Documentary video
 

I am going to be shooting my first documentary video comming this August. I will be covering a church on a two week missionary trip to Kenya. I have not done a documentary at this level before. Any good sugestions or books that could help. I would really like this piece to be one that would win awards.

I will be using a canon XL-1 for most of the video.

I'm in the middle of a documentary myself. What's really helped me is to study other documentaries about similar subjects. Find a few that you like and watch them several times each. Also watch them with the sound turned all the way down, it will help you concentrate on how the video works. Then watch again with the brightness turned all the way down so you can't see the video, and just listen to the audio track only. I think that studying documentaries will help you just as much if not more than book learning. Hope this helps,

Sounds like a good idea. That is simular to how I have done other projects. Thanks for your comments.

Tips for Documentary Shooting, please
 

Im getting ready to start in with the shooting of a documentary subject. A XL2 was recently purchased for the project and I am just embarking on familiarizing myself with the machine. Most footage will be on-the-go hand-heald follow-the-target stuff.

From reading through articles on 'watchdog' and elsewhere, it seems we will to need procure the following extras :

the simple onboard light and the 3x wide angle lense (for in-car and close-quarters interactions).

For those that have experience with this kind of shooting :

- do you find the mic that comes with the standard xl2 package to be sufficient? what else would you recommend?

- do the zoom and autofocus motors really create that much perceivable noise?

- any advice on lense filters or where I can learn about using those?

- any tips on doing quick lense changes?

Thank you for any helps,

in the force, Stefan

The right answers to your questions depend on the kind of action you will be shooting. How many people will you be shooting? What will they be doing? In what kind of locations? Are the people young, old? Are the locations likely to be noisy? What kind of light will you encounter in the anticipated locations? What is your relationship to the persons you'll be shooting? Will you be using more than one crew member? etc. Without having answers to these kinds of questions, it is difficult to suggest how you might plan.

If you are new to the documentary, I would strongly recommend getting ahold of a copy of Michael Rabiger's "Directing the Documentary" which is one of the better, if not the best, one-volume work on the subject. It will help you get a grip on planning issues. Mouse-over the title to find a link to the publisher's description. If I were teaching a course this is the book I would use.

Stehan,
Petes advice is good. Also check out this thread

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...ht=documentary

For more advice and comments.

To directly answer some of your questions, the onboard mike is pretty good for grab and go stuff. But if you KNOW you're going to be interviewing people, take the time to mike them correctly. At least pick up a lav and xlr cable. The camera is pretty quiet, I'm just finishing up editing a doc I shot last year, and there's no camera noise in any of it. OF course, I was shooting with the manual 16x as well.

Since I'm just down the road from you in San Francisco, feel free to email me directly with questions.

Here is some advice others might overlook-

Before doing "Run and Gun" type stuff, do a once over with the cam, and do a quick take. Then review the footage for any anomolies you might not catch whilst running. This is a good way to find out if your audio is working, you have spit or other foreign debris on the lens, etc.

Also, wear baggy pants with big pockets. I stash lens caps and batteries in my pants pockets. While you're at it, big pockets on your shirt are great for extra tapes and pens to mark them with. That is for folks like Marco who have hangups about unlabled tapes ;) Comfortable shoes are also overlooked.

Ditto Keiths remarks.

Long ago, in my young career as a photojournalist, my mentor had one of those fancy "Photographers vests" with straps, pockets, pouches and such all over it. "Pockets..." he said, "Can't have enough of them." Basically, the guy WORE his camera bag. Still a good way to work.

Me, I've got two black military style belt pouches with double swivel locks on them. Hold batts, tapes, lens caps, cables on each hip. The same pouches lots of grips use for handy tools.

If you are one guy shooting and it involves any capturing of conversation in frame, get a mounted shotgun. If it is around people, this helps concentrate on the subject and cuts out any sidebar noise that you have no control over. It has worked wonders for me doing all of the extra footage I do for band and drum corps videos.

Peter, thank you very much for the book suggestion. I'll be doing a first search through local bookstores to see if I can grab it used, or off of half.com. I've been reading a lot of stuff on doc threory; that book looks like it will pit me right into a practicle production mindset as well.

