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Video for Photographers Part 1

so just remember it's it's a lot of steam concepts that you guys are currently using it doesn't have to be over complicated sometimes people tend to over teacher over think things and this isn't one of those classes no absolutely and so you're building on your own experience and that's exactly what I did which I still messed up but we're gonna help you not do that so uh learning a new skill set adding on again when she said what you already know just using everything that you already know to kind of learn video and learn composition color theory all that rule of thirds it's still all applies to video and we'll cover that a little later as well and there's like a few things that are different and so will make sure that you know that you know what's different and you already have a great foundation to bring it all together in premiere and post in photoshopped things tools that you ready use you probably don't already use premiere but we'll teach you how to use premier that'll be the only...

like really new software that you wind up learning and I think a lot of people don't realize that you can make great video with like dolan's is you have the camera you have all of that so I'm gonna I think the next site should be this video that we shot together and I'm gonna tell you what it took and I just want to get an introduction of the type of work we did so we're also going to show you the mistakes that we've made along the way we're not hiding it so eventually the first video ever shot together and then we'll later if you want we could debunk it and see what we did wrong good think but there's mistakes in itself now after so by all means no no really good uber dark so that was my lead on that project so I was asked by a designer who I had shot there lookbook in fashion photography that means that you're basically photographing a catalogue of their clothes and then you just stand in front of a background and so they liked working with me and said do you do video and I said yes of course and of course I had no idea I felt here that now but I really didn't do video so that entire piece the on ly thing that we got extra that I did not already having my kid with something called a slider and we rented it for seventy five dollars everything else was a try pond that was a a regular photo taipan um it was a cannon five mark three and a cannon five the mark too and a mono pod and that's it and nothing else so I just want to give you the idea that some of the type of stuff that we do um okay so it's a little bit more of a guard but I wanted to show you see he get an idea but like I said we'll have a lot of stuff that maybe more applicable and I wanted to apologize this isn't before move step forward because video will not replace photography and given point and I think s sorry it's just way haven't innate feeling to capture time and keep everything still motion we wantto remember memories almost a still moments so if it has been around since the late eighteen hundreds and you haven't seen any given point somebody say I'm just gonna be a complete videographer and give a photography you haven't seen movies just completely stay still in play music in the background it's still kind of go hand in hand so there's still gonna be photography there still gonna be videography on going back to what I just mentioned it late eighteen hundreds wanted were started so by all means don't be afraid don't say I'm going to completely give up still photography because I want to use a video full time still pick up the camera still practice it's still fun you still find clients that way so make sure that you're still integrating the two as a photographer okay so I'm a nerd and my keynote presentations have movement and that's not normal for people to do teo so we'll go kind of debunk video is so it's a mixture between visuals movement and audio and that's literally all video is you guys already have the basic fundamental which is the visuals us understand what composition is you guys understand what color theory is you guys already working with ease these terms the movement in the audio really scare people away they don't want to do what they want to deal with it so when it comes to movement in audio that's literally scares everyone in this room I'm sure it's it's something that we're not familiar with movement and still photography don't go hand in hand and audio's a completely different room luckily we have a bunch of tools to help us debunk that myth it's it can be easy as long as you know the fundamentals and again people are going to try to over teach you and say you're never going to be able to do this but double blind it's it's they're full of it I mean that's just that and by the way I know this can like somebody and cinnamon probably help me uh when you first started getting started don't do audio you like just do the visuals and like at a little movement and then use the triple scoop music song or something like that like keep it simple and then when you feel confident too because that's uh that's the first and I'll scare you away and say okay I'm done with this so yeah and I will say that's where I'm at right now yeah I just get a triple skip music song and put it on there I'm comfortable I want to stay here for a while if you want to clip that's all it is it's just overload music I mean by no means did you hear anything in the background or any ambient noise by any means that was our first video together so it's nice to see somebody just do that and say it's okay totally okay and then we'll tomorrow and uh you guys were going like this we're gonna make you help with completely had hands oh I'll be like