Promises Promises

This time around a sales rep called and offered to waive the last five months of my two-year mobile phone contract and send me out a new phone if I commit to another two years.  Nothing wrong with that, so I accepted.

But he also talked me  out of waiting for an iPhone and into getting a Nokia N97 on the promise that the new v2 Operating Software for the N97 was great.  The sales rep even claimed to own an N97 himself and to have upgraded the OS, and praised all the cool new features v2 offered.  Since I already own an iPod Touch, I went for the Nokia N97.

Delivery

Well, the phone arrived, and it’s a great unit, plus the 3G coverage out where I live is vastly better than my old phone’s reception.  So I have no real complaints with the phone itself at all.

BUT there is no upgrade to software v2 available for it in Australia under Optus — not by using the PC application, and not using the phone’s built in updater.  This kind of deception (dare I call it lying?) to make a sale leaves an unpleasant taste in the mouth.  And it’s so pointless — there’s nothing really wrong with the current OS on the phone, but I was sold the new OS, and was delivered the old one.  It’s basic customer service — If I pay for X, don’t deliver Y.  It’s made worse when watching a video that shows the significant differences between the two versions:

My phone runs like the one on the left of screen in that video.  My attempts to get an answer out of Optus about why the firmware isn’t upgradeable is an exercise in futility.  They connected me to “Nokia Australia” in the end (the nice lady at Nokia “Australia” had a mild Indian accent, but maybe she was in Australia), and after a ten minute circular conversation she eventually put me on to the local Nokia Customer Care Center in Brisbane.  Now those guys responded very quickly to my email, but all they could do was inform me that, yes indeed, the upgrade is available to generic N97s, but not the Optus ones.

So the score is Optus 0, Nokia 1, Me 0.  Perhaps Nokia should let Optus know they have sales reps making promises the Optus network can’t deliver (yet).

Not The First Time

Almost a year ago I had a similar annoying experience where an Optus sales rep called me and promised to send me a wireless dongle but to also lower my mobile fees by the same amount as the internet service attached to the dongle – effectively making the wireless plan free.  Of course I said yes, but shortly later someone else rang to confirm the deal and they denied that such a generous offer was possible.  So I withdrew my acceptance (which they weren’t happy about), but the dongle arrived anyway.  I wasn’t home to receive it, so it went back, and after a couple of confusing calls I later did get a call apologising for the mix up.

They also assured me that the sales rep that made the “generous” invalid offer no longer worked there.

But after today, I’m not so sure.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Benign Dictatorship

A film shoot is no place for democracy, and there’s often little use for any real artistic creativity either. The film shoot is often a high-pressure, high-tension experience where a team of overworked artisans struggle against time and budget to create the director’s vision on screen. Artisitc creativity has its place in pre-production (scriptwriting, budgeting, scheduling, set and costume design, rehearsals, etc) and post-production (editing, sound mixing, special effects, music, etc), but the shoot itself rarely involves much artistic creativity, unless it be creative decisions about how to deal with the inevitable challenges that arise.

If we were to compare the way a film shoot is run with a form of government, it would not remind us of a democracy, but of a dictatorship – complete with its own pecking order, minions (crew), vice-presidents (department heads), president (the director), and regent (producer – usually invisible to the crew during the shoot unless there is a crisis). Ideally the system should be a good and benign dictatorship, where the crew admire and respect their leaders and where the leaders all get along with each other. Sometimes, however, it becomes a fascist dictatorship, complete with petty power battles and back-stabbing politics. But regardless of the style, the shoot is a dictatorship with a strict hierarchy and many expectations on the crew, and if you want to survive on set you need to know some basic set etiquette.

Arrive Early

Is crew call at 7:00am? Aim to get there at 6:30am. Not only will you get the freshest breakfast, but you can be on hand when that morning’s problems arise, you might be able to chat to crew members you wouldn’t normally be able to talk to, and you can find out where everything is so that you can tell others. Arriving early also impresses the heck out of your department head, the director and the producer. Besides, if you aim to get there early and something delays you, then you’ll still be on time. Never arrive late to a shoot.

Stay Near the Action

Don’t wander away from the set, or from wherever you are meant to be. If you do need to leave, tell those around you where you’re going and hurry back. If your services are needed, you must be there to immediately do your job. On the average shoot with a decent-sized crew, thousands of dollars are being consumed every minute on wages, electricity, etc. Even very low budget films consume hundreds of dollars every minute. If you aren’t there when something goes wrong in your department and another crew member has to search for you for several minutes, then you have wasted the production hundreds if not tens of thousands of dollars while everyone else waits around for you. If this happens more than once, don’t expect to be asked back.

This explains why, if you look around you on set, you’ll often see a quite a few people just standing around apparently doing little. At first this seems a waste of money, but these people are effectively being paid to be on a moment’s call, and they are standing by where they need to be. Of course, you should never appear to be just standing around, even if you really do have nothing to do but stand by in case something goes wrong. Which brings me to the next point…

Always Look Busy

This applies to most jobs really, but particularly to film making. Murphy’s Law tells us that no matter how many hours you have been slaving away, hauling lighting gear or moving props – the moment you sit down for a break is the moment the director or producer walks past and thinks to themselves “Am I paying that schmuck to just sit there all day?“.

I’m not suggesting that you “make work” in a pretense of being busy. What I am suggesting is that, for example, if your feet are killing you don’t just sit down for five minutes for a break, find some task that you can do sitting down (there is always such a task – no matter what department you’re in, something always needs cleaning) and do that instead, as long as it doesn’t take you away from where you are meant to be. The advantage of this approach is that not only are you looking like you’re working, but you are actually doing something useful – and you get to give your feet a longer, guilt-free rest as well.

Don’t Talk to Other Departments

This rule is for crew members trying to solve a problem on the shoot – I’m not suggesting that a little friendly chit-chat during a quiet moment is against the rules.

No matter how illogical this rule seems, you should try very hard not to deal directly with another crew member from a different department when trying to decide on the placement of equipment or props, etc. For example, it may seem reasonable for you, as assistant sound recordist, to have a quiet word with one of the lighting crew about moving a noisy light, but if you do this then your boss and their boss won’t know what you have done. Delays could (will!) ensue when your department heads give conflicting orders – costing the production money. It may seem frustrating, but if you have a suggestion or a problem, speak to your superior about it, who will speak to their superior, who will speak to your department head, who will speak to the other department head. Yes, department heads can speak to each other – that’s part of their job.

Some crews run in a slightly more relaxed manner, allowing senior staff to work things out without consulting their respective department heads first, but the lower down the hierarchy you are, the less useful it is for you to make decisions without approval. It may seem a convoluted and old-fashioned way of doing things, but in the end it works out faster and more efficient, as the confusions caused by crew members acting without the approval of their department heads always ends up causing far more delays than if you follow this rule.

An exception to the above is, of course, safety. If you see a dangerous situation or a crew member at risk then etiquette doesn’t apply!

Follow the Chain of Command

Again, this is almost common sense, but it needs to be said. For example, if you are 3rd Assistant Camera Operator, you don’t waltz up to the Director of Photography and make comments about the scene or ask for details of the next shot setup. No matter how relaxed and democratic your DOP likes to think they are, most of them don’t want the entire camera crew to have direct access to them – as this would mean that they would have to give every direction individually to each member of the camera crew. They may be your boss, but between you and your department head are several other crew members, usually in a strict pecking order, and you would do well to confine yourself to speaking to your immediate supervisor.

Besides, if you’re new to the set then most of your questions are going to seem like dumb ones to your more experienced collegues – better to display your ignorance to your immediate supervisor than to your department head!

Don’t Be a Clock Watcher

You’re either being paid by the hour, or you’re doing it for love. Either way your superiors don’t want to hear you moan if the shoot runs over time. Don’t even let your body language show that you’d rather be somewhere else. Nobody likes to order around unwilling crew members, and if a department head or director thinks that you aren’t keen, then you won’t be asked to work for them the next time (or next day!). If you’re asked if you can keep working an extra two hours, then no matter what you had planned, you lie and immediately say something like “Sure, no problem, what’s the next shot?” After all, if you aren’t keen, why are you there? For the money?

Stay Calm

Sometimes crew members, even experienced department heads, let the pressure of the shoot get to them and they behave irrationally, even unfairly. If you can’t handle stress, or can’t handle it when others take their stress out on you, then you’ve got no place on a film set. If someone angrily bites your head off about something you have or have not done, don’t bite back – rise above it. Stay calm and courteous (even if you are in the right – in fact, especially if you are in the right), and ask them what they want you to do. If it’s your boss or supervisor doing the yelling, then do what they ask quickly and without getting angry or upset. If the angry one is not part of your chain of command, then check with your boss or supervisor before you do anything (no matter how much the angry one yells at you to do it right away – it could be a bluff). If you can weather the storm, it will pass. Moments later the same person could be calm again, and at the wrap party they’ll probably give you a hug! By staying calm in these confrontational situations, you not only prevent yourself from stressing out, but you make yourself look good and the other person look foolish – which is the sweetest revenge…

When the day comes for you to cast your ultra-low budget film (short or feature), you’re faced with a problem. You’ve already decided that you can’t afford to pay your actors (we looked at the ethics of not paying in the article Not Paying – coming soon), yet despite this you naturally want the best possible actors for your project.

Not only do you want the actors to match the age and look of their parts, you also want them to be talented actors — plus you’d even like them to have some “pull” or level of fame, as this would make it easier to attract investors and/or a distributor. But can you get any of this when you can’t pay anyone? Or are you doomed to using inappropriate and untalented actors or, worse still, will you have to use your non-actor friends?

Contacts, Contacts, Contacts

Well, the most obvious way of getting a talented and well-known actor to appear in your film is to know them, or know someone who knows them. Contacts are important in this industry, as they are in many others, so if you live next-door to a famous actor’s mother — start getting on good terms with your neighbour!

Now when I say “famous” I don’t necessarily mean Tom-Cruise-famous, as it’s unlikely that an actor earning that much money will be able to consider your little project. But you never know, as there are still some big-name actors out there who are willing to take a risk on a small project if they like you and your script, but getting your script to them can be tricky.

