Introducing myself
 

I guess a personal introduction is what Chris had in mind with this particular forum, so here it goes.

I've been in television (live, tape, film) since 1969 when I graduated with an MA in Theater and Broadcasting. That degree has never gotten me anywhere but since I already had a background in theater, radio and photography, graduate school taught me what a televsion camera looked like. Those were the days when Vidicons were going out and Image Orthicons were still the standard. Quad was the only recording medium. Color was still for the "big guys".

I taught television production in college for two years and in 1971 I landed a job as Post Production Supervisor of the then new "Sesame Steet." My aspiration of making feature films took a detour and I found myself in educational television for the rest of my career. At Sesame Street I developed its style of cutting for no other reason than I was the supervising editor and everyone was left alone to invent. Since I was the only person on staff that knew anything about editing (Editec was the system at the time) I eventually found myself directing remotes with one camera. Some time in the mid 70s I discovered the PortaPack and the Timebase corrector. It wasn't easy convincing old engineers (all techs were "engineers" and in NABET) to put 1/2 tape through a TBC and transfer it to 2" quad tape for bradcast. That was outright treason in the mid 70s. But I did get to put 1/2 color material on the air and, as far as I know, I was the first or second.

I left Sesame in 1979 and freelanced as a director for a couple of years. I was asked to go to China with Big Bird in 1981. That was a hoot. China was just opening up to the west then and we were the main attraction. I was Second Unit Director of that NBC special. Immediately after China I was caled back to CTW (the producers of Sesame Street) to direct "3-2-1 Contact" - a science series. I asked to direct AND produce and was given the job. I eventually became a writer as well. The 80s were great. We originally shot all over the world with 16mm Arris and Eclairs. When film got too expensive we switched to tape - at first 3/4" Umatic and eventually to Beta SP. I still miss film. I got a few Emmys out of that series for directing and one for cinematography (I was surprised too.)

In 1991 I started my own company out of sheer igorance of what business is all about. We lucked out - clients we never knew existed began to come to us - they were mainly publishers who needed video material in order to sell their texts. Over the last 10 years we have developed, produced and shot for every major publisher; produced and annual special for NBC; done a series of one time broadcast shows; done two animated shorts; released in laser disks and CD-ROMs. Last year we did a job where I decided to take the plunge and use After Effects and Photoshop to the max. It worked and the client is happy because the product - layered original watercolors with actors keyed in - is a hot seller in Asia.

We work with three Avids, own an XL-1, three TRV900, a graphic station, and have done a little bit of work with Premiere. The current market is forcing us to re-think how we do things. Gone are the days of budgets that allowed for big crews shooting DigiBeta or even Beta SP. I my process of re-inventing I've turned to MiniDV. We just got a contract to produce 180 minutes of dramatic material for a third of what it would ordinarily cost. Although shooting with MiniDV doesn't save as much as the client might think (we've done the numbers) - it does buy us an extra day of shooting and two extra weeks of editing.

The re-inventing process is a big high for me because it forces me to be director/DP/camera operator and sound monitor (sound is one area I'm not skimping on- I'm still hiring a sound operator). A big high and a big risk - the client is expecting the quality of our high-end productions for the price of our low-end material and I'm naked - no director or DP to hide behind. I'm back to the mid 70s again making a prosumer medium look like a mnillion bucks to the clients.

I'm 56 and I've been thinking of going back to teaching in college. I guess I'm rapidly coming full circle. One thing I'm very sure of - if it wasn't for MiniDV and the XL1 which have re-kindled my old passion for photography and sheer experimentation - my mid 50s wouldn't be as much fun as they are turning out to be. Hence my frequent visits to this site and my sporatic barrage of questions.

If you want to learn more about my company visit www.terramultimedia.com but keep in mind the site is perpetually a year or two behind the times.

That's it.

Superb post! Thanks for taking the time to write it. I know for a fact that I've seen your work; like many American kids, I was very fond of Sesame Street. It's an honor and a pleasure to have you aboard! Much respect,

Ozzie,
You've had a really intersting and very full career. Your site is similarly interesting in the variety of work you've done and are doing.

