Making Real-Life Videos

Matthew Williams

• Publisher: Allworth
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781581158458
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film Screenwriting

Getting a good home video is hit-or-miss. Plenty of times, they're dark and fuzzy and Aunt Myrna is washed out and Junior... do his eyes always look like that? This unique, accessible guide for living room and classroom provides step-by-step instructions with ten "assignments, " plus ideas and information on everything from basic concepts to planning, shooting, and editing, Making Real-Life Videos frees the talents of anyone who has ever wanted to direct.• Perfect for anyone with a video camera • Step-by-step "assignments" plus tips that will improve results at every levelAllworth Press, an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing, publishes a broad range of books on the visual and performing arts, with emphasis on the business of art. Our titles cover subjects such as graphic design, theater, branding, fine art, photography, interior design, writing, acting, film, how to start careers, business and legal forms, business practices, and more. While we don't aspire to publish a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are deeply committed to quality books that help creative professionals succeed and thrive. We often publish in areas overlooked by other publishers and welcome the author whose expertise can help our audience of readers.

INTRODUCTION
TO THE
DOCUMENTARY

Chapter 1: What Is Video?

The question “What is video?” can be answered from many different angles. On my first day of teaching video production, I asked my students that question. They surprisingly responded with a rainbow of answers. Speaking figuratively, one student said, “Video is imagination. It is what we want or don’t want something to be. Video is more than something you watch. Video shows us the future of the world.” Another responded, “I think video is making anything come true through your imagination. I mean, we know that you can’t fly or have powers, but we like to see that.” Whether you take this question literally or figuratively, video has a major impact on our lives, both interactively and interpersonally.

When I use the word video, I am referring to a moving image that is either seen on television or in movie theaters. It is something we watch and hear, usually for entertainment, and it continues to amaze us. As video continues to evolve technologically, its quality improves and people create innovative methods with which to manipulate the medium. Filmmakers can use video to teach us about our society—our values and social codes. Video is like a reflection of how we see ourselves. It has a complex relationship to people, as the people who make videos influence us and at the same time are influenced by us. The saying “Does life imitate art or does art imitate life?” seems appropriate.

When we watch television shows, movies, music videos, documentaries, or commercials, we are being exposed to different types of people and characters, their lifestyles, and the choices they make. This is most evident in television commercials, which try to get us to buy advertised products. Whether we want to buy what we see on television or not is not the issue. These images can reinforce what is already popular. They can also introduce something new and different. One of your favorite singers could be wearing a jacket made by a designer whose commercial you saw. Those two media showings of that jacket could have a powerful effect on you and your friends—they might make you go out and buy that jacket! What we see on television creates a powerful language that we tune into, and it influences what we think or want.

On one of Oprah Winfrey’s shows, she wore a new brand of T-shirt. Some new company sent it to her and asked her to wear it on camera. So, there she was wearing the T-shirt. She explained why she was wearing the shirt and how comfortable it was. She then gave the name of the company. A week later, that company was selling its merchandise in all major department stores in the United States. The company’s business increased 3,000 percent in sales.

All TV shows will represent a certain gender, race, class, and/or sexual orientation in a specific way. These depictions, whether positive or negative, usually reinforce stereotypes that our society holds. Some are harmless and do not pose a threat. Some make fun of old stereotypes. Some music videos demean women. Many times, women are presented as sexual objects that are either indifferent or else content to serve men’s desires. To many women, this depiction is inappropriate and grossly offensive.

We see both positive and negative images on television and in movies. Unfortunately, the lessons learned from television are not always the life lessons we should adhere to, and that is why it is important to understand what it takes to make a video. I won’t try to tell you which values are good and bad, just that it is important to learn how to think for yourself when watching television. It is important to ask questions about the video, particularly about the characters and how they appear in it. Does this video represent reality and show people in a positive light? What is the relationship between the characters? What are the characters wearing or doing? What does the video imply about these characters? How does that implication affect you?

The Influence of Video

Today’s culture relies heavily on what we see. Television has become an integral part of our society. It continually broadcasts videos that we see everyday, from popular networks like FOX and ABC to cable channels like MTV and ESPN. It may reinforce or challenge how we see the world. You may watch the news, music videos, sports, situation comedies; whatever program it is, you are watching a type of video. Think of all the programs that you like to watch and consider how much or little you know about how they were made.

