Media Creation for PSNA
Video Creation
Filming Protests – Part One
The best way to learn how to make memorable and interesting video clips for posting online is to consciously watch what other techniques other people have used in the entertainment or news media that captures your attention.
It also helps to check through this list to pick up some basic hints on how to shoot material to begin with.
Your ideal production team is three people, two with handicams for the video and the other person looks after the still photos. Professionals avoid trying to do video at the same time as the still photos if they can. Shooting stills and video are quite different skills. Keep your focus (pun intended) and that includes not being distracted by having other duties at the protest.
Cheaper handicams can give amazing image quality, so you don’t need to go expensive. Handicams give you a ‘landscape’ format, which can be edited to fit a ‘portrait’ image frame. Cellphones held upright only record a portrait which can’t be edited to landscape without compromising the image quality. As you get experience you will find that Handicams also give you much more and easier control over your filming than do cellphones.
With two video cameras you can edit to show an action or speech from different angles and range.
In particular for a speech. Fix one camera on a tripod framing the speechmaker from at least the waist up. This can be used to record the whole speech from beginning to end.
The other camera is mobile. You can go right in close to the speaker, even to the extent that their face fills the whole frame. Don’t be afraid to go in close. Take video from different angles and distances and heights. Then edit the two camera’s material together.
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Filming & Sound – Part Two
This post is about sound. A great video can be let down by bad sound, just because it’s an invisible consideration when filming. It’s too easy to concentrate on just the images.
You don’t need to edit in music beds to be effective, but it can help.
Poor and muffed sound is a common oversight. A well-placed external microphone is always better than the internal camera microphone.
If you are recording speakers, what they say will be much clearer if you get an audio-feed on a lead from the event sound amplifier to your video camera.
Or you can attach your microphone to the lectern, or the same stand as the event microphone.
Failing that, film or put your microphone close to a sound speaker.
Technically the best option is to use a lapel microphone attached to the speaking person which broadcasts a signal to your camera. No leads required, but more expensive gear.
Check your camera sound levels. An automatic setting is ok, but setting it to the level of the speaking person is best
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Filming & Sound – Part Three
A view from a videographer
Here’s a few of my pet peeves when photographing or videotaping events, maybe you’ve already mentioned them and I missed that email, anyway, here goes:
Please ensure that things like bags, merch, cables, bikes are not in the space where videoing takes place. None of it looks good in a photo or video, it’s not always easy to crop out and, unless you have Lightroom or Photoshop it’s difficult to erase using open source apps
Please don’t hang around behind the speakers chatting. Its a bad look, difficult to crop around in stills and impossible to get around on video
People appear to be unaware of the importance of the videos and photos - they walk in front of us, don’t notice that their flag, placard, backpack etc has just blocked what we’re trying to capture
I usually use a camera when I’m photographing at events which seems to help people to be aware of my presence. I notice a difference when I’m using my phone, as if people think that I’m taking snaps for my social media rather than recording the event for use by PSNA to promote our cause
It may help if the photographers and videographers at each event were introduced at the beginning so that people are aware of who we are and what we do and how important the role is.
Instagram Collaborations
Videos of rallies and events shared on social media - Collaborations with National PSNA account
The national PSNA account welcomes invitations to collaborations from other PSNA accounts so we can showcase rallies and events that have happened around the motu. There are two major things you can do to make it more likely we will accept those collaborations:
1) Let people know the location and the date of the rally/event - plus any other useful information such as the particular focus of the rally/event. This means when people see the video stills on our grid they are more likely to click on them to take a look. Otherwise we get lots of crowd shots on our grid with no indication for our audience about where the protests were, when they happened or what they were specifically focused on.
The easiest way to do this is to make a Reel cover for your video including this info. Another way to do it is to pop the information over the first few seconds of your video and select that frame as your profile image.
2) To make sure your video footage is visually interesting (see Video Creation above for suggestions)- e.g., different camera angles of the crowd plus some different shots of any speakers (close up / far away) at your rally edited together. It doesn’t have to be Hollywood but it helps keep eyeballs engaged if the video more than just one long shot of someone talking or of a crowd marching. You get get more information about this on the ‘Media Creation Page’ on our website - https://www.psna.nz/media-creation