I have thought many times about shooting from an aircraft and about how to record the intercom chatter amongst the aircraft’s noise. I met with the helicopter pilot and co-pilot. After the orientation (where the fuel cut-off is, how to work the suv-like sliding door for the rear seats, and how to get the front doors off quickly) I asked if the co-pilot can also fly the copter…just had to check!
The pilot, Mark, said the best way to record the cabin chatter is to just put a mic in the headset ear-muff. So, I put the headset on and put the lav mic into the cup and we were set! I was also recording ambient sound with the camera’s mounted mic.
After opening the door in flight, and while still in my three-point lap/shoulder belt, I was able to pivot enough and set the camera on my leg and started shooting. And, this is what I shot…enjoy!
I wasn’t aware of this annual event just outside the city limits of Cupertino at the Hanson Quarry off Stevens Canyon Road until I had the task to shoot some b-roll of a Cupertino community volunteer who is a Lions Club member. The Lions Club annual Fish-A-Thon, held at the Stevens Creek Quarry (also known as the former Hanson Quarry), is open to anyone with special needs. More than 100 volunteers took part in this year’s event. They helped those fishing to bait their hooks, cast their lines, unhook, clean and pack the fish, plus supervise traffic and parking.
About the Cupertino Lions Host Club
Cupertino Host Lions Club was chartered in 1951 and established the Santa Clara Valley Blind Center in 1953. It hosted the De Anza Lions Club in 1969 and, over the years, the club has contributed services to Cupertino residents, the Silicon Valley as a whole, and globally through the Lions Club International.
Our equipment: Sony dsr-500s, sachtler tripods, Pinnacle Liquid Silver NLE editor
It was time for the annual, small town Saturday parade called the Lunar New Year Unity Parade. We didn’t cover it in 2007, but this year, our main dawg asked us to cover it. I took the assignment (well, no one else was able to work the weekend!), and I had help from our half-time production assistant after she work an early morning TV studio production at the local ABC affiliate. We prepped two ENG cameras each with a wireless receiver tuned to the transmitter which had the lav mic on the MC. The wireless mic feed was assigned to channel twoand natural (“nat”) sound on channel one.
Camera one was on a riser near the MC, and my camera, camera two, was on the street for the up-close action. Camera one was assigned the wide, cover shot of the action on the street with the operator keeping an extra eye on my position. By doing this, camera one can, when camera two has the action, swings to the next parade entrant.In theory, this works very smoothly, but it didn’t this certain Saturday.In editing, I had to work with four elements;
- Camera one’s video
- Camera two’s video
- Camera two’s NAT sound, and,
- the MC’s narration audio
Ha! One of the organizers told Parks and Recreation staff to setup the mics and speakers to point away from the street. Well, we were going to shoot at the street where the parade really is…not where the parade participants are being staged! Good thing the MC had some experience with the previous parades and gave instructions to the parade staff to release each group after she has stopped talking about the current one. This was key to shooting the groups and time-shifting camera one’s, camera two’s video and the audio to make it appear as if everything the MC is saying is live to what we are both shooting! That was the key. And, if you listen carefully, after the MC finishes with the description of the current group of parade participants, in the background, you’ll hear camera two’s NAT sound and the MC’s voice in the background already describing the next group!
This time-shifting in post-production (editing) has always been an issue shooting this event. It takes more time to produce because we have to edit each camera’s video and the audio. Basically, three objects floating around and lining them up at some starting point.
Our equipment: Sony dsr-500s, sachtler tripods, SHURE UHF wireless mics, Pinnacle Liquid Silver NLE editor
I was lent out by the City to document a Sheriff’s Department training of a Code Red exercise at a local high school. They assigned a deputy to me as I got some footage of the staging area, gun disabling (zip-tied handgun and rifle triggers and blue-taped the open-end of the barrel) and their last minute instructions, all of which never went into this video. This edited video wasn’t even requested by the Sheriff’s Department. I shot the event, and later, they received a DVD of my raw footage. I took a copy home and after a few weeks, decided to edit the piece.
