To bring off suave and liquid moving shots, film studios use equipment that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. But you can make expert, professional camera moves without any special equipment, and the results will add interest and snap to your programs.
This month's column looks at the "how"...
Have you ever wanted to make a sci-fi video, complete with sleek starships, strange worlds, and bug-eyed monsters, but
feared it would require a budget worthy of Aliens or Star Wars?
If so, then you should know that many aspiring sci-fi videomakers have made up for their lack of funds...
The Confusion Solution
We regularly receive letters from subscribers concerned that Videomaker is too complicated. Confused by acronyms like A/B roll, PCM audio and BNC, these readers believe making video must be easier than our magazine says it is.
True, making video is easy--but you get what you pay for....
Ah, the holiday season! The feasts and festivities, the laughter and love, the torture and torment.
That's right, torment...the sheer agony of sitting through typical holiday home videos: moving snapshots that have nothing to say and take five times too long to say it. Why are some holiday videos so...
Sports video is more popular than ever. And why not? Today's easy-to-use camcorders make sports video a breeze for many parents. But sports video goes far beyond the proud parent syndrome. Football, hockey, basketball, tennis or swimming...today's technology gives sports enthusiasts of all kinds the chance to record the...
They're More Important Than You Think
Walk into any Radio Shack and wander through the sections for audio and video cables and connectors. Thousands of choices confront you. What do you need? What should you buy?
How should you buy it. Why should you care.
After all, a cable's a cable, right?...
If your footage sometimes looks as if you taped it during an earthquake, it's not your fault. No hand-held video will be perfectly steady; even shots made on a tripod can get the jitters when you're shooting at full telephoto. But you can banish bad vibes from your programs...
Manufacturers load camcorders with all sorts of electronic doodads that let the user create amazing effects like slow motion, freeze frame, fades in and out, picture-in-picture, strobe and superimposed titles.
But there's a feature on every camcorder often overlooked by professional and amateur alike. Whether controlled by all electronic switch...
Working Towards the Perfect Fit
Making the whole greater than the sum of its parts is a fundamental aspect of videomaking.
Making the whole greater than the whole fits, too.
0ne night, after a long but pleasant day of shooting, a member of the production crew and I went out for a...
Every time you point your camera you make choices: how much of the scene to include; using a still shot or movement involving pan, flit, tracking, or zoom; angle and position; length.
These are the same decisions that occupy the minds and time of filmmakers like Francis Coppola, Martin Scorsese,...
