Main Page: Video Tips Pages for the New Videographer's and Editors - The Basics -Video Tips #1 - Video Tips #2 - Digital Video Editing Tips
Lighting - Sound - Music - Screen Writing - Entertainment Law - Independent Filmmaking
Do It Yourself Gear - Training Videos - Links And Resources - DVX100

---

Limit Lighting, Color Temperatures, White Balance Light from different sources can have different colors. The colors are called color temperatures. Your brain quickly adapts to different light that you see with your eyes, but your camera has a much more difficult time. (Note that fluorescent lights can come in different colors including daylight. You need to check the lamp to find out what color temperature you are working under.) As a rule of thumb, fluorescent lights are sort of greenish (*). Common incandescent lighting is reddish (about 2000 degrees K color temperature). Quartz halogen TV lights are also reddish (3200 degrees K). Outdoor light is usually bluish, (about 5400 degrees K) except during sunrise and sunset. (*Modern fluorescent tubes are available in a number of color temperatures, ranging from green to red to daylight.) People's skin looks strange when illuminated by more than one type of light. The bluish light from a window could make one side of the talent's face look pallid and ghost-like, while indoor lighting may make the other side of the face look red and sunburned. To balance your colors, try to use only one type of light in the scene. If shooting outdoors or next to a window, and you wish to "fill" the dark side of an image with incandescent light, place a 1/4 or 1/2 blue color correction gel over the light to reduce its redness. Thus bluish light will be coming from both sides and you can color balance your camera to make the flesh tones look correct everywhere. Handling the above situation a different way, you could place a large, slightly amber 85B gel or 1/4 CTO gel over the window to "warm up" the blue light coming in. Thus you have reddish light from the window and reddish light from the interior incandescent lamps illuminating your talent. Placing a blue gel over a standard tungsten studio lamp reduces its brightness significantly. The perfect solution would be to use studio lights that were bluish and matched the outdoor color temperatures. These are called HMI lights (5600 degrees K). Because none of the light is wasted by filters, HMI lights are twice as efficient as quartz. They are perfect for filling in shadows in outdoor scenes. In offices where fluorescent lights provide most of the illumination, one could gel the tungsten lights as before, again wasting a lot of electricity. Or you could gel the fluorescent's to match the tungsten's. The most efficient solution is to employ more fluorescent lights, such as the Lowell Light-Array, or one of the Videssence, or Mole-Richardson models. These are banks of fluorescent tubes that can be adjusted in brightness and used to complement the existing office lighting (which because it comes from above never looks that terrific by itself). It is also possible to change the tubes in fluorescent lighting so that the colors can be made warmer or at least be made to match the colors in other lights. You might try Softtube 3200 degree K tubes to match studio quartz lights. Two additional benefits of fluorescent lights: they consume less than half the power (per amount of useful light) of their tungsten counterparts, and consequently require less noisy and expensive air conditioning. That is why you have to white balance the camera between different lighting sources. When it comes to light, white light is all colors combined. For an example, if you shine a red, blue and green light on a natural surface you will end up with a white light. Black is the absence of color. Good cameras also do a black balance. So, if you show the camera, and it’s electronic brain, a white light, or all colors, and black, the total absence of color, it can figure out all colors in the spectrum in between. Always re-white balance when lighting changes. When shooting in sunlight you may have to re-white balance between every shot if it’s dawn or dusk, because as the sun rises or sets, the color temperature of the lighting is constantly changing. Clouds can also affect the color temperature of the light.

