Harp video shot on my XH-A1

[Jonathan Merritt]

Very nicely done. I like the fact that the position of your hands on the harp allowed you to get a nice shallow DOF effect against the background of the forest. That would be very difficult with a guitarist's left hand for example, so you used the physical configuration of the instrument to good effect.

[Mark Harmer]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Merritt

Very nicely done. I like the fact that the position of your hands on the harp allowed you to get a nice shallow DOF effect against the background of the forest. That would be very difficult with a guitarist's left hand for example, so you used the physical configuration of the instrument to good effect.

Hi Jonathan,

Thanks for that - I liked it too although it wasn't planned so much as "discovered" during the shooting - I liked the in-focus background and out-of-focus foreground too. It seemed a bit different.

One thing I learnt in a previous video was that (due to my engineering background perhaps?) I'd been aiming for the sharpest shots possible - yet sometimes the out-of-focus shadows on a surface can be as compelling as seeing directly, what the player's hands are doing.

Also I like the previous comment about the Glidecam - I had heard of this thing and it looks like it would make for nice stable footage / tracking shots. Something for me to investigate!

One other thought - it was a bit of an unpredictable day as the sky was mostly overcast. If it had been sunny the light would have been lovely, but we only had that particular time free to do the shoot.