Lens Accessories for Your Camcorder
There's nothing more satisfying than finding just the right thing to give your videos a fresh new look. Three types of camcorder lens accessories - lens filters, wide-angle lens adapters and telephoto lens adapters - offer you extra flexibility and creativity when you begin to acquire your footage.Wide Angles...
Light Source: The Color of Light
We all know that if you mix red, blue and green paint together, you get a nasty, ugly brown. However, did you ever consider what happens when you mix red, blue and green light? The result is white. White light is a combination of various amounts of red, blue...
Shooting an Interview TV-Style
Interviews are the most common form of nonfiction television; and with just a little practice, you can adapt this cheap and versatile format to your corporate, school, church, club, community and family programs. Most studio interviews aim one camcorder at the subject and the other at the reporter, providing...
Light Source: Lighting for Chromakey
Eureka! You just had a great idea for your video, but how are you going to place your talent inside a lavish landscape when your available surroundings are dull and dreary? That's where special effects come in. Thanks to chromakey, you can have your talent trudge across the frozen...
Light Source: Using a Camera-Mounted Light
You've seen it, the glaring spotlight shining into the face of a reporter as he talks about the latest accident or weather phenomenon. You also have seen the shiny little light sitting in your gear bag just begging you to put it on the camera and illuminate the noses...
Guide to Different Types of Light Reflectors
The ocean in the Caribbean is a beautiful aqua-blue. Its shores are a glistening white. It is a great place to shoot a video, especially during the time of year when all your friends are looking forward to Groundhog Day and hoping for a short winter. Excitedly, you set...
Lighting Faces with Better Video Results
One of your most important jobs as a videographer is to make your talent look as good as possible. While this may seem like a simple task, it can get pretty complicated. Why? Think of the last five people who appeared in your videos. Were they the same? Did...
Casting Shadows with Cookies: A Recipe for Success
In the video world, cookies aren't tasty baked treats to eat with a glass of cold milk. To video pros, cookies are lighting accessories used to cast shadows to decorate a set and create illusions. Whether you wish to create tree leaves, windows, doorways or random patterns of light,...
Hollywood's Dark Secret: Shooting Day for Night
In the 1973 movie Day for Night, Francois Trauffaut tells the story of a man who just wants to make movies. This classic film is a must for every aspiring auteur, as it takes the audience behind the scenes of many classic movie tricks including an old favorite,...
Light Source: In the Mood? Creating Mood with Light
The next time you go to a movie or rent a video, pay close attention to the way the director uses lighting to help create the mood in a scene. Good lighting designers work very closely with directors to build a lighting scheme that adds to the drama of...