Filming tips

[AH_Viper]

To start off, I've been filming my mates and stuff snowboarding and skiing for about 3 year now (please bare in mind that this is only about 3 weeks of acctual snowboard so we aint great or anything).

Basicaly I looking for some tips to try and make a decent video. I've picked up one of these puppies http://www.dogcamsport.co.uk/ and a spare camcorder to go with it, to accompany my hand held wide angle camera that I can confidetly follow my mates down black runs with in my hand.

We're going on the 3rd of Jan to Austria and im just wondering if anyone has seen or done anything in a video that makes them think "Wooo that's a nice shot" and maybe i'll try and get something similar while im out there.

Oh, bare in mind that i'll be editing it together so any editing sugestions would be most helpfull as well

I'll post the vid once it's been edited as soon as I get it done

 

[CrazyHarij]

editing is the most important stage of all.. there's so much that has to be learned.. first of all, tempo, tempo tempo. keep the tempo at an accurate level and try to keep it at that throughout the film.

you need to learn about proper angles, like the basic frog and birds view, then whole frame, half frame and close up. utilise them properly.

sound is 80% of a film so i'd suggest you learn the basics of that too, EQing for instance, what it does and how to do it with a computer, as well as compression. a fantastic take with crap audio is a crap take. a crap take with fantastic audio is okay (depending on how picky you're going to have to be of course). a fantastic take with fantastic audio is what you want to be striving for.

one basic tip is, try to zoom as little as possible, it's unnatural and obliterates believability. try to keep it zoomed out as much as possible or at a reasonable setting compared to what you're filming. get closer to the person instead of zooming.

keep in mind what's behind what you're filming, a person for instance, so that there's not too much "empty space" (basically a building or something without any patterns) behind him in some part of the picture and detailed stuff in the other part. keep a reasonable amount of air around the person but not too much. it's better to have too much air than too little though.

i study radio and tv, i've done several journalist spots and reports for our school, most of my teachers have worked for 30+ years behind TV

it's going to be easier to give you the right advice if you post some filming you've done.

 

[AH_Viper]

Cheers for the tips Harij. I’ve edited 1 or 2 vids of us before and I try and keep a certain amount of pace about the action shots, like cut long runs with jump and stuff on the beat of the music. Which kinda covers the sound part, in that there won’t be any... well apart from the music chosen by each border for their section. I suppose I should have made clear that it will be more like a skateboarding video rather than a short film, where each person has various runs for the duration of one track of music usually.

I know about the rule of 3rd's... but that’s kinda hard when you filming someone going down a hill at full pelt. Although I have to admit I have never really thought about it when I film them doing jumps and I’m set up in a position... maybe I should... I should write this down

Oh yeah, http://www.webadvertising.co.uk/latania.zip - 20MB - This was from March Last year, filmed and edited by yours truly (Roy) - think it was about our 3rd week of snowboarding.

You need XVid codec to play it. Crits and comments are welcomed. Oh yeah, and I know that sometimes it gets a bit boring just following someone, but we had all broken something that year so none of us were totaly going for jumps. Esspecialy mark who broke his thumb at the start of the month - he got his cast off a week before we went

P.S. One Life Left was just a name we called our "Snowboarding Team" you know how it is

 

[CrazyHarij]

you're welcome man.

my first impressions for the vid.

nice visuals, very lovely mountains and stuff.. wish i had stuff like that in sweden

it does get rather boring with you simply following them around. i'd like to see alot more shots from in front of them, it gets stale very quickly with outdrawn shots from behind.

some shots are pretty cool, the jumps especially. fitting choice of music, it reminds me of playing Amped

the fact that you didn't add any sound except in a handful of shots makes it feel very distant. Just simple snow skating sounds makes it alot more believable. More fun talking in between would be nice, the stuff around 05:50 is great . you could add snow sounds artificially if you didn't get good sound from the takes, it makes a huge difference.

there's too much air around the boarders most of the time, now I can imagine it's very difficult to film, I even have trouble getting good shots standing still but it'd be something to think for future shots.

try going in front of them, sitting at the corners of the trees (ground angle pictures look good), taking more wide angle shots, not just jumping, simple skating as well like where you're following them around.

you don't really get to know the guys who are snowboarding, some simple talking would do alot. get them to tell us about themselves.

jumps aren't necessary, just change angles more to refresh the shots. people are incredibly spoiled with high action clips that change angles and shots all the time.be more picky about what shots you choose to keep in the final film, "kill your darlings". this could probably be shorted down to half it's current length without losing any quality.

 

[AH_Viper]

Cheers again, I’m glad you liked it

I like the idea of making it more of a story, maybe I'll try and include more introduction shots and a bit of talking between sections - I might be able to get more footage of our nights out and stuff this year cause I have TWO batteries meaning the camera isn’t on charge over night.

As for the jumps or stationary shots I’m hoping to get more “extreme” angles this year thanks to the Dogcam as in previous years snow on the camera was a bit of a hazard because its not water tight and old as hell

I like the idea of mixing in the background sounds in. It’s something I never really considered before because I wasn’t sure how it would sound but I never even tried it! I will this time

Yeah, I know what you mean about it being too wide a shot while moving but it’s either that or they get their head of legs cut off half the time. Also front facing shots can be hell on a snowboard. It can be ok if I know the exact line someone is going to take but a lot of our stuff is ad-hoc. We’re there to board first and film second really

I love it how you say I should try and be a little more “picky with the shots”. That would imply that were good enough to have enough footage to be picky with!

I think I’ll maybe try and focus more on “set up shots” this year – maybe scout out a little before the runs rather than just coming across something then hitting it

P.S. Vid was in France - I live in Scotland, yes we have mountains but we have sod all snow, so I'm more jealous of you!

 

[CrazyHarij]

lol, are you serious, it started snowing YESTERDAY here, and it hasn't snowed today. global warming is ****ing us all up

yeah you're definitely getting into difficult stuff filming an extreme sport like snowboarding, but i definitely think you got some good shots in there, definitely MTV/snowboarding magazine quality, i guess they'd be more picky about extreme tricks but the quality of filming is definitely on par. (ok looking at this sentence i just LOLed at how much i wrote definitely)

and the second last sentence is a great idea, i can't stress enough how important planning is. every good shot i've ever got was planned A LOT before hand. it's important to have everything in context. either that or just film crazy amounts, then just dive in and edit the **** out of it until you have a complete film.

 

[AH_Viper]

Either that or just film crazy amounts, then just dive in and edit the **** out of it until you have a complete film.

Do you know me?... are you stalking me?...

Cheers again - i'll see if I can fit you in on the credits

 

[CrazyHarij]

haha i'm flattered, no need man but the more exposure the better i guess feel free to do whatever you want mate

 

[Geronimous]

another tip: alternate music... throwing a whole pennywise album on there get's to some people's nerves. try to match the music to the kind of boarding.. just cruising could use nice calmy music, tricks, jumps and more difficult slopes benefit from a more upbeat music.

profiling the boarders is a good idea, and do crazy stuff with your camera-angels... try all sorts of shots and angles. get close! try to keep shots where you follow your friends, all shaky, to a minimum or alternate with calmer shots, where the camera is not travelling (like film them passing by). it may take more of a setup, but it will benefit a huge deal.

and you can always watch the big productions in board-films, they can give you a lot of inspiration.