Thanks very much for sharing it with us.

Hey Ozzie, Chris stole my thunder but It's worth repeating, It's great to know that there are true pros like yourself getting involved in these forums. Just one question though, how the hell did everybody not see Mr. Snuffleupagis?!? Sorry about the spelling.

Daniel,

I hate to break the news to you but eventually people did get to see Mr. Snuffelopagus (Snuffy). But the magic was gone. Big Bird was sad because he realized Snuffy was special when everyone thought he was imaginary.

My best friend is still directing the show. He tells me they even got to see inside Oscar's can! Is there no imagination left?

Pleasure....
 

...the best thing about these postings are- they reaffirm the video quailty and potential of the XL1S- if a veteran like Ozzie feels a breath of fresh air and renewed interest in film-making after all his time in video- sorta confirms that the Canon XL and miniDV are a force to be reckoned with.

Enjoyed the steps and moves in your career- nice to meet you Ozzie.

(my daughter wants to know if you know Barney? hahha)

Introducing myself, too
 

Well, I guess I will just follow Ozzie and introduce myself, too.

I am "only" 27 years old, so compared to Ozzies splendid biography mine is quite the opposite from being full of experience or even impressive. And if my English reads a little awkward from time to time, please take my apologies, it is not my native language. That is because I am from Vienna, Austria in the middle of Europe.
What have I done so far? In 1994 I graduated from school in computer science, started going to the university learning international business and got the opportunity to join a student exchange program and was able to work in Irvine, CA for about 4 months. As the movie buff I am, the first thing I did after I began my "offical" job as a clerk at Barnes&Noble was running to UCLA film department and checking the blackboards for internships on student-films. One stundent actually hired me (no pay, but food and drinks) despite my horrid English and luckily the production was a Stop-Motion shortfilm, so it was mostly me and and the director sharing all the work.
And, as in stop-motion everthing seems to move on in slow-motion, I had the time to learn quite a bit about lights, camera, miniatures and of course animation and the whole production process in general.. taking the cans to the lab, watching the dailies and so on. It was a fun time and when I returned to Austria, I had big trouble to get into the courses of the university again, because I missed most of the deadlines.
So I had to get a job to keep busy in the meantime: I applied and since then work for the Austrian airline, and there I joined the cabaret group of the company who do sort of a comedy show each year, making fun of the airline. They asked if I could help film a short video segment for the show and ended up directing it and operating the camera. It was just a 10 minute piece that played with live interaction on the stage, but believe me, it was a wonderful feeling seeing your little movie on a 5meter videoscreen, hearing the audience laugh in the right places and getting applause from 1500 people afterwards.
So, now the airline knew they had someone they could abuse for some educational training videos: The staff training department asked me to make a video for them. Lucky me, I thought. But it got cancelled the day before shooting was supposed to begin and I had my first deeper insight into company politics and power-games...

But right after that I began planning a 15min short splatter-video (you know when you are young you gotta love that stuff) with gallons of fake blood, mutilations, chainsaws, and all this without any plot. Just for the heck of it. Never finished it, because 2 days into shooting I saw that I have reached the border between doing something for fun with your friends and trying to make a watchable movie that is technically not a home-made movie anymore. I saw it was turning into shit and aborted it. Well, the footage we shot is nevertheless fun especionally the cheesy fx, maybe one day I can impress my grandchildren with it. Right after that failure I decided to get a better camera and 6 months later I had the guts and the money to buy my XL1. Since then there was another cabaret show and the footage of the XL1 looked so much better than the older stuff. It was worth paying that much for it.
Last February while surfing the net, just browsing the DV discussion boards I stumbled over a post of a guy who was looking for someone to help him shoot a documentary about Guadalajara, Mexico. Since there were only 3 days left until my vacation would have begun and I had no plans, I mailed him, that, if he would be able to start shooting in the next couple of days, I could come over and help out with my equipment.
2 day later I was in the middle of Mexico with a guy I have never met before in my life. He turned out to be a 20 year old American from Nevada who moved there because he wanted to get into webdesign (Guadalajara has the name of being the mexican Silicon Valley) and fell in love with the city and wanted to get that on video. And without much of a plan we started running and driving around shooting lots scenery and interviewing all sorts of people about the city. All in all we got 20hrs of tape, which still lie around at my place here in Austria as I had no time yet to edit all of this together.

