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Case Study - Shooting By Yourself

Hey guys, we're here again and I'm gonna kind of take you through to smaller videos and both of these videos. I did 98% just by myself. So let's watch the first one. Um it's from Pink Dahlia photography. I want to be a mirror that shows good things to them. I want to be the person that can show them proof that they are beautiful. Hi, my name is Kirsten Fan Check. My company is Pink Dahlia Photography and we shoot weddings, Specialize in boudoir. They always do this thing where they open their photos and they look at their photos and then they look at me and then they look down at their photos and they go, that's me. And I say, yeah, you're beautiful as women, we have things that people have put on us um and make us feel uncomfortable about our bodies. The way we see ourselves is much different than someone else looking at us when I'm talking to them and they're feeling nervous trying to explain that to them, that you're gonna look how I see you, you're gonna look how the person who lov...

es you sees you. First, we have a consultation and so we meet for coffee and we have a conversation, um I find out why they're doing it and then we set up a time and a date where I show up at their house with a makeup team, we do their hair and makeup, it's all very glamorous and then we shoot in their bedroom and I usually like, I'll hang some curtains to get the room ready for, you know, a place that I want to shoot in and find the best light and stuff, but I generally just need a big window. I want them to feel empowered about what they look like. I want the way they look at themselves to be changed, not necessarily their bodies themselves. I think as you go through life, you definitely start to see your body in a particular way and be able to break that no matter how old you are or what you look like. It's really cool. I don't know, I'm just really passionate about raising self esteem and instilling confidence. I feel like women get beat down a lot about what they look like and it's just not about that, it's about feeling good. You don't need to lose 10 lb to come and see me, you know, like if you just come as yourself and and I can show you what you actually look like. I get women from all different ages and different walks of life. It's really cool that it's something that's lasting and it captures a good time in their life and they had a fun time doing it. These are real women doing a nice thing for, you know, whoever they're going to give the book to, whether it's even themselves if they're just doing a shoot for them, which I think is so cool, I would say, come in the clothes that make you feel the sexiest um you know, and don't worry about the rest because we're going to take care of it alright. Pink Dahlia photography so real quick. Um This video was done um with two D. SLRs and um I did it mostly myself. I did have a friend come and help me at the end to shoot the B roll. But the interview itself you can see here was done with two D. SLRs and one was on a wide right here, you can see in this shot, let me move this out of the way here so you guys you can see better. Um So one was done in a wide shot and then the other was composed in a close shot here you can see. So I rolled those two cameras at the same time while I was asking her questions. She was actually a very good interview. E mostly because she just knew what she was going to say, she was positive about what she was doing and she really knew her company herself. Pink Dahlia Photography itself is really just a very uh a small company. And so my idea here was to basically combine um interview footage with B roll and the other B Roll would be her photographer, her photos themselves. So the idea for B roll was to shoot her like you see here shooting a subject. But then also I wanted to add in what I've started doing with some of these smaller companies was just shooting the interview like this and a very nice kind of portrait. He shot them checking their camera because their photographer See it's nice. It's like a 1. I think I used a really prime on this. And also like her laughing just kind of like stuff around her interview to kind of help bring in who she was as a person. Um I stuck these on tripods and then for the light you can see in some of these shots. She's just by a window, just like her photography. We also use a big window that's just to her right side here on the left of screen right here. This is where it is. So you can see in this very shot basically this chair was turned around the other way and we were set up right here and she was looking at us and the light was on her left. You can see it works great for her photography. And then it works great for her uh photo here for her interview set up. The light is nice and soft right here on the right side. There's some fill because the room is really light. This is adding some depth. This backlight and it really works. Um so you can see no lights were used in the in this production and we were able to get a nice clean looking soft interview. What's really great is being able to see the space that she's in um that she's actually taking the photos and you see, we cut to her photo here and we just, I'm just doing a subtle zoom and push. Its kind of called the ken burns effect. And it's a really cool way of doing that in your editing where you can kind of spice up actual still images and add in. So we've got interview, we've got the photos as B roll with the push in and then um we have the normal B roll where she's in action talking about what she's doing. Um and really it's just getting her and the subject in at the same time. This was all done by myself pretty much other than my buddy helping at the end with the B roll the interview itself. Um I used a zoom and a boom, so there's a boom hanging right over here just above frame right here in the wide shot. Uh And I believe I also put a lab on here and I was running that to a zoom recorder and um we used a slate and she really, it really worked out great. I mean it's it's funny how helpful just being in the right location having the right amount of light and just having the knowledge of what you're actually doing helps a lot the between the close and the wide shot. It was nice to be able to cut back and forth. And then when I needed to to edit in a mistake or edit to a different part of our interview that we talked about. I would cover that with b roll. Um and I could jump back into the wide jump back into the to the close. Um and then it was really great. I think for editing purposes, Phil we'll talk more about how you can kind of mix those two together. But this is really a one man production and it works great for a very low budget corporate video that can be used for a small business corporate. I say small business meeting corporate. Um and she's put this on the front of her website and she's gotten tons of likes and comments on it and it really gives a window into who she is um as a person and how she can help you as a photographer. Now, I want to show you guys another sort of photography video here. Ryan J Chambers photography is a much harder interviewee but kind of a similar concept, but let's watch it and then I'll talk to you about what the differences are and what we changed because he was not the best interviewee and one of the microphones cut out. See if you can tell on one of the subjects. My name is Ryan Chambers. My name is Catherine. This is my husband. We are photographers. We shoot primarily weddings and we also shoot a fair amount of family portraits. I've been shooting weddings with Catherine