Tips for Shooting Video

dbruno

Hi - I got hired for a Safety-Award ceremony at a construction site next week for two hours. They have now asked me for three hours of photography and some video. I have never shot video for a client

I will have two cameras. The video will be shot on a Canon 600D. I have enough memory for 50-60 minutes of video.

Can you give me any tips on frame rate, resolution, or are there any "Be careful of this ..." you can pass along? No idea of what the lighting will be.

I'm also a little nervous about how to get the resulting video to the client. Do I have to process it in any way, or just dump it to USB?

Any thought or tips would be appreciated.

Thanks - Dave

Neil vN

Depending on the intended use of the video, you would shoot either 24fps (for a more cinematic look), or 30fps if you are going to use the video online.

I would suggest (against the most common advice to shoot at 24fps), to shoot 30fps. 

Do a Google search about the difference.

Now, your frame rate will determine your shutter speed. 

Generally your shutter speed should be 2x your frame rate. 

So if you settle on 30fps, then your shutter speed will be 1/60th

You will therefore need to maintain that by changing your aperture and ISO as needed ... and this is why videographers often use a 3-stop ND filter in brighter light to keep the shutter speed down to 1/60th. 

The reason for the 1/60th (or 1/50th) shutter speed is because of the 180 Degree Rule. 

A long explanation that you'd have to do some Google sleuthing for. 

Keep in mind that there are two different "180 degree rules" in videography. 

One of them pertains to the choice of shutter speed (depending on frame rate), and the other about how you shoot two people talking to one another, shooting "across them". 

Then on Canon, you need to choose between ALL-I and IPB formats for the video. 

I settled on ALL-I, but do some Google stuff again to find out which format makes most sense for you. 

Next big tip ... tripod or video monopod.  Keep that camera stable! 

And then, whether you edit this into a final clip with effects and titles, or whether you just give them the raw footage, will depend on what you agree with your client that the deliverables should be. 

If you're going to edit the footage, make sure you charge appropriately for that time-suck. 

dbruno

Thanks, Neil. I shot video last Wednesday. No one had responded to the post in time, so I did some digging. Found out about the shutter speed being twice the frame rate. Didn't see anything about the two formats you wrote about. Out of curiosity, I'm going to look on the camera. I had a tripod, because I was also taking photos with my 6D. No editing was done, just sent the raw video, which I made sure was OK. The only thing I could determine about video editing was adding stuff like subtitles, music, fades, and chopping and pasting. This was a safety-awards ceremony at a construction site, so added flowery music probably wouldn't have worked.

Dave