And today? I am in the middle between writing a feature film and reading books on lighting and sound, practicing with Adobe Premiere and After Effects and building up (slowly) the right knowledge and equipment to be ready to begin shooting this fall/winter.

That´s me. More or less. But I have stolen enough time from you now. Chris, thank you for the forum. I have been around for a few days only, but many of the contributions have already been a great help for me. Keep it up!

Cheers, and greetings from Austria,

Peter

Wow, Peter, this is an excellent, detailed bio and thank you for posting it. Your English is just fine! Thanks again,

Re: Pleasure....
 

<<<-- Originally posted by stevenyc1@aol.com : ..nice to meet you Ozzie. (my daughter wants to know if you know Barney? hahha) -->>>

Nice to meet you too. Good to se there's another New Yorker on this board, and from The Bronx no less!

No, I don't know Barney. But you knew that. I hate the guy and the entire show. In fact I've never liked Elmo either for similar reasons - one dimentional characters and simplistic. But judging from their popularity, I am in a minority. I got to really appreciate Mr. Rogers when my son, now 14, was a toddler. The guy was the antithesis of Sesame but very effective.

Here's a bit of an inside scoop - Fred Rogers was a guest on Sesame while I was still there, in the late 70s. Rogers was very much into telling kids that puppets are not real. No argument there. We had a script written for Fred and Big Bird. The day of the shoot he shows up and very politely asked if we could make a change to the script. He wanted Big Bird to take off his costume, on camera, and reveal that Carol Spinney was the human under the costume! Needless to say that left us speechless. The script was done as originally written. Fred never complained.

Holy Mackeral........Fred Rogers asked to unmask Big Bird...that's wild!!

Bronxite here for sure....just getting myself into DV bigtime and enjoy it immensly (probably because I don't do it for a living)...love the XL1S and just getting to terms with the camera's abilities but really want to try out EF lenses for the ultimate in sharpness at long ranges....gotta say Final Cut Pro is awesome (especially FCP 3 that does real time rendering on the fly with a Mac G4!!!) and Commotion just plain dominates the "special effects" dv scene (the movie Gladiator used Commotion quite a bit- as well as tons of tv commercials)

...went to the American Museum of Natural History today and took tons of stills- will make a web page tonight for people to see XL stills (seems like alot of people wanna see stills from the XL1S)

I'm an airbrush artist by trade (see www.bronxpowersports.com for samples) and can afford the DV toys by painting Harely's and the like (sportbikes too) and do it (dv) purely for hobby- but hope to master FCP, Commotion and the XL in the years to come.......

...nice to meet everyone....

Ah Steven, why aren't you here in Japan. I've been trying to get some airbrushing done on one of my snowboards but you try explaining it in Japanese that is only of a daily conversation level.

Peter,

Welcome aboard! Reading your bio I can't help but think
you are really interested in this and how you seem to be
on the right track to do some great things! Keep up the
good (and hard work)!

It might be interesting for you to read my upcoming
article about my first time making a short movie. It will
be up shortly (if Chris has time :)...

Again welcome aboard and see you around!

Thanks for the kind words Chris and Rob!

And, Rob, I am eagerly awaiting your article!

Cheers, Peter

Pardon my rudeness...
 

Ah I am so ashamed. I began to comment on others posts before introducing myself.

I am a Highschool student living in the California Gold Country (near Sacramento) at a Young Life camp called Woodleaf. My experience with DV is not extensive, but growing rapidly. The camp owns a XL1 and a GL1 (editing the footage on Mac G4's running Final Cut Pro 3) for shooting the summer activities as a video scrapbook. I have taken up DV partly through a class I was taking and also after becoming friends with the head of the camps Video Department.

I have since begun to shoot my Young Life club (for those who do not know what younlife is got to www.younglife.com) and i am shooting our outreach trip to Mexico during Spring Break.