okay this is what the sound we want which tool do you pick up so be prepared study I'm sure wayne will be there for you so oh all right well bring it in the audience focus on what you know um things is the photographers that were taking a two dimensional world and putting it on a three dimensional plan so he's all these different tools that we have let's say decides it's very rare and very animated after this this is why I stopped doing animation keep them so we take this three dimensional world and put into two dimension environment we have all these rules and theories to make it look like it's a three dimensional vier mint just to give us some some depth every single photo that we're taking it still applies to video by all means composition still relevant all these key terms that were gonna wind appearing simplification elements design rule space all these different things that you hear still apply everything that you've learned so far still applies and that's called the arrangement of visual elements and I don't know if you guys know this if you look at the credits in movies the person that is like designing and shooting the shots is called the director of photography there a photographer ds the same thing so actually have kind of a question about that because one of the big things that I know this is now your really limited two with wise frame instead of being able to to do that so I don't know if I'm jumping ahead there or not but but I can't really quick cancer super quickly because you will see it so you do have to change how you think a little bit because everything is horizontal no verticals but you have tools for being able to pan and tilt and then also something that we have that will show is something called a vertical slider so basically what it does is it takes your camera and goes like this so instead of having a click vertical frame it's a vertical frame over two three seconds but it's the same thing so that's one of the tools that he used amazingly in his harley video cause he's looking at the scene he's like this is a vertical this is only a vertical this is not a horizontal you use that tool and it turns into a vertical over time just looking at what you have and repurpose ing it and putting it okay if I need this is a vertical shot you know just compose it toe the horizontal space and just drive down that specific frame and it technically is a vertical at that point yeah smile that's what you think about things so video compositions the arrangement of elements so why do we use composition is photographer's control the viewer's eye same exact thing so we're going to talk about competition now some of the tools that you guys already know and we'll give you some samples of that but composition same thing still relevant same tools so we're going to speak about lying shape color tone space and death and how that still applies to video so it's things that you already know and so the assignment that I will give you all is go watch your favorite movie and like mark down which of these are prevalent and I think it also like visually which movies you like best because some directors of photography of some directors primarily their strongest tools color and a lot of that is actually done after the fact and people don't realize that movies when you look at them like straight out of camera they look ah full like I mean awful awful if you go look it up so we're going to talk about what that's called this is called color grading and changing the composition and color things like that but then there's also other ones that use like really strong perspective and really beautiful lighting says the same thing I do is fashion photographers when there's somebody I love I analyze what I love about them do the same thing with movies and then you khun is it yourself I mean if you guys want to replicate something that your favorite director does if you find a movie that you like it maybe it's just that cinematic style that you like and you want to replicate that same thing in photography is finding somebody to kind of replicate their style if that's what you like to do if lindsey's your favorite fashion photographer and you can replicate her photos why not do the same thing video so my thought process so line in shape okay perfect so line and shape one of the first elements of composition is controlling the eye so in video if there's a lot of action a lot of motion where should we be looking so it's going to apply the same thing so you know the first one would be rule of thirds and so same thing as you would do in photography whatever is most important in your frame ideally goes in a thing called basically power point eso where those lines intersect and so for example this is a video that jeff and I shot together for a client and it's a shoe advertisement but if you look there's always an eye on a line or she's standing on a line where her head's on the line or her feet walk to the line the entire time so I mean that's a very very carefully place and it's it's on purpose I see a lot of people that as soon as they flip over to video they're following the action and so what happens is is then they're following in its it's moving around and halfway in the center lock down like when you first start off stand the tripod don't move your camera but focus on the rule of thirds and having things in our life when somebody switches over generally we have like an assistant on set and they go to video they freeze there like I don't know what I'm doing right now I just you turned it into video and rule of thirds everything went out the window I don't I'm not a photographer anymore it's like I just gave you a camera and switch the mode I mean it's the same camera what happened don't