Digital Documentary Film Making

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Digital Documentary Film Making

• Guy Mullins, Ken Fagan
• Arizona State University

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Objectives

• Define Documentary Film
• Styles of Documentaries
• Video Production Process
• Film Making Jobs Duties
• Discuss Orme Dam Research

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Communicating with Video

• Drama
• Instructional Video
• News/Magazine format
• News
• Documentary
• Research and Data Collection
• Surveillance

MORE SCRIPT
LESS SCRIPT
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Documentary Film Video

• Creative treatment of actuality - John
  Grierson
• Every Documentary falls somewhere between the
  most pure form of telling a found story and the
  less pure contrived fiction

Surveillance Camera
Hollywood Film
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Video Documentary

• Types of Documentary Film
• Expository
• Addresses Viewers Directly
• Impressionistic
• Poetic, Lyrical
• Observational
• On the Fly Capture of Events
• Reflexive
• Interactive, Autobiographical, Reality TV (?)

Robert Flaherty's "Nanook of the North 1922
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Reality TV?

• An American Family, 1972
• MTV - The Real World
• PBS - The 1900 House, The Farmers Wife
• CBS - Survivor , Big Brother, Amazing Race
• www.weliveinpublic.com

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Observational or Nature Video

• Moving from Public Space to Private Space
• Social Orientation
• Photographer as Participant Observer
• Photography and Rapport

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The Video Interview

• Talking Head
• Three Point Lighting
• Adequate Microphone
• Boom
• Lavalier
• Question and Answer
• Simple to Edit
• Restricts Quality of Content
• Open Ended Questions
• Difficult to Edit
• Content May be Unrestricted / Unexpected

Head Room Nose Room Rule of Thirds Background
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Using Photographs in the Video Interview

• Photo Elicitation
• Still Photographs may be used as subject matter
  to elicit responses from informants
• Rough Cuts may be used to direct further research
  based on community/informant responses

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Using Photographs in the Video Interview

• Photo Elicitation

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Questions?
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Video Text Resources

• Cross-Cultural Filmmaking, Ilisa Barbash and
  Lucien Taylor
• Visual Anthropology, John Collier, Jr., and
  Malcolm Collier
• The Corporate Scriptwriting Book, Donna Matrazzo
• Camcorder in the Classroom, Adrienne Herrell, and
  Joel Fowler, Jr.

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Additional Text Resources

• The Little Digital Video Book by Michael Rubin
• In The Blink of An Eye by Walter Murch
• Setting Up Your Shots. Great Camera Moves Every
  Filmmaker Should Know by Jeremy Vineyard
• Film Directing Cinematic Motion by Steven Katz
• Film Directing Shot by Shot by Steven Katz
• Digital Moviemaking by Scott Billups
• Digital Guerrilla Video A Grassroots Guide to
  the Revolution by Avi Hoffer
• Making Documentary Films and Reality Videos A
  Practical Guide to Planning, Filming, and Editing
  Documentaries of Real Events by Barry Hampe
• Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects (With
  CD-ROM) by Trish Meyer, Chris Meyer

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Digital Documentary Film Making

• Part 1 - Objectives
• Fundamental Technical Knowledge of Digital Video
  and Digital Photography
• Traditional Skills of Video Production
• (i.e.., shot composition, audio basics, lighting
  principles)
• Digital Video Editing Techniques

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Recent History of Video Technology

• Analog Expensive and Complicated
• Digital Relatively Inexpensive and Simple
• Non-Linear Editing (NLE)
• miniDV Videotape, Firewire (iLink, IEEE1394)

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Traditional A/B Roll Analog Editing System
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Modern Digital VideoReplaces Big Hardware with
Big Software
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Modern Tools of Video Production

• Digital Camcorder
• miniDV, Digital 8, D-9, Digital-Betacam
• Non-Linear Video Editing System
• iMovie, Premiere, FinalCut, Media100, Avid
• NLE does for Video today what the Laser Printer
  did for Print in the late 1980s
• Digital Still Camera
• 2-Megapixel, 3-Megapixel, or better
• Graphics and Animation Software
• Photoshop, After Effects, even PowerPoint

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Digital Video On-Location
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Digital Video Composite
Arizonas Towns Planning the Past, Saving the
Future College of Architecture - Summer 2000
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Traditional Tools of Good Video Production

• Wordprocessor
• Microsoft Word, Pencil Paper, 3M Post-It
• Tripod
• Microphones
• Handheld, Shotgun, Lavalier, PZM
• Lighting Equipment
• Lights, Reflectors, Umbrellas
• A/C Extension Cords
• Batteries
• Gaffers Tape
• Ballpoint Pen

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Questions?
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The Video Production Process

• Simple steps to making video
• Video Vocabulary
• Shot Composition
• Lighting Audio Basics

