2010 Worship Coference Promo
2010 Great Lake Worship Conference Promo from Tony Kunda on Vimeo.
I can’t believe it’s been a month since the Worship conference. One of the most fun times in the pre-conference work was shooting that promo video. Now that I have a little room to breathe, I thought I’d write up a few observations on our first video shoot of this type.
Video
After many months of drooling over Canon’s HD-DSLRs, I was able to pick on up a week before we shot this promo. I popped a 50mm f/1.4 on it, and away we went. For the handheld shot, I used the wide end of the 17-40mm f/4 in an attempt to minimize shake. Didn’t help as much as I would have liked. I wonder if Calvary will let me pick up a jib next year…Hmmm… :)
Sound
I’ll be the first to admit that the audio in this video isn’t great. Quality audio gear designed for video is in short supply at Calvary. The church owns a great Shure wireless system, but it’s normally used with a countryman headset. I’ve seen a few promos shot with that kind of rig, but I’ve always thought it looked awful. I was able to find a low-end lapel system that belonged to the women’s ministry and wired Trav up with that. From there, I ran that into my laptop and recorded right into Amadeus Pro. Syncing the audio with the video was a bit of a challenge. I used the iPhone movie*slate app to slate the front end of the video and called out the take/file name. In post, I found the matching files and manually synced the audio from the camera to the audio from the lapel. In post, I discovered that the audio from the lapel was muddy, as the mic was obscured behind Trav’s hoodie.
Lighting
*How NOT to gaff* I’m a big fan of Zack Arias’ one light workshop, and I wanted to see if I could light this project with just one light. (You know… no budget; using what was available) As we were shooting, Calvary had been in the process of upgrading some of the lights in the grid above the stage. I was able to snag a 500w fresnel that was going to go up in the grid later that week. I hung that from a speaker stand I found in a closet and pointed into a Westcott 60” convertible umbrella (reflective/black cover on). I set the light and umbrella above and to the left (see diagram). I shot back into the sanctuary, so everything behind the talent went to black. To prevent it from appearing in the shot, we taped a Fox Cities dining guide over the exit signs in the sanctuary. In the haze of 1am clean up, we complete forgot to take the menus off the exit sign; on the way home, I joked with Travis that it would be just my luck for us to have a fire inspection first thing the next day. Sure enough, we did…
Cue Cards
After the first take, we decided that cue cards would be a good idea. :) We ran up to the office and printed the copy on three sheets of 11x17. We taped all that to a large piece of cardboard, and Holly held that directly behind the camera.
The Blue Dot of Death
If you look closely at the HD footage, you’ll notice a small blue dot in the lower right section of the screen. Yep, the 7D’s sensor had a bad pixel. I was devastated! Thankfully, the amazing folks at B&H Photo quickly shipped a new one out to me.
Things I Would Have Done Differently
Video: My biggest regret is that I didn’t close the aperture to give me more depth of field. Shooting at f/1.4 made for a VERY shallow depth of field. I’d focus before we hit record, and as soon as he started talking, Trav would lean forward—putting the focus point towards the back of his head. In hindsight; close the aperture, raise the ISO. Additionally, I need to pick up a larger CF card. Dumping the video every 4Gb is a pain…
Audio: Shotgun or better lapel mic next year. We REALLY have to get the audio quality up next year.
Below is a diagram of how we set things up:
