Directing-An Overview

Ok, Nick, this one's for you!

A lot of people don't know what to do when they sit down at a video switcher their first time. It can be a bit overwhelming, especially with more than two cameras. Admittedly, there is a LOT to keep in mind. So, I've decided to break it up a little bit and give you guys a very broad overview of what I expect of the directors and TD's I train. Please note that it's been a while since I've directed anything (live event or film, so bear with me).

Ok, so let's start off with the things that I advise and train my directors to keep in mind at all times:

1.) FOCUS-You can have the best shot in the world, but if it's out of focus, it might as well be the worst-nothing screams amateur like an out of focus shot. Keep it sharp!

2.) Composition-Know the rule of thirds...in BOTH axes! If you don't know that term, Google it! Others have explained it far better than I do in words...and they even have cool diagrams! A good starting place: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thirds

3.) Context-what is the speaker saying? If he/she talking about something negative? You can imagine how ill-timed it would be to show a white male with blond hair and blue eyes in the audience when the speaker is talking about Nazi Germany, right? So, listen to what is being said and try and follow that as much as possible. Is the speaker reading a Bible verse? Find someone in the audience reading a Bible. A side note here: if you lack adequate lighting for your audience, I would cut them out as much as you can-a shot that is nearly completely dark will disorient any viewers as to what's going on and will not help in communicating the speaker's message. If you MUST do an audience shot, do a wide angle pan with your aperture opened all the way to let as much light in as possible (f-numbers work in reverse; the smaller the number, the larger the opening in the lens to let light in).

4.) Camera Moves-if you're doing a zoom, what is your justification for it? If you call for a camera move just to have a camera move, don't do it. A zoom in helps to focus the viewer's attention, and a push in will allow a wide angle for the viewer to see the space, while focusing them again on the speaker. It gives a sense of space and proves that the program is not taking place in a studio. Conversely, a pull out is meant to reveal something; keep in mind that a pull out will sometimes have the effect of disengaging the viewer from the speaker, so use very sparingly. During musical selections of a large instrument like an organ, it's fine, but for intimate music like vocals or small instruments, I would stay away from pull outs and stick with push ins. Remember, pan is a side-to-side move, tilt is an up-and-down move.

5.) Aperture/Iris/F-Stop: In the digital world, these terms have become synonymous, though their origins were different. Basically, keep an eye on your overall brightness-if you lose details in your whites, you're probably too bright. If you lose detail in your blacks, you're too dark. However, ALWAYS expose for the face.

6.) Transitions-Cut or dissolve? This is more of a personal preference, but I generally prefer dissolves for music and cuts for everything else., specifically speaking. Cuts allow for much faster transitions and when you have a speaker who likes to move around the stage, this is a blessing. Dissolves tend to just muddy up the mix with speakers and get in the way-so I advise sticking with cuts, but again, it's a pretty subjective choice, just make sure whatever you do, it's intentional.

7.) Don't panic! When you get into a 4 or 6 camera shoot, it can be overwhelming! You have to keep track of all six of your cameras, any internal sources (DVD playback, computer graphics, etc), and your program and preview monitors. Just a quick review-source monitors are for the director to see the images from the cameras and/or sources (DVDs, VHS, computers, etc.), preview is for the director to "preview" a source before taking it to air-most calls for focus checks and fine composition changes occur based off this monitor, and program is what is going out "on-air," or to recordings. It is the final stop and cannot be altered once it's on program...so USE your preview!!!! Ok, back to the point-a lot of new directors tend to play it safe and stay on a single source for a long time, because they don't want to get their head (or can't get their head) around the options they have. I say just jump right in, and I will sometimes jump in as producer and make calls for changing shots to help get my directors out of this rut-it's boring for the director (and frightening) but it's also boring for the viewer-keep those cuts moving! Change at least once every 20 seconds when you're new, and at least once every 10 seconds on average as you get into it. This sounds like really fast cutting, but I assure you, it's still a bit long. :)

8.) Know your equipment-there will be times when you're working with novice camerapeople-so it's important that you know the camera better then they do and know what is and what is not possible. It's also important, in the same vein, to know the capabilities of your video switcher. Know how to bring in lower thirds with a key and fill (if your switcher has this functionality), and how to bring in and take out the Downstream Key (DSK) with both a cut and a fade (again, based on functionality). Know how to change your transition styles, learn what effects can be achieved, and then find time to practice these with your crew (if possible). And at all times...SMOOTH CAMERA MOVES!!!! They can be fast, but they NEED to be smooth.

