We Have Film School At Home

In this pair of videos, I worked with shotgun mics (albeit smaller ones) and thought about mic placement, camera placement and some shortcuts for shot framing.

The shotgun mics are an improvement over lapel mics – here I use the Rode Videomicro II, and the Sennheiser MKE 400. The Sennheiser I think is the winner (and is the most expensive of the two), though the quality of audio – especially when it comes to reducing reverb – is heavily based on getting the mic closer to the sound source. The goal then in shots is to have obstructions placed in the shot that allow the mic to be placed without being seen. We will see how that goes.

You’ll see in these shots that I used the camera placed further back with plenty of obstacles – kind of like how many of Wong Kar Wai does with many of his scenes. In the second of these clips, you will also notice that I used a prop – in this case a mic stand with a handkerchief tied to the end, as a makeshift stand-in for myself. Since I can’t be in the shot when I’m focusing, I was having to do a lot of guessing – which I was not very good at – in determining how to frame the shot. The mic stand is a pretty good stand-in, which I can vary its height based on my own positioning, and figure out how to frame the shot much better. Where the handkerchief is placed where my head is, I can also very closely focus the camera to where my face is going to be. I think a pretty nice trick I figured out.

It’s a few weeks before this film project I want to participate in comes up (the 72 Hour Shootout), so we will see if I develop enough skills to make something up by that point. I guess during that time, one last thing I need to figure out is how script-writing works?