Video came into my life a few years ago and has been on the whole a fun ride.
I now understand so very much more than I did before and have been introduced to a very different landscape of information, mentoring, growth paths and influences.
Like I usually do, I have gone for the “gold ring” of best image quality and full control within a realistic envelope, while discovering along the way, lower levels can often be enough.
I must admit, it is easy to get information, but harder to get good information than it was with my stills journey, or was it more that it was a different time for both?
I feel lucky I had a decent enough grounding in the basics to see the red flags, because there were many.
Recently I have reached a decision to effectively stop my “commercial” videography and relegate (or elevate) it to self motivated, fully controlled and better regulated projects with a fairly narrow focus.
I want to shoot documentaries and interviews, usually for the same projects, and I want/need controlling creative input. I do not shoot overtly commercial stills (some are used commercially, but that is only one use for them), so why do commercial video?
All those commercial videos I have been done have been, as they say in the classics, “very much the opposite of fun”. teleprompters limiting camera and lens as well as placement limits, compromised microphone choices and running to scripts do not float my boat, as well has a raft of “directors” second-guessing everything I do (with little idea) are my kind of hell.
I got early on that video is different to stills shooting in several ways.
Video needs to be shot to a story “shape” of some kind.
Random shooting in an uncontrolled situation has it’s place, but is usually not conducive to making something useful at the end of the day. Your content needs to be planned and work to a formula to some extent. With stills this is the same to a point, but the story is one of your telling, not something that will undo your fiction.
You, the shooter will be making that content useful.
If you give a client a ton of stills, they will use them as they see fit. If you dump an hour of footage on them, even graded and cleaned up footage, most will have little use for it and if they do, you may not like the outcome.
When you are making that content into something, communication is key.
It is your project to make, but someone else’s to use for their needs, so you are making it to their vision. This one is tough, because as you make the most of what you have, inevitably other stake holders will be inspired after the fact and want more or different.
So, it takes longer.
The ratio (for me) of three hours shooting stills is one hours processing, is at least flipped, or worse. A full hour of capturing various clips may end in many hours of processing, re-processing and more (see the point above).
Technical considerations are more and less forgiving.
If you are doing sound, video and lighting, you are jugging a lot of balls at once, any of which will bring your work flat if you mess up. Unlike stills, “fixing it in post” is less powerful and has draw backs. I now use B-Raw (Q5) and it helps, but there is still less tolerance “front of house”.
It cannot be done while you are shooting stills.
Well one or the other suffers anyway. I guess 4k or higher res can have stills lifted and maybe that is the answer, but for me at least, switching hats constantly tends to produce nothing of worth in either format.
It requires more gear, especially gear that you do. ot find in a still shooters bag.
Constant light sources, microphones, reflectors and diffusers, stability of some sort, rigging and even different cameras are required. The modern hybrid camera is fine, but it is more than just turning a dial.
I have looked back at my last year and realised, most of my unwanted stress has come from video work. Not the work itself, just it’s shape. Lack of creative control, poor communication resulting in zero planning, unrealistic time frames resulting in limited gear application have robbed me of the desire to offer this service.
The reality is, nobody wants to pay for it at a realistic hourly rate, unless they know up front and are willing to engage the whole you. “Just some quick video” has become a time eating lie to me.
Example;
I said yes recently to covering the first two, hour long rehearsals of a school play. Apart from these being poorly chosen rehearsals as they were the very first cast gatherings and little had been organised and I only found this out the day before, needed to be mostly video content including interviews, rehearsals and behind the scenes.
No time to plan, little idea of the actual needs of the relevant parties (or even who they were), unknown location, space, lighting etc, meant bringing lots of gear and winging it.
I shot for the two hours, with some stills as well when able.
I have since been making short promo clips, longer introduction clips, interview sets, also providing stills, many of which are video lifts, because it turned out they needed a lot more stills than I was led to believe and have easily clocked up 10 hours of editing, much of which came down to the ping-ponging of cuts via dropbox, then re-cuts and re-re-cuts until I have it how they want.
I am not yet finished. The job paid four hours total, because I only ever charge one hour processing per job maximum, based on my stills work flow. Could I charge more? Probably not.
What would I have liked to have done? Communicate with the actual parties directly, choose better rehearsal times, write or review the script (to a story shape), have the collateral supplied before not after, look at the space and have a clearer idea of the what and why of the job.
On the other hand, two of my charity jobs are interested in several mini documentary projects, with a concept, start, middle and ending, all controlled by me.
They have a longer run time, some over several weeks, are interviews, not scripted remarks and creative control is basically up to me.
These are what I want to do. I have the luxury of choice, so I will exercise that freedom.
An interview late last year, more my style, but rare for this client.
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This means in practical terms, I will be reducing my dedicated four camera video kit to two cameras (S5/GH5s) with the G9II as backup for movement etc and the S5II becoming effectively a stills cam.
My cinema lenses and associated gear will be tighter, stills glass also going into the general kit. The 12-60 Leica does add stabe to the GH5s, to a level I find acceptable, so it may be the exception.
The reality that the G9II is in many ways my most capable video cam is not forgotten, but for my needs, it is a specialised tool. It still needs and can support the BMVA 12G for B-Raw, but is the only cam I have that can do ProRes HQ into an SSD.
Solid B-Raw, heavy cams, traditional stabe techniques and some cinéma vérité licence are where I want to be. Gimbals etc are more of a commercial necessity.
My stills kit will score two new cams (G9II/S5II) and some handy lenses, which may still be used for video occasionally, likely doing any drudge video work “out of the bag”, something even the G9 mk1’s can handle often..
The reality is, they offer good AF, stabilising and quality with minimal fuss for those jobs I choose to handle with them, the minimal fuss ones I am trying to mostly avoid, but will have to do sometimes. They also do add some genuine video muscle to my day kit, but again, without the rest of the kit that makes the difference.
I am now happy enough with my editing skills for my work, avoiding the “cutesy” trickery and effects of commercial work, sticking to real subjects and the best, pure practices. Things like gimbals, AF, zooms etc were all stresses I embraced to satisfy other people’s needs, not mine.
Not wanting to make movies here, just genuine stuff, no gimmicks.
I always know who I am with stills, but it took a while to get it with video. Last year I just said an unqualified “yes” all the time, hungry to grow, usually resulting in adequate results, but not always and I rarely felt like I had broken through to a controlled space. I learned a lot, some of which is to so “no” some times.
This year it is more a qualified “yes, but this is how it goes, or maybe you should find someone else”. I earn the bulk of my income shooting stills, so that is where the bulk of my time, money and effort should go. Video is just for me or others if I fit their needs in a shape I choose.
The steep learning curve, with no real direction or shape, so much that is new, all the time it seems, have made the trip seem insurmountable some times, but if I am true to me and don’t try to become some type of super all-rounder, then I can get what is important defined and perfected.