Shade Your Lens Nothing will mess up a shot faster than sunlight shining directly on to the front of your lens. This can cause lens flares, or unwanted reflections and hot spots in the show. There are several ways to prevent this. Most good cameras come with a lens shade or lens hood. A lens hood is nothing more than a visor, like the one in your car, to block light. A matte box usually has a lens hood built into the design. The advantage of the matte box is that you can also drop different filters and gels in front of the lens. Another solution is to use what is known as a flare buster, which is an adjustable lens shade attached to a flexible arm that's mounted in your accessory shoe. Not only will it help you reduce flare, it can be used to attach filters, reflectors, and hold small objects for close-up taping. There are also a number of add on filters you can get for your camera. The first to consider is a polarized filter. This filter limits the directions light can enter the lens from. This limits flares but can reduce the amount of light entering the camera. Another filter I recommend is a simple UV filter. I always recommend everyone make the investment in a UV filter for their camera because along with the increased sharpness a UV filter gives your picture, this simple bit of glass protects your lens and keeps it clean. All good lenses have a protective coating on them that help prevent glare or refraction that can spoil the picture. When you clean your lens you run the risk of removing or damaging this coating. A UV filter keeps the prime lens clean and you will not have to clean as often, thus protecting the coating. The best reason for a UV filter is that if for some reason any hard object impacts the lens it’s the relatively cheep UV filter that gets scratched or broken and not the big bucks lens.

Avoid Backlighting One of the most common amateur mistakes is capturing footage of a backlit subject. Often this happens while panning, when a brightly lit background enters the frame. If you are using auto iris everything in the foreground suddenly turns dark as the metering system measures the bright sky or light streaming in through an open window and the iris suddenly closes down. There are a number of ways to combat backlighting: Use a reflector or video lights to add illumination to the subject. There are plug-in and battery lights available for most cameras and it’s always a good idea to have one. I prefer using an additional battery belt with my light because running any light from the onboard battery significantly reduces the battery life. There are larger batteries for some of the P2 style cameras but they add a good deal of weight to the camera that makes holding the camera for longer periods of time difficult. Lock your exposure on your subjects so they don't silhouette when the camera pans to a backlit scene. The problem with this is that the background then get blown out and you loose all detail. The best solution is to void this type of lighting all together, whenever possible. If your subject is standing in a bad lighting situation, have them move into better light. Learn how to identify backlit situations. Avoid them if you can, and if you can't, use the solution that works best for the situation.

Use a Scrim or Diffuser Sunlight is a very harsh environment, some form of supplemental lighting to "fill" the shadows would greatly improve most video shot out of doors. I use a thin white nylon material on a 4 ft. by 6 ft. PVC frame and attach it to a C-Arm stand. I place the scrim between the sun and the actor/reporter and it gives a nice soft fill and cuts the shadows. You do have to be careful when there is wind. Have a husky grip hang onto it or tie it off and sand bag the heck out of it. Another tool I find works well enough to use for interviews at Kennedy Space Center during shuttle launches is one of the inexpensive shade tents. You need to purchase a white tent. Then hang thin material like you would find used as a bug shield in the tropics on three sides. This cuts the light levels so that the talent is not a lot darker than the background. It works very well for a fixed interview location.

GOBO's Most folks know the Gobo as a small metal pattern placed into a light to cast a pattern on the stage or backdrop, but it can be so much more. I have a 3' by 4' foot Gobo made out of foam-core and would not think of going on a product shoot without it. By placing a strong light source behind the Gobo, and on the product you can get a soft but irregular pattern that can enhance the depth and contrast of the product. I find it especially useful at restaurant shoots it adds an atmosphere that nothing else can match.

Reflectors When shooting outdoors, take advantage of reflectors; they use no electricity and the color temperature is exactly the same as the sun. A poster board or a large sheet of foam core can often provide fill light to soften shadows. This technique works inside, too. Always carry a variety of reflectors. Reflectors can be used to soften light, and can be made very cheaply. Most hardware [stores] sell Styrofoam boards for insulation, one side is aluminum foil, the other is white foam. At 8'x4' you can make 2 good size reflectors out of one sheet, use paint thinner to remove the printing from the foil side and you have a silver reflector to throw light long distances, Great if your filming someone under a big shady tree. On a bright day these reflectors can throw as much as 75 feet. Foam Core is two thin pieces of white cardboard with a simi-hard foam in the center. they are inexpensive and can be cut into any shape with a matte knife or box cutter. As I mentioned above I use foam core to make Gobo's but they also make light, easy to transport reflectors. You can even cut them in sections and rejoin them with white tape so you can fold them for transport or storage.

