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June 16, 2016 at 7:12 pm #25293
Appreciated seeing your outline and that first script earlier this week (was it only a few days ago?! It feels like it has been a month since that email!).
Keep plugging away and doing the Superwork, buddy!
June 16, 2016 at 7:35 pm #25301I second that. Super excited for your continued clarity!
June 29, 2016 at 12:49 pm #26581It’s been a bit of a head-down phase for me as I’ve set up my little studio and bought all the gear I need to start making this crazy creation some to life.
My first filming day last Saturday was SUCH a learning curve. In particular, I had to change my audio setup at the last minute due to a stupid and expensive oversight.
I got one script done. One.
- My takeaways from the day:
- Scripts in character must be at least mostly memorised (for me anyway), otherwise you have to work at snail speed as you do tens of takes.
- Check equipment several days in advance, not the night before.
- Make really good notes on each take.
- Look steadily for about 5 seconds before starting to speak, same at end of script.
On the plus side I am now editing my first little video and going through another huge learning curve as I figure out how to use Sony Vegas, how to key out the green screen, add transitions, sync up audio, and create titles.
I’m also super proud of myself for pushing through the video resistance and getting into character. I haven’t made a final decision about how much of a presence I want to have in my final videos yet, but now I’ve got to this point and overcome that huge personal hurdle I’ll be making the decision from the right place.
And, incidentally, now I can ‘green screen’ I’m seeing SO many opportunities for general mischief.
More soon my lovely bunch of heroes…
🙂
June 29, 2016 at 1:17 pm #26592Awesome energy and creativity @lisa.russell, looks you’re on to a ROCKING beautiful experience for people to immerse themselves in SuperHero’s up up and away! 🙂
June 29, 2016 at 1:48 pm #26597I want to know what the expensive oversight was on the audio setup.
And — you got one done! Woohoo!
Can’t wait for the mischief and mayhem from your new found green screen powers. 🙂
June 29, 2016 at 1:52 pm #26599YES! I am SOOOO ready for some Green Screen powers can’t imagine a video any other way after this course now!
@bradleytmorris, would LOVE to hear about some of that magic that built the videos here in Adventure land!
June 29, 2016 at 2:25 pm #26620Holy Wow @lisa.russell!!! I am so proud of you. You are doing it. You are stepping into your superpowers, playing your Super self and learning the magic of green screen. I imagine there are moments of frustration and overwhelm, but look at you go. You’re doing it. By the time you’re done, you’ll truly be able to do anything you envision. Soooo stoked for you. I can’t wait to see video one when you’re ready to share it!! I hope you remembered to have fun too!
Thanks for sharing your top lessons from your shoot day. I be they’ll be helpful food for thought for others.
Curious about the audio lesson too.
June 29, 2016 at 2:32 pm #26622@scott, the whole journey was quite magical. When we started out, @blairfrancis was like Lisa. He was just learning the art and power of the green screen. As you’ll soon see, the higher you go up the mountain, the better, more creative and complex the videos become because of how much (and fast) we were learning.
I think part of the process is creating a good system.
Here is the system of how we approached each video lesson:
- Figure out the MAIN purpose, points and call to action for the lesson.
- Decide on the scene. where it is and what’s happening.
- Writing the script and then refining the script.
- Storyboarding camera shots.
- Finding the background for the scene.
- Shooting
- Editing.
- Sound effects to bring it to life.
Some of the videos with animations or special effects required @michaelmann doing some post-production work.
Others were massive, steep learning curves for Blair (which you can ask him about) where he’d watch all sorts of tutorials on Youtube and then mess around til he figured it out.
Green Screen Magic Tip:
If you are savvy in Photoshop or know someone who is, you can build entire sets. For example, the set at Camp Medias with the Media brothers Blair built from scratch. He litereally built the shelves, copy and pasted all the camera gear, lighting and even the counter and bell the brothers stand behind.
So knowing people like @elijah will be highly beneficial for creating your eCourse sets!
Let me know if you have anymore questions. Hope this adds to your inspiration  🙂
June 29, 2016 at 2:38 pm #26629That’s bad ass @bradleytmorris, you had me at creating SCENES, you know my artist/writer/performer loves to hear that!
Thanks for the inspiration and system, would ALSO love to know the basic equipment/hardware needed, I think you mentioned green screen and 2-3 lights, I’m wondering how I could set this up in a small one bedroom apartment, I can’t leave the set up all the time, and don’t have much storage.
I am going to have a creative production office sooner than later as I move on with the bigger dream of co creating with some super talented peeps creating TV shows, films, live events, streaming events etc.
Looking forward to hearing the rest of the scoop!