When I shot the piece, I was standing outside one building at the school waiting for the announcement on the radio of the start of the exercise. I did record the audio of the radio announcement just as it would sound if it was called in and the dispatcher was notifying the Sheriffs in the field. Part of that audio was used at the beginning of the video and got the video started. Without it, how would you set the scene?
BTW, the air horns replace the sounds of gun fire.The teams comprised of four deputies and two observers for grading purposes. It was sometimes awkward to get some shots as it was my first time working with the law enforcement community. At one point, I ran to the end of a building to get a shot of a team exiting the building, and the lead officer did a double-take when he noticed me (I wasn’t wearing anything distinctive to state I wasn’t part of the exercise), and when the deputy that was assigned to me came around the corner to catch up to me, another officer swung his pistol towards her and immediately pulled it back!
What really helps me shoot is my awareness of what you need in editing to tell a story. You establish the scene, show the details, show relative and contrasting action, and try to show the emotion or feel of the moment. I will admit that I recreated one shot, that of the gunman with the injured student. This event was shot several years ago, and I don’t know if I used it in this piece, but it was close-up shots of the gun in the hand, the gunman’s face and the gunman standing over the student.
Towards the end, I went back for a battery and got more b-roll of the command center (it is in this piece). And, although the organizer said I can shoot more footage like having them come charging in with the teams on hanging on standing on the footrails of their Suburbans with lights, I didn’t. I have found it difficult to shoot and also direct many people.
equipment: sony dsr-500 and a tired hand and sore shoulder.
Technical Setup: three iso-cameras, audio via PA and wireless mic on one loud speaker, NAT sound on reverse-angle camera.
This ‘preview’ was put together rather quickly to show at the upcoming City Council meeting where the organizers and parents of Matthew Axelson would speak. If you listen, you’ll notice that the audio is not consistent. I was not able to work on the audio which wasn’t recorded too well. On the final 90 minute edited program, the audio was much better (I had more time), and the final program is worthy of another award in one of several contests in our genre.
We used three independent ENG-configured Sony DSR-500/570 cameras. Two camerapersons used one tripod arm with attached servo control for better movement control. The one cameraperson that did not use the arm (it was the cameraperson’s option) has quite a bit of jerky motion in its movements!We had no person-to-person communication…just given shot assignments and hoped everything was done right!
We came into this production to just cover the event and then go. If we were to make this a documentary of the memorial, we would have started on the project months prior to the dedication ceremony. We could not do a documentary because our schedule was pretty filled up, and this event was not a fully managed city function. By using just three cameras (no production assistants) and just our senior staff, we captured the event very well.
The Parks and Recreation Department managed the audio, and during our setup, our feed to the first camera was a bit distorted. This feed looped through to the second camera which shared the general centered-back position. One our second channel was our wireless mic positioned on top of one of the loud speakers of their PA system. And, we had our third camera (reverse angle and cutaway shot responsibilities) with a third wireless receiver for the mic on the speaker, and NAT sound….GOOD THING, TOO! That camera was able to pick up the choir, bugler and bagpipe player!
Editing was performed on our Pinnacle Liquid Silver with a Dell Dual Processor computer. Even though we timecode-synchronized (free-run) all three cameras, I used the audio and visuals to synch all the source footage because I couldn’t find the feature to synch the source footage! Without going too deep into the editing, I just put each camera’s video and audio (2 channels) into the timeline/sequence and hacked it up and eventually, I took each segment and dropped into the master video track.
The full, 90 minute final program is available, online at http://cupertino.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=5&clip_id=452 . Please check it out and let me know what you think. It was an historical event since it was Cupertino’s first and only memorial (the city is about 10 square miles and 54,000 residents), and I feel that the coverage was done well aside from the few technical issues, some fixed in editing.BTW, I attended the meetings for the event, I was camera one, the close-up camera, and I edited it. I hope you like it.
equipment:
(2) sony dsr-500; (1) sony dsr-570; (3) shure UP-4 receivers; (1) shure SM58 wireless handheld mic; (3) various sachtler tripods; (1) pinnacle liquid silver nle bundled in a dell dual-processor pc with a/v breakout rack mounted hardware