Shot Compositions

Objective: The objective of this workshop is to provide the participants basic concepts in using a handy DV camera with simple accessories to record the teaching practice and upload the recorded video to LTTC video database for self reflection and/or collaborative commentating. 1. Preparation: Get permission to videotape on school property. Explain your project to the school administration. Be certain to explain to the school that you are creating a video that will involve the students and activities in the classroom or some interviews for the teachers and students. Know more about the lesson and the activities. The objective of this video and plan the shooting. Get your shooting facilities ready, such as DV camcorder, tripod, DV tapes, batteries, microphones and interconnects. 2. Shooting: Arrive in time because there will be only a short time-span between lessons for equipment setup. Select a proper location to raise your tripod and make sure you get most of the shots covering the teacher and the major subjects. Take care of the lighting condition, exposure and audio level. In some occasions, hand-hold your DV to shoot the student activities and interesting shots when shooting on tripod is not made possible. 3. Video Editing: Video Editing is simply the process to delete unwanted footages, select and arrange the footages to create a meaningful and better final video. Non-linear editing is the most common ways to edit, which refers to use a desktop computer to edit your video. For general purpose videos, Windows XPbuilt-in Movie Maker may be the most popular choice for creating videos that can be viewed over the internet and local computers. 4. Video Compression: Raw Video footage requires lots of storage space, without video compression, video files would quickly eat up gigabytes of hard drive space. With video compression, smaller video files can be stored on your PCs hard disk, resulting in much more space for video files. Nowadays, internet is the most efficient ways to publish and share your videos, however, internet bandwidth is finite and it takes a long time to download the entire video in order to play locally. So it is possible to achieve a high compression ratio thus reducing the file size to a comparatively small-sized video that facilitates the efficient transmission across internet and smooth playback. 5. Video Sharing: Nowadays, many different types of online video sharing sites have been involved for people to upload and share their videos for different purposes. Online video is not only for entertainment but also as a learning tool as well. But how to choose a confident site for sharing videos among the people who have common interest and purpose; i.e. for the sake of contributing positive comments to enhance good teaching. Hence, LTTC video database provides a good option for the students to form video sharing community, in which they can share videos in a confidential way and focus on their interactions. Shot composition is very important in shooting video, it is not only representing a sense of beauty but more importantly, it should always track and follow the continuity of object movement and imaginary line of sight, which represents what is your shot and where it is placed in the frame. Where you decide to put the camcorder, how close or wide the shot you decide to use, and what you decide to shoot, will all influence what your audience will understand from the pictures you are showing them. You can tell a very different story from shooting the same event from different perspectives or from what you decide to favour and what you choose to ignore. The standard form is to begin with an establishing shot (either a long or wide shot). Follow with a medium shot with dialog. Then, move into a close-up (maybe to show a reaction). Follow with another medium shot (more dialog) and so forth. It is important that continuity be maintained as the program proceeds in some logical fashion that is discernible to the viewing audience. Sequences are tied to other video sequence strings by using a transition. In this fashion, the entire video program is connected together.