9.) Be consistent-learn common terminology and stick with it. Don't invent your own language, and definitely don't allow different terminology within the same ministry team. It's very confusing for the camera people. When I say a wide shot, I mean a wide shot. Some of my other directors term it a "broad shot." Well, a smart-alec camera operator might go find a shot of a woman...you might be laughing at that, but in a live environment, the director needs to be able to effectively direct his or her crew to get exactly the shots they need, and quickly. There's no room or time for mis-communication, so learn proper terminology and stick with it.


10.) Finally, be willing to take suggestions. I tend to run a pretty tight ship, but I'm open to creative shots and ideas. I, as the director, am not at the camera locations myself, so I must rely on my operators to find different shots for me that I might not see myself. As a director, allow your operators to show you shots they find, and then decide whether or not to use it. Remind them that if you don't like or use their shot, it's not a reflection on them at all and it's not personal, it just didn't fit with the program at that point-it might be better served some other time, so remember those shots. Also don't be surprised if you ask an operator to find you a different shot during a particularly boring program and they give you a shot of the exit sign...it just shows their human, too. :)

Any more questions, shoot me an email! tim@timatofilms.com

Secretos de la Vida/Jaime Jorge Concert

Below you will find images from my recent lighting event-"Secretos de la Vida," or for you non-Spanish speakers, "The Secrets of Life." This was a 9-night series broadcast live via satellite on Esperanza, a Seventh-day Adventist that reaches the Spanish-speaking community across the United States.

You will also find, towards the middle, images from a concert that Jaime Jorge performed on Saturday morning of this past weekend (Oct. 31). Since we were not broadcasting his performance, and since the head of A/V for the church wanted me to, and Jaime was ok with it, I flexed my creativity and programmed somewhere near 40 unique lighting cues (or "looks") that I then played back during his mini-concert. Keep in mind that I had absolutely no idea what songs Jaime would be playing, what style, how fast, what order, etc.

See for yourself and let me know what you think!

My lighting load-out was as follows:

1 - Martin Mac500 moving light
2 - Elation PowerSpot 575 moving light
6 - Elation Opti 30 LED
3 - Elation Tri-Opti 30 LED
24 - ETC Source 4 Jr. lamped at 575watts
3 - Selecon Acclaim fresnel lamped at 575watts
2 - Irradiant Hazers (not used for broadcast)
4 - C&M 1/4 ton electric chain hoists (all I gotta say is I WANT SOME!!!)
12 - 12"x12" Global Truss Box Truss-6.5' sections (we only used 9 of these)
1 - Jands Vista M1 console
1 - Jands Vista App running on a 17" Macbook Pro

That's it! Not a very large system at all, but see what can be done when your system is very flexible...and you have a kickin' stage to light! Thanks, Veruschka!

Jaime Jorge Mini-Concert:

I feel it's important to interject here that the above image was a patriotic medley Jaime played and I had to change my look on the fly to red, white, and blue (and yes, I know it's red, blue, and white, but work with me here...)

Always learn...

So I'm working on a gig right now where I setup and run the lighting-no problem, I've done that before. Only, it's a professional crew that is carrying this event live to satellite every night for a week...and they do lighting a little differently. Of course, I don't find this out until two days before the event begins.

Now, in all fairness, I didn't ask what kind of lighting they wanted, so the blame partially falls on me.

Anyway, imagine you've invested nearly 50 hours thus far into a lighting project (I'm counting consulting on set design, load-in and setup) and you're just putting the finishing touches on focusing the front light truss span when the producer comes in and makes it known that she wants a flat wash...I was a bit frustrated, to say the least.

It's taken me a couple days to get over my negative feelings, but part of what helped me to do that was how I treat this experience. It's extremely simple to take on the "I'm right, they are wrong and they don't know what they're doing" attitude, but this never benefits anyone.

I've decided to learn from this experience and not to assume what kind of lighting they will need-it's always best and usually easiest to ask questions. This is one more kind of lighting setup that I can add to my toolbox and while it has been a bit frustrating, if I learn from it and apply that knowledge in the future, then it will have been a useful experience. If I choose to be negative and hold a grudge...well, that really only weighs me down and doesn't benefit anyone.

Cheers! I'll have pictures after the event has wrapped up!

So, you've got some equipment-now what?

Alright, you've got some equipment purchased for a video system-congrats! Now what?!???

