How Modern Baseball uses dolly-outs to create two senses of place

Idea Lab, Story , , ,

I’m deep, deep into the weeds of what each shot communicates. So deep, in fact, that I’m going to use the best video about being in a friend zone ever to demonstrate a concept.  That’s right, we’re going to use now-defunct Maryland pop punk band Modern Baseball’s “Your Graduation” video. It has it all: Shots with personality, a drummer screaming into a microphone while it precipitates around him, an opening shot of a pudgy guy laying in a bed.

Before we get into that — especially that last part — let’s talk about the role of a shot within a sequence. Or let’s start with the sequence. The sequence — a connection of linked shots, usually around an action — is a visual sentence.  In teaching video editing, we talk about five-shot sequences and we talk about three-shot sequences. I teach them as some combination of wides (which create context), tights (which drive the narrative and create character) and mediums (which combine context and character). But each shot serves its own purpose and I’ve been thinking more about that lately. For basic newscutting, we teach keeping motion in shots to a minimum: Only move when the shot needs to move. But as we get more advanced, it’s possible to use those shots to show character and setting — and to change both — with a little bit of movement.

Every time director Kyle Thrash introduces a new scene, it starts with a tight on our friend-zoned protagonist. He uses a simple enough shot, the dolly-out (a shot where the camera smoothly backs away), to create a sense of scene and character. It’s a combo shot. The tight at the beginning gives us character and the widening perspective of the dolly-out to a medium provides context.

If we divide the video into two stylistic choices — narrative and band shots — the narrative sections look like this:

  1. Tight on guy in bed. Camera dolly-out to show girl talking to him, though not sitting there.
  2. Tight on guy in car. Dolly-out to show girl talking to him in a car.
  3. Tight on guy at party on couch. Dolly-out to show girl talking to him on couch as couple makes out next to him.
  4. Tight on guy sitting on a swing. Dolly-out to show girl talking to him on adjoining swing.
  5. Tight on guy sitting on stairs at a Halloween party, dolly-out to girl talking to him.
  6. Tight on guy laying on snow. Dolly-out to girl laying next to him, then getting up.
  7. Tight on girl sitting on bench in graduation gown. Dolly-out to guy getting up and leaving.

The visual sentencing is so distinct and so structured in the video that you can’t avoid the symbolism of the switch at the end. But from a storytelling perspective, that dolly-out gives us the clues in every scene to understand the narrative.

Somewhere, somewhen and audience service

Idea Lab

I remember reading Steve Stockman’s How to shoot video that doesn’t suck and coming across the line “Every story needs a somewhere and a somewhen” and being thunderstruck. It gave a sense of purpose to wide shots. But the more I thought about it, “somewhere” and “somewhen” aren’t about visual grammar. They’re about audience service: How do we place our audience in the story and where do we place them? Is it October on the Great Plains in a drought? Night near the Brooklyn Bridge? Are we in a dramatic, wide open space or an intimate, cramped one?

But then I realized that we can use shots to place the audience within a story so they understand things better. Look at this clip from Tombstone and see how the camera’s wide shots aren’t just in there to break up the litany of tights and extreme tights of Val Kilmer’s lips Michael Biehl’s crazy eyes. They’re used to create a sense of where the gunfight is happening and the characters’ relative locations within the context of the grove where the gunfight is happening. It’s a small thing — but if you were to cut the scene without it, the audience would never get a sense of place within the moment.

 

Apps and gadgets, fall 2017

Uncategorized

The mobile kit — Spring 2017

Tools and Toys

This year’s styles show an emphasis on speed and simplicity…

This is my base kit, and it’s simple and inexpensive (the most expensive thing is the shotgun mic, but you can get a decent one starting at $75).  It handles stability, security light and sound.

 

 

This is the more expanded mobile kit. It does all of the above, but provides more sound input options, a small tripod and a 360 camera that integrates with the phone.