I have not had a chance to shoot with either of the Canon's (they are the camp's equivilant to the Holy Grail) but I am thinking of talking my school or YL club into buying one.

I would appreciate any advice comments or other froms of wisdom at anytime.

Dennis

Welcome aboard. As a teenager you are getting into DV at the right time. Why, when I was your age, all we had was Super 8.

Plenty of advice and words of wisdom await your browsing the 6600 posts here on the boards.

No Apologies Necessary, Dennis
 

Welcome to DVInfo! It sounds like your camp certainly has the basic equipment to tell good stories with. I'm sure you'll find much helpful advice around here. We're frequented by a broad cross-section of folks ranging from folks just starting out to seasoned (sometimes over-seasoned ;-> ) broadcast and film pros.

I'm sure we'd love to hear about your experiences on your spring break shoot.

Welcome Dennis,

It sounds as if you have an awesome opportunity awaiting. Absorb everything you can, but most of all, have fun.

Bill

By way of introduction
 

After reading the many great bios here, I thought it was about time to throw my own meager contribution into the pot.

Compared to many of you, I'm a relative newcomer to the video production business. My "real" job is with the FAA at Sea-Tac Airport near Seattle. I manage the facility that's responsible for the Air Traffic Control radar, communication & automation systems. This is the job that allows me to buy the neat electronic toys, eat regularly, and keep my son in an expensive performing arts college in Boston.

What originally started out as a hobby shooting theater performances of my kids has evolved into a fairly active part-time business. I shoot primarily community theater around the Seattle area, but I've also done a little work for United Airlines, some aviation work, and for some of the local schools.

After starting out with Sony Hi8 and D-8 cameras, I presently use an XL-1 (a love-hate relationship), and edit on a DP G4 with FCP. FCP 3.0 is uncharted waters for me -- until just recently, I was using EditDV/Cinestream on a G3.

I'm grateful for the opportunity to chat with amazing talent that regularly contributes to these forums, and I've learned much from the interactions. Hopefully, I've been able to contribute a little. Thanks to Chris' efforts, these are, by far, among the most user-friendly and informative boards on the net. Thanks, Chris!

Thanks for reading. See you down the list.....

It is a bit late to welcome you aboard, since you have posted
numerous posts already, but welcome anyways! You seem to
be in an interesting line of work where interesting things can
happen in front of a lens!

Thank you for introducing yourself!

Vic,

Like Rob, there's no need for an introduction since we've been communicating for a while.

I find your description of the XL-1 as a "love-hate" relationship very apt. I (my company) own a plain 1 and a 1s. Although my relationship with the XL-1s is slightly more on the "love" side, I can't help but feel a tinge of disappointment that such a ingeniously designed camera falls short of the mark so often. I remain confident that the next major update, the XL-2 (?) will incorporate many of the features already found on the Sony PD-150 (i.e. SMPTE time code, hires b&w full scan EVF, and REAL built in XLR connectors and not the workaround found on the MA-100 and 200.) The strongest design concept in the XL line is its modular approach. I hope Canon makes good on that and can build in some retrofitting, at least into the XL-1s, if it hasn't already.

I know most of the items on my personal wish list are of little use for a lot of users, but thereby lies the problem - who's the XL-1 designed for? Canon might have originally targeted the XL line for the high-end consumer market but as the camera is adopted by more professionals for heavy-duty work, Canon will have to refine and re-define its market. After all, of all the competing cameras - SONY, Panasonic, JVC - Canon is the only company without a professional line of video cameras. The company's forte is in its optics and still cameras. Lacking all that potential internal competition, Canon is perfectly positioned to bridge the gap between the prosumer and professional markets.

Wow, quite a harangue. Can't I just say "pleased to meet you" in fewer words? And I still didn't get to talk about FCP. Another time.

Ah...
 

Well, considering that I am new to the site, I suppose I can welcome you (in a backwards working sort of way). So, welcome!

Perhaps you can answer a few questions I have.

I am currently trying to work out the best way to film some semi-theatrical skits. They are not mic'd and the stage is in a room with horrible accoustics. How would you suggest that I get the audio to sound decent? Second question and pardon my ignorance, but how would you go about getting shots from multiple angles without missing essential dialogue (with one camera).

