Life is nothing without experience. Experience is nothing without memory. Memory is nothing without. . . .
I have always wondered how my great grand father managed to live a fulfilled life; no television, no video, not even radio. No replay of happy moments. But recently I met a guy who has a life more akin to that of my great grand dad. This guy has no business with pictures in his house, and no TV, just a small transistor radio bought for news hours only. But the truth is: He doesn’t live a happy and full life.
There can hardly be a full life in this our SCI/TECH age without the things that aid memory of past events. I have a Sony DV CAM, a Cannon still camera and a few “holiday kit” as we say in our house. While I have more tools compared to what “Electro Freak” Onari Mike has in his kit bag, Mike was making better memory than I could. Then I discovered why.
What I’m going to share with you is how to make good memory, and you can do it even better than me.
- Prepare your memory place in advance (that is your holiday location). Some family just can’t agree on any place until the last minute. Avoid this.
- Get you memory tools together (still and video cameras, and any other thing you might need), possible buy a special bag for them. Before you use your camcorder, take some time at home to learn how it works and how to make use of its features. That way you won't be faced with a mad scramble under pressure when you want to do something and can't figure out how.
- When you get to memory location, don’t try to capture only people on “set”, indeed don’t arrange any set. Just capture people when they are least or even not prepared.
- Remember to always watch for sources of light and brightness when capturing (it can spoil an otherwise beautiful experience).
- Keep the background simple to focus attention on the subject.
- Make sure that your lighting is adequate. More light will help you keep the subject in focus and make colors look better too.
- Avoid large differences in brightness between background and subject to prevent distorting detail in the subject. If the background is brighter than the subject and the camera angle can't be changed, a backlight setting may help (For set imaging).
- Use a tripod. A steady image is essential for better compression and for a more professional look.
- Double check the sound level. It is often better to avoid using an internal microphone because camera vibrations generate a lot of noise. If you need to use in internal microphone, test it first and compare the quality to the sound from an external microphone to be sure you are satified, though external microphones can sometimes pick off radio interference. Get the microphone as close as possible to the subject. Shoot in both quiet and noisy environment, and monitor the sound during filming if possible.
- The smaller the image size of the final product, the closer you should zoom in on the subject to create a close-up shot for your video frame.
- Keep it short and keep up the pace. Beginners tend to make shots too long. Long videos with little content take up space and time and slow down the rhythm without adding much to the overall quality of the presentation.
- Remember to check the focus.
- If you use auto-focus, test it to make sure it works well. On some cameras, auto-focus can cause sudden unintentional changes in focus when something moves in your frame.
- Avoid changing the zoom, panning, or tracking while shooting for desktop video.
- On some cameras it may be necessary to set white balance, check for indoor/outdoor settings, turn off any date stamp. When all else fails, read the manual.
Be sure that your subject is centered and well lit. A good shooting environment will yield a better result.
Video creates large files, so avoid occupying screen area with unnecessary background. Stable backgrounds compress better than moving backgrounds, so try to avoid any camera motion. Moving the camera or changing the frame in any way (zooming in or out) makes file compression more difficult because it generates a greater difference between video frames.
Sound is actually harder to do well than images, so don't underestimate the attention that you need to devote to getting a good sound track. The environment is full of sounds. Human hearing is all about filtering out the things that are not important and paying attention only to the important details of what we hear. In a recording, we can hear all of the noises that we normally do not notice because our perception filters them out. Make sure that the sound track includes only the sounds that you want.
The larger the screen, the easier it is to see facial features and the more screen area may be occupied by background. Cinema, television, and computer screen video formats must take relative size into consideration when determining the best framing for the subject. Which of the following frames is a better choice for digital video?
Having done all the above, you congratulate yourself.
Now it’s time to decide how you edit and store the experience. This is exactly where Mike was beating me to it. He had very simple set of software to edit and package his work, but I was using antiquated hand-me-down stuff from my dad.
Mike was using the latest DVD Suite in the market, but I feel ashamed to mention what I was using. But the important thing is I acquired what Mike was using and my experience changed. I started producing memory that sometimes out-shines Mike’s.
You may want to have my experience, or even exceed it, just follow the link below and see for yourself. Powerful Video Editing With Unlimited Possibilities: Link Removed Temporarily.
