means that you're gonna be able to get back from the subject
and be able to shoot at whatever focal length you want and frame it as you want
when you're doing the interview.
I'll be able to pick up some sound with this thing but also get
all the rest of the world around you which doesn't make for a very good interview audio
Right so having a tie clip microphone gonna make a massive difference and this
is one of the big problems
of lots of photojournalist is, they tend to think that they can use that
microphone and not one that's clipped on.
And then something else is a sound recorder
sound recorder allows me to get ambient sound in room tone.
taking a minute of sound in every place where we film
it is gonna make a really big difference to editing. right?
Absolutely and this little guy in here has actually its own audio recorder
and I use it very similar so I can pull it off
still recording and i can reach in and get nice ambient sound
from around the scene. Fantastic! so this basically is
this and this combined together so you're saving space
making life a little bit easier I'd also recommend that you get
what we call a dead cat. It would just stop any window any buffering sound
immediately you will get a clean sound and something that you can be able to use
and then finally you all fellow journalists
hate this, but tripods are
vital for shooting video because
without the tripod we gonna get very shaky footage.
It's just not gonna look very professional right? I mean it is really
you want a lot of set shots where the frame isn't moving
and the only way to really do that well is with the tripod
If I have to in pinch to use the monopod but even then I am keeping
my elbows in and I'm grounding this on something
basically turning myself into a tripod and I am holding my breath for 10 seconds.
And the tripod doesn't again have to be massively expensive we're not gonna do
many
camera movement but it's worth investing
in a decent head for the for the tripod is that right
yes absolutely I mean a lot of the photo tripods have these
jerky little heads and when you try to make an adjustment if the
the subject moves through the edge of the frame you start getting all this
jerkiness. While with the nice fluid head you can make that small adjustment
and in often times go unnoticed. I also lights if I am getting a cheap
tripod, with a lightweight tripod is get one with the hook
on the bottom because with a hook I can hang my
bag on it and that really gives that
cheap tripod a lot more weight it becomes much more steady
okay I think that is about it for our basic kit
so in the next video we are gonna look specifically
at audio equipment