don't be fearful I mean everything that you have learned already didn't go out the window everything that you learned still applies so don't be fearful of just taking this and completely going blank you literally have to follow the rule of thirds same way sophie attracting someone's taken the rule of thirds its same ordeal I'll go back and if you want to do the same video again too kind of explains some of the shots that we wait real quick if you want to see that it is on my video page and you know shoot but just really pay attention pretty much every single shot like is very strongly placed on a third so maybe not that one that one is that is so you should be thinking the same way everything should have strong this is one of the first videos we did together sure you got the smallest a second one if you look at the final shot she still has a tag on the bottom of your shoe because the client never noticed that I still see that right there is no one else notices that and it bothers me still to this day thinking well there's a famous I think is a famous abadan photo where it's the woman standing with the elephants right and he always think it's one of his most famous photos and he considers that failure because he didn't flew for dress like shit it's a dress basically except for probably a more dignified way that way next slide so going back to the harley thing this was just a light test using the lights that we're using here in creative life they're called kina flows okay so I wanted to replicate what ambient light will look like jump just something overhead so I took that same light that we have right above our heads to illuminate and replicate the fluorescent light inside the garage there's really no light inside the garage I literally had to replicate that same light thie other thing is the garage doors open but because it's shadid I couldn't see any light coming from outside so what I did was take a different light and light that it seemed to kind of working on make sure that headlight my most important aspect of the specific photo is the lighting on the bike itself so if you look at it it's riblet I'm not worried about him as much as I am that bike because harley doesn't care what he looks like hardly cares what that bite looks like and you'll see the final shot that this actually turned into so that it actually going perfectly give you example of the vertical because uh this is a vertical coz you can't see the bike so what do you do in an ad when you need to see the bike and him and you have to shoot the whole garage it's ugly so that goes back to what you had mentioned it's just looking at this and saying how would issue that you know vertically and I can't and then we'll show you how do you do that so uh same thing in photography having leading line one of the things that I could take for photographers that give me their portfolios and say you give me some tips I see all the time and you know I'm definitely guilty of this you don't think important fingers of a subject standing in front of a background it's super flat and when you do that for video it makes it ten times more boring because you're watching it over time versus if it's a still frame you can click or like okay I get it next you can't do that with video so having some kind of death that you're introducing through leading lines absolutely try that s o is it stanley kubrick for example like in a lot of his pieces it's like endless leading lines and deaths and perspective and so it feels like you're there and if you want to lean in and see what's further out in the distance so it engages you more if you guys aren't art majors still using first first degree that I can't speak today let's put one point two points three point perspective I'm gonna go back to go forward for two seconds I'm gonna go back to the reason we shot this this way you go backto leading lines is if we had replicated and replicated both sides so everything is completely parallel right so imagine the subject in the background on a completely white surface there's no depth there there's if he runs he looks like he's an exact same position the whole time so just having some sense of leading line it shows he's running some sort of disco in between there so it's just using those same techniques that you wouldn't photography to do video so eh so they were going to talk about in for focusing that so that's another big one that people are freaked out by it's focusing on something like this it would be near impossible tohave him and focused the hallway like to try to focus on him from front to back so what you do is something called pre focusing I have jeff for whoever was there stand on the spot where we wouldn't usually isn't someplace in a beautiful third right you haven't stand the third you focus there and then they run into your focus so then right when the composition comes together beautifully there in a third the light looks great they pop into focus and then fall out of focus I think that people are thinking too much like photography like you need to have something and focus all the time no you don't have it out of focus except for like a split second and then your mind's fine because you process I saw it and focus cool I know what it looks like uh you see that and a lot of more of like romantic films with really shallow depth of field the person's eyelash will just come into focus for a second and that's okay with you it's different than with in photography what you're searching for something constantly in foca and it works with a bride walking down an aisle that works with musician if you have issued in a music video by all means if they're working on stage and you get to be close up and they're sitting on a specific point