Fortunately there are other types of “fame”. A popular actor in a successful but minor TV series might be quite keen to make the jump to film, or a fairly well-known model/dancer/singer may have deep desires to act. Your low-risk project might be just what they’re looking for, and their face and name can lend your project that extra bit of credability.

Agents

But let’s face it, most film makers just starting out don’t know that many talented and/or famous actors well enough to just call them up and ask them to appear in their film. So your next stop is the agents, as they represent actors who are serious enough (and talented enough) to require representation. Start with the larger, well known agents in your area, as they typically will represent the best actors. Keep an eye out for the newer agents too though, as they are more likely to be keen to get their actors to auditions.

You might think that the moment you reveal the fact that you have no money to pay your actors the agents will automatically be really negative (after all, they earn their money on commission, and 10% of nothing is not much!). But you might be surprised at how open-minded the agents will be. You see, for all they know you are soon to be the next big thing in film making, and any contact their actors have with you could benefit everyone concerned. If they like you and your script, then they will send their actors to your auditions. You probably won’t get the top-rung actors from their books, but you’ll still get really talented people that will immeasurably add to the quality of your film.

Always Offer Something

So if you can’t offer your actors any money, what else can you offer them? Well, it depends on the exact nature of your project, but here are some of the things that actors (and more importantly their agents) like to hear when you contact them:

So as you can see, you may not be offering any money, but you sure aren’t getting something for nothing. And that’s as it should be — talented actors are a vital part of what makes most films work.

The Truth, The Whole Truth…

This might seem obvious, but it needs saying — tell the truth!! Don’t make any claims for your film that you can’t reasonably achieve. Don’t claim distributor interest unless there is some. Don’t claim it’s 35mm when it’s 16mm. Don’t say it will be sent all over the world and then never even finish it. You might get away with “padding the truth” (in fact a little of this is even expected), but if you lie you will be found out. You might get away with it once, but never again — remember agents and actors talk to each other…

All this might seem like a lot of effort when you can just get your friends to act in your no-budget films, but trust me. Once you’ve used professional actors, and experienced the joy of seeing your lines spoken with timing and believability, there is no going back.

I’m going to talk (or maybe rant?) about something close to my heart – the false distinction too many people (especially students) make between the technical and the creative areas of filmmaking.

Although I have very little formal technical training (I’m an arts graduate of all things), I like to think I’m reasonably technically literate. I know my AC from my DC. I can solder a transistor without damaging it. I can talk depth of field and t-stops, decibels and reverb, aspect ratio and interlacing. I don’t pretend to be a techie, but I can carry on a meaningful discussion with most of them.

But why should anyone bother trying to understand technical manuals if they are focussing on the “creative” arts/crafts of writing and directing?

Creative Divide

Many beginning filmmakers tend to believe that technical issues are best left to the technically trained, and the artistic issues to the “creative types”. This belief is often accidentally re-enforced in film courses, when during film and video projects those students comfortable with the technology tend to gravitate to areas they see as technical (using the camera, sound gear, edit suite etc), and those uncomfortable with the gear tend to concentrate on positions that they think don’t require technical knowledge (e.g. writing, directing, production design).

I remember once when a person asked me about what filmmaking courses he should do. I asked him what areas of filmmaking he was interested in. Cinematography? Editing? Writing? Lighting? Directing? Design? His answer was that he had an artistic background, and that he only wanted to learn to perform the “art” of filmmaking. He said he wanted to “make films but not get into any of the technical stuff, or use cameras or press any buttons or anything”.

This strong division between “creative” and “technical” people might be useful in some industries (though I doubt it), but in filmmaking it’s short-sighted and counter-productive. Filmmaking is a unique blend of craft and art, technicalities and vision. At it’s best, these two ways of thinking merge into one and produce a film high in craft and artistic integrity (whatever definition of these terms work for you!).

See the Other Side

It’s very important that students aspiring to the positions often regarded as “creative” (directors, writers, production designers, etc) have a sound grip on so-called technical issues (cinematography, sound, video, lighting, etc). They don’t need the same level of understanding as the specialists on their crew, just a broad understanding of the gear and the issues. Because with this knowledge they are able to discuss the film with other department heads in a meaningful way, and be able to arrive at decisions that make sense – Writers won’t write scenes that are too expensive to film, directors won’t ask for shots that are impossible with the gear at hand, production designers won’t design sets that make life too hard for lighting and sound, etc etc.

People in these “creative” positions should also recognise that positions that at first seem technical to them (DOP, Gaffer, Best Boy, Sound Recordist, etc) are in fact as creative as any other. The contributions made by these “technical” positions are crucial, and if they do not understand and share the producer’s and director’s vision for the film, then it’s unlikely that this vision will end up on the screen or come out of the cinema’s speakers. A good DOP is a light-artist, and a good sound recordist is a sound-artist – and they work with the director to create the complete vision of the film, as well as being highly specialised and skilled technicians in their fields.