Sand Bags No matter where you shoot, if you use lights you will want a good supply of sand bags. Quartz lamps and fixtures get really hot. I've seen a fixture fall, the lamp pop out of the spring holder and burn a lamp shaped hole in a carpet, down to the concrete, in less than 5 seconds, and there is nothing you can do about it, you don't even want to know what they do to human skin if you try to pick it up. A fixture is a lot less likely to fall over with a gust of wind or when a clumsy grip stumbles over the cable, if you have two or three sand bags holding it down. It protects your cast and crew as well as your location relationships. I call them sand bags, but they don't have to be full of sand. Way back in 1980 I did a car dealer shoot that required us to do 10 shoots, in 7 cities, in five days. We started in Detroit and ended up in Denver. We had a system down for packing the gear in the smallest, lightest pack we could for the plane. One problem was sandbags. They cost us a big bucks for the extra weight at check-in. One of the crew was a wilderness hiker and brought in his new collapsible water bag. It was easy to strap to a pack but could be rolled up and stored in a small place when not needed. We went out and bought 20 of them and shoved them in the kit. When we got to the location we filled them up with tap water and they worked just as good as sand and added almost no weight to the gear kit. Now you can purchase them but the professional models cost a lot and you can get collapsible 1 to 5 gallon bottles at most camping stores or Walmarts for just a few bucks.

Extra Lamps: Always carry extra light bulbs, (*Lamps). There is no excuse for going home because the light lamp burned out and you didn't have an extra. (*Professionals refer to the light bulbs as lamps. The lamps go into lighting fixtures or just fixture.)

Tungsten Halogen Lamp Precautions: When replacing tungsten halogen (quartz) studio lamps in the fixtures, be sure to wait for the bulb to cool off so you don't fricassee your fingers. Always handle the new lamp within its plastic wrapper so that you don't get finger oils on the glass. The oils will destroy the glass when the bulb heats up. Never reposition a tungsten halogen light while it's still lit. The white hot filament is very delicate and may break if you bump the lamp. Switch the lamp off, wait 5 seconds, and then move it.

When Using Chroma Key: Use an amber gelled backlight if trying to chroma key talent over a blue background. The background may reflect some blue onto the performer making his key edges appear grainy. Amber, the opposite of blue, counteracts the effect, creating a sharp key edge.

Don't overload power circuits. : Electrical outlets for homes are generally equipped for 15 to 20 amps per circuit (and that circuit may be feeding several electrical outlets with other devices on it). Industrial electrical circuits may go up to 30 amps, but a single outlet may still be only capable of 20 amps. Just to be on the safe side, let's use 20 amps as our maximum as we do the following calculation: A 500 watt bulb uses about 5 amps. A 1000 watt bulb uses about 10 amps. Add up all the lights you are using and see if you are exceeding the capacity of the circuit. Incidentally, if you switch all the lights on at the same time, the power surge will probably blow a fuse or circuit breaker; activate the lights one at a time. If you are drawing a lot of power from one circuit, don't try to operate computers or VCR's from that same circuit; the lights may depress the voltage and may cause the computer or VCR to operate unreliably.