you have to kind of shoot wide open is very difficult to get that focus if you're shooting a business profiled by all means anyone show behind the scenes industrial equipment moving back and forth and those motions just always pre focusing we'll discuss that later and just couple of things I line so there's a few differences and video this might be a little bit of a different one it's has some overlap do you know how when uh you have ah frame where someone's looking out of the frame it gives a very different feel than if they're on the other side looking into the frame um you're following that so in video you're actually looking for a narrative so if somebody's looking out of the frame you're looking for a week with them what are they looking at you you're actually kind of paying attention if you have someone searching for something you want to see what they're looking at on but also really important uh the angle that your cameras that communicates different things so ah high angle for example gives you the feel of like the amish in camera that's looking over the scene right you see that movies a lot it's introducing the scene where is a very very low angle is more like sneaky like you're like looking into the scene where as something that's by level is an intimate connection so you're trying to figure out what it is that you're communicating is it voyeuristic is it overall scene or are you supposed to get to know one connect with that character so that's something that we don't pay attention to is much in photography because it's a single image it's still khun communicates uh you know that same idea but it's not part of us story um something that again I positive that senator photographers would not like is that we're not going to focus too much on story because personally for me that's what scared me that's what held me back because I thought that I had to in detail storyboard beginning there's something called matched action so for example match action would be in a movie you see this all the time wine shop of lindsey reaching towards clicker that a closer shot of lindsay picking up quicker different one and then a really close shot of lindsay clicking clicker right match action it's only get michelle to the movies that you notice there was a mess up like in braveheart where he like grabs its sword and he runs next scene he hasn't acted like those things you know so it's a thing called match action that's really important if you're doing narrative like if you're actually telling a story beginning to end maybe of how ah couple met and that scared me because I'm not really I'm not really a writer and it's not how my brain worked my strength was visuals so if you look at most of my pieces they're not actually stories in the narrative sense but their stories in the emotional sense like you connect with the characters the colors tell a story something like that so there are tons of resource is out there if you want to learn more about storyboarding and telling a story I'm going to say this we're telling a story through visuals it's more about your experience then a narrative still story but it's not narrative in most of the things I do story telling is just one of those things that just takes too much time on set I mean I've had experiences where you're trying to shoot a three minute video and take days actually replicate because I wanna make sure you have every single match action if you're doing the forty five second commercial clip and it's a very very short scene if you notice when you watch any commercials quick it's quick cuts sometimes it doesn't even make sense it's just a final product you know there's no official impact that's it that's all it is so by all means you could do the same thing and replicate that a lot of cinematographers or dedicated cinematographers are gonna like this today okay uh please please like me anyway uh goes back to the title of course simple people is how to be a cinematographer you're right so let me give you one more difference okay one more difference in composition that didn't exist in uh in photography okay oh anyone ever heard of the one eighty degree rule okay so this has something to do with uh it's more important for narrative so I kind of know that here where does your subject appear in the frame it's an invisible line for continuity in narrative so I don't know if I'm allowed to do this on my lot can I borrow one of you can I let make them sit here can I cover you all right let me just explain what this means real quick all right well you two faced each other okay they're having a little conversation e love to it's just getting isn't it photo test there's a lot of people here and creative live with major nude photo tattoos and it makes me happy okay so this is what the one eighty degree rule means when they're interacting with each other you draw a line straight through them and your camera needs to stay on one side or the other you pick one and this is why when I'm on this side for kip let's say I picked this side no matter where my camera is she will always be in the left hand side of my frame always so if I'm shooting over her shoulder looking at him for a conversation she is on the left side if I'm shooting right here she is on the left side if I'm shooting over his shoulder she's always on the left side if you're trying to do narrative like storytelling and all of a sudden I go ahead and I shoot from behind all of a sudden switches and it confuses your brain into thinking waited did they just move did they switch places are we in a different scene because the other part is I see a consistent background right well sometimes if I switch that line well now I see you guys if that wasn't introduced into the scene you