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Video Production Process

• Pre-Production
• Outline
• Treatment
• Script Storyboard
• Production
• Shooting Video
• Creating Graphics and Animation
• Recording Narration, Music, Sound Effects
• Post-Production
• Editing
• Distribution (VHS, www)

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Video Shot Vocabulary

• Fundamental Shot Types
• Establishing Shot
• Medium Shot (MS), Medium Close-Up
• Close-Up (CU), Extreme Close-Up
• Over-the-Shoulder (OTS)
• Two Shot

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Establishing Shot, Wide Shot
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Medium Shot,Medium Close-Up
Talking Head
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Close-Up, Extreme Close-Up
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Other FundamentalShot Types

• Over-the-Shoulder (OTS)
• Two Shot

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Head Room Nose Room
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Rule of Thirds
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Basic Principals of Lighting
Three Point Lighting

• Key Light
• Fill Light
• Back Light or Hair Light

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Three Point Lighting
Hair Light
Key Light
Background Light
Fill Light
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Three Point Lighting
Hair Light
Key Light
Fill Light

• http//ether.asu.edu/video/tips_lighting.html

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Audio Recording Basics

• Good Video needs Good Audio
• Different Types of Recording Require Different
  Types of Microphones
• Handheld
• Lavalier / Lapel
• Shotgun
• PZM (Pressure Zone Mic)

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Things to Keep in Mind when Shooting Video

• Shot Composition Basics
• Headroom, Noseroom
• Lighting for Image Quality
• Three Point Lighting
• Audio Recording
• Checklist
• Batteries
• Videotape
• Microphone
• Focus
• Framing / Shot Composition

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Questions?
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DV on the PC?

• Studio DVPinnacle Systems
• www.pinnaclesys.com
• Ulead Video Studio
• www.ulead.com
• Dazzle DV-Editor
• www.dazzle.com
• MovieDV Suite (screenshot)
• www.aistinc.com
• Microsoft Producer
• www.microsoft.com

Ulead Video Studio
Dazzle DV-Editor Firewire card
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AIST MovieDVSuite (www.aistinc.com)
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Digital Video Graphics Animation

• Objectives
• Introduction to Producing Graphics for Video
• Advanced Video Audio Editing Techniques
• Digital Video Compression Web Video
• Internet Distribution

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Creating Graphics for Video

• Title Screens
• Lower Third

• Illustrations
• Special Effects

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Creating Graphics for Video

• Title Screens
• Lower Third

• Illustrations
• Special Effects

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Creating Graphics for Video

• The Darwin Movie
• http//ether.asu.edu/video/tips_bluescreen.html

click movie to play
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Graphics Tools for Video

• Adobe Photoshop for still images
• Adobe After Effects for animated images
• Digital Still Photography

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Creating Graphics for Video

• Limitations of NTSC (Analog Television)
• Color range of Television and Computers
• Analog NTSC Video perhaps 5-7 million colors
• Computer RGB more than 16 million colors
• Interlaced Properties of NTSC
• Causes flicker in fine details of images
• Overscan and Underscan
• Graphic Compositions may only utilize about 80
  of the screen real estate

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Creating Graphics for Video

• Limitations of NTSC (Analog Television)

• Launch Photoshop DEMO

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Questions?
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Video and Audio Editing Techniques

• Inserting Elements into a DV Program
• Graphics
• Audio
• Narration from microphone videotape
• Music from CD
• Sound Effects
• Working with DV Video Clips
• Adjusting Clips within the Program Timeline
• Cropping Clips

• Launch iMovie DEMO

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Video Compression

• Producing Video for Computer Presentations
• Powerpoint, CD-ROM, Kiosk
• Compressing Video for Internet Broadcasting /
  Webcasting / Netcasting

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Video Compression

• Nearly all Digital Video is Compressed

NTSC Video plays at 30 frames / second 1 Frame
of Uncompressed Digital Video is approximately 1
MB (30 MB / second)
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Video Compression

• Methods of Compression
• Reduce the Number of frames / second
• 15 fps is okay
• Less than 10-12 fps becomes jerky
• Reduce the Size of the Video frame
• Reduce the Image Quality

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Video Compression

• Flavors of Video Compression
• MPEG
• (MPEG I - MP3, MPEG II - DVD, MPEG IV),
• Quicktime
• Cinepak, Sorenson, Apple Video, Motion-JPEG)
• DV
• miniDV Camcorder Videotape, iMovie
• RealVideo
• AVI
• Microsoft ASF

• http//is.asu.edu/rd/video

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How To Compress Video

• Many Desktop Video Editing programs will Export a
  variety of compressed formats
• Exports are usually template compression settings
  without much control
• Media Cleaner (Current Version 5.0) is the most
  popular tool for the aspiring Video Compressionist

• Launch Media Cleaner DEMO

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Questions?