Myth Busting: MORE Video Shoot Myths
Today I am revisiting a blog I wrote last year on some common video shoot myths! I got quite a few of them in my previous entry, but there are still a few more I wanted to touch on. Similar to the first blog, this is meant to dispel any fears or misconceptions an interviewee may have about being interviewed, or that a business owner may have about their space being filmed! No need to fear, PEG is here.
Video Shoot Myth 6:
“It's So Hot Under the Lights”
To start up this list, I wanted to do one that I find funny, because I got to see the transition of this particular topic from past-day reality to present-day myth. That topic is interview lighting! People always assume that our lights are going to be 4000°F, and this is because about 10 years ago lighting WAS all really hot!
The longer it ran, the more likely you were to be feeling some heat (depending on the care taken in setting up.) Nowadays this is a myth for sure, while our new LED lighting does generate some heat it is not directed at the subject. Our lights actually have heatsinks and fans in them now, so they give off some ambient heat, and the housings may get a little toasty, but this is nothing that would ever make you sweat on camera.
And if, like myself, you break into a sweat if you peel an orange too fast, don’t worry! We would never let you sit on camera for your professional interview looking sweaty. We would give you a break and get you as much time as you need to be looking your absolute best for the interview!
Myth 7:
“We Can Just Photoshop That”
The second myth I want to cover is the classic “we can just photoshop that out/in during the edit!” comment. This is always a fun one to try and explain, but to cover the gist of it: No matter how simple the ask, adding something into a shot or removing something from a shot in post is not an easy task. There are certainly things that affect the difficulty level of doing this, such as frame rate, resolution, duration of the shot, and whether or not the shot has motion.
The last one there being the biggest factor by far, if the shot is moving, that means whatever work we do to patch would also need to move at the same speed and direction as the camera. That means the shot will need to be tracked and that adds its own layer of complexity to this whole unfortunate process. My recommendation when it comes to things you want added or removed in a shot is whenever possible it is best to fix those things before the shot is captured, as it will save you a lot of hours in post editing!
Myth 8:
“You Can Fix My One Word Flub”
Next, we have another combo shoot/post-editing myth - audio splicing. Many times we will be filming in an interview setup (whether it be a true interview or prompter) and the interviewee will flub a word. This happens, so never feel bad about it. You get as many takes as you want, so just give it another go! What you should not do, is just say the word you flubbed by itself, and ask to splice that in. Unfortunately this just doesn’t work the way you might expect.
It's like the old Madden games where they just pre-recorded the announcers saying every number from 1 - 99. It just isn’t natural sounding if it doesn’t follow the flow of the sentence you were saying. At the very least, start a sentence before your flub and continue through the script for a short while after. This gives the production team a big, perfect puzzle piece to fit into the story as opposed to just the one word that was flubbed!
Myth 9:
“The Camera Adds 10lbs”
I thought for the last myth in this blog I would hit the most popular one of all: “The camera adds 10 lbs!” This is just incorrect, there are ways to make a person look wider or narrower with lensing, and I am sure it would be really fun to goof around with, but at PEG it is our job to make you look good. We would never put a super wide angle lens on our main camera and get super close to you, and this is one of the few ways to really make someone look significantly larger than they actually are. We always choose a lens that either gets you looking as close as possible to how the human eye sees you, or if anything we do something with a slightly longer throw that may even may you look a bit thinner! It all depends on the interview set up, but for the most part we try to stick to the most natural looking setup. So again, no worries here. We are always gonna make you look good.
That about wraps up this blog. I hope you enjoyed some more video shoot myths and if you did check out more of our informational content on our website!