Don't overload power circuits. A standard 3 point lighting setup works well in most situations. The Key light, This is your main source of light,1000 watts is not excessive. Place this to the right of the camera, (around 15 degrees off center) and up high enough that it's aiming down about 45 degree's when pointed at your talents face. Fill light, This light softens the shadows made by the Key light, It should be around half the power of the Key, so about 500 watts. It should be about 30 deg off Centrex to the left and level with the camera/talent. Back light, This light illuminates the talents hair and shoulders, making them stand out from the background. It should be just behind the talent and above them, Again shining down at 45 degrees. As this light is normally the closest to the talent you don't want it too strong, Start with 100 watts and work from there, For effect you can use a gel to change the color of this light, being careful not to give the talent bright blue hair. Remember to check the lighting on a monitor, not your viewfinder or LCD. Also each light should be setup without the other lights on, This helps getting exactly the right look. This should give you a place to start, as long as you remember the purpose of each light you can move them around to get the best effect. If your background is a bit boring, Try shining a spotlight through an old set of mini-blinds and onto the back wall, (This is a good time to play with colored gels) to put some dramatic diagonals on the wall. Take some face powder to the shoot incase you get shiny spots on the talents face, A problem with the follicularly challenged. An on camera light can also be used to put a sparkle in your talents eyes. Any hardware store will sell you halogen shop lights in a variety of wattages, remember to remove the safety bars from the front, unless you want it to look like it's filmed in San Quentin. These lights put out light at 32000k,which is what your camera expects for indoors, But manually white balance to be sure. One drawback to using a three point lighting setup, is that if the talent has to move to a different part of the set, you have to move the lights as well. In this case the easiest way is to use what is sometimes called a "sitcom" lighting setup. In this setup we use Diffusers and reflectors to give a soft even light over the entire set, that way no matter where the talent goes they are always lit correctly. Before I get into specifics a warning, LIGHTING INSTRUMENTS GET VERY HOT. You can light a cigarette off them, so never put anything remotely flammable near them. A Diffuser is basically anything that is put in front of the lamp to diffuse the light. In our "Hardware Special" lighting kit we have several options, The cheapest being an old cotton bed sheet, stretched over a frame made of PVC plumbing pipe. Another option diffuser material made for fluorescent light fixtures, most hardware [stores] carry a range of them, Remember fluorescent's don't get anywhere near as hot as our shop lights, so these need to be suspended a distance in front of the lamp. For people with a bit more cash to spend, you can take your lamps to the local glass dealer and get them to cut you some frosted glass replacements for the standard glass in your light, This is probably the best option, as you can get different levels of frosting and swap them out depending on how soft you need the light to be. Soft light is much more flattering as it tends not to highlight wrinkles, and should always be used when shooting women. Hell hath no fury like a woman harshly lit. Reflectors can be used to soften light, and can be made very cheaply. Most hardware [stores] sell Styrofoam boards for insulation, one side is aluminum foil, (Americans feel free to drop the second "I") the other is white foam. At 8'x4' you can make 2 good size reflectors out of one sheet, use paint thinner to remove the printing from the foil side and you have a silver reflector to throw light long distances, Great if your filming someone under a big shady tree. On a bright day these reflectors can throw 75' easily. Inside you can use a white reflector and one lamp to do both your key and your fill light, its just a matter of playing with the 2 to get them positioned right.

If your camera doesn't have a manual White Balance, here's how you do it, After your lighting is setup, get someone to hold up a Spare white reflector where your talent will be standing. Zoom your camera in till the reflector fills the view finder, Turn the camera off, then turn it on again with the reflector still in place, after about 5 seconds you can remove the reflector and the camera will be balanced for your lighting until you next set up.

