Making flying videos

[Friarpuk]

Great advice puk!Question for you and everyone really - just opinion - what view of a flying video do we find most aesthetically appealing?

 

To me, I prefer just over pilot's shoulder, mostly the scenery in the viewfinder, but just a bit of the panel below - I like to see what is happening on the instruments. But that might just be the student/geek in me wanting to see not only the flight but the flying. Preferably with the comms and just a bit of engine noise. I don't like the one off the edge of the wing facing in as much, esp. if there is the fish-eye effect. top of the tail looking forward is a nice shot too.

Its all in the combination of shots! But any shot that I'm not doing something stupid is always a start!

The fisheye wing shots look good in some situations, landings if one does a good job of it, and tight turns looking down at the ground kinda look impressive. Side by side air to air are a favourite, late arvo and early mornings give warmer softer pics, but then again the variables are greater and instead of getting really nice pics one might end up with really dirty looking pics. It's trial and error when you can't be looking down the viewfinder and need to do the primary job of keeping the spinner out of the ground!

 

 

[Friarpuk]

Heath: Thanks for the tips on shooting. Can you give us the inside gen on editing too please?

BTW, I particularly liked your point on editing your own footage. My wife shoots a fair bit of unuseable footage as, try as I might, I cannot get her to leave the zoom alone. I might get her to edit her stuff next time.

On an average news shoot for a 90 sec story with three interiviews we would shoot up to 20 minutes of raw footage. In the good old film days crews would go out with 5 mins of film and have to get interviews and overlay for the whole story. But for us today with chips that can hold more vision than our batteries would last this is not the issue. At least when I was in the industry we had video tape we could record over if need be but film one only had one crack of the whip. The same as still photographic film!

 

I too shoot my fair share of what we technically called in the industry "crap", but we all do, especially if experimenting. Zooming is a last resort. Even when on a tripod zooming is generally only to reframe to the next shot. But we were taught if needing to do a zoom in a certain circumstance one needs to hold the shot static for five seconds, then zoom, and then hold the stopping shot for five seconds. Doing this means one has three possible shots to use, two static shots and a zoom. This is the same for pans and tilts too. In editing a story one tends to lay the bed of the story with all audio and associated pictures, and then go back and fill the "black" between the grabs and natsots (natural sound off tape). So holding the shot before and after the movement allows one some time of grace if one wants to put a seven second movement into a ten second hole, etc.

 

But in unstable aircraft I would not zoom. It's just too wobbly! In saying that I mean zooming in or out while recording, or, zooming into something distant, to record a telephoto shot! When we shot out of choppers the pilot was the cameraman, in as far as panning and tilting, and the cameraman just hung on and tried to keep the shot steady. The pilot put one on the shot. But its a little easier to fly sideways in a chopper than a plane. When flying mates around for still photographics one can side slip and fly out of balance, but not as sideways as a chopper. Most of the time if we had one, we'd attach the wide angle lens for aerial vision, and I notice today the cap city stations all have gyro m0unted remote cameras on their choppers. In saying all that, one can cheat if wanting to use a wobbly zoomed in shot , by slowmoing it a little. I've done that in some of my skyranger videos, and have done so in a way that was not too obvious (hopefully)!

 

THis is starting to become a mamoth yarn so more on editing another day. But editing is generally opposite to shooting. Whereas one needs to think slow when shooting, slow to button off, slow to zoom, pan, tilt, etc. but when editing, keep the shots moving, by editing tight, to the beat of music, not jarring but not allowing for the brain to take all in in each shot.

 

Scott what is happening to you in my videos, I suspect, is that the shots move through reasonably quick and a choice of disolves or cuts are chosen not to jar or upset the brain, but being short enough for the brain to fill in the detail of each shot, adding a sense of excitement, or expectation. One that I don't get having shot and edited the material, and if I do it's only months after the fact when my brain has forgotten what is really in each shot.

 

I'm not so bad now, but when I was in the industry, I was a bugger to watch movies with as I could always pick the mic coming into shot and reflections in windows and car doors of cameras, crew, lights etc. Television and movies involve many tricks on the mind with lighting, sound, and editing. Done right it can be very emotive for the viewer. Advertisers politicians and social activists have been hijacking our emotions since the 70s. Its all smoke and mirrors. Enjoyment for us but a powerful tool of manipulation for others.

 

Friarpuk

 

 

[planedriver]

It looks okay! I have not yet had the pleasure of greasing my wheels onto either of the strips there yet!

So good to see you posting again, seems ages. Look forward to more when your commitments allow you a bit of time for yourself.