Embedded Files
For those about clip
While I know that a lot of photographers have misgivings about exploring video, I’ll hopefully try to show that it really isn’t the headache that you might expect and, in many ways, it could even allow you to record events more thoroughly than you could have ever done on stills alone. Because I was an early adopter of the webclip project I was asked to try to explain why I enjoy shooting them.
Having always had a bit of an obsession in technology, part of my initial interest in learning about video was to try out new bits of kit and stretch my brain a little bit. Having been involved with the first attempts, I can honestly say that the problems and issues have nearly all gone. Nearly, I hear you say? Well, come on. This is AFP. ;) Each clip I now file is handled smoothly with only the odd glitch but this is due to the relatively early stages of the webclip system. As time goes on and more people shoot them, these little glitches will disappear entirely.
As an idea of how I approach creating a webclip, I’ll give you a description of how I went about shooting one of my recent clips. As an aside, from experience with shooting video, I now know to only bother attempting to create a clip if I know that I will have time to move around, capture the story as both stills and video and if I feel that the coverage would benefit from the addition of moving footage.
I was asked to cover a protest outside the Syrian embassy in central London on a Saturday afternoon. The protest started off very calm and had all the makings of being a reasonably dull job aside from some colorful face-paints in the crowd and some chanting. Knowing that I had the luxury of time, after I had shot a reasonable amount of still images, I set to creating a webclip. Equipment-wise, I carry a clip-on viewfinder called a z-finder (http://www.zacuto.com/z-finder-dslr-viewfinder) and a hotshoe-mounted microphone (http://www.rodemic.com/mics/videomic). With these now in place, I moved back through the area, shooting similar frames to what I’d previously shot, often even exactly the same people, but now with the benefit of capturing the shouts, chants and movement of the angry protesters. As those of you will know who’ve done webclip training, the clips are simply intended to be a “flavor” of what happened. A good (but unfortunately nerdy) way of looking at it is like the moving photographs that feature in the newspapers in the Harry Potter films (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYCiEsWRVZQ) They are intended to give the viewer a feel of what it was like to be a fly-on-the-wall. You aren’t expected in any way to interview, set-up shots or disregard your job as a photographer; it’s all supposed to be an additional luxury if you have the time.
Shooting a selection of 10 second clips from a range of positions, compositions and widths, I had all that I needed within 10-15 minutes. With a last wander through the crowd to make sure all was unlikely to change, I moved back to my car to edit. The edit itself takes a little longer than a photo edit but after creating a few, it quickly becomes a very rapid job. The longest part of it may well be waiting for your laptop to grind it’s way through the processing.
Due to a fast signal, I would say that I had edited and transmitted my webclip within 15-20 minutes and was back around the corner just in time for the crowd to get restless and start throwing things at the embassy. Knowing that I already had a lot of the stock footage, I rushed to the front and started shooting stills and video of the crowds as they clashed with police lines. Having transmitted reasonably strong establishing shots earlier, I knew that it would only take a short amount of more active footage now to create a stronger package.
The first webclip from earlier in the day is doc ref - VID397182_EN
The second webclip from later in the day is doc ref - VID397217_EN
Mixing the two mediums at the same time is certainly not something that I would advise people to do if they are just getting into it as, like anything, until it becomes second nature, you will trip up and miss something. We’re all hired as photographers, not multi-media news gatherers so get your stills first. Even when I have plenty of time and am covering a long feature, I will still shoot my stills first, then start again with video as I find it can take something away from your work if you try to shoot both at once.
An example of splitting the job up is when I covered the London ComicCon convention last year - VID376342_EN. Having spent an hour or so shooting stills, I switched over entirely to video and shot only video for an hour before going back to stills. This obviously doesn’t mean that you can’t shoot stills if you see something but I find it just works easier to dedicate time to each medium if you have the chance.