Article Focus: If you are an avid moviegoer, you've probably noticed that the psychology of the movie is not only in the script and the music, but the quality of the picture as well. In simplest terms, a picture slightly reddish and/or yellowish tends to give the viewer a warm, friendly, emotional feeling and a picture with a slight bluish cast tends to give the viewer a cold, heartless, emotionless feeling. In many drama type films, the use of warm footage with cold footage helps the viewer distinguish between the hero and the villain. In this article, Jim Allen explains color temperature and how to achieve this quality in your video. To begin to understand the techniques, you need to know a bit about color temperatures. Basically, all film and video equipment are made to operate in 2 types of color environments or temperatures. The light source you choose determines the color temperature. The first is incandescent lights and tungsten lights which are rated for 3000 degrees Kelvin to about 3400 degrees Kelvin. These lights are the lights typically found indoors. Secondly, in the outdoors we generally choose the sunshine for our light source and it typically is rated at around 5000+ degrees Kelvin on a sunny day to over 9000 degrees Kelvin on an overcast day. This may help to explain why some still photographs shot indoors without a flash look so yellowish. The film you are using is probably outdoor film (rated at 5500 degrees Kelvin) but shot using an incandescent light source yielding 3000 degree Kelvin light. The color temperatures are too far apart for the image to appear “correct”. I've written several other articles about color temperature in past issues. You may want to review them or contact a filter or lighting gel manufacture for more information. Today, we have many ways of warming and cooling the image in both film and video. Here are a few techniques that may be helpful depending on your budget and shooting style. To simplify matters we'll concentrate on video techniques, although some of these will work equally well in film if you understand the film’s rated color temperature. TO WARM A PICTURE: The easiest way to warm a picture is to simply add some degree of a Coral filter, a degree of an 85 filter, or any number of similar filters like LL-D’s, or 812’s to your lens and shoot. Filters are made in varying degrees depending on the intensity of color you desire. For instance, Corals are made in various intensities of the Coral color with the number 4 Coral being similar to an 85-correction filter. 85 filters are made in 1/4, 1/2 and full depending on the intensity. If you'd like to have a very, very warm picture then you might choose a full 85 or a #4 Coral. If you'd like a slightly warm picture then you might choose a #1 or #2 Coral or a 1/4 or 1/2 -85 filter. Filters are a fine way of adjusting color but they are costly and I wouldn't suggest you make a large purchase until you experiment. Following are several less expensive ways: Add various shades of color temperature orange (CTO) gel to your lights. Use a CTO gel as a filter. Cut a piece to the size of your lens and shoot through it. You must be very careful with this one because lighting gel isn't optically clear and will distort your image slightly. But it is a cheap way of achieving the goal and the distortion may enhance your effect. For this to be affective, you must white balance before you add the filter. If you white balance after you add the filter then your camera will compensate for the filter and the image will no longer look warm. Paint a white card a light shade of blue and white balance. Your camera will compensate for the blue and make your overall picture yellowish. The blue you choose should be similar in hue to a CTB gel. (Since this article was written several companies have developed white balance cards with a light blue tint that will do the same) Don Warren of Jackson, Mississippi who is a talented DP friend of mine suggested covering a white card with a 1/8, or 1/4 CTB gel and white balance. Put your lights on a dimmer and dim them down to less than 80%. Incandescent and tungsten lights turn yellow when they are dimmed. Many non-linear editors have color correction functions built in or as add-on software. Check with your editor before you decide to do this one. This process may take a great deal of time to do. TO COOL A PICTURE Basically, you want to do the reverse of warming a picture. You can add a degree of an 80 filter, which is a blue correction filter. Again, this is a great way to achieve the effect but it can be costly. Add various shades of color temperature blue (CTB) gel to your lights. Use a CTB gel as a filter. Cut a piece to the size of your lens and shoot through it. You must be very careful with this one because lighting gel isn't optically clear and will distort your image slightly. But it is a cheap way of achieving the goal and the distortion may enhance your effect. For this to be affective, you must white balance before you add the filter. If you white balance after you add the filter then your camera will compensate for the filter and the image will no longer look cool. Paint a white card a light shade of yellow and white balance. Your camera will compensate for the yellow and make your overall picture bluish. The yellow you choose should be similar in hue to a CTO gel. Again, Don Warren suggested covering a white card with a 1/8, or 1/4 CTO gel and white balance. Many non-linear editors have color correction functions built in or as add-on software. Check with your editor before you decide to do this one. Sometimes this process takes a great deal of time to do. WORKING WITH FLUORSCENTS In our world, there are two types of fluorescent lights. Color-corrected fluorescent and everything else. Several professional film and video lighting companies make excellent fluorescent light products, color corrected to give you either a 3200 degree Kelvin light or a 5000 degree Kelvin light. If you are lucky enough to work with these then do so and use the procedures I explained above. Many times though, you'll find yourself in an office building lit by hundreds of fluorescent lights. These lights and the ones found in many homes are not color-corrected for film and video and will usually yield a poor image on your final product. Many times the image will either be greenish or colorless. I dislike shooting under fluorescent lights because it tends to make people look as if they are dead. Their skin is pasty and drab. If you must use them, there is a way to correct for this and bring back some of the color. As normal you will need to white balance your video camera then add a slight amount of a warming color to the lens. I'm partial to using an 812 filter to enhance skin color. Again, filters can be a bit pricey; another way to do this would be to use a 1/4 CTO gel as a filter. Remember that you have to choose a clean, new piece of the gel and you'll probably distort the image slightly. This is one area where a color monitor would come in handy. These tricks are easy and effective, if you are careful. Some of them are debatable and some downright cheap. My mantra has always been to do whatever necessary to get the desired effect without sacrificing the image. With these ideas and the ones you'll discover you should be able to inexpensively do the work that needs to be done. In part 2, we'll look at diffusion and