Ok, first off, you'll need to figure out your signal flow. Let's assume that you've got a couple video cameras, some kind of recorder (hard drive-based, flash- or solid-state-based, or DVD), and a switcher. These are the basics of any video ministry system.

First, your signal flow follows a logical path regardless of the equipment that you have. Your cameras are your sources, your switcher switches between these sources, and your signal terminates at your recorder. It's entirely up to you whether or not you bring the audio from the cameras into your recorder, but I would highly recommend you get a signal sent to your recorder from the audio mixer to have the highest quality.

These systems get a little more complex when you have 4 cameras, a dedicated audio mixer to control your own mix, a number of displays throughout the church that you feed your video and audio mix to, a live signal for the Internet, capturing live into a computer for post-production later, and to DVD as a backup. Remember, the more points of connection you have in any system, the more potential points of failure you will have to deal with eventually.

Sorry for the shortened post, but I'm setting up for another evangelistic series here in town, so don't have much time.

What to do when...

Whenever you deal with technology, it's inevitable that something will go wrong, stop working, or fail. This is critical to understand as it's not a matter of if, but when.

The important thing to remember is not to panic; understanding your equipment goes a LONG way in accomplishing that. You see, in a church setting, if you're sitting behind the mixer, you are the authority at that moment; if something goes wrong (feedback, a missed cue, etc.), it's you the people look at, correct?

And sometimes, even if you're NOT the person responsible for something that goes wrong, people still turn around and look at you because the only visible target! It's an unjust world, isn't it?

Anyway, so, let's say that you're at the sound board, running the service, having performed sound checks with everyone and verified that every mic is working and things are going along well. The Associate Pastor gets up with his handheld to do a Child Dedication or whatever, you unmute his channel and/or bring the fader up...and there's no sound. Meanwhile, he's talking into the mic, realizes that there's no sound, and does what every person in the world does when a mic doesn't work...taps it with his hand. Then he looks right at you for some kind of assistance, which of course only draws the entire attention of the audience to YOU. Meanwhile, you're making sure the Mute button isn't depressed, that his channel is assigned to the Master fader, that you have signal on his mic, etc.

This is a perfect time to panic, it would seem...if you don't know your equipment. More often than not, people will either purposely turn off a wireless microphone in order to rest at ease that their every word isn't being broadcast into the Sanctuary, or they will inadvertently mute the microphone. Either way, it's not your fault, right?

Wrong! As the sound person who is responsible for the sound duties that weekend, I believe it's your responsibility to help train the participants in how to hold a mic, why they need to hold it in that manner (pickup patterns), how a wireless microphone works, where the Mute and Power buttons are, and assure them that they need to leave the microphone on and that you will control when it's amplified through the house system, etc. This will go a great distance in alleviating any potential problems. Another part of your responsibilities is to make sure your wireless mics are using fresh batteries-I can't tell you how many times I've seen sound guys try and save money by re-using old batteries or using rechargeables...bad juju, guys! If you don't have the budget to use new batteries every week, then it's time to have a sit down with the leadership and explain things to them.

So, let's assume that the mic was left on by the pastor, the channel us unmuted, and all the settings are correct, but there's still no sound. Well, perhaps the battery went out...perhaps you're getting blasted with some major RF interference...all that's important in the moment is that your wireless isn't working properly. It would probably behoove you to have a wired backup mic somewhere on the platform that can be grabbed for situations like this. Maybe that's overkill, but that's your choice. I prefer to have my bases covered as I really don't trust wireless anymore than I have to. The best choice is still a wired mic, if it's logical and feasible to have one.

What you do NOT want to start doing is trying to troubleshoot the problem during the service unless you have the knowledge, experience, and personnel to do so. Your primary job is to mix sound for the service, but if you have someone that can take that over, or go searching for a problem, than you're ok. And definitely don't start ripping cables out! Save your frustration for when you're alone and can vent without disrupting the worship service. And really try to channel your frustration into finding the problem-I usually try and adopt the attitude of viewing it as a challenge to my knowledge and experience and an opportunity to learn something new. This puts a positive spin on it and when I eventually find the problem, the satisfaction is much more appealing than looking at it negatively (e.g. "I should have known this would go out on me. I'm so stupid."). The spin would be more like this; "Wow, I didn' t know that would happen...I better file that one away so I can be anticipating this next time."