What do you know about video? How is it put together? Video can be understood as a particular kind of language with its own set of rules and grammar. It is carefully created, and the people who make video must decide what needs to be shown, what does not, from what point of view, and who it is geared toward. All of these questions and more must be considered. By working your way through this book, you will learn how one particular form of video—the documentary—is constructed.

Documentaries, like all videos, are constructed. The role of a filmmaker is like an architect who plans how a building will be constructed. The architect must answer several questions in helping to decide what kind of building will be made. A building with no windows would be very different from a building with glass walls. Each type of building may be appropriate for certain uses. A film works in the same way. A filmmaker must decide on many variables. Each variable will cause the film to look a certain way. Sometimes, we can get so absorbed by what we watch that we forget to think about who made the film, what it is trying to say, or infer what decisions were made by the filmmaker during the process. On TV, there are many different programs that use the documentary format. It is a great way to express yourself and communicate important information. Before we get into making video, it is important to first understand the medium itself.

A Brief History of Film and Video

Many books about video production can go into great detail about how the process works and it can get quite confusing. Steven Ascher and Edward Pincus’ The Filmmaker’s Handbook (Plume, 1999) provides a clear and useful explanation of how the technology works. It does, however, get into details that may be intimidating for a first-time filmmaker. Below is a brief and simplified explanation of the medium and how it works. Video tape (recently supplanted by digital video) is a relatively new phenomenon. It became popular in the 1970s, back when the first round of afros hit the mainstream, and digital technology was nothing but a dream. Before video, film was the only way to make motion pictures. Film was first invented in the late nineteenth century. It was used for photography, as the motion picture had not yet been invented.

Movies and documentaries are a type of motion picture. The term comes from the fact that movies consist of a series of still photographs that “move” past the projector light to create the illusion of motion. If a camera films an airplane flying through the sky, it takes a series of pictures that are all connected on a strip of film inside the camera. Each picture, or frame, must pass through the camera gate and is exposed to light, and the light is what creates the image on film. Film cameras usually operate at twenty-four frames per second (24 fps), which means that the camera is essentially taking twenty-four photographs every second. After the film runs through the gate, it gets developed, and can then be viewed using a projector. The projector plays the film, causing it to pass through a light source at the same speed that it was recorded. Because the human eye can retain images slightly longer than it is actually shown, it automatically perceives the two images as one continuous movement. Our eyes and brain are therefore tricked into thinking we actually see movement, when in fact we are watching a bunch of photographs flashing rapidly in front of our eyes. The illusion that is created by the film projector is called persistence of vision. The pictures move fast enough for each picture to change slightly from one to the next, very much like a flip book. When the pages are flipped at a fast speed, the pictures create the illusion of motion as well.

Video is a computer-generated version of film. The video camera does not take pictures the way a film camera does, but it creates a similar result. The technical aspects of a video camera are very complex. Similar to the way a piece of software on a computer records information, a video camera creates a coded message on a strip of magnetic tape. That code is then played back and read as a visual language. It looks like film, but if you were to hold it up to a light source, you would not see the tiny pictures that appear on a filmstrip.

Video cameras produce a similar result as film cameras, but the process is different. The features on a video camera are similar to a film camera. For instance, both types of cameras use lenses to bring in an image. However, video cameras do not focus the image on a strip of film. Instead, they focus the image on a light-sensitive computer chip, called the CCD (charge-coupled device), located inside the camera. The image is then divided into a fine grid of spots called pixels. Each pixel reads the brightness of light at that spot. A CCD chip, which is less than an inch across, can have millions of pixels. The CCD measures the voltage of every pixel multiple times per second. The video signal can then be recorded using a video recorder, which is built into all video cameras.

The Language of Video

Video has a specific language that is built into the medium. A frame is the elementary unit of film and video. It is one picture. While film contains 24 frames per second, in video there are usually 29.97 frames per second. That means that after shooting a second of video the camera has captured 30 frames of video images.

The two pictures above present two frames from one shot in a student video of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. In this shot, Romeo’s best friend, Isaac (the kid in the red shirt), sees him coming. He calls out his name while the other...