Preparing an Outline and Script for the shoot

This is an extremely important and useful step that will enable you to think of the structure of your story. You should write a short 2-3 paragraph description of your story so that it has a beginning middle and end and then accompany that document with a script-shot list.

This second document is essentially your map for the shoot. It allows you to know exactly what you are looking for. Obviously in the beginning you will not have any audio or video to fill in the parts of the script however as things progress.

As you record more audio and video footage you will be able to place the voice over directly into your script outline, thus filling the spine of the story with fleshy content.

Here are a couple of examples of scripts and outlines of a few multimedia pieces.

Sample Script, Shot-List and Outline 1

Sample Script, Shot-List and Outline 2

and here is a Blank Script for you to work from

INTERVIEWING

Interviewing is key to all multimedia storytelling, its what brings the footage or the photos to life. It is really important thus to try to get the best Recording you can get. Always monitor the recording device with headphones in the beginning of the interview so that you are sure you are getting a good audio signal.

It is really important to get a few things right so as not to have issues later in the editing. It requires being persistent because some of your interviewees will forget and will be needed to reminded often.

1. Ask your subject to repeat the question in their answer.
So if you are asking them how old they are, their answer should be: "I am 34 years old" and not "34". If you ask them where they had lunch today? their answer should be "I had lunch at McDonalds today" and not "at McDonalds".

2. Dont forget to get the release forms signed by your interviewee. In the worst case scenario if you do not have it you can have them say it on camera. Have them look into the caera and say that they allow you to use the video however you see fit.

3. Ask the person to introduce them selves int he begging of the interview on camera. They should look directly into the lens and say my name is Lynda Smith, I am 34, and I am a graphic designer.

4. Ask your subject what they were doing right before the interview or even when you are interviewing them. For example “ What are you doing here in Parnitha?” “I am here to paint a wall with graffiti. “What are you doing on Stadiou Street?” “ I am burning a sign that says that this is the parliament”. “I am demonstrating because I lost my job. I was fired yesterday”.

5. If you are doing on camera interviews (some of you are) do not center your object in your frame. Always chose a dark plain background, nothing busy or flashy. If you decide to do a close up interview check out the interviews at the documentary Restrepo, great close up framing, sometimes even extreme, they cut both the edge of the head and the chin: (never cut the chin and leave the head!!!)

http://restrepothemovie.com/video/

If you prefer a medium shot, frame your subject above the waste. Make sure nothing is sticking out of their head. Best on camera interviews are always outdoors, unless there is true meaning in contacting them indoors, (e.g. on a wooden horse that the author rides to be inspired or next to the death bed of his mother, if he is talking about his dead mother. Otherwise you chose a scenery that has meaning for the doc, for example if you are shooting an environmental story film your interview in front of the mountain of coal, or in front of the power plant.

Here is a great link with 13 tips of how to conduct a good interview

CAMERA SETUP

- The challenges of shooting with shallow depth of field:
What is so special with the the 5DMKII is the ability to have interchangeable lenses and thus control the shallow depth of field, meaning that you can have the beautiful out of focus backgrounds and the very shallow depth of field, giving us the cinematic look we all crave and love. This is truly revolutionary, since up till now the only way to achieve this was with super expensive cameras and lenses.

However there are challenges when shooting with shallow depth of field here are the most common ones:
- losing focus on the subject - when shooting with a shallow depth of field it challenging to keep the subject in focus if they are moving. Depending on how shallow of a field you are working with, even static interviews might be hard to focus on the part of the subject's face that you want to all the time. The solution is to be bold and to make a choice if you are working in the field with out a tripod. Chose the shot and commit to it. Re-adjust ifd you must but dont fiddle back and forth to find the focus. Guess and make a choice, commit to it and then adjust your position to get things in focus that might not.
If you are using a pull focus ring like the "Run n' Gun" set or the Zacuto, you can make marks on the ring so that you know the in-focus range of the subject. What I mean is that if some one is walking toward the camera and you have made marks on the pull focus ring to mark the in focus position of the subject, at 3 meters, 2 meters and one meter. In Fiction you would make marks on the floor as well which would correspond to the marks on the pull focus ring

