One Person Shoot - Technique

Duct Tape Films said:
Yes, and well, no. The EASIEST way is to go auto, which can sometimes produce good results; however, it does pay dividends to do both audio and video manually, just as one would with more people aboard. Thing is with shooting manual, you have to, just as it used to be with film, know that a certain amount of your footage will be strictly unusable, due to framing, focusing, or circumstances beyond your control. That said, a nearly equal amount (in my experience) of auto footage will be unusable, due to auto gain pumping, jumpy auto focus, any number of things that would simply not have happened with manual.

I guess, either way you go, you will experience what is known is a shooting ratio (footage shot/good footage), and on a documentary this shooting ratio tends to be very high, even up to hundreds of hours shot for a feature length film. When you're doing it yourself, many times your shooting ratio is determined by how much scratch you've got for extra tape. Here's the thing - at least compared to film, tape is cheap. Carry way more than you think you will ever need. Don't reuse it. Use it. Let it keep rolling. Start it well before you start asking questions for the interview. Don't turn it off until you're sure you've exausted all possibilities of the shot (or you're exausted, which ever comes first), and then pause some more to make sure you've got a tail for the shot.
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Seems like conditions might dictate the choice of auto or not - if light and sound are fairly consistent, I might be more inclined to set manual levels and hope for the best. Thanks for the advice re: keeping the tape rolling - sounds like the voice of experience.
 
jade8472 said:
I don't really know of any ear buds that would cancel out the surrounding sounds well enough for you to actually monitor the audio. I used to try using iPod earphone (embarassingly enough) to monitor the sound and I discovered that I might as well not wear them at all because I can't tell which noise is coming from the camera and which is the live sound. Then I upgraded to an MDR-7506 and it makes a whole world of difference.
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Thanks, great advice.

jade8472 said:
One more thing. If you decided to mount your microphone on the camera then use very short cable and secure them somehow so that they don't flop around and slam into the camera as you move. Before I got a boom pole I had a 20 ft. cable and I found out the hard way that those cable makes really LOUD noise everytime they bump.
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Will do!
 
SilverWolf said:
I think etymotics (sp?) makes some good in ear headphones but the problem is for the price you could have just bought some 7506's or HD280. If you are going to buy some regular consumer in ear headphones I wouldn't really bother
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I do have a pair of Etymotic 6i's; the problem is that they really snug into your ear canal (which is the point of course) so they're kind of hard to get in and out. I think I'll just go with the HD280's (or similar). Thanks!
 
fevercity said:
I think Greenhorn's correct in that Ross McElwee probably had to stay away from the motor-noise from the film camera. I know that waI've had some luck using s the case on some of "Sherman's March" at least. You can hear some of that when he's in his parents' basement talking to the camera (still in costume no less!).

You might consider a isolator shock mount for the shotgun and spending extra on a nice Sennheiser. You can 'push it out' until you see it in-frame and then back it out.

I do single-person shoots with a Sony ENG package. The camera actually has two hotshoe mounts and an on-board mount. Not that I'd ever need 3 shotguns but there's room! I've seen similar multi-mic set-ups on DVX / HVX cams. You can clamp a shockmount to the handle and another elsewhere. Just a thought.

Some would say that's overkill but you'll have the peace of mind that at least one shotgun mic will be getting good audio without being intrusive. Good luck on all fronts for your new direction!!!!
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Thanks so much for the information and good wishes. When you do a single-person shoot, do you use auto levels?
 
Petrus said:
If you want to hold the mic in your hand (prefereable, as you can point it away from the direction you are shooting, to the most important sound source) you will not be able to work any manual controls; focus, aperture etc. If the auto settings work well enough that's the way to go (I have done this with TRV900 & shotgun in zeppelin/windjammer, as there really in no way to attach that to the camera...) If you shoot most of the time in WA there are no focus problems, but exposure might vary unexpectedly.
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Good point about how difficult it would be to make manual adjustments with a mic in your hand - the more I think of it, I wonder if McElwee was able to make any manual camera adjustments at all while shooting. I think he was able to change audio levels with his thumb on a little mixer that attached to the mic.

Petrus said:
If you want to use manual settings, you have to attach the mic (short shotgun) on camera. Better than the standard mic holder is a Mini-Rover handle. By using that the mic is better insulated from the camera noise and you can use slightly longer mic/wind protection combinations without the mic getting into the picture.
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The Mini-Rover looks cool. Here's the link if anyone's interested: http://www.videosmith.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=15
 
Jonathan_P said:
I do have a pair of Etymotic 6i's; the problem is that they really snug into your ear canal (which is the point of course) so they're kind of hard to get in and out. I think I'll just go with the HD280's (or similar). Thanks!
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yeah I know I have the ear protectors from etymotics and they are uncomfortable to put in and out. Also in my opinion if you are going to be wearing the headphones half eared i would get the 7506. The HD 280 have better noise isolation but feel kinda funny wearing just one ear.
 