Technical and Creative

In the end, there is no conflict between the technical and creative points of view – they are both sides of the same coin. Once, while wandering through a watercolour exhibition, I asked one of the organisers what made one artist’s paintings stand out from the others I’d seen. She replied that in addition to the usual things required for watercolour success (talent and practice), the artist also had a detailed knowledge of paper and the chemistry of watercolour paints. Not a specialist’s depth of knowledge, but enough to help him in his art and craft.

And I believe it’s the same with film and video making. Many beginning filmmakers seem almost afraid of technical issues, since they naturally want to concentrate on the creative craft and art of filmmaking. But if you’re making your films and videos yourself, then you need at least a basic grasp of some technical matters. Don’t let the jargon put you off – most of it exists for a good reason. Once you understand it you’ll find yourself able to use technical concepts and language to convey what you want to the technically-trained, and, as an added bonus, you’ll be able to understand their answers!

One way of improving the sound after the shoot is by adding Foley sound effects (footsteps etc) which I cover in another article. This article looks at fixing problems with recorded dialogue by using ADR — Automatic Dialogue Replacement.

At the risk of stating the obvious, location sound consists of sound recorded on location — usually while the cameras are running and the actors are speaking (of course, there’s often a lot more to it than that). Recording good, clean location sound can be a challenge. Wind noise, distant traffic rumble, aircraft noise, air-conditioner hum, and many other issues can make life tough on a dedicated sound recordist. Even sound recorded on set in a sound stage (or studio) can be a challenge depending on the nature of the set.

Many sound recordists will also tell you that one of the most common challenges to getting good recordings is the attitude of the filmmakers to sound, especially less experienced filmmakers. Many filmmakers seem to think that film and video are visual mediums, so they do not put enough thought during pre-production to the needs of the sound department. Plus it’s an unfortunate fact that sometimes other crew departments (cough camera department cough) seem to think that the sound department should fit in with their needs, rather than work together as equals – but that’s an issue for another article!

Even big budget films, with top-of-the-range sound gear and experienced operators, can often find it difficult to get good quality sound when they’re shooting scenes outside a sound-proof studio. A significant percentage of the dialogue often needs to be re-recorded during post-production — an expensive and time-consuming process.

Things are even worse for low- and no-budget filmmakers. They often can’t afford the best sound gear, their sound crew sometimes don’t have an enormous depth of experience, and they seldom have access to a sound stage so sometimes nearly all of their shoot is on location.

While it’s important to strive for the best sound quality possible on the shoot (another subject for a future article!), once you’re in post-production you should plan on having to dub some parts of the dialogue – the chances that everything will be okay are very unlikely. Make sure your talent know that you may be calling them back for ADR sessions — nothing’s worse than realising you need to dub an actor’s lines and discovering that they have left the city/state/country/planet.

When it comes time to edit, you need to listen to the sound quality of the dialogue carefully. It’s all too easy to dismiss a bad dialogue recording as okay simply because you are so familiar with the script that you can recite the lines in your sleep. When your audience watches your film, they will be hearing the line for the first time and only once, and if the line is muffled, off-mike, or obscured by background noise, they’ll miss it.

Dubbing can also help you get out of any mistakes made by the scriptwriter or the actor which were missed during the shoot. For example, an actor correctly says the line “I killed the fourth assassin”, but during editing someone (infuriatingly) points out that the character actually killed the fifth assassin. Since the words “fourth” and “fifth” look kind of similar (they involve similar mouth movements on screen), you could probably dub the correct line without most of your audience noticing.

Also, dubbing gives you the chance to fix any plot holes or inconsistencies caused by script problems, last-minute scene changes, or editing decisions. By dubbing an extra line without lip-synch (when the actor’s mouth is not visible on screen) it can help clear up any story problems. A quick “I’ll see you tommorrow” or “I wonder where Burt is” as a character leaves the room could help the next scene make more sense. These sneaky fix-it dubs are often called wild lines. Look out (and listen) for them next time you’re at the movies, they are quire obvious sometimes!

Of course, it is true that when a scene is badly dubbed, with mis-timed sync and mis-matched acoustics, it can sound worse than the bad dialogue recorded in the first place. But if the dubbed version is acceptable then (even if it sounds a little fake) it’s better than the audience missing a plot point.

The “automatic” in “automatic dialogue replacement” refers to the automated recording technique known as “looping”. By continually playing a line, or part of a line, over and over again (either literally on a loop of tape and/or film or, more often now days, from a hard drive on a computer), an actor is able to repeat the new dub of the line over and over until the timings and inflections of the two match. Or the loop could be of the visuals of a scene, played over and over on a screen so the actors could rehearse their lines again and again until they were ready to record.

Although the actual physical loop of film or magnetic tape is rarely used in this age of digital recording, the process is still often referred to as “looping”, such as “We’ll need to loop that line”.

Don’t let visions of sound-proof screening rooms, time-coded playback, and expensive mikes put you off ADR for your small independant short film or feature. You don’t need any of that to get decent ADR – or, at least, none of that is needed to get something better than bad location sound. All you need is a quiet room with dead acoustics (no reverb), the mike you used on location or something similar, a copy of the segments that need to be dubbed, a TV and video player for the actors to watch, and a stable recording device like a DAT, or even a camcorder with HiFi sound will do.