SHUTTER SPEED:
For most situations you have to use in order to have the film look we are looking for:
PAL 25 frames per second
Shutter Speed 1/50
only
if you are doing pans and tilts or there is some quick action use:
PAL 30 frames per second
Shutter Speed 1/60

EXPOSURE:
- Using the ND filters so as to be able to shoot with shallow depth of field in bright daylight. Having this option is what really makes DSLR with interchangeable lenses so great, it allows to have a shallow depth of field which is what gives the MKII the ability to look like it was shot on a cineflex or a much more expensive camera.
Use ISO and ND filters in bright settings to control exposure and avoid over exposure

WHITE BALANCE:
WB: 5600K in noon light and work from that standard.
Use custom WB in settings with multiple light sources.

OPERATING THE ZOOM - H1 & H4N

OPERATING THE ZOOMs
General things to keep in mind - Use the headphones to monitor the audio levels, and then look on screen to make sure that levels are reaching the -12 level with the loudest audio and not passing it (peaking). Try to place the recorder 1-2 meters away from the subject. Always put the wind protector foam over the microphone so as to eliminate wind noise.

- Zoom H2n:
The advantage of the Zoom H2n over the H1 is its ability to record 4 different channels of audio while the H1 allows only for 2. This means that you can add a wireless microphone into the equation, this is ideal for interviews and situation where the subject is in a noisy or crowded place. Here is a video to illustrate the difference of using the H4N microphone vs. the camera mic vs. a wireless lavaliere

- Zoom H1:
Here is a basic tutorial of how to use the H1 zoom recorder, again i cant stress how important it is to monitor the recorder with headphones to get a sense of what is beinng recorded do not simply rely on the lcd screen reading of the digital signal, there might be a sound in the background that you can not hear with your ear but is being picked up by the zoom and then once you try to edit in post the audio is unusable. Another tutorial on H1 Zoom

AUDIO RECORDINGS

On camera - the mic of the camera is not great so whenever possible use the min-ijack sennheizer shotgun microphone to improve recording quality.
You must wear the headphones to gage the quality and levels of the audio. The screen monitor on the zoom is ok but you should definitely monitor the audio with the headphones.

Set the Audio to Auto in most situations where the sound levels are more or less consistent,
Use Manual audio settings when sound in area tends to fluctuate and peak at different levels

There is no question that the more you shoot the more you feel comfortable with the camera and shooting style that the camera permits, so i would suggest you play with the camera as much as you can before going out to shoot your subjects.

Dont forget you can download the tutorials from my sever here:

5DMKII tutorials download

TIME LAPSES

Time lapses are great to spice up your video pieces and are fun and easy to do.
First you need to familiarize yourself with the TC-80N3 which is the intervalometer controller here is a good blog explaining the basics: How to use the TC-80N3
After you have shot a series of images you can put them together in QT7 here is a video that explains the entire process: How to make a TL with the TC-80N3 controller and QT7pro

Here are some examples from the Prism Project:

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this is shot with the Hero HD camera which we have in our availability, this setting is the interval still shot mod, with a frame captured every 5 seconds

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Pre-Post Production - Organizing

There are several steps you must go through in order to delver the footage to the editors.
Here are the basic steps
- organizing:
please select the and organize each story into the following categories:

VIDEO:
- interviews
- B-roll
- TL: Time Lapses

AUDIO:
- Ambient Sound
- Interview Recordings

Quicktime X - Trimming - Pre-Edit

- Selecting your shots:
- Select the videos that you want to use in your cut and trim off the unesessary footage. The easiest and fastest way to do that is to do it with Quicktime 7 pro or QuicktimeX.

Here is a quick tutorial on how to trim in Quicktime X
- QTX pro:
All new apple macs have Quicktime X its installed by default. QTX is great but QT7 pro allows you to do a few more things so it is cool to have that too here is a couple of examples of trimming in QTX
Examples:

another video explaining how to trim in Quicktime X

another video explaining how to trim in Quicktime X

another video explaining how to trim in Quicktime X