SilverWolf said:
yeah I know I have the ear protectors from etymotics and they are uncomfortable to put in and out. Also in my opinion if you are going to be wearing the headphones half eared i would get the 7506. The HD 280 have better noise isolation but feel kinda funny wearing just one ear.
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Thanks, good advice. Of course a lot of the time I expect to have one channel on a shotgun and the other on a lav, which uses up all the ears I have...
 
Yeah, those custom molds are GREAT!
I went from not being able to wear my Shure E3s for very long, to almost not feeling them anymore.

And you can even chose colours, including two-colour SWIRL, whoohooo! :)
 
vidled said:
Yeah, those custom molds are GREAT!
I went from not being able to wear my Shure E3s for very long, to almost not feeling them anymore.

And you can even chose colours, including two-colour SWIRL, whoohooo! :)
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You party animal:beer:
 
Jonathon, I wasn't saying that you had to use auto, but for someone who has just a few months experience and wants to shoot as a one man band then that might be a place to start. As you get more comfortable with your gear and want to solve certain problems that you notice, then you might try to use manual for certain settings.

I think what you will find with this type of shooting is that the content is so much more important (or should be) than technique. This type of film always succeeds if the content is interesting enough to watch. With little experience you can't expect to produce what an experienced crew of proffesionals can. But, with the right subject and interesting people you can produce something that people will want to watch.

To many people on this forum get hung up with equipment and I guess that's really what the forum is about, not content. good luck with your endeavor.
 
greenheron said:
To many people on this forum get hung up with equipment and I guess that's really what the forum is about, not content. good luck with your endeavor.
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I would definitely wouldn't go that far. No one is getting hung up on equipment but if nobody cared about equipment we wouldn't have bought the dvx and there would be no dvx user. It would probably be called www.greatstorytelling.com. I'm not saying that the content doesn't matter but not everybody is J.R.R Tolkien or Arthur Conan Doyle. Some people here are gearheads and they've loved things that clinked and clanked their whole lives. DVXuser is packed with members constantly reminding people that a camera is just a camera and no amount of pixels or fancy knobs can make a crappy story great. If you look at the HVX threads you'll see that.
 
I have the mighty wondercam shoulder pod, and have been using it with great satisfaction for four years, although I'm going to be upgrading pretty soon, as it doesn't exactly balance very easily, what with the amount of gear I'm trying to cram up in there....
 
greenheron said:
Jonathon, I wasn't saying that you had to use auto, but for someone who has just a few months experience and wants to shoot as a one man band then that might be a place to start. As you get more comfortable with your gear and want to solve certain problems that you notice, then you might try to use manual for certain settings.

I think what you will find with this type of shooting is that the content is so much more important (or should be) than technique. This type of film always succeeds if the content is interesting enough to watch. With little experience you can't expect to produce what an experienced crew of proffesionals can. But, with the right subject and interesting people you can produce something that people will want to watch.

To many people on this forum get hung up with equipment and I guess that's really what the forum is about, not content. good luck with your endeavor.
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I agree that content is the primary target, and I've put a lot of time and effort into what I hope will be a compelling story. I may be setting too high a bar for my first film (expecting to shoot as a one man band and get good production values), but I guess I'm just trying to give myself the best shot at it under the circumstances. I have the incredible luxury of having some time to prep without worrying about money, and you only make your first film once. .. Bottom line, there's only one way to find out what I can or can't do - I've got to get a new camera and start shooting stuff. The advice from you and others on this discussion list have been invaluable as points of reference. Thanks again!
 
Duct Tape Films said:
I have the mighty wondercam shoulder pod, and have been using it with great satisfaction for four years, although I'm going to be upgrading pretty soon, as it doesn't exactly balance very easily, what with the amount of gear I'm trying to cram up in there....
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Do you know what you're going to get? A lot of people seem to like the DVRigPro, but I was kind of waiting to see about the Multirig (http://www.dvmultirig.com/index.html), which seems to be scheduled to ship this month.
 
SilverWolf said:
I would definitely wouldn't go that far. No one is getting hung up on equipment but if nobody cared about equipment we wouldn't have bought the dvx and there would be no dvx user. It would probably be called www.greatstorytelling.com. I'm not saying that the content doesn't matter but not everybody is J.R.R Tolkien or Arthur Conan Doyle. Some people here are gearheads and they've loved things that clinked and clanked their whole lives. DVXuser is packed with members constantly reminding people that a camera is just a camera and no amount of pixels or fancy knobs can make a crappy story great. If you look at the HVX threads you'll see that.
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I guess I subscribe to the notion that great looking shots can't make a lousy story into a good film; on the other hand, if something is worth doing, it's worth doing badly. Sometimes you just have to get out there with what you've got and hit the record button; at least that's another thing I take away from Green Heron's suggestions.
 
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