The other times that it really proves valuable is when you are sent to a job that screams anything but photography. I was sent to cover an art show in London a few years ago called something like “Kinetik”. You’d think the name may have been a clue but I’m afraid I didn’t realize until I arrived that the show consisted entirely of artwork that moved in some way. Not good. Thankfully, it simply meant I could switch mediums and start shooting exactly as I would with a stills cameras but capturing the movement.
As photographers, we are at a real advantage that shall remain a closely guarded secret between us. We spend every day looking for “the angle”; that slightly different shot that sets us apart from everyone else. When you start shooting video, you can take that different way of thinking and apply it to a whole new medium. What seems obvious to us genuinely often doesn’t cross the mind of some who only shoot video. I know that sounds pompous but it’s true. When someone is trained to shoot video, they learn all about interview techniques and lighting etc… but aren’t taught about the benefits of hanging from lamp-posts and shooting with unusual lenses to get something special. To make a still image stand out on the page takes that extra leap which, when applied to video, really makes a difference.
To those of you who see video as a threat or something to fend off at all costs, I really do think you’re potentially wasting a part of the skills you already have on something that will become a more important part of our jobs as time goes on. As I’ve tried to show here, the extra learning that you’ll need to do is no greater than that you’d spend learning the ins and outs of a new version of Photoshop, or the hidden settings of a new camera. This will open up a whole new way of thinking as you go about your job. While it might sound as though I’m a video obsessive, I only shoot as and when I think the story either deserves it, or I have the time to capture the video without affecting my first priority - photographs. While video is certainly here to stay, it really doesn’t have to come at the cost of the still image. Vive la différence!
Techno techno techno
Before we begin with shooting your first webclip, you’ll need to check that your camera settings are correct. On the Nikon D4, they are as follows;
On the rear camera screen, click Menu, Shooting Menu, Movie Settings, Frame size/rate = 720x1280@50fps, Movie Quality = High, Microphone = auto, Destination = XQD, ISO sensitivity = A12800.
Once you’ve got these correct, it’s nearly time to begin.
The very first stage in the process, like before, is to contact the relevant desk to ensure that they are interested in the clip that you are considering producing. If MechaGodzilla has just attacked your city, it’s reasonably safe to say that it’s worth filming but for smaller features, contact the desk first as there’s nothing more frustrating than shooting the clips and editing it up before being told that they don’t want it. Once you’ve had the green light, we can move onto the actual filming.
To ensure a smoothness to your final webclip, it’s best to aim for a shutter speed of 50th/sec with the ISO as low as possible. With the D4 50th/sec is automatic when LV wheel is turned to the video camera icon. I try to shoot in manual where possible to prevent wild exposure adjustments during a take. As you’re trying to keep to the same shutter speed, use your aperture and ISO to maintain the correct exposure.
You should have received at least some training on how to shoot a webclip by now, including shooting a variety of angles and compositions while maintaining as stable a shooting position as possible. While a stable video is important, the most important aspect of most webclips will be the audio. While the footage from a breaking news story can be wobbly and include movement, a lack of audio really makes life very hard for broadcasters and will ensure a viewers attention runs out very quickly. For those of you shooting with the camera’s internal microphone, you have nothing to worry about but those of you with external microphones on your hot-shoe have an extra element to remember.
This might sound like the most obvious piece of advice ever but ensure your external microphone is turned on! As I said, it sounds stupid but I’ve shot a number of clips in the past where I’ve only realised that my mic was turned off after filming three or four sections. Most frustrating.
So, with your camera set up and your mic sucking all that juicy audio from the air, you can shoot your masterpiece.
...and...CUT! Job done. It’s time to edit.
Remove your scary/shiny new XQD card and ingest the video files into your laptop. The still images should move to your usual folder while the video files end up in your rushes folder.
Open Windows Live Movie Maker and click the “add videos and photos” button.
Locate and select the files you want from the rushes folder and import them. Unlike Avidemux, you don’t have to import the videos in the order that you want them to play as you can chop, change and move the video files in WLMM right until the very final stage.
Like that dubious creation that is Avidemux, Windows Live Movie Maker is very simple to use but has some vital improvements such as an undo feature and the previously mentioned ability to re-order the files as you edit.