Plug the mike into the recording device, and get your actors to watch and listen to the scene again and again. When you think they’re ready, record them (turn the TV down or get them to wear headphones). Try to keep the mike the same distance from them that it was (or should have been!) on the shoot, so the acoustics will match. If the scene has unusual acoustics, then try to recreate the sound. Say, if the scene is a conversation in the trunk of a car, then it’s a simple matter of creating a confined space for your actors to speak in (you would add car noises and other effects at the edit suite and at a Foley session – ADR is just for dialogue). If the scene is in an empty cathedral, it would probably be easier to add all that reverb at the edit suite.

When you’ve got a few good takes of each line it’s a simple, if tedious, process back at the edit suite to replace the unsatisfactory dialogue with the replacement dialogue. Since this method doesn’t use time code, you’ll need to add it “manually”, which can be tricky – but at least it’s cheap!

An understanding of “stops” is essential for anyone who wants to be involved in film making, especially in the areas of cinematography and lighting. Stops can seem confusing at first, especially since the word is often used in slightly different ways in different contexts (”stops”, “f-stops”, and “t-stops”).

But it’s really not that hard — it can’t be, or else most camera crews wouldn’t understand it (just kidding!). In this article we’ll take a look at the basics of what we mean by “stops”. For the purposes of this article, I’ll assume you understand the principles of lighting and metering.

There are many different types of units used to measure the actual brightness of lights (lux, lumens, foot candles, etc), but “stops” are not a unit of measurement as such. They are a relative way of measuring brightness.

By “relative” I mean that using stops you can describe a light’s brightness compared with another light source, or measure changes in a light’s brightness. So while it makes sense to say “The brightness of this light is 500 foot candles”, it doesn’t make sense to say “The brightness of this light is three stops”, since you haven’t told us what you’re comparing it to. On the other hand, you can say “This light is two stops darker than that light”, or “Dim that light about a stop”.

So how much brighter or darker is a stop? Simply put, each stop represents a halving or doubling of the amount of light. So if a light doubles in brightness, then it is one stop brighter than it was before. If one light is half as bright as another light, then it is one stop dimmer than that light.

Remember, each stop is a doubling or halving of brightness. So if a light is two stops dimmer than another, that’s another way of saying that it’s four times dimmer, or one quarter the brightness (halved twice). If it’s three stops brighter, then it’s eight times brighter (2×2x2=8).

Here’s a diagram showing this relationship – the middle bunch of lights is our starting light, and the other lights’ brightnesses are described in stops (compared to the start light):

Why do we use this doubling and halving method of talking about light’s brightness? Well, it has a lot to do with the way we perceive changes in light brightness. Simplifying it a tad, humans perceive relative brightness in in an exponential or logarithmic way.

For example, say we have a light and we increase it’s brightness by 100 foot-candles, and make a mental note of the change in brightness. If we wanted to further increase it’s brightness by what appears to be the same amount again, we’d have to increase it by about 200 foot-candles this time.

This would appear to us as the same increase as before, even though it’s actually twice as much. If we actually increased it by the same amount as before (100 foot-candles), we would only perceive it as a smaller increase than before (about half).

It needs to be said: for many purists “corporate documentaries” aren’t really documentaries at all – that is, they are not films/videos designed to document or express the film maker’s view of reality or point of view. Corporate docos are, to be frank, paid propaganda. The film maker is hired to present a version of reality that suits their employer (those that pay the piper call the tune). If this fact bothers you (and it seems to bother a surprising number of people I meet), then perhaps corporate docos are not for you.

But don’t dismiss them too readily. If the thought of “selling out” (whatever the heck that means) distresses you, yet you want to try this form of film making, you could confine yourself to making videos for firms that practice business in a way that you find morally acceptable. Depending on your scruples, this may drastically cut down your list of potential clients, but if it helps you sleep at night then it might be the way to go. For the rest of us, the main criteria when choosing a client is “will they pay on time?”

What they all have in common is that an organization (private business, government department, or even a charity) decides that they have something to say, and that video (or even film) is the best way to say it. The audience could be the organization’s own members/employees, existing customers, potential customers, seminar attendees, or even the general public. Corporate docos can take many forms, including:

- The simplest type (and the most boring to make and watch), it is simply a filmed speech by a manager to their “troops”. Sometimes organizations are spread out across various states or countries, and rather than travel around the place giving the same speech over and over, the manager decides to make a video of themselves giving the speech, and just send copies around to each office. This might seem like a good idea, but apart from being a boring waste of the medium, this can backfire, as the “troops” are more likely to chat (or boo!) during a speech on a TV than one delivered live. If you’re offered the chance to make one of these, suggest that they just send a fax around, or (if you’re desperate for the money), suggest they add some other images over the manager’s voice.

- This is quite common, and can be an effective way of training staff. These videos are only as interesting to make as the subject matter, and can be simple or incredibly complex. Make sure you work closely with the training staff, as no matter how good your production, it’s worthless if it doesn’t cover the right topics in the right way (ie – the client’s way).