Thanks for humoring me,

Dennis

Re: Ah...
 

<<<-- Originally posted by YL_wdlf_guy :

I am currently trying to work out the best way to film some semi-theatrical skits. They are not mic'd and the stage is in a room with horrible accoustics. How would you suggest that I get the audio to sound decent? Second question and pardon my ignorance, but how would you go about getting shots from multiple angles without missing essential dialogue (with one camera).

Thanks for humoring me,

Dennis -->>>

The answer to the first question is to experiment. I've shot productions in everything from 500+ seat theaters to elementary school cafeterias. They all have their own challenges. In all cases, I use a Mackie mixer. The mics depend on the situation. Sometimes, Peavy super-cardioids or Senn shotguns on stands work OK. Many times, I've successfully used PZR (floor) mics. I've also used suspended mics or used mics mounted on a catwalk. You just have to tailor your setup to the situation. In most cases, unless you are within 10 feet or so, the audio will suffer significantly -- shotguns provide little help at much of a distance. On some occasions, a feed from the house board works (You need coordination well in advance for this one.) Everything is a trade-off, and each situation is a little different.

As far as different angles, I shoot mostly from the sticks. Sometimes I'll use B-roll stuff from another performance, but matching the audio/video can be difficult. Overall, you're better off to stay with one camera unless you have a crew.

Good luck.

Hi Vic,

I'm jealous on a couple of counts. First, it sounds like you have a pretty good business going that combines two of my favorite things - video production and the theatre (I was a theatre major in college in a previous lifetime). And, second, you're doing it in Seattle - one of my favorite places.

I've had a chance to shoot a couple of theatrical productions and I think it is one of the most challenging and rewarding shoots you could ever hope for. I try not to show the first one I did to many people because I made so many mistakes but the second one came out much better.

Hope to hear more about your work.

Mark Smithhisler

Outside of New York, Seattle has to be one of the best areas for this venue. There is an amazing amount of good theatre here.

Live theatre, I've found, is incredibly challenging to shoot--the contrast range is overwhelming. You can also forget about white balance. As soon as all the different floods and spots come on with the various gels, that all goes out the window. Most actors are not well behaved as far as audio, either, so you're as busy as a cat on a tin roof on roller skates trying to keep up with them! Using manual focus & aperture, pans, zooms and the mixer controls, it becomes akin to playing an instrument (in the dark).

Lots of fun, though. I do a quite a bit of youth theatre, and it brings a lot of satisfaction hearing the comments from the parents that have previously only seen the stuff "that Dad took".

I still screw-up some, but I've also learned a lot. I usually shoot two performances so I can fix the problems in post.

It's not like the big houses that do the multiple camera shoots with a big crew, but it pays for the gear and keeps me off the streets!

Vic,
just putting in my 2cents:

I taped the cabaret show of my company last year with a single camera and almost NO camera-operator, as I was operating the lighting for the show, too.

The Audio solution:

As all performers used microphones, I just plugged the camera in the mixers master ouput and did not have to worry about audio any more. Oh, yeah if you want to record audience reaction, our audio-guy pointed two mics from the stage toward the audience, so we had laughers and appause, too.

The filming solution:

We had three shows, the first night I just positioned the camera way back and left it there so I had a wide shot of the stage. Second night I zoomed in a little (actors from the waist up or so) and had a friend keep the actors in frame whenever possible. Third night I had my friend shoot close-ups. All of it was shot from the same angle about 20meters from the stage, because I wanted to stay close to the audio mixer and avoid a long audio cable. I don´t have a Beachtek, that´s why.

I had the camera on manual focus all the time and set to spotlight. The contrasts onstage were way to big for the camera, so spotlight was the easiest way to go, as I couldn´t operate it myself.

This whole things only works if there a repeated shows, otherwise you would have to do it just like you said, Vic.

The editing:

As it was a cabaret/comedy show it consisted of various sketches each only lasting a few minutes and some parodies of popular songs, which were mostly playback and more or less choreographed.

The easiest were the songs: I just put the 3 camera-setups on videotracks A, B, C synced them by ear and had an easy edit.

