So you want your video to look all pretty. All Hollywoody, with sumptuous highlights and maybe some silicone. And you’re ready to pay out the nose (painfully) to get it.
Let me save you some time and money.
Gorgeous video doesn’t come from having a fancy camera. It helps, but my baby nephew can make a fancy camera’s picture look like creamed corn.
Gorgeous video doesn’t come from costly video software. iMovie videos look about the same as Final Cut videos, and they all look kind of blah when compressed to death for online viewing. YouTube = Legovision.
Gorgeous video doesn’t come from having gorgeous, plastically-enhanced people in front of the lens. Doesn’t hurt, though.
It comes, above all, from LIGHT.
The lens, the CCDs, the codec, all these help. But if you don’t have great light, you won’t get a good image. There’s no software tweak that can help you if you don’t get a well-lit image to start with.
Most of the light we live with day-to-day isn’t great. Some of it, like the fluorescent haze in a cubicle farm, is downright inhuman. Same for the light of your computer screen– which is what you look like when using a webcam.
The solution? You can buy a pro light kit, or hire me to light you with mine. You could rig up some work lights to brighten things up. (Try bouncing them off the ceiling.) Or you could go free…
…which reminds me: in film school, I met Steve Fierberg, ASC, a ridiculously talented cinematographer. I’d like to say I studied with him, but all we did was have drinks once or twice. In a large group of people. I was in the back. Anyway, we got to talking shop, and he offered this gem:
“The SUN is a big #&%@ing light source!”
Yes it is! A big, totally free, #&%@ing light source. And it looks the best in the early morning and late evening. We photographers/cinematographers call the time right after sunset, while there’s still light, Magic Hour. Then everything looks the best and you can leave your light kit and extension cord in the travel case.
And if you shoot at just the right times, you’ll have gorgeous video on a shoestring, even with a crappy camera.