have no idea where you are like your thinking ok it jumped forward in time where what just happened so that's just something a little different for composition to keep in mind you draw a line you pick a side yeah for artistic reasons would you ever just jump that rule way have a wolf and so I think it's much too part one of the reasons you would jump it is to be jarring and that's what they do in movies if you ever see somebody jump the line it because it's supposed to make you go wait what what just happened and it makes tension usually but what you'll see is I did it we did a couple's video together it's engagement session and it's not a narrative so the whole time they're switching back and forth but it's there in different scenes like it's clear it is not like a stream of consciousness if you want to call it that when you tend to remember something it's all everywhere all at once so by all means you can jump anywhere into the scene depending away you're thinking about when we introduce that it's well when we introduced it there's a back story behind that but I guess I'll tell them thank you uh yeah and you think thank you video just jump straight you just use of the client started asking you yeah when at one point did you start promoting that as something that you did or did you just keep letting the client's kind of ask you no that's perfect what I would say when I would bid for a job and this is in my realm you bid for a job and you're saying this is the price and whatever I would say well since you're already coming and getting your uh wardrobe hair makeup done already devoting a day you can shoot some video while you're here you can use it as a promo on your website so I use it to get me more business so I used it is value added uh people one of the questions I get a lot is how do you figure out what to charge I've made up now what I charge but at that point I would just use the value added because for a commercial job you already making enough money that I'm just helped me get the job um so I do that all the time my perfect example is I photograph a lot of musicians and so it would be promo images for their album cover or maybe it's going to be for a magazine article or something like that so musicians sound interview while you have them there I'll use my modeling lights and do a little clip and so now they have a leg hey I'm you know susie jean it's you know welcome to my website hope you like my music like something simple like that but that might have been the reason I got and the thing that magician like professionals by all means if you shooting a corporate headshot offered maybe they want to do an introductory bio piece I mean if you want to make them up and we'll teach you guys how to use all your later but it's a little more interactive that way if you want to show them working their business interacting with clients it shows their interaction a little better same way that we do with the photography sound in the behind the scenes photos it shows our personalities clients love that they want to share their personalities to their clients because a photo can only say so much and you definitely have that interaction because clients are looking for that I think that's a good point just ada's well photographers I'm not trying to insult most of our clients however uh a lot of times they kind of know a good photo they don't know the difference between good and great and they pick the photographer based on who they connect with if you don't have a chance to see them face to face sometimes that behind the scenes video is where they're like it looks like fun on there set or they're really professional and so that's why I asked him right away to learn videos that he could shoot behind the scenes so people could feel emotional connection with me and being on my set so my question is for you guys like it's different cause you're doing fashion but most people here most likely wanting to add it into their weddings my my question for that is so if you want to add it into the wedding if I'm a single shooter I only ever single shooter I'm having somebody come in and do it be a second shooter for video would do require a second shooter or have you ever done photography and video when you have live action so like a wedding it's so clear this site for portrait completely doable to do both I do it all the time completely doable and especially if it's live action portrait meaning they're not just sitting in my studio but we're going on location I want video and then I want a still that's doable wedding I wouldn't try to do it yourself like from maine for the harley commercial I shot it myself there's nobody else and said there's no second shooter there's no one else I lit it all myself designed the set myself my my work flow is different for that specific set because if you were working into a wedding environment my personal opinion is if you have you don't need a storyboard for weddings but if you have a shot list the same one you wouldn't photography and you know what you need if it's the day off I wouldn't say focus so much on video and that because you'll miss your shot you're gonna miss something if you're trying to multitask the whole time if you have a second shooter and you know that they're great photographer and you're the stronger videographer assess who strikes are aware and then go ahead and use that you don't want to miss anything and what I would do is a photographer andi I have done this a swell uh when you get the shot you know how you know it when that was the shot a soon as you've got that shot switching over to video don't tell them that you're switching to video say that looks great let's do it again what you're trying to capture is not the pose