The speaking parts were not so easy, because there were differences in the performance at each night: They improvised lines, ignored the markings on the floor, switched positions and so on. Sometimes I could edit it together but for a few sketches I had to stick with the wide or medium shot.

What came out in the end was quite okay and compared to the cabaret shows they occasionally air at our national TV channel it was not bad at all. People know it is a live-performance on a stage, so they will be very forgiving if the white-balance is off or there are no spectacular dollies or so.

Hope this helps a little.

Cheers,

FYI
 

The April Issue of "Videomaker" magazine has an article entitled "Sound Advice: Auditorium Audio." Page 95.

That's a great 0.02, Peter. I've tried the Spotlight, but found it will only work well on close-ups. Otherwise, there are too many hot spots, usually faces. A feed from the board when the actors are miked works well, but I've seldom had that luxury. Great comments.

I'll browse the article that John mentioned -- I've also gleaned a wealth of audio information from Jay Rose's columns @ DV (and his web site).

>Live theatre, I've found, is incredibly challenging to shoot--the >contrast range is overwhelming. You can also forget about >white balance.

One of my biggest mistakes on my first attempt was not paying more attention to WB. I shot four different performances and cut them together like it was a multi-camera shoot. I was using a hi-8 camera and left it in auto white balance which uses an on camera light sensor. one of the nights I was positioned near an exit where there was a very intense blue light. You can imagine how orange the footage from that night came out! Luckily, Media100 gives you some advanced control over color balance so I was able to help the footage quite a bit but you can still see the difference everytime I cut to that camera.

Contrast is a huge problem because theatre productions are lit for the human eye not the camera which has a much more limited contrast range. Does anybody know if the XL1s allows any adjustment of gamma?

regards,
Mark

Well.. time to do this little bit :)
 

Hi all,

after having posted a few times at different threads i remembered that its prob time to do the presentation bit :P

Name is Henrik Bengtsson, and im a 30ish video producer/film wannabe/3d artist /whatever living in Borås, Sweden. I run my own company Docu Wild which does just about everything from wildlife documentaries (hence the name :) to music videos (old habits die hard). I have over 12 years experience with CGI work, mainly 3D and have film credits with a little indie film called "Designer Baby" where i did the main vfx sequence in that movie. After that i've worked as a editor / Softimage|ds operator for a few years and played with everything from voice acting to directing. Oh being a scuba instructor aswell as a videographer means i've done a fair bit of underwater filming if anyone has any questions regarding that.

Well, thats that :) C ya on the forums...

/Henrik

Thank you for introducing yourself Henrik! It is nice to hear that
your doing all this different stuff with your camera! Glad to have
you with us.

See you around.

Hello Henrik,

I'm an amateur videographer who is currently working on my own wildlife/nature/history projects. I would be interested in hearing about any of your projects and any advice or stories you have re: wildlife docs. I'm sure there are plenty of others who would also be interested.

Welcome!

Well. some advice are pretty obvious and some are very project dependant. But in short:

1) Plan ahead (gee have we heard this one before). Although some people seem to think its just a matter of going out in the woods or hopping into the ocean, this is not the case. You need to get a synopsis, a rough storyline, a script and if all possible a storyboard. Now... you say "but how can i coach a wild tiger or a great white shark to do as i tell him?" well.. hehe.. you can try :) no seriously, you still need to know WHAT shots you should be on the look out for.. there are very few re-takes here, so either you spend a lot of time waiting for the shots that might look good in post or you try to select out those that you need.

2) more cameras == usually good. When capturing an event unfolding once, have several cameras with different zoom settings. A wide cam, a CU cam, a medium shot for example. that way you will have 3 different angels to edit from when you see that rare moment.

3) avoid interaction and tampering. There are instances when wildlife producers have definately stepped over the line of what is ethical and what is not. Me personally i strongly object to anything that either abuses the subject your are filming or abuses another subject indirectly. Some exampels; Feeding live animals to predators, using searchlights at night to illuminate the subjects (this startles them and makes them easier prey for predators), physical interaction (riding on whalesharks/turtles etc). If one truly loves the subject you are filming, it is beyond me why you would hurt it just to get the shots you want.