On the type of shooting, Peter, Im afraid all I can answer is EVERYTHING. From indoor classroom settings, to concert stages, to outdoor natural envirnments, city stuff, inside cars. Im jumping in, head first, to learn all this stuff, and I understand its going to be very hard to get A++ footage in all these different conditions, especially given that the budget doesnt go too much further for me. It is a one man crew, following a subject of one through his life for the next few months.

Richard, yeah, Im in San Francisco now, but this doc will be mostly up out of upstate New York. And then falling into Japan possibly. Im very excited to have your contact though, and will definately be taking you up on your offer for suggestions on stuff.

Pockets, I need pockets. Does anyone use one of those backpacks with a spot down the middle for a lense, and then compartments for batteries and such?

George,

Im looking to spend more of my budget dollars towards the 3x lense, and may not have the top-dollar cash for an excellent shotgun mic. Do you have any suggestions for a good-quality, easily priced mic?

If you are chasing around a "subject of one" with a one man crew I would suggest recording CH1&2 with an on-camera mike and CH3 with a wireless mike on the subject. This arrangement would give you complete audio coverage of the subject when he/she on-camera and off -- esp. nice if you are shooting over the shoulder of the subject when he/she is talking to someone else.

In post you would be able to mix the three channels together in some nice ways, allowing some dramatic/narrative focus of the audio. This will be important because variations in lighting will probably limit consistency of the video portion of the program.

wooohooooo! nice. slick. clean.

wireless brand suggestions?

Look at the mics on this page:
http://dvestore.com/products/sound.html

then buy from a dvinfo sponsor (B&H has all the Sennheiser stuff at about the same prices). DV creators do offer some good training materials too.

Over in Now Hear This, I see the A-T 897 mentioned alot. I would ask those guys as I choose mine based on their recommendations (I have a A-T 835-ST). Rode is also mentioned along with the Sennheiser 66 series IIRC.

documentary tips needed?
 

hello, im working on a documentary using panasonic dvx100a, a lot of the interviews are outdoors in las vegas where there is a lot of sun glare, i just bought a matte box, but im still learning how to use filters. does anyone know where i can purchase various filters, also any links to tips on settings for this camera. thanks

Documentary Advice Needed
 

I usually lurk in one of the DV post production forums and this is my first post here. So, if I'm off topic, I apologize in advance.

I am currently working on my first documentary, using old photographs, video footage, and interviews shot at a family reunion. I'm wading through the enormous bulk of old photos and 8 hours or so of talking head footage and have broken the job down into 10 "segments" that will run between 5 to 10 minutes each. I plan to identify each talking head in the credits, and the target audience is the family members themselves.

My question is: Are there any rules for placing titles below the talking heads? Specifically, how often to use the titles.

I hate it when I'm watching a documentary and the talking head is not identified, but it seems overkill to include the title each time the same person re-appears after a cutaway.

My initial thought is to identify the talking head once per segment, the first time they appear within each segment.

All advice welcome (on this specific topic as well as any other advice you may have on this type of production).

First time they talk is the rule and maybe towards the end, if there are other interviewees in between (in case someone jumps in on the Discovery Channel and don't know who the person is). If not, just once should be fine. I'm guessing it's the latter, since you want to do segments.

heath

It kind of depends on the structure of the documentary, how often the "head" appears and what context it appears in. Basically, the purpose of the lower third is to IDENTIFY the head, and to MINIMIZE CONFUSION. You put it up in the first shot to identify the speaker - "JANE SMITH of the KANSAS CITY SMITHS" perhaps.

Later, you're taking about the Jones family, and you want to cut in Jane again, because she makes an interesting comment, you might want to slug her lower third so the viewer doesn't think she's a Smith.

Depending on how your doc is cut together, you may not need to identify the head again. IF all the "Smith Family" segments are cut together, than we know she belongs with the SMith Family. If we are cutting back and forth between various families, while they talk about VACATIONS OVERSEAS... then ask yourself if the unidentified head is confusing in context to the viewer. Does the head before this one talk about "My sister always goes skiing" and then you cut to his Aunt? Might the viewer confuse the comment about the sister with the footage of the Aunt? In that case, identifying the Aunt might be necessary a second time.

It's really a case by case basis. You don't want to interrupt the visuals or the flow of the story... but you don't want the story lost either. It's a balance between identification,distraction, and confustion.

So make your rough cut, screen it for fresh eyes, and then ask if they got lost or confused or were distracted... then go in for the next cut, making adjustments.

Make sense?

Heath and Richard,

Thanks for the help.