The Daily Background

Well, documentary shooting started very quietly and unceremoniously Wednesday afternoon. I shot a small amount of b-roll footage that I’ll use to break up some interview footage. Ill be sharing background info about the project as it goes along, but since I view this as a fun learning experience during the summer until I go back to film school, here is what I learned from experience today:

1. Tripods do not work well in narrow and cluttered professors offices unless you’re planning to stay in the same place for a long period of time. Which isn’t what I was doing today. At all.

2. If you forget to switch on your external mic, which is not connected via hotshoe (i.e. separate power from the camera), it will not somehow magically turn on when you begin filming. This would seem painfully obvious, but unfortunately it is not always.

3. The classic ‘fingers typing at computer’ shot that is so commonly used as b-roll on evening news shows is actually not as easy as it looks to pulls off. In fact, it’s surprisingly difficult. I’m gonna have to try that one again some other time.

Later today, I hope to shoot some more b-roll and figure out a lighting scheme for small classroom theater where the interview is going to take place. I think it’s going to be somewhat tricky to get something that both looks good in person and on camera. I was hoping to have really cool dramatic lighting with lots of shadows and stuff, but I dunno how well that’s going to show up. We’ll see. Maybe I’ll take a photo up to illustrate what I’m talking about foir the next update.

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For more about the documentary, you can check out the archives in this section.

Filed under: Documentary, Z-TDB Blog