Before the shoot:
Our plan for shooting has been delayed due to the unwanted issue of one group member so I did try to prepare as much as I can because my group doesn’t have much time now. We promised to our lecturers in the 1st presentation we will produce 5 review videos for our main website.
I looked some examples that might be useful for our project in order to explore how camera work is used in those video clips.
The first example is from Mark Wiens who is a full time travel eater and popular Youtuber. His videos have basic format of food review videos and don’t use many after effects for sound and images but those videos are still very attractive to viewers and have good quality as well.
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Another example I have looked at is from Simon and Martina channel on Youtube. They also make videos about food, travel, adventures etc. Comparing to Mark Wiens, I think they have different review style which is modern and funny by using many video effects such as texts, emoji icons, animation etc as well as sound effects to make their videos more interesting. Moreover, I have noticed that they also use 2 cameras to create various angles for their review videos which is quite helpful for my project as well, especially this is the first time I have to work with 2 cameras.
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After watching those examples, I created a general pattern on our Google Drive for 5 videos in order to help the camera operator and director can have a general ideas for the shootings.
General pattern I would suggest for our review videos:
Part 1: Introducing the restaurant and dishes we’re going to review
- Camera 1: medium shot – capture the main actress – Maria
- Camera 2: close up and pan shot – showing different angle of the actress and restaurant atmosphere/space, menu etc.
Part 2: showing individually dishes and review
- Camera 1: medium shot, pan shot, close up shot – capture Maria when she reviews each dish
- Camera 2: close up shot from high angle and bird’s eye view angle to capture dishes individually
Part 3: conclusion and ask for subscribers
- Camera 1: medium shot of Maria
- Camera 2: B-rolls of restaurant’s inside and outside
Besides that, I also shared on Google Drive some basic camera movements and angles to all members to help them gain general ideas about those things
During the shoot
The plan was changed when we used 2 different cameras for the shoot. One is Canon 70D and another is Canon 5D. This change contributed to one of the big challenges that we have to overcome in post – production stage.
The first location we had to shoot was Nene chicken restaurant in Melbourne Central. Although this brand has 2 different stores which locate on Elizabeth Street and Melbourne Central, only the brand in Melbourne Central has Halal certification.
As a DOP of this project, the main problem I faced with at this location was setting camera angles because this store was so small and crowded at that time as well as the limited area we were allowed to use for shooting process. There were so many customers walking in and out of the frame during that time.
Another issue was the focus of the main camera. Honestly, after 4 months of break, I almost forget all the skills that I have learned and practiced last semester. I chose “auto focus” mode to capture the main actress but there were so many customers during that time so my camera kept changing the focus points.
In addition, although the main background was to bright, the main actress’s position was quite dark as we recorded in the evening. I didn’t prefer the angle of the main camera but it seemed that our director wanted to shoot from that angle in order to capture the main logo of Nene chicken brand.
Overall, if we could do again, I suggested we took time to recheck all of footages before finishing in order to see the quality of them to avoid those issues. I also believe that we should have one camera assistant who could control all issues from outside that might effect on the shooting so I could mainly focus on my role. For example, I had to check whether someone/something was in the frame or not and checking the sound from my camera while recording. Doing a test before the real shoot is highly recommended in order to figure out which one would be the best angle for our video but we didn’t have enough time to do that.
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