Here's the deal

Someone referred a guy to one of my clients to shoot a red carpet event out in the hamptons a few weeks ago. Sent out by the client with a Sony PD150, He came back with this:

YouTube - Video Shot by a Guy I Referred (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYghS8a7eAo)

Here are a few questions that if people could take some time to answer, would be very helpful to this self-styled "Video Ographer." What is your opinion of the technical quality of this video footage? Would you be happy if you were the paying client and this footage was brought back to you to use on your Television Show and WHY? Do you think this Video Ographer is of a professional skill level and Why? What suggestions do you have for this video guy for future paying job?

The "Video Ographer" swears that his zebras were 70% on the subjects face and that he did everything he could possibly do to expose correctly.

Thank you for any comments. BTW I'm not disrespecting Videographers --- I am one --- it's just that this guy insists on telling clients that he is a ---- " Video --Ographer"

The first thing I noticed was the poor tripod. One was used, but it was either not a fluid head, or was and was still locked. The most glaring problem was the use of manual iris. He actually opened it up more when there was an all-white background. At one point he had it perfect, then opened back up. He also rides the iris the entire time, constantly changing it, but never making it good (or even legal for broadcast I expect!)

I am a little confounded by the purpose of this post.


Is it a name and shame with no name? The footage speaks for itself. The camera operator is his or her own best motivation for your client to be encouraged to revisit you next time round. I assume this is the point of this post.

There is no need to rub it in. It does not make good business sense. Your client now becomes the focus for negative attention, not the camera operator, so might just go elsewhere rather than come back all chagrined and face the music with you.

People no matter how loyal, can be like that and you would never know, except maybe observing your client base wither a little. The customer is always right even if as wrong as all hell, the exception of course being when no business is better than bad business.


That said and the cliches finished and clear - my own observations :-


The camera operator is apparently using substandard camera support, does not appear to know how to walk around a tripod ( or was bumped by humble public ) and is not fluent on two fronts.


With the camera itself.

In preparing for events - as in prior research of the best places and viewpoints for best composition and flow of action.


Skilled or nay, the camera operator may have simply had a very bad frustrating day.


Whoever planned the event and designed that background panel was not exactly the most inspired either. It had lookaway built right into it and may not have helped a live audience because of glare, let alone media coverage.

Well the camera work itself looked like pretty classic E news footage (sans bad tripod and iris riding) which could be a good thing if that's what your going for. Even the shot of the camera people.

But the iris riding was unacceptable the footage is for the most part ruined
He might of had the zebras set to 100 and not 70 Which are on the same switch on the pd 150. or he might have been trying to get to zebras on the whole face and not just high lights.

Wouldn't pay for this, but maybe if he got it right.

I am a little confounded by the purpose of this post.


Is it a name and shame with no name? The footage speaks for itself. The camera operator is his or her own best motivation for your client to be encouraged to revisit you next time round. I assume this is the point of this post.

There is no need to rub it in. It does not make good business sense. Your client now becomes the focus for negative attention, not the camera operator, so might just go elsewhere rather than come back all chagrined and face the music with you.

People no matter how loyal, can be like that and you would never know, except maybe observing your client base wither a little. The customer is always right even if as wrong as all hell, the exception of course being when no business is better than bad business.


That said and the cliches finished and clear - my own observations :-


The camera operator is apparently using substandard camera support, does not appear to know how to walk around a tripod ( or was bumped by humble public ) and is not fluent on two fronts.


With the camera itself.

In preparing for events - as in prior research of the best places and viewpoints for best composition and flow of action.


Skilled or nay, the camera operator may have simply had a very bad frustrating day.


Whoever planned the event and designed that background panel was not exactly the most inspired either. It had lookaway built right into it and may not have helped a live audience because of glare, let alone media coverage.



Shame with no name definitely

My wish is not to name names --- but only to let the footage stand by itself ---

and be tried in the court of public opinion

the reason being that the guy that shot it ---cursed me up and down that he had done everything he says he could have ---- to expose the shot properly ----

and it's pretty clear that this is Certainly NOT the case

By The Way ------------- I fired the client weeks ago ---

not even the point ----

The point was: The Video Sucked --- and it was done by someone who thinks they're pretty good at it. Go Figure.

Red Carpet Events are always staged like this with plenty of bright logos everywhere

Not too hard to shoot if you know how -- and this guy didn't


Thanks for the replies

Well you know the footage is bad.

In today's technology where what-you-see-is-what-you-get, I don't understand how anyone can come back with horribly mis-exposed material.

I come from a background where you didn't see what you got until after the film was processed and the prints made. And by then hours or even days had gone by. So a "pro" HAD to know how to get it right.

The best news guys could be shooting without a meter and be able to tell you what the exposure needed to be within a stop -- and in the days of Tri-X and D-76 that was pretty darn close.

Ah, TriX pushed to 1600 (or more)! Big dots of grain and the newspapers all loved it! Brings back great fond memories.
NikonF (original F camera) with the lens of choice and a Singer/Graflex or Metz flash-TriX to 1600-shutter 1/60th-f/2.4 zone focus and GO FOR IT! :-)
Ah the good ol' days! Hah!

