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VJ Dubassy... ha-ha-ha!
1-2-3
Hi there, my name is Dan Talson. I go under the name of Dubassy. I work as a VJ and a video artist,
and in the last few years I've got a lot more into content creation.
Today we're going to present a lesson about content creation, talking about equipment and cameras
and some of my favorite techniques that I've experimented with to make the kind of footage that I make.
There are a lot of different brands of cameras. How do you go about choosing the camera that's right for you?
There's a wide range of choice when it comes to choosing cameras
and it's something depending on the specific kind of job that you want to do and what you want to shoot.
SONY brands are always hugely popular, mostly because they
have really intuitive interfaces and they're very easy to use.
Something like the Sony EX1, which produces really good quality video.
You can't change the lenses on this camera. But the fixed lens that comes with it is a very good quality lens.
SONY have a high model of this which is the EX3, where you can change the lenses.
Basically, people are using all sorts. A lot of people are still filming with DV cameras.
People are using this and other similar cameras along this line, the Panasonic P2.
This is a card capture camera. If you're thinking about using this camera,
you need to make sure that you've got some way of capturing from the P2 cards.
I'm a filmmaker from Cameroon.
I live in France, and I've been making films for the last 25 years.
The newer model has almost the same thing, but they are lighter.
The more I use this camera, the more I decide not to work fully automatic anymore,
to work mostly manual, so that I can control the light and control the focus.
I use the Canon 5D Mark II, which, when it came out about 18 months ago,
kind of revolutionized the filmmaking world for a lot of people, being a DSLR camera,
it shoots amazing high-quality HD footage. The beauty is that you can interchange lenses.
This is the Canon 45 mm tilt and shift lens, and the beautiful thing about
this lens is the ability to tilt a few degrees this way and a few degrees this way,
and the ability to turn the lens around.
And basically what this is doing is changing the angle of the glass against the mirror,
which creates a really interesting blur across the whole image and opens up a whole area of real creativity.
This is an 8mm Fisheye that can produce some really fun and interesting results. It really really really...
I'll probably cut to an image at this point.
A piece of equipment like a jib can help to raise production values at your shoot.
Shoot from different angles, from up high.
You can get back in sweeping motion and come down; you will be able to pan around.
But I think one of the hardest things with a piece of equipment like this
is basically getting a smooth movement. And, you know, it will just come through practice and time.
Another way to achieve this is with a dolly, which is basically the camera is on a series of rails
and moves smoothly across your shot either in a straight line,
or you have curved dollies, where the camera is going
to be focusing around your subject. A dolly can be a very basic
homemade thing. A lot of people make their own very rough options.
There is one system, it's called mini skater.
The mini skater takes the concept of a skateboard and turns it into a dolly system for a camera.
It achieves really, really smooth results. Basically, it has three wheels.
If you move it, it actually turns around an object.
I added this support, which allows me to put a follow focus. And this is the follow focus.
The follow focus allows you to have a better grip on the focus and also fine-tune the focus,
and you can see, it's one of the features that make the difference between images shot
by people who are learning and the cinematographer with
experience, because the focus is always where they really want it.
And this feature will also allow you to play with the depth of field, so you can put filters and make sure that
the depth of field is just where you want the attention of the viewer to be.
Depth of field is the amount of the image that is in focus when you are shooting.
It gives a gradation of blur around the subject on which you have focused.
And it adds some perspective into your shot.
Larger apertures and closer focal distances produce a shallower depth of field.
A recent piece of equipment that I purchased was this
panoramic machine, and you can program this machine to basically turn as quick or as slow as you want.
Time lapse is one of my favorite things to try and capture,
especially filming around cities and stuff. And the easiest way
to go about this is with one of these, which is an intervalometer.
So for example, in this mode at the moment, this would be telling the camera
to take one shot every 4 seconds. The minimum is -
it shoots once every second; the maximum could be days. So your options are limitless.
I always like to have a shotgun microphone, this one, that allows me to really capture things at distance,
and another microphone that allows me to capture the ambient sound.
So I always use two microphones, because I have two channels.
This little tripod is very, very simple, but really useful, having this ability to bend all the legs.
You can now stick your camera in a variety of places that was previously impossible.
You can hang it from a tree or whatever, just again allowing
new options: different angles and different places to shoot.
When you are putting a shoot together, you might need to consider
the lighting of what you're shooting as well. Whether you’re shooting inside
or outside, there are still some variables that need to be taken into account.
When shooting outside, especially in harsh sunlight,
a polarizer can help to really bring out the colors in a sky and also the colors of the water, I would say.
Preferred shooting conditions might be a somewhat cloudier day when the lighting is even across the board.
Some people also prefer to shoot in twilight, which is the time of day
just as the sun is going down. Shooting in twilight gives a somewhat surreal
sense of daytime, and often the shadows and lighting is well balanced.
If you are shooting in a studio, you have got a lot more parameters
that you can control. I am going to go through some basic camera
studio lighting setups and look at how they work and what effects are achieved by shooting that way.
There are four main lighting setups for shooting a specific subject.
Each lighting setup uses just a few lights and they each create a different atmosphere.
It's not essential that you use any of these lighting techniques,
but being aware of them might help you come up with your
own creative solutions about how you want to light something.
Butterfly lighting, otherwise known as paramount lighting,
is generally used for beauty shoots. It involves two lights: the key light ,
which is the main light, which sits high above the subjects, pointing down,
and then a fill light, which is around the same height as the subject, shooting directly on.
Short lighting is another popular lighting technique, which has a bit more of a dramatic look.
It just uses one light at a minimum, and you use this with a reflector.
Generally the main light is off the camera axis, and the light falls
on one side of the subject, farthest from the camera.
Rembrandt lighting is somewhat similar to short lighting, but it also involves
a key light in the same way that butterfly lighting does.
Broad light is the opposite of short lighting.
You can also shoot this with one light and a reflector.
It generally creates a flatter look, and the lighter side
of the subjects is on the main side of the camera.
These lighting setups aren't rules for you to follow, but they are rules
for you to be able to manipulate and do what you need to do.
Lighting for green screen, on the other hand, can be quite specific,
and if you don't get it right, you can spend hours in
post-production later on trying to key the footage correctly.
When you are lighting green screen,
you generally light the screen separately from the subject that you are shooting.
It's really important that the green screen is lit flat,
and that the subject is backlit, so that you can separate the two things later.
I think some of the key things to remember, when shooting green screen is that
you want your green background to be as flat as possible without shadows.
This is shooting through correct lighting,
and so to keep what you are shooting
as far as you possibly can, away from the green to avoid their
shadows appearing on the background as well.
Reflective clothing or anything shiny is going to pick up some
of the color of the background, so you have to be careful with this as well.
I think the green generally contrasts well with a lot of skin tones,
allowing you to easily remove the background.
Blue views, if people are wearing some kind of this, you need to have green in the shoot.