Why can I see black bars on my web video?

If you watch some of the clips on youtube.com you will see black bars on either side of the video.

In my opinion it’s not a great look to see these massive black bars on the sides. I prefer to see the video content in full across the whole screen. Unless your trying to go for that epic film look, you will want the black bars going across the top and bottom of the video. Like this:-

So what can we do about? and why is this happening to me?

OK so, in standard video we have 5 common aspect ratios. 4:3, 3:2, 16:9, 1:85:1 and 2.39:1. The TV standard is broadcasted in 4:3 which gives this look in the first video. The other popular standard is 16:9. Which gives a much wider screen and to me it’s much more pleasing on the eye!

The problem arises when a camera shoots footage in 4:3 and then the footage is imported into a 16:9 timeline. A video timeline, allows your video clips to play in a sequence editing application like Final Cut Pro or Premier. Once it’s encoded into a web format like quicktimes .mov or Adobe’s flash you get that lovely black bars look in your video.

To stop it, either film in 16:9 and make sure your timeline is in 16:9 or film 4:3 and again the timeline in 4:3.

I hope this helps!

Signing off.

Realitypod.tv

Fashion video filming tips!

Last year MK Productions  produced around 100 fashion videos, mainly catwalk stuff, some hair & makeup, interviews with designers, models,nightlife videos and wannabees.. I wanted to share with you the modus operandi we, as cameramen have to face when we are standing at the end of the catwalk pointing a camera at the runway. Firstly the lights used to light up the catwalk are very bright, it’s so hard to find the right balance and to make sure the models faces don’t look over exposed. If you have a Cannon XHA1 or a Sony Z1 you should be able to get a firm control over your aperture and exposure. If you play around with these elements a little bit, you can get a great picture.

My advice is don’t have the exposure too high or you will get a trail effect and the result will give you a stop motion effect or blurred effect on your footage and its impossible to correct in post production if your footage is burnt out with white faces. I sometimes feel its also best filmed slightly under exposed so that you can play with the brightness levels and color correction in post production. Something else to consider are the people controlling the lights. They will change the lights for different clothes or models to create a different atmosphere and this can completely throw your camera and exposure off and ruin your footage. If you do film over exposed there is no way to correct the footage in post production. Trust me, it’s happened many times and it’s something I will never do again!

OK so now we have the exposure out the way, make sure you have the correct white balance in place, this can easily be achieved by putting a white piece of paper in front of the lenses and pressing the >b< balance button on the camera. This way you will get a perfect white balance for the room! (try not to use “auto function” as you will need to tell the camera what white is. Since this is such an important topic, I have included a video for you to see on a cannon XH A1.
Happy filming!

Signing off

Realitypod team!

I wanna setup a studio myself??

Yesterday I got a call from a recruitment company, asking advice on what they needed in order to set-up and record candidates. They want to communicate with customers more effectivity over the internet.  Its a great idea and a move which will see them as a cutting edge company for using technology in this way. They will only be doing one type of shooting, talking heads and interviews, so they only really need a one angle frame! They asked what do we need to get this going? Well, have you ever heard the phrase “Lights, Camera, action?” This is exactly what they need. It’s very important that your subject is well lit and there is no shadow on the face. This will give you a clear picture of your subject on camera. I gave them a small list of things to get, so I can come and set it up for them, here it is the below!

1. 2 x 500 watts continuous lights with umbrellas! This will be more than good enough to light up your subject and to ensure that the umbrellas won’t blind them!

2. A good HD camera with a microphone output.

3. Headphones, to plug into the camera so we can check the audio levels are correct.

4. Microphone & stand, I recommend a  Rode NTG-1 

5. Editing software to do the basic edit.

OK, I know this is a very basic list and I have not gone into specifics on what type of camera or editing software to use and they need to encode the video and then select a good publishing platform to upload their videos to the website. BUT this should give you some basic guidance and thought process on what is involved in setting up and getting the best for your online content on a budget!

The workflow process of recording, capturing, editing & encoding is a massive  subject, one that I can’t cover in this blog… So I will cover each topic specifically in 2009.

Signing off

 

Realitypod team!