Thanks for the early AM memories
Don

Ah, TriX pushed to 1600 (or more)! Big dots of grain and the newspapers all loved it! Brings back great fond memories.
NikonF (original F camera) with the lens of choice and a Singer/Graflex or Metz flash-TriX to 1600-shutter 1/60th-f/2.4 zone focus and GO FOR IT! :-)
Ah the good ol' days! Hah!

Thanks for the early AM memories
Don

'Tri-X, f/8 and be there' was the mantra for the guys I worked with at my first job. Funny, I still have an old sweatshirt with fixer stains on it.

Nikon FM with a Metz or Lumedyne with the shoulder battery pack. Ahhhhhh... I can smell the Dektol now......

no pay. he ruined footage of a still hot Christie Brinkley

She is definitely hot. But so is the footage. Clearly overexposed.

The guy does not know how to read zebras, obviously.

All the whites are blown out. And it appears he was using a still camera tripod. Just because a guy can afford to buy a video camera doesn't mean he knows enough to use it. From what you're saying, his attitude is typical--not MY fault. Scratch him off your list. If you're using FCP and are conversant with Color, you might be able to tweak the footage a bit to make it within the realm of acceptability. Good luck.

OBVIOUSLY, buddy was going for the "Infinite White" background made famous by Apple. You guys SERIOUSLY need to get with the times! Film, FM and Metz... BAH! Dinosaurs all...

<Tongue planted so VERY firmly in cheek I think I bruised myself>

I used to teach and my STUDENTS never came back with anything THAT awful. Blue? Yes. 190 IRE whites? Never.

Well you know the footage is bad.

In today's technology where what-you-see-is-what-you-get, I don't understand how anyone can come back with horribly mis-exposed material.




The shooter probably doesn't even know the difference. I can see the thought process now...
"Yeah, this looks just like a music video! I wonder if this thing goes whiter? Wow, it does! Awesome! This looks wicked!"

A definite case of where leaving the camera in auto mode would have done a better exposure job! (insert smiley)

We are really lucky here in the Uk we never get any sunshine so exposure for dull cloudy overcast is our std pre-set (insert another smiley)

Dektol/D76/Tri-X. Still available from Kodak. Original Nikon F - still have two of them in good working order. Great camera. One of them is sitting on my desk at the moment. I still remember how to use a light meter! I even still have my nearly 40 year old 5 X 7 Linhof - in fact I just sent one of the shutters off to be cleaned and re-calibrated by a guy in Providence R.I.

That's what I find lacking about modern photography - no chemical smell, no magic moment watching the latent image appear under the safelight, no fixer stains on my clothes.

I love the smell of hypo in the morning, to me it smells like........ victory!!!

Remember when you could walk into a business establishment and tell what kind of place it was by smell?

Delis smelled like pickles and smoked fish and bagels.

Doctor's offices smelled like alcohol

Camera stores smelled like developer and fixer.

Now every place you go smells like bits and bytes!

That looks exactly the same as the material you get back from your media students on their first trip out alone with a camera. The major snag is that it is reaction, no prediction. They made the decision to put the camera on a tripod - but probably didn't spend time setting it up. It looked to me like the brake was on, or half on and they heaved until it gave. They waited until the subject almost left the frame before thinking about moving. Iris on manual, probably as instructed, but they forgot to look at what the scene was outside of the viewfinder - so the white background was a shock. A frantic feel for the control and down it went - but then the action took over and exposure adjustment was stopped, then started again. My students would produce material like this almost ever time on their first 'manual' outing. Framing, focus, movement and exposure all at the same time take practice and I suspect this person hasn't had enough, that's all. I'd bet it isn't zebra level setting - using the zebra indications is in itself a new skill to learn. Many of my students would swear blind the zebra wasn't working - when it was, they were just too busy to see it!

Pushing Tri-X to 1600: D-76 straight. 80 degrees. 12 minutes. Agitate once at the start. Let it sit. Agitate at 6 minutes. The reduced agitation kept the highlights from blocking up!

OMG! Man the memories keep flashing thru my head! The smell, the brown fingernails (a red badge of courage for all still photogs) the beautiful Nikkor 180mm lens that cost an arm and a leg and no one was a PROFESSIONAL without it ;-).

I can't help but laugh sometimes at the photogs today including many of the guys I know that have been around forever. Today take a shot, look at the LCD to check it out, shoot, look, shoot, look...I always ask them 'what did you do before digital? you knew the right exposure, you composed,focused shot and KNEW it was right at least 99% of the time"
The older guys smile and say "yeah but now I can delete it and do it again if I need to and 100% know it's right" I suppose but I sure do miss the smells, the knocking around in the dark room (not the brown fingernails though), ah well progress!
Thanks for the memories!
Don

My 8 year old boy will shoot a better video with a consumer camera.

Stelios

I had my own black and white darkroom at the tender age of eight and I STILL get nostalgic when I smell fixer...