The apps I’m using — Spring 2017

Tools and Toys , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

As presented at the Oklahoma Association of Broadcasters convention on March 30 and 31, 2017…..

 

The things we carry and don’t

Idea Lab, Tools and Toys , , , , , , , ,

I think there are times that all I write about are gear and apps. A look back at the infrequent blog posts here would seem to confirm that.

So today, we’ll talk a little about philosophy behind the gear I’m using.

I’ve noted that my mobile kit has gotten smaller over the last few years. Some of that is due to technology advances (the dual lenses on the iPhone 7Plus, for example, mean I don’t carry external lenses any more). Some of that is due to a change in my own philosophy about gear and what we’re producing with it.

Let’s start with technology.

My kit in June 2015 had 11 separate pieces of hardware in it, not counting a power brick. My most advanced kit now has 11 pieces — but they’re different. And the basic kit I carry with me all the time has four pieces, plus a power brick. Technology has transformed the kit.

I used to always carry an iRig or iRig Pro to run an XLR-corded mic with me. Most days now, I use a lav or shotgun mic designed to go straight into the phone. Sometimes I’ll use a Lightning connector-specific condenser mic. The quality of gear has gotten better — to the point where maybe the XLR-corded stuff isn’t so neccesary (note: I still have an iRig, iRig Pro, iRig Pro Dual Channel and a Shure MVi for when the occasion calls for it).

I always used to carry external lenses with me, either a set of 37mm screw-on lenses or a clip-on or slip-on like Olloclip or Moment lenses. Changing to the iPhone 7Plus with the dual lenses meant I didn’t have to anymore. The regular lens on the 7Plus has a focal length of about 21mm, which is plenty wide. The zoom lens on it is a 52mm lens. I don’t need much else.  Getting rid of external lenses means I don’t have to carry a frame for the phone that will accomodate them.

I always preach that adding quality to mojo products is a tradeoff: The more equipment we add to raise quality, the less mobile we become. But now we’re improving the chassis in significant ways. And those technology improvements mean that we can be more mobile and still have a high production quality.

Now let’s talk about philosophy.

It’s changed. When I started doing mobile work, I was about Big Mobile — end-to-end mobile production. Shoot it on the phone, edit it on the phone, move it to the publishing outlet. That outlet, in my mind, was invariably a legacy media outlet. Let’s build a 2 1/2 minute piece for the 6 p.m. show. 

Spending time in newsrooms has had me reconsider that the legacy product doesn’t want mobile-produced stuff. The news directors and producers want stuff built in AVID and ingested into the CMS. They’re largely agnostic about the source of the footage, but they want it built at the mothership, or something that approximates the mothership (a laptop in a van with a LiveU or Dejero unit in it).

That said, newsrooms want mobile video and mobile produced pieces. But they want them for social. They want 10 :20 pieces, not a 1:30 piece. As a result, they’ve invested in simple production technology like Videolicious, rather than a more complicated and sophisticated product like LumaFusion.

How does that play into what’s in the kit? I used to pack everything every time. Stick mic? Check. Wireless set. Check. Huge LED light? Check. And so on. Now I don’t feel like I have to. I feel like I can carry, most of the time, stuff that accomplishes 100 percent of what I need from a quality perspective 85 percent of the time.

Let’s be honest: If we’re producing for social, we’re probably producing for Twitter. And if we’re producing for Twitter we need good-enough quality, not great quality. If we’re producing for Facebook, we’re likely creating videos that are designed to be digested without the sound on.  I still keep my Rode Reporter mic, my Sennheiser wireless kit, my various preamps, my lights, etc., in a second bag in the car. But most of the time, I’m using a mobile kit that can be described as “phone/holder/shotgun-and-lav-mics/cheap clip-on light.”

I still think that end-to-end mobile production is coming, especially as the price of bonded cellular comes down. But I’m not sure when. The economic arguments are still there. The technology advances arguments are still there. But I think the tide of production for social has carried away a lot of the end-to-end momentum.

 

 

 

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