June 29, 2016 at 3:04 pm #26646You can see our studio set-up here @scott. As you can see, it’s pretty simple.
What we used:
- We built a simple frame for the green screen (approx 9 x 14).
- 3 main lights ($200 for kit).
- Overhead lighting we got at the dump.
- a 4 year old canon camera.
- My iPhone 5 with Zoom iQ5 mic for audio
Believe it or not, we created this entire world in a room that was probably 15×15 Â haha
We actually started out in our nasty, moldy, gross basement in the first three checkpoints and once we did our beta sale and realized we were in business, Celeste and I moved out of our bedroom and into her old office and we set the studio up in the master bedroom cuz that was the biggest room.
You don’t need much space.
In September, we are moving into a studio that’s about four times larger. Michael Mann just purchased a new house that has a detached two car garage that we’re turning into the studio space.
If you search Amazon, you can find green screen equipment that are easier to set up and take down than our 2 x 4Â frame. Stoked you’re feeling inspired. Let me know if you have anymore questions!
June 29, 2016 at 3:38 pm #26658There are soooo many additional layers to the development process that could be added in, and what Bradley listed sounds like a great place to be!
(Let me get the first course out, then we’ll see what comes next and how much of the additional stuff is even useful… 🙂 )
June 29, 2016 at 10:31 pm #26725So interesting to see behind the scenes @bradtmorris and thanks for asking a great question about their setup @scott!
Brad and Wayne the #audiofail was that I thought I had everything I needed for audio in the shape of a Rode videomic pro, which I’d planned to plug straight into my Canon DSLR for combined audio/video. This was after doing huge amounts of research online into the best audio setups for Canon cameras. All the stuff I found made it sound like this setup would work with any Canon DSLR.
However, when I was getting everything set up the night before I realised that what I’d thought was a 3.5mm mic jack on the camera wasn’t a 3.5mm jack at all. After further Googling I found that my particular Canon was an entry level model with no capacity to plug in a mic! Facepalm.
After more furious Googling I found a workaround – I had to buy a separate Zoom H1 recorder which DOES have a 3.5mm jack, plug the Rode mic into that and use that to record. Having already paid £150 for the mic, I then had to pay another £100 on the morning of the shoot when I had to make a last minute trip over to my local Maplin (electrics store) to buy the Zoom. It was all a bit stressful!
I’ve also had to learn how to sync up audio and video since the two ended up being separate. The best way to do it is to record on camera and audio three loud claps in fairly quick succession. This gives you 3 clear audio spikes which are easy to see at editing stage and then you can line them up with your claps in the video.
It all works but it’s fiddly and adds time to the workflow.
I’ve figured out the chroma keying bits but am now wondering how to source additional sound effects – birds singing, footsteps, that sort of thing.
For my setup with the separate files, getting the material in as few takes as possible is going to be a huge editing time saver!
Maybe I could add my audio fail to the all-new ‘Stuff I messed up’ campfire? 😉
🙂
June 29, 2016 at 11:06 pm #26729P.s. What sort of lighting did you guys have Brad and @blairfrancis? I had 4 x 125w 5500k softboxes, but the light is quite blue in tone being daylight bulbs. Thinking about getting some sort of Tungsten light for the presenter lighting for next time rather than just adding warm filters in Vegas. Any thoughts?
July 6, 2016 at 5:53 pm #27194Hey Lisa and Crew,
I just finished reading through this thread. So much great info in there. I have just started thinking about my first Green Screen project so I really enjoyed all the thoughts around that as well.
As for lighting Lisa, I purchased the kit that Andy recommended a while ago and have been super happy with the quality of lighting and video I get from it. The stands are built a little cheap (but it is priced cheap as well so it is affordable) but lighting is great.
How do you find the Rode Mic? I have been using a lapel mic so far or my iPhone 6s mic but I think I would like a directional mic as well. The Rode ones seems to be a bit more affordable then others. What model did you get and any thoughts on it?
Cheers,
Chris Gilmour
Changing World Project
July 7, 2016 at 11:11 am #27254Hey Chris,
Yeh I thought the Rode mic was ok. Although, I don’t have a huge frame of reference as I’ve never used any other kind of mic!
I think I need to play with the levels a little more, through the Zoom H1, and I might also experiment with a boom pole rather then the mini Rode tripod I used on my test shoot. It picked up a lot of clothes rustling which was a little annoying. I’m wondering if the boom pole and the extra height might help with that.
The model I had was the Videomic Pro. It’s a little more than the basic one in Andy’s list, but I wanted the +20db option for using with my Canon (that was before I realised I couldn’t actually plug it into my Canon. Doh!). And also the reviews were really good.
I’ll play around with it again on my next filming day and see what else I can report back then.
🙂
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