a few other nifty effects. PART 2 Article Focus: In the article Camera Tricks, Part One, we looked at warming and cooling your image to gain a desired result. In Part Two, Jim Allen discusses softening or diffusing your image and a few other special effects that you may like to try. For most of these, it will be necessary for you to have a camera that allows you to perform manual white balance, manual irising, and manual shutter speed adjustments. With some of these ideas, the automatic functions will “automatically” overcome the effect you are trying for. First lets take a look at softening or diffusing your image. For years, professional portrait still photographers and professional motion picture camera operators have known and understood something many video professionals don't. Some people look much better and the psychology of the picture is enhanced with various degrees of softening or diffusion. For instance; if you are shooting an elderly CEO or if you are shooting most women, the talent’s image can be enhanced with diffusion. Diffusion tends to help soften and hide the wrinkles and blemishes your talent may find unpleasant. Diffusion also helps to promote the psychology of your work by giving the viewer a feeling of pleasantness and beauty. You can easily see this for yourself by setting up an experiment using any of the suggestions below. With a middle aged or older talent carefully light the subject with a key light and fill. Shoot for a minute or two without any diffusion then shoot with diffusion and edit the two scenes together so that you can see each scene alternately. Another way might be to use two similar cameras and two monitors, one camera without diffusion and one with. Compare the two. With any of the effects I've mentioned in these articles, it's important that you be able to control the amount of the effect. A little bit goes a long way. Experiment, to find out for yourself. Along with diffusion, the color of the material you choose will also lend to the effect. For instance; choosing a white material will tend to diffuse and raise your black level. If you choose a black material, then you will get diffusion with little to no change in the blacks. Again, experiment and see for yourself. Check to see if your iris setting changed, check the picture to see if your blacks look black, check to see if you see a flaring of the highlights of your image. All of these things can be useful or un-useful depending on the situation. The overall “feel” of your production should determine which suggestion you use. Carefully remove your video lens and secure a single layer of panty hose to the back of the lens. You cannot put panty hose on the front of the lens because you will probably see the hosiery. I've tried black panty hose with great success. Other colors you might want to try are white and peach. Peach is similar to skin tones and help to color the overall picture to make the subject more pleasing. If you are looking for that once-in-a-lifetime effect then go with some of the wilder panty hose colors available on the market. By the way, many professional motion picture Directors of Photography prefer Fogal 110 Noblesse –210 Noir panty hose If you don't want to spend over $40 for a pair then by the cheap stuff at your grocer. None of your viewers nor most DP’s will be able to tell the difference. Using a clear piece of plate glass about the size of a filter, spray paint it any color you want. This gets a bit messy and you have to do it where there isn't a breeze. Lay the glass flat on the floor and spray the paint up in the air directly above the glass then move the paint can as the mist lightly falls to the ground. Some of it will fall to the glass. Repeat this until you are satisfied. Because it is paint mist, it should dry rapidly allowing you to test it on your camera. Do several of these in different densities to give you options on your next shoot. As with the panty hose, you may want to experiment with different colors. This one I dislike, but it may give you the desired effect. You can actually reduce the enhancement on many professional video cameras. The reason I dislike this is that you can never repeat the effect exactly and you may never get the electronic control back to its factory setting. If you decide to do this, I strongly advise that you consult a qualified video engineer before proceeding. Some of the more expensive professional cameras have menus and remote boxes that allow you more control. I still tend to shy away from this and prefer the panty hose and filter route instead. Many non-linear editors have software functions built in that will soften your picture. This process usually takes considerable time but will give you the right amount of diffusion for your whole project. Experiment, before you decide this route. While all these will give you similar results, each has important characteristics that the others don't. Over time, you should try all of these in a controlled environment, then experiment again on different shoots. You'll quickly learn which you prefer. Other interesting effects. Here is a couple of tools you might find useful. Along with these, you need to also familiarize yourself with post-production software that will also give you interesting effects. One thing film cameras have over video cameras is a limited depth-of-field. I find a limited depth-of-field very useful. When I shoot something I want the viewer to give all their attention to the talent or object of most importance. To do this, I sometimes concentrate the brightest light to that subject, I frame the subject to make it most important, and I make it the subject with the sharpest focus. Going back to Video 101, depth-of field and the iris opening are indirectly proportional. As the iris gets larger (moves to the smaller numbers) the depth-of-field (DOF) gets smaller. I force my iris to 1.4, 2 or 2.8 to give me the limited DOF by: Reducing the amount of overall light in the picture – but this tends to make your image look muddy. Use neutral density (ND) filters which reduces the amount of light coming into the lens. I have 0.3 ND, 0.6 ND and 1.2 ND filters to do this. These three are equivalent to a 1 stop, 2 stop and 4 stop reduction in the amount of light. The solution is a good one but to do it effectively you'll have to spend several hundred dollars. Increase the shutter speed of the camera. This requires the iris to open to allow more light. On newer professional cameras you can set the GAIN switch to give you –3dB and –6dB gain. Negative gain is the same as using ND filters without the expense. I prefer using negative gain and ND filters over shutter speed adjustments because I find the strobe effect of a large shutter speed distasteful. But in a pinch, I'll do whatever necessary to get the job done. If you are careful, you may substitute ND lighting gel for the ND filters to obtain a similar effect. Remember though, lighting gels are not optically clear and may cause distortion to your image. You'll need a good color monitor close by. I've always loved the mirage effect when you shoot in the desert. The heat waves coming off the road or hot desert floor really look neat. I found that you can mimic this by holding a Sterno in front of and under your lens. The heat rising off the Sterno will mimic the heat waves of the desert. Be careful not to heat up your lens or camera with the Sterno.