- Sometimes a company just wants a video to show at exhibitions and seminars to give people something to watch that defines the company’s corporate ethos and role. This type of video is also good as a form of damage control if a company has been getting some bad publicity. These videos are usually a montage of images to music, with a simple voice-over. Be warned – it’s hard to make an effective image video on the cheap.

Other uses for corporate videos include employee motivation, seminar introductions, and recruitment.

Like most clients, firms paying for a corporate video want maximum bang for their buck. This often means very little or no creative freedom for the film maker, as the keen clients will minutely inspect each and every stage of the production – and it’s hard to blame them for this, after all it’s their money. The client rarely wants the things you think are important (a clear thrust of argument, a simple voice-over, impressive effects and graphics), and will instead demand the things important to them (e.g. plenty of footage of the Managing Director, or every word of their annual report read out as the narrative, etc).

Some clients will be great – they’ll make a simple request for a simple video, and when you deliver what they asked for, they’ll be happy with it and pay you. Others can be a nightmare, expecting results that are way beyond the budget they are willing to pay, and making extra demands not in the original script. This can cause you a lot of heartache unless you follow these two simple rules:

Get it in writing.
Put it in writing.

Everything. All of it. In writing before you shoot a frame. Signed and dated on printed letterhead. Every suggestion and requirement for the film. If they seem reluctant to put their ideas in writing, then write them down for them and send it to them for their confirmation (in writing!). If they won’t confirm the script and budget in writing, then don’t shoot. Better to walk away from a deal than get involved with a firm too disorganized (or crooked) to put their word down in print.

This way, any last minute changes they pull out of their hat during filming or editing can be identified as just that – last minute changes. If you have it all in writing then you can politely point out that the helicopter shot they just asked for wasn’t in the approved script, and thus it will cost extra. Decent clients will either back down or cough up the extra money.

Of course, putting everything in writing protects the client as well – if you say you’re going to film three interviews and include a shot of their main office – then you better do just that or they’ll quite rightly take you to task.

So how do you make your first corporate video? Most clients will want to see a body of work before they pay you to make their video. The the most common way you can build up a portfolio is to do a couple of videos for free. Approach some firms (perhaps via connections with family and friends) and ask them if they would like a promotional video for free. Many will say yes, though some of the smarter ones might realize that a “free” video will still consume a lot of their time and cause a little inconvenience in the workplace. The irony is, even those that say yes to getting your services for free won’t necessarily go out of their way to help get it done, since it’s hard to value something that is being given away.

Once you’ve made a couple of corporate videos for free then (assuming they are any good) you can use them to convince firms to hire you to make theirs. Corporate videos may not have the glamour or “cred” associated with drama projects or even music videos (neither of which really have that much glamour or credibility really!), but they can offer you a source of income and, perhaps more importantly, experience in dealing with people and getting good results on time and on budget.

As noted in a previous feature, all light sources are not white in colour. Each has a colour cast to it, and we refer to this colour as the light’s “colour temperature”.

Despite the use of the word “temperature”, the term has nothing to do with the actual light source’s temperature, but with the temperature of a reference material (a black metal) that was heated till it glowed. We use the temperature of this material (in degrees Kelvin) as a guide to how relatively “blue” or “orange” a light source is. The higher the colour temperature, the “bluer” (relatively speaking) the light is. The lower the colour temperature, the more orange the light is. Some examples are:

Light Source                Colour Temp (K)

Candle:                          2,000

Sunlight at dawn                 2,000

Tungsten-Halogen bulb            3,200

Morning/afternoon sun            4,400

Midday sun                       5,500

HMIs (a type of arc light)       5,600-5,800

Midday sunlight plus skylight    6,500

Clear blue sky                  10,000-20,000

Source: p.74 (extract) Brown, Blain. The Filmmaker’s Pocket Reference (1994) Focal Press

Remember, this colour temperature scale tells us nothing about a light source’s brightness or softness – only its colour.

Now that we know that outdoor light has a different colour to the light from indoor tungsten bulbs, we must compensate for this or our exterior shots will look blue and our interior ones orange. In short, white balance means “telling your camera what white is”, so that it can adjust its internal colour bias to correctly render the colours in the shot. Most video cameras offer three ways of achieving this:

1. Presets. Set the camera’s white balance to tungsten, and the light from most bulbs will now look white, giving natural colours under these shooting conditions. Or set it to daylight, and the light from the sun will look white and most footage shot outdoors during the day will look normal. But what if your light source is not quite one of these standards? Say, an unusually orange light source, or a really clear blue day?

2. Manual Setting. The other option is to hold something that you know is white (e.g. a piece of paper) immediately in front of the subject, zoom in on it, and then let the camera’s white balance circuits do the rest. This will give you a white balance that is uniquely set for your current shooting conditions, so that colours render more faithfully.

3. Automatic Setting. Either of the two options above is preferable to using your camera’s automatic white balance, which periodically adjusts the colour balance of the image to something approaching the right balance. This automatic feature is fine for casual home use, but if you want your footage to look professional you don’t want the colour balance changing during a shot.