but the in between so you'd say to a couple okay that shot looked great um have you lean back okay just like that I want something really can't you just lean in for a kiss so what you'll probably be doing is taking the video of the leaning in and in the still of the kiss which you already got the guy just get the still flip to video and get the in between if you look at the front of this some cameras will kind of have a little red light I'm recording video right now you can't tell so if I'm telling him to lean in and it's that fear of you know I'm gonna pose for video this is a little awkward it's not like tell people tell them just press reported there so would you grab a tripod at that point would you go because you know for if you're shooting in hell yeah ta gra fi so when you switch over to video like is that what you do would you grab a tripod so okay truthfully from me I had two cameras when I would have to do something like that so I would have one that's on a tripod and then just grab it or I was shooting on a model paan or I could just shoot it and then it's quick say oh that was great let me shoot it again I grabbed the mono pod uh and I have the quick release on there so it's literally the same thing I got the shot I quickly slide onto the model pod and I still have mobility instead of having the tribe put over set it up put it you know I don't need to worry about the height the monocle we're going to show you it's really quick to uh change the height of it so that's what I would do have your model party either shoot with it were have it be quickly assess if it's actually the same modified she want abusing in the last class that you talk if you wantto go to mention that with eric that you're using the yeah using using in that crappy situation yes so that one of the classic taught was a conquering crappy light and so sometimes it's just a pain to have a tripod and so there's a great mono pod that we're going to be recommending it's the one that's standard I mean if you see any professional photographer with the mono pod it's usually that one so we when we tried investing here and we'll speak about this a little later we're tryingto multipurpose everything that we own so we don't have to carry so much here about second shooters are you hiring somebody for their own style or do you want somebody who shoots in new york style so I can see you usually don't talk about what we d'oh for us specifically when I first started shooting video that she wanted to shoot video I would set my camera more or less to what to replicate what she had on her camera the settings are in exactly the same setting is going to be different but out of live you we'll speak about that later as well I my images looked the same way that hers to accept that I'm shooting video um tone ality you khun tone it the same way and post you're not going to be able to edit as much as you you doing photography like if you have to lower somebody shoulders or you know minimize their ears it's just time consuming t do any way don't shoot recently it's why that came and think about someone in particular but what I would say that is when I'm when I'm selecting somebody um I say I'm picking somebody to match my style because the client hired me for my style but what we do and we're shooting whoever's lead is I'm sam lied I'm getting the key shots and I'm making sure he's getting variety similar but different so I can edit with it like I don't want him shooting something that doesn't fit the style because then I can't edit together it won't it won't flow it won't work well so he's still matching my style but maybe I'm coming in for the detail shot he sees that so he gets the mid length shot so we actually usually say I usually isn't like I've got the close ups he's got he goes I got the wise that helps you work if you if you look at our I mean even in our photography per se so if you look at some of her image is compared to mine if you guys recognize her she's more she's white she's kind of an open as opposed to I like stuff that in your face and kind of harsh and hear if it is him it just looks like yes they look so so he said he does your wife but so for that at the end of the day so say here's this so different I was going to say at the end of david waiting how much video do you have at the end of the day like how lengthwise it really depends on when we shoot recently walked away two hundred gig before that I walked away with sixteen so it really depends on what yes I have I personally don't do video um for weddings but I have definitely done events in fashion films and things like that so I would say time length that used ends up being like forty minutes tio sixty minutes of footage like that you don't think the thing is and we'll talk about this and post processing you don't want to overwhelm yourself with having to review footage so you have it because if you have like two hundred gigs of footage was probably about two three hours to review so that's two three hours that I have to dedicate just watch what I shot so you don't want to spend time sitting there like okay go watch this and then you're going you're gonna wind up it's gonna blur you're not going to know what's different find so we'll discuss like tools that you can use to mark what you like while you're shooting it so you can minimize the workflow that you have a little later but if you're on a wedding day trying not to shoot every little single aspect because you're going kind of rack up your cards they're gonna kind of go over the side and you're not gonna have time to back him up because if you have a thirty two big card or sixty forget car it's gonna take for ever it's a transformer to drive so you just wanna minimize your footprint