You see how that will affect your mental attitude? And you see why it's important to have people who understand the system besides you? While you don't want other people tearing apart your system looking for problems, I'm sure you also don't want to get phone calls or emails week in and week out requesting that you come and look at another problem in the system, right? At the very least, make sure that if you do have to go and investigate a problem, you make sure someone else from your crew is present so that it can be turned into a learning opportunity. :)

I hope that helps!

Multi-Channel Audio-Last Second

Sorry all, I just realized I hadn't put a post up for this week!

So, one of the ideas that Nick Knecht wrote in to me about was how we captured multi-channel audio for our Momentum evangelistic series in January, 2008. Let me first explain our normal way of doing things.

Twice a year, the North Pacific Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists...or NPUC, for short, produces an 8-part evangelistic series for airing on the Hope Channel (an Adventist-owned satellite channel that reaches most of the countries of the world) in an effort to help Adventist churches and institutions in the NW evangelize their local communities. In January of 2008, our crew was in Anchorage. Yes, it was cold. :)

Our mobile system is comprised of a lot of equipment, which I will list:

A Ross Synergy 100 production switcher (16 in, 16 out), a Yamaha 0196V2 digital audio mixer, four Canon XLH1 HDV cameras, two Canon XH G1 cameras (all supported with Sachtler tripods), a collection of Marshall LCD monitors for monitoring, Clear-Com intercom system, an entire lighting system, and various computers and peripherals.

Due to the expense of shipping our entire equipment list to Anchorage, and not wanting to risk driving the equipment up there, we opted to only take the essentials. This included our cameras, tripods, personal laptops, and some LED lighting. No switcher, no LCD monitors (except on the cameras), no audio mixer, no intercom...you get the idea. So we had six cameras with no way to communicate other than hand motions.

Now that I've set the stage, let me get to answering Nick's question. I had purchased a PreSonus Firepod (now called the FireStudio, I believe). It consists of a 1 rack-unit frame with 8 mic/line inputs that outputs through a Firewire connection into your computer, where you can capture all 8 channels (if your hardware is fast enough) into the audio production software of your choice. We originally were going to use Soundtrack Pro, part of the Final Cut Studio suite. However, we could not get it to work. Unfortunately, this had been the plan since before we headed up there, so we had no backup. After doing some research during setup week, I discovered that GarageBand would multi-track, but only with the latest version. I had to go buy the iLife bundle to get the new GarageBand to work and once it was configured, I was multi-tracking in no time.

I should mention the signal flow for those of you wondering what it looked like. Our mic situation wasn't that complicated. We had two mics (one handheld and one headset), but we also had a stereo CD signal that had to get split into discrete channels. We did remember to take our XLR splitters with us (passive) and we split off the channels prior to the FOH (front of house) audio mixer. This way we would get a clean feed; the CD player was run to us from an Insert, I believe (that or a Tape Out). Because we were tight on budget for this particular series (travel to Alaska is NOT cheap!), I was performing the duties for three people during production. I was multi-tracking the sound (recording multiple channels of audio), running the lights (from the same laptop!), and running one of the cameras. Fortunately, the camera did not require much attention as it was decided that it would be a lock-off shot (unless Win ran that one...I don't remember-Win, do you?).

Anyway, once the audio was recorded, it was saved, by GarageBand in a deceptive "single file." In other words, I didn't have a list of my recorded tracks. I was freaking out until I discovered that GarageBand creates this file as a reference, but if you right+click on the file, you have an option to "Reveal Package Contents," and once that is selected, your files appear like magic. :)

I created a folder with those files inside for each presentation and once we were finished, the tapes were collected from the cameras and once we got home, the huge job of editing began. Imagine...six cameras x 8 programs=48 tapes total. This was also the only program we recorded in SD (standard definition). It seemed counter-intuitive to create MORE work for ourselves by recording to HDV and then having to go through the hassle of dealing with HDV on capture. Even in SD, we were dealing with somewhere around 630GB of data needed in order to store all the raw video! Feel free to browse back to the blog post in April to see images from this event in Anchorage!

The point of this story is that there are always more ways than you might think of getting something done and just because you either can't afford to do it the right way or don't know how, it can get done. A further note, though-when you're thinking of "McGuyver-ing" something-make sure safety won't be a factor. When you're hanging things over people's heads (like lighting or other potentially fatal equipment), there is NO WORK-AROUND for the right way. You can either spend the money to have it done properly, or spend potentially millions of dollars in lawsuits for shoddy and inadequate installation work that was done to save a couple thousand dollars. You do the math.

Eugene Momentum