These tricks are easy and effective, if you are careful. Some of them are debatable and some downright cheap. My mantra has always been to do whatever necessary to get the desired effect without sacrificing the image. With these ideas and the ones you discover you should be able to inexpensively do the work that needs to be done.

Jim's Professional Pages I Resume I Commercial Demo Professional Videographer/Photojournalist I Professional Non-Linear Video & Film Editor Main Page: Video Tips Pages for the New Videographer's and Editors - The Basics -Video Tips #1 - Video Tips #2 - Digital Video Editing Tips Lighting - Sound - Music - Screen Writing - Entertainment Law - Independent Filmmaking Do It Yourself Gear - Training Videos - Links And Resources - DVX100 OTHER PAGES Web Design/Graphics I Acting/Stunt Work I Medical Video and Production Management I Podcasting E-mail to request a DVD demo with past work. E-mail us at - jimsawyereditor@gmail.c   NATIONAL & STATE LEVEL AWARDS:   1999 - THE VIDEOGRAPHER AWARDS - Award of Excellence - "Survival", Chester Boot, Videographer/Editor 1999 - TELLY AWARDS - Winner - "Cutting Edge", Today's Headlines, Editor 1999 - TELLY AWARDS - Finalist - "Survival", Chester Boot, Videographer/Editor 1999 - TELLY AWARDS - Finalist - "Image SE MI", Comcast, Writer/Producer/Videographer//Editor/VO 1997 - GOLDEN GOBO AWARDS - Winner, (Best Comcast Spot Nation Wide.), "Survival", Video/ Editor 1995 - TELLY AWARDS - Winner - "It's My Car", Saturn of Southgate, Writer/Producer/Interviewer/Editor 1987 - Michigan Safety Council - 2nd Place - "Bomb Threats & Search Techniques", Mercy, Dir./Editor/Writer 1985 - American Hospital Assoc. - 1st Place -"Silently, Lovingly ....", CO-Producer/Director/Editor/Camera  1972 - ADDY - Amer. Advertising Federation of Florida - 1st Place- Radio,"Great Expectations" Writer/Talent   om     Videographer Awards Telly Awards Comcast Golden GOBO Award Jim's Professional Pages I Resume I Professional Video Editor Professional Videographer/Photojournalist I Commercial Demo Medical Video and Production I Management I Podcasting Web Design/Graphics I Acting/Stunt Work E-mail me at - jimsawyereditor@gmail.com Site Search Designed by a member of Copyright © 2000 -  2011, Jim Sawyer , All concepts property of the client. Designed using Dream Weaver. Legal Information and Disclaimer This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.