So how come motion picture cameras don’t have a white balance function? Well, in a way they do. Motion picture camera film comes in two varieties – tungsten and daylight balanced. By using the appropriate film for the appropriate lighting situation, colours will be correctly rendered. If you are stuck with the wrong type of film, then corrective filters on the lens or gels on the lights can correct this (at the cost of absorbing some of the light).

The rolls of film you use for your stills camera are almost always daylight balanced. Daylight balance was chosen because most stills photos are taken either outdoors under daylight, or indoors using a flash – and the flash light is the same colour as daylight.

All of the above assumes, of course, that you want your light source to look neutral and white. If you don’t, then you can abuse the white balance feature to achieve other effects.

This may seem strange at first, but despite the fact that blue is a higher colour temperature than orange on the Kelvin scale, from an artistic or subjective point of view, orange is “warm” and blue is “cool”. There’s no real logical reason for this – it’s just an accepted stereotype.

By setting your video camera’s white balance to a slightly bluer source than what you are actually using (say, by pointing it at something you know to be slightly blue not white, and setting the white balance from there), your images will have a slight orange cast to them. This can help invoke feelings of warmth and comfort in the viewer (if it’s matched by the image and story, etc).

By doing the reverse, pointing the camera at something slightly orange to set the white balance, then your images will have a slight blue cast to them. This can make the image look cold and bleak.

Or you could try pointing the camera at something you know to be very orange or blue and letting the camera’s white balance function try to set itself to this colour. It probably won’t be able to, but the effect of its attempt on all the other colours in your images can be an unusual look which you might be able to use (but like all extreme effects, less is more, and often this kind of effect is best left ot postproduction).

There’s still a lot more to colour temperature and white balance (such as the pink/green colours given off by fluorescent lights), but for now, experiment with your video camera’s white balance – once you’ve realized the versatility of this function, you’ll never use auto-white balance again.

(Note that there are a lot of animated images in this article, and they may take a while to download.)

The “line” is an invisible or mental line that exists on screen and gives us our sense of direction or perspective for the scene. There are actually two types of line:

The line along which our subject/s (actor/s, vehicle/s, etc) are moving; or

The line along which our subject/s are looking (e.g. the line between two characters talking to each other).

As director, when you are considering your shooting script, you must already be thinking about the editing process. Doing this will not only save you time and film on the shoot, as you won’t shoot anything you don’t really need, but will also minimise the risks that you’ll shoot scenes that won’t cut together.

When planning to shoot a scene where the subject is in motion, imagine that the subject forms an invisible line as they move – this is the line of action. For most shots, it is very important that the camera does not cross the line of action – that is, you should ensure that you film the motion from the same side of the line. Here’s an example:

In the above top-down view, we see a car travelling south from the top of the image to the bottom. The line of action is represented here by the white arrow. If our first shot is taken from position one, then the car appears to be travelling from left of frame to the right, like so:

POSITION 1

If our next shot of the car is taken from position two, then even though the car is now travelling away from us, the apparent direction of the car is still from left to right on the screen – this is because we have not crossed the line of action, like so:

POSITION 2

If, however, we had crossed the line of action and shot from position three, then although the car is still in fact travelling in the same direction (south), it appears to be travelling in the opposite direction on screen, like so:

POSITION 3

This apparent change in direction makes it nearly impossible for shots from position one and three to cut together, as the shots will jar and confuse the audience, like so:

Cutting 1 and 3 together

Crossing the line this way makes the car appear to change direction on screen, and is best avoided as it marks your project as unplanned and unprofessional. Shots from positions one and two will, however, cut together okay, like so:

Cutting 1 and 2 together

You can see how the car’s direction is maintained. Generally, for scenes like this you will want the car to be travelling in the same basic direction across the screen for each shot. Even if you know that the actual route is quite tortuous and winding, you’ll satisfy your audience and give the character a clearer direction if you stick to this guideline.

If you must cross the line for artistic, plot, or practical reasons, then make sure you have filmed a shot to place in between the cross-over. Perhaps a shot taken from on the line of action, with the subject headed straight towards/away the camera. Better still, a tracking shot that starts on one side of the line and moves to the other side during the shot. Shots like these re-orient your audience to the subject’s new apparent direction.

You may be shooting in an area where you are forced to cross the line due to restrictions on where you can shoot from. If the shot’s background is neutral enough, you can get the subject to move in the opposite direction, which will cancel out the fact that you crossed the line and it will appear to be the correct direction on screen.

Now that you know how confusing crossing the line can be for your audience, why not use this technique deliberately? There will be times when the disorienting effects of crossing the line can come in handy. Say you have a scene of your actor rushing frantically through a shopping centre looking vainly for a particular store. By continually crossing their line of action you’ll end up with a collection of shots that edited together will show the actor dashing back and forth through the arcade (even if they were actually headed in the same direction), and this will help to convey the character’s disorientation.

Just be careful how often you use this technique – there’s a thin line between conveying to the audience your character’s confusion and just plain confusing your audience – that’s a line you don’t want to cross!