There is a very good rule-set on this that you can find at http://www.scandinature.se/company/wildcare.html

4) It also helps with aquiring other skills than just filming. Be an expert scuba diver with great boyancy control is vital to avoid harming the environment when filming. 4wheel driving, climbing, airpiloting, first aid (important!), skipper, carpentry, etc. it all depends on where you want to shoot and what you need out in the field.

5) Licenses. Make very sure you have all the paperwork set out proper when going to a foreign country to shoot.

6) Hazards. If going to a unstabile country, you MAY need protection. If this sounds odd, don't go there. You will be carrying around camera equipment for thousands of dollars in an environment where you can be robbed and killed for 10 dollars. So just because your backyard is safe, don't expect everywhere to be the same. Furthermore, if filming large land based predators, be prepared to defend yourself. IF they attack, it may end up being you or them. Another good reason not to get to close. Tele-lenses are ours and their friend :)

So.. its' not just going out in the jungle and shoot the next wildlife spectacular =)

Regards,
Henrik Bengtsson
DocuWild

Good list Henrik! Thanks for sharing that...

Thanks for taking the time to give some advice. Most of my video will be in my very stable "backyard", but I have seen some nature docs where the least dangerous thing is the wildlife.

Actually i forgot the perhaps most important point of all.. although some would say it goes without saying :)

Make sure you know a LOT about the subject of your documentary. This will help forseeing behaviour that you want to shoot and avoid any "bad" experiences.

A good way to get this information actually is to watch other productions made about the same subject. This also helps you weed out any elements that look to similar to previous productions.

And if you do not have the zoological/biological knowledge yourself, make sure you get a contact who does. Most scientists in these areas is all to happy to be a part of something that is beneficial to their area of research. Just don't expect a shark scientist to support your "Killer death sharks who eat little babies" project.

Ok. good luck.. and to citate Bo Landin (Scandinature) "Keep your boots muddy" with my own addition "... and your scubagear moist."

/Henrik

Ahoy there...
 

Greetings and all the usual cr*p people say when introducing themselves. As you can see with your very own eyes, my name is Frank. In my quest for finding any and all information about DV on the internet, specifically in relation to the Sony DCR-VX2100 I just recently purchased, I stumbled across these boards that you all call home...or at least your online home. You will now have to put up with the likes of me for as long as I choose to remain a part of this community. I apologize in advance.

This post is merely a hello, a declaration of my presence if you will, though I fully intend to make hundreds if not thousands if not millions of new posts asking and bugging and poking and prodding you all about everything you know about DV and my camera. Yes that's correct, I'm yet another fellow here who went off and bought himself a nice camera and doesn't have a clue as to what to do with it.

But to let you all know, I am fully dedicated to this profession I have chosen and would really appreciate the help and advice that you guys are capable of offering. While I may not totally be the horse's ass I led on to be, I look forward to discussing all aspects of DV and learning as much about it as I can while I'm here.

Thank you for your time.

Welcome, Frank. Feel free to search/read and post away on the forums.

I'm thinking, Chris, that there should be a forum here where only guys named Frank can post. What are your thoughts on this?

Joining the bandwagon
 

I guess I've been hanging around here, on and off, long enough to post on this forum. I surf the web quite a bit, mostly looking for quality information about anything. I'm a fairly regular fixture in a couple of tech forums and at least one aviation forum (AvSig) since my other hobby is flying. Out of all the forums and chat boards I frequent this is by far the friendliest, most personable, and most informative of all. Chris and the wranglers have done a remarkable job of keeping this board clean, relevant, and on target.

Congratulations guys!

If you want to know more about me just click over to http://www.terramultimedia.com/ozbio.htm

By the way, I shaved the beard last week. It's a thing I do once a decade to keep track of time - I now look younger by ten years.

If I can be of any help with anything related to television, video, broadcast or not, photography, or even flying – just drop me a note and I’ll try to be of help.

See you around the boards.

Oz

Welcome aboard!

You're responsible for some of my best childhood memories! Sesame Street and 3-2-1 Contact!

I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy! Thanks for the memories.