for about three years. I think what makes a photograph special is when you look at it and you can feel you can remember and feel what that experience was like. I think that's our goal is to make beautiful pictures that also mean a lot. I think I feel really drawn to like all the details and being able to try to describe people specifically in trying to capture they're starting on that day in a way that it makes me feel like it's a friend talking about another friend, we've had a background in fine art. I feel like my emphasis as a wedding photographer is trying to make photographs that are honest. There's something that's important about remembering those moments in your day and not just everybody's smiling. You know, there there's a weight and a significance and I think of value in the breath of the wedding day. I don't think people realize that when they're looking for their wedding, photographer, your photographer is going to be there with you the entire day. So it's important that you connect with them. We're with the bride and groom the majority of the day and definitely some of the most significant parts of the day for me, it's a lot about trying to observe relationships, observe body language, observe how people relate and I think especially when we were taking pictures trying to create the space for the couple to interact together and see where they're going and try to develop that session in a way that allows them to to open up. It feels much more significant and kind of like magical whenever it's more collaborative because we don't, we don't really know what we're gonna end up with. We're making pictures that will last generations that will remain beautiful. That will continue to cause people to pause when you really look at them. And that for me feels really good. Ryan makes everything beautiful and I make everything a little bit more beautiful and a lot more fun. Mm hmm. All right. Ryan J Chambers photography coming in here. Like let me turn the volume down here. So again, same, same thing. We did a lot of interviewee stuff and then tried to cover it with B roll. Um also used his logo at the beginning. Here. You can see I did an interview. I did a little different because I only had one camera. So in this case I did a dual interview and they were very uncomfortable in front of camera. So you can see I did this kind of like trick thing with the, with the beeps sort of thought it might be kind of fun. And then the second interview I did with just Ryan on his own. Um, and then I got the role with some interesting compositions basically we went and in his living room. We we rearranged everything. Um for this beautiful shot, we put him next to a window. So we have a very nice again, very nice soft light which is wonderful, light up the background and lit up his face in the two shot. It works and it covers both of them. I kind of had to put it at a, at an angle, you can see the background looks great. Composition is fine. I also just had them include their little puppy Roosevelt because it really added some personality to them. And so the audio I cut together is between this interview. Um and the single interview now you never see cat really on her own other than here. Um it's because she also got a single, it's because her microphone cut out in the the two shot. So at the end you can kind of hear um you can kind of hear over over the role of them hugging their puppy. The microphone kind of cuts out as long as the one that's placed under. Ryan is really not very placed. Well, it's really not placed very well. I did a bad job but it's under his tie. Um and he's moving and he also mumbles like crazy. So I had a really hard time getting that and he had a hard time just being in front of camera in general. So it was hard to kind of make him, you know, come out and relax in addition to having kind of a a bad voice for him. So basically to get around that. I did a lot of b roll. I tried to cover a lot of little shots like this, just like the pink dolly shot where she was kind of smiling and looking at the camera. Um Cats get a nice shot. And then we didn't know what to shoot because he's a wedding photographer. So we luckily found someone that we went to high school with that was okay with me coming along and shooting Ryan shoot her wedding. Um It's kind of a real luck of the draw, but I also took some of the images and gave them to her. Um you can see here in this, in the shot that Ryan has, he was taking pictures of me while I was videoing him. Um and you can see, I'm uh let's see right here, if we can see it in this close up, you know, you can see right here. I'm by myself, just one camera on the back of his camera, but look how beautiful it's nice in close shot. It really shows how small of a camera he's using, how intimate um you know, the images that he's able to create. Our um and really the type of photography he is, he has a really hard time talking to people in person, but you can see this, this B roll, I love, like look at look at him laughing and smiling. The bride's laughing is fine. She's taking photos, like he's able to get her in a natural state because that's his style. Um He has a really hard time speaking to clients. Sometimes he gets a little nervous. He's not very um kind of open and and, and you know, outgoing. So this video has really helped him with his sales. He put it on the front of his website and people have really responded to it um as a way for them to really know what he's thinking without him actually telling them. And I use that as a tool to tell people when I'm selling. Let me do a video for you. Um because I can tell him how much it can really help showcase their talents and who they are. But then you as a videographer really need to go in and and talk to them and find the philosophy of why they shoot or what their business is, why they do what they do in story wise and then go out and shoot it now, all the shots that you see at the wedding and the b roll. I'm using our stabilizer, our movie and it was kind of before I got really used to it. This is almost five years ago I shot this video um there's a DSLR on the movie and you can see it has that subtle pushing but it's kind of stable. Not really. Um but it adds a lot to production value. And then also I use a um wide open glass with some short primes to kind of add that depth of focus in some of these shots like this one, you can see it falls off very quickly, gives it that more cinematic feel. Um And then uh let's see what else. So here's another movie shot, you can see it kind of moves around and then again with the soft light. So really all in all this is again one man team mike did this video completely on my own. Um You can go back and watch it again as you refer to it, but it's just me shooting interview interview interview brr brr B Roll, I got the song off a website that allows you to buy songs for $10. And now here Ryan has a beautiful um production, a nice production value video that he can put on the front of his website where his clients can really come in and see who he is and what he's about. Um The only thing I feel like I'm missing from and this is the actual photography that he's taking. There's no real images of um he's a photographer. And I think if you're shooting someone like a trade or making a video for someone corporate, you want to see their product or kind of see what they do really. Um But his argument was that um it's just a click away on his website and if anything they can go check it out on his website. Um So that's fair anyway, that's a quick recap on some technical side to doing these videos. Um Keep watching more and uh thanks for watching.