So crossing the “line of action” can unnecessarily confuse and disorient your audience, and could mark your work as unprofessional. But you may have heard people talking about avoiding crossing the line even when there is no movement in the shots. In this case, the line they are referring to is probably the “line of interest”.

This “line” is a more subtle and difficult to define line. At it simplest, it refers to the line along which our audience looks back and forth in the scene, usually between two actors, but it could be between more than two actors, or between an actor and a prop or props.

Lets take, for an example, a shot of two actors talking to each other face to face – let’s call them Grey-Suit and Black-Suit. Here’s a top-down view of our actors talking to each other:

The line of interest will usually extend from one actor’s eyes to the other’s (unless it is an unusually staged or framed scene). So the line of interest would look something like this, represented by the orange line (it’s useful to think of the line extending out behind the actors):

During this scene, our audience will probably be looking back and forth from Grey-Suit to Black-Suit, along the line of interest. Now there are a number of ways you could film such a conversation, but the standard shots you’d think of might include:

In this article I’d like to briefly discuss the most basic type of lighting design – three point lighting. As you probably know by now, there is far more to lighting your subject well than just flooding them with enough light for the camera to register an image. Lighting not only illuminates the subject, but when done well it can paint them with colour and contrast, meaning and emotion.

But before you can really experiment with expressive and unusual lighting, you need to understand the basics of lighting design. Understanding the neutral look of three-point lighting will give you a good starting point from which you can begin to experiment with expressive lighting techniques, some of which I’ll cover in upcoming articles. Before we start, a couple of points:

This feature assumes you have read and understood the previous article Lighting Basics. Please check it out now if you haven’t already read it, as I’ll be using terms and concepts that are explained there. Also, during this feature I’ll be making several general statements and outlining “rules” when it comes to lighting. As always, these rules are just guidelines – basic rules of thumb from which you should feel free to depart depending on your shooting situation or the effect you wish to create. But you can’t break the “rules” effectively until you know what they are…

Three lights is really the minimum needed to achieve a professional lighting result, whilst still giving some flexibility for expressive lighting. These three lights are usually referred to as:

Key Light
The key light is a hard light source, which is placed to one side of the camera and up high. It’s light can be likened to the light from the sun on a clear day – a bright light with hard-edged shadows. It provides excellent “modelling” in that it highlights the shape and contours of the subject.

Fill Light
The fill light is a soft light source, which is usually placed on the other side of the camera from the key (but closer to the camera), and at about the camera’s height. It’s light can be likened to indirect sunlight reflected light from the environment. It provides the “filling in the shadows” light in that it lowers the contrast between light and dark in the image, and it casts very soft indistinct shadows.

Back Light
The back light is a hard light source like the key, but it is usually a smaller light and it is shone from behind the subject. It’s light is purely for modelling effect, in that it helps overcome the two-dimensional film image and makes the subject stand out from the background. It is sometimes referred to as the “highlight” as it is often used to give a sheen or highlight to an actor’s hair.

Let’s have a look at the effect of these lights on a simple subject – an apple (in this case, a computer-generated one).

Above we see just the key light, placed up high and to the right of the camera. It provides excellent modelling as we can clearly see the round shape of the apple and it’s clear, hard-edged shadow. But the shadow areas are completely black, we cannot see anything there, and we don’t usually want this much contrast in our image.

Above we see just the fill light, placed on the other side to the key and at camera height. It provides a lovely soft light with no harsh shadows or excessive contrast. But you can see how flat and bland it makes the apple look as it provides little modelling, and we usually want our images with more contrast than this.

Above we see the key and fill combined. This gives a pleasing compromise between the contrast of the key and the soft light of the fill. The fill light allows us to see into the key’s shadow, whilst still retaining the key’s modelling effect.

Above we see just the back light. It provides a hard light adding extra modelling and depth to the image. Notice also that the cone angle of the light has been narrowed so that it only lights the apple, and casts no shadow onto the set.

Above we see all three lights combined. Three point lighting provides a good overall balance between contrast and fill which will serve you well for many shooting situations, from interviews to dramatic films. It also serves as the basis for more complicated and/or expressive lighting set ups.

By now you may be thinking that three point lighting produces a lighting look that is just too boring and “standard” for you to use. And this may well be true. The advantage of three point lighting is also its disadvantage – it has a neutral, almost negligible impact on your audience. Done well, this type of lighting should be like most forms of editing – invisible. There will be many situations where three point lighting is all you need, say a corporate documentary interview, or a simple training video.

But the point here is not to restrict your creativity, but to enable you harness it. Once you understand what is “neutral” to your audience, you can begin experimenting with light, as long as your changes are relevant to your project. We’ll be covering various aspects of lighting in future features, but until then consider the possibilities – you could get rid of the fill light to give a more hard-edged look to your interview with a criminal. You might increase the amount of fill to flatten out an interview with a dry bureaucrat to make them look even more bland and boring. You might add some coloured gel to the back light to give extra impact to it’s light (red for an angry interview?). You could change the angle and height of any of the lights for effect. The possibilities are limited only by your imagination.