The basic commands that you will need are as follows;
i = the “in” point on your clip as in where you want it to start.
o = the “out” point on your clip as in where you want the section to end.
m = splits a clip into two separate clips, allowing you to insert a cutaway or different angle.
j = a single press will move the video file back by one frame. Holding rewinds it.
l = a single press will move the video file forward by one frame. Holding winds forward.
k (and space bar) = plays and pauses the video playback.
Once your webclip is Oscar-worthy (or at the very least a Sundance nomination), click the button on the top right marked “save movie”. If your laptop has been tweaked by the tech-wizards correctly, there should be an option at the bottom called “AFP 50is”. On clicking this, a new box appears asking you to name it and choose a destination for the file. Everyone has their own system here but I like to save it to the desktop and call it the date in reverse order and my name eg “2012-04-09 Leon Neal”. Once you’ve hit save, the video will be encoded and produce a uber-high resolution video file on your desktop. Once that’s finished, you can close WLMM and move onto the next stage. On closing, it will ask you if you want to save your edit. This is your call, really. I don’t see the need unless you’ve taken a very long time to get the edit just right. Your file has been exported so all it’s saving is your actual edit instructions.
Now, unless you’re on a very fast connection, the archive-quality file sat on your desktop is too big to send so we need to revisit the devil’s own editing software; “Avidemux”. Start it up and open the video file. As all your editing is complete, all you are doing at this stage is employing the best feature of the software; high compression for transmission.
With the file open, click the custom button on the top bar and select either High Quality, Medium Quality or Low Quality, depending on your connection speed. If you have a decent 3G signal (up to 200kb speed), I’ve always opted for HQ. It may take a while longer but why spend all the time making a webclip to ruin it with a low quality compression?
Once that conversion is complete, the next stages are the same as they used to be but for the sake of clarity, I’ll quickly run through it.
Open AFP Media Viewer and the webclip should be in your “rushes” channel. If you haven’t got this set up, go into AFP Reporter preferences, select the Media Viewer tab, select Channels and either tick the box to make it visible or add a new channel for C:\AFPReporter\Pictures\Rushes. Hit Apply then Save and close down the preferences window.
Right click on the video file and select “open in document editor”. The webclip document editor is slightly different to the photo version but it’s along the same lines. In the main caption window, write a single line summary of the content of the webclip and include your usual byline/credit details. Fill in all of the other windows as normal. Next, click the arrow next to the “shot-list and story” tab on the right. This will open up a preview window of the video and a larger box for your dope-sheet.
At this point, copy your summary line from the previous caption window at the top of the box and list the individual scenes below. I’ve included an example below;
“Queen Elizabeth II battles with MechaGodzilla in the streets of Central London following the devastation of Buckingham Palace during the tyrannical beast’s assault on England’s capital city on April 9, 2012. AFP PHOTO/Leon Neal
Shot list
Wide establishing shot, showing city in ruin with battle visible in distance.
Closer shot, showing Queen fighting with MechaGodzilla in the ruins of Oxford Circus.
Tight shot of crowds reactions as they cheer on the battling monarch.
Queen lands final knockout blow to MechaGodzilla with her sceptre of justice, causing the Japanese monster to collapse.
Wide shot of crowds celebrating as Queen Elizabeth high-fives the front row.”
Once you’re happy with the dope-sheet, hit “send” as normal. The AFP-FTP software should open with the video file and a thumbnail jpeg in the pending window. If not, it will be due to the location that you are currently set to file to not recognising video formats. Change the ftp location to the relevant choice eg “Webclip London” then close down the AFP-FTP software.
Hit send again on the file in Media viewer and this time it should open up the FTP software with the file and thumbnail now in the queue. There may also be the thumbnail from your first attempt too but don’t worry about it. Hit send.
Once the files have left your computer, contact the desk that you filed to and check that they have received both the dope-sheet info and the video file before moving on to your next mission of journalistic brilliance.
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