Shot Plus X (bulk rolled by me) pushed two stops, developed with Diafine 2 stage developer, printed to Kodak paper stock... Ahhhh, pleasant memories.

I thought the video looked very modern. Also, to bring back the nostalgic feel to my editing room I rubbed pickles and developing fluid on my computer.

Seriously, I think your hired gun must have been double-booked or something and had a friend shoot the video. Even I shoot better video than that sample. The obvious problems start with the fact that he/she did not consider the optimal placement. Shooting into the direction of the sun against a white background is definitely not ideal. The face would be in less shadow if he/she had stood about 20 feet to the right near where the photographers were shooting. Being with the other photographers also would get the talent looking in the direction of the camera. The really obvious flaw in the video itself is the riding of the exposure during a non-changing lighting scenario. Full sun on a static background is not a place to be adjusting exposure. Now, it will be impossible to do color correction. At least if it was static an incorrect setting could be corrected a bit.

Ah, TriX pushed to 1600 (or more)! Big dots of grain and the newspapers all loved it! Brings back great fond memories.
NikonF (original F camera) with the lens of choice and a Singer/Graflex or Metz flash-TriX to 1600-shutter 1/60th-f/2.4 zone focus and GO FOR IT! :-)
Ah the good ol' days! Hah!

Thanks for the early AM memories
Don

You betcha! Still have my vintage 1968 all-manual Nikon F with both plain and FTn prisms and its original 52mm f/1.4 lens in fine working order. Alas, the Hewlett Packard and Metz potato masher strobes are no more, replaced in the early '80s with Sunpak. I wonder how many folks today remember the rule of thumb when you've got to get the shot NOW that a normal sunlight day with 30% scattered clouds calls for an exposure of 1/ASA at f/16?

I wonder how many folks today remember the rule of thumb when you've got to get the shot NOW that a normal sunlight day with 30% scattered clouds calls for an exposure of 1/ASA at f/16?

Or the f-stop foot rule for flash exposures ...

I think you mean 100 ASA, or maybe 125 for VPS?

...the beautiful Nikkor 180mm lens that cost an arm and a leg and no one was a PROFESSIONAL without it ;-).

Remember all too well: I was just a kid
with a poor-man's Canon FTb - never looked professional
among all those black-and-yellow Nikon guys
(maybe that's why I stuck with Canon?)

Speaking of bad smell:
Cibachrome, anyone?

Vasco

I never had the 180. I had (still have) a 24, 35, 50micro, 135, 200. But my digital still camera is a Canon 20D. I need to get some decent lenses for it.

I would be willing to bet that the guy who shot this video was not using neutral density. It seems like when he barely touches the iris, the video exposure changes dramatically, something that happens when you are shooting on a sunny day with no neutral density. It looks like he white balanced, but never engaged the ND.

I've seen other people do this, and this is exactly what the video looked like.

The problem is not just missed exposure.

The camera angles are bad, sometimes the camera is just too far away, pointing at nothing important, and shaking!

When the blonde woman is arriving I can see more camera operators than the woman.

And at 1:44 he got the exposure right...
Why don't just leave at that?

Speaking of bad smell:
Cibachrome, anyone?


That stuff burned pits into a faux marble bathroom countertop!

Never did manage to make decent looking prints. It was way too contrasty. I was going to use silver masking to try and open up the shadows but never did get around to experimenting with that process.

Much later came scanners and Epson photo printers. What a difference! I'm actually able to make great prints from reversal film, something that was just impossible before.

the 180 was IMO and that of many othr one of the greatest pieces of glass ever made.
Sharp as a tack, fairly easy to handle (well sort of) and it brought the football player on the far end of the field right into focus. OK well maybe not the far end (I got relegated to the end zone) but from the 50 yard line in it was a real WOW factor. I get teary eyed just thinking about it ;-)

I never used Cibachrome but I know some guys that did and most thought resperators should have been sold with them.
Talk about going back in time.

Don

With all due respect to the nostalgia of film processing, the thread is wandering off topic a bit. Perhaps all that can be said about the original video sample put up for review has already been stated.

-gb-

This looks just like the usual crap I have to edit for my station as soon as I'm not shooting myself... ;)

Joke aside (or not? Hmmmm...)
I have to say that this is probably one of the worst lighting situations you can imagine. Full mid-day sun, bright clothing, white backgrounds... not good at all! I've recently shot in a similarily sunny mid-day situation with a HVX200 and have been very dissapointed with my own footage (although far from this example). But then, however bad the lighting situation and however bad the circumstances, you should be able as an eng videographer to see that this is just way blown out! In a situation like this I can't set my zebras to 70% and look for skin tone exposure. In a situation like this I set the zebras to 100% and see that I won't get too much of them. The circumstances were pretty rough in this case I guess (brutal mid-day full sun and a lot of white) but the rest of it (reaction to these rough lighting conditions, camera handling, standpoints, framing, cut-aways) just has written "amateur" all over it.

That footage is just horrible! - I can't believe the guy attempted to defend it in any way...