Deadlines/Outdoor Lighting

Okay, so I haven't been able to produce as many videos as I had hoped to by this time. In fact, I haven't actually completed a single one. However, I'm not going to let that get me down. As I have stated in previous posts, availability has become a major challenge for me. It's just very difficult for a group of students who, for the most part, go to different colleges to find time to meet up and shoot videos. Right now I am hoping to release my first video by spring break. There is a good chance that we will have a video out before then, but if not then it will definitely be up during the break.

In the meantime, I have been learning a lot about certain camera techniques that will allow for better quality videos. These past two weeks, I have been focusing on finding ways to manipulate lighting. I can tell a noticeable difference in the videos I shoot indoors and outdoors at night. However, I'm still working on outdoor lighting. My particular camera model just doesn't perform how I would like it to outdoors. To combat this problem, I am testing out various factors which influence lighting, such as built-in camera settings, editing techniques, and even the time of day. This week or the next, I plan on uploading some before and after shots to track my progress.

Slow on the Draw

Another weekend has passed without me finishing a sketch. It seems that every time I think of a relatively decent, possible sketch idea, something just gets in the way. This most recent obstruction can be attributed almost solely to a string of maladies, which a vast majority of my friends have seemed to simultaneously succumb to. Unfortunately, those left untouched by illness were only safe because they spend far too much time working to get sick (excluding my friend Ben, who claims that he can never get sick because "he has no weaknesses").  So, with a huge portion of my cast depleted, what more was there to do than to sit around and come up with new ideas?

Since I'm not ready to show any video clips yet, I thought that I might use this week's post to explain how we write our sketches. My friend Ben and I are the ones who come up with most of our ideas, so the process usually begins like so:

1. One of us thinks of a joke or funny situation that he has heard/experienced/came up with in the past.
2. The idea is then presented to the other person, usually with a basic sketch structure already in mind.
3. If the idea is funny, we bounce the idea back and force. If one were to witness this event, they would probably describe it as something akin to watching two monkeys try to forcefully shove several mismatched puzzle pieces together until they fit.
4. Typically, Ben is the one escalating the level of ridiculousness involved in the sketch, while I am the one pulling it back towards reality. 
5. When we are happy enough with the resulting product, we explain our idea to whoever is nearest to us at the time. If that person happens to be involved with the skit, he or she will likely add their own unique spin to their role in the sketch.
6. We then wait an indeterminable amount of time. The closer we get to filming, the more the sketch starts to change. When we get closer to the actual filming, limitations arise. These limitations actively morph everything from the plot of the sketch to the people involved.
7. Before the sketch is ready to be filmed, we do a whole bunch of test runs. These test runs are all filmed, so that we can review the sketch and make changes where necessary. (This is slightly different from how we did it when we were younger. Back then, we would almost never do a test run of the sketch)

Andrew: Doing a practice run of a character he came up with

Michael: Practicing the voice of character through a monologue

After all of that is done, we are finally able to begin filming the actual sketch. After that comes the editing process, but I will go more into that when I actually have a finished video ready.

Complications

It's funny how our limitations change with age. When my friends and I were making videos in middle school, our only two limitations seemed to be our imaginations and our wallets. If we could think up a relatively cheap and funny sketch, we would spend an entire day doing nothing but filming. Since none of us had a job, actor availability was never a problem back then. Not that we considered ourselves actors in any way. In fact, none of us had anything close to an acting talent, but we always managed to find ways to deal with that. We would often rely on editing techniques to make up for our poor acting abilities. Although these techniques allowed us to work around our limitations, it also severely limited the types of sketches we could make.

Nowadays, our limitations are almost completely reversed. Almost every single one of my friends has a job, which has greatly affected the video making process. We now have a larger spending limit for our sketches, but it comes at a price. It has become increasingly difficult to plan a time where everyone is available for filming (not to mention the fact that a majority of these friends go to different colleges than me). 

This past weekend I hurried over to Huntsville when I learned that my friend, Michael, would be coming in to town. He only lives about an hour and a half away from Huntsville, but he rarely gets to visit due to homework and duties with his frat. Michael is one of the two best actors we have at our disposal. So when he told me that he wanted to shoot a sketch over the weekend, I didn't hesitate to return to Huntsville. Unfortunately, multiple complications arose before we could finish a full sketch. Right off the bat, I learned that the sketch I had written for him had been done before. When I was telling my idea to another friend, he informed me that a major part of my sketch was too similar to a scene from a movie that he had seen. Slightly discouraged, I began scrambling to quickly write another sketch. 

By Saturday we had a multitude of ideas, but none were simple enough to be filmed in a day. We either lacked the time or the props necessary to finish an entire sketch (by the way, if anyone knows where to find a realistic looking dove, let me know). Finally, an idea came flying out of nowhere. It was short, simple, and required a bare minimum amount of props and people. Unfortunately, another complication soon cut the reality of that sketch into pieces. Michael's character would be wearing a suit for the sketch. The only problem was his suit was all the way over at his dorm room, one and a half hours away. At this point, I realized that there was just no way we could finish a coherent sketch before the weekend was over.

Defeated at last, we resigned ourselves to practice that weekend. No matter how frantically we tried to stitch a good skit together, it just kept falling apart in our hands. It wasn't all for nothing, though. We got a lot of good practice shots in, which means that when we finally do shoot the final version, we will be much more prepared than just starting from scratch.

Starting From Scratch

This week I'm going to give you guys a rundown of all the film making tools I have at my disposal. I was hoping to have a video posted by now, but time constraints and schedule conflicts have prevented me from doing so. My friends and I have a lot of great sketches in the works and I'm excited to finally be able to film them. Until then, I'll just have to bore you with the technical details.

For starters, this is the camera that I'll be using to film a majority of the videos that will be posted here:

The camera is a Sony HDR-XR160 Handycam. It's nothing special, but it's more than capable for what I intend to use it for. I chose this model based on several factors: It has a 30x optical zoom, which means that I can zoom in fairly close without having to resort to switching to digital zoom (which severely lessens the quality of the video); it has a 160 gigabyte hard drive built into it, so I don't have to ever worry about constantly changing out SD cards while I'm filming; it performs great in low-lighting situations, so filming at night will be less of an issue; it's able to film in 1080p, which means that the image quality shouldn't ever be grainy (which is something my old videos always were); and finally, it's relatively cheap. While I would absolutely love to have a $2000 camera, it just isn't in my price range. Even though I've been saving up for this for several months, there is just no way I could have justified spending over $1000 on a video camera.

Most of my videos will hopefully be edited using Sony Vegas Pro 11. I say hopefully because I don't actually own the program. As of right now, I'm only using the trial version of the software. Now, you might be wondering why I don't just use an editing program I have access to, such as windows move maker, to film my video. My reason for this is that Sony Vegas is simply amazing. When used properly, it can make an amateur video look like an official Hollywood production (or at the very least a second-rate, Bollywood production). Unfortunately, this amazing tool comes at a steep price. For me to actually own Sony Vegas, I would need to shell out $600, which is $100 more than I paid for my actual video camera. So right now I'm just going to savor the trial while I can, and at the same time I'll be keeping my eyes open for any freeware programs that might serve as an adequate replacement.

That's pretty much it as far as filming tools go. The only other things I can think of are a stage light that I'll be  using for low-lit scenes, a few extra camera batteries for filming over long periods of time, and the tripod that   I'll be putting my camera on. I should have a video posted by next Sunday at the latest. If I can't get a full sketch posted up here, I'll at least post some of the technical demos I've been doing to get used to filming.