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How to Shoot Footage
Your Editor Will Respect
When it comes to shooting, David Allison’s experience in the editing room has helped him develop
parameters that lead to better footage that embodies the sensible values of an efficient shooter.
A s an editor with over 25 years of experience in
film and video, I’ve seen more than my share of
horrible shots. Happily, I’ve also been privy to a few good
ones as well. What makes one shot good and another bad?
It’s not always as obvious as some might think.
There are many factors that determine a shot’s value,
yet, amazing as it may sound, the most obvious is often
overlooked. Stated plainly, this factor is usefulness. Given
the project at hand — be it a news production, commercial,
corporate video, feature film, or documentary — the shooter
should always pause to ask the most basic of questions,
“Am I providing footage that is compelling enough, appro-
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David Allison
Cincinnati, Ohio USA
priate enough, flexible enough, efficient enough, editable
enough — to be useful in post-production?”
All too frequently, the answer is no. While I’ll grant that
“usefulness” is a relative term (even the worst swatches can
usually be sewn together to make a quilt), the fact remains
that when editors receive poorly conceived and executed
footage, costly overages are often looming around the
corner.
As one example, I recently edited a project that was to
culminate in a five minute video. To cut costs, the producers
had hired a shooter who came with an excellent camera
package, but minimal experience. The result? I received four
David Allison is an editor, creative consultant and writer with Bright Light Visual Communications
of Cincinnati, Ohio. After studying Philosophy and Fine Art at Colgate
University in New York, he attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where
his master’s thesis project, The Geometry of Love, was honored with a number of national
awards. David has written four original screenplays, two of which won consecutive
Gold Awards at the Houston International Film Festival. The latest, Episodic Life,
is currently in development with Opal Films of Los Angeles. Among the places you’ll
find David is Creative COW’s Adobe After Effects Expressions forum.
The Asset Management and Distribution Issue — Creative COW Magazine
and a half hours of material, 25 minutes of which was useable.
Let me repeat that: I received four and a half hours of
material to edit a five-minute video — bad enough — yet
only 25 minutes of it was even remotely useful!!! (Fade-up
scream SFX.)
To say that the decision to hire an inexpensive shooter
cost more money than it saved would be an understatement.
Without going into too much detail, just ponder the
extra time I spent making data space for 4½ hours of material,
ingesting 4½ hours of material, reviewing 4½ hours of
material, culling shots from 4½ hours of material, dealing
with system sluggishness brought on by 4½ hours of material
etc., etc. so on and so forth, multiplied by seventeen days
of editing.
Is it any wonder why I eventually decided to put gripes
like this down on paper?
In addition to being an editor, I’ve also experienced
what it’s like to be a director, producer, writer, and, yes, a
shooter. I’ve studied under people who’ve studied under
Orson Welles. I’ve worked in the realm of the avant-garde
with figures of varying quirkiness, such as Peter Kubelka
and P. Adams Sitney. I’ve logged long hours with A-list, commercial
directors who’ve agonized over the best way to sell
donuts and cottage cheese.
Through it all, I’ve developed a reasonably good feel
for The Big Picture: Why are we all doing what we are doing?
What particulars help (or hurt) the process that leads to the end
goal?
When it comes to shooting, my experience in the editing
room has helped me develop parameters that lead to
better footage. While I tend not to think of these parameters
as rigid or static (we’re not talking “The Ten Commandments”
here), a list of common problems — and common
solutions — has naturally taken form over the years. I eventually
gathered the list under one umbrella, which I fondly
call: How to Shoot Video Your Editor Will Respect In the Morning.
QUITTERS NEVER WIN (except in production)
Imagine for a moment that you are in the editing room,
watching your editor pore over some footage you shot.
(You should always imagine this, by the way). Now let’s say
you arrive at a series of tabletop product shots. In the first
shot, you accidently “miss the landing pad” (or as Mary Lou
Retton would say, you didn’t “stick it”).
This is harmless enough. No shooters are automatons,
and “sticking the landing” can be tricky business. The editor
watches in silence as you stay with your final position for
the traditional five seconds.
Shot 2 comes along. Again, you don’t quite nail the final
position, but dutifully stay with it — hoping that something
salvageable might result.
Shot 3 represents a variation on the theme: you miss
the landing, but proceed to sneak back with the camera until
you arrive at a flawlessly composed, final position.
After ten similar attempts, just when evidence is developing
that you’re getting closer and closer to the Holy
Grail, the editor turns to you and says, “You know what your
problem is? You never quit.”
Hunh??! What’s that about?! You were always taught that
quitters never win! Well, what’s going on here is that your
well-mannered (and no doubt good-looking) editor is politely
telling you that you are wasting valuable post-production
time, and probably costing someone money, to boot.
You see, unlike in the Olympic world of Mary Lou, if
you don’t “stick” the landing, you can’t simply fling up your
arms, arch your back, and hope the judges like your spunky
exuberance. Dude, you repeatedly missed your mark (no
sin), and then chose to hang with the shot for five agonizingly
long, utterly worthless seconds!
While our example only demonstrates the loss of a
minute of time, you should never lose sight of how quickly
these wasted minutes add up. The cumulative effect these
types of decisions can have on an edit session can be significant.
What’s more, your reputation as a camera op will
never be enhanced if you continually provide lengthy useless
shot after lengthy useless shot.
The same trouble can surface with a simple, rackfocus.
If you miss your destination, immediately quit on the
shot. I mean, c’mon, tenacity may be a virtue, but addictive
stubbornness surely is not. Efficiency is what results from
common sense and determination, not super-human abilities.
No shooter would ever be able to produce footage that
leads to a 1:1 ratio, but every shooter is capable of eliminating
those senseless frames of abject uselessness.
NOT STICKING THE BEGINNING EITHER
An inversion of the Quitters Never Win (except in postproduction)
motif occurs when the beginning of a shot is
flubbed, but the camera rolls on obliviously. I call this the
“I Didn’t Quite Catch the Beginning, But Let’s Roll With It Anyway”
Syndrome.
That 12 year-old genius who is happily flourishing in
the local med school is your assignment du jour, but as she
holds a hypodermic needle up to the natural light for a
quick tap, you’re late establishing focus. No matter, you tell
yourself, you’ll just keep following her as she strolls over to
her patient and swabs down his arm.
CUT to the post-pro suite, where your editor, upon
viewing this near-miss of a spectacular shot, is screaming
at the monitor, “Would it have killed you to ask her to stop
and do it again?!!!!”
Here, your stunningly-handsome editor is merely trying
to remind you of the most important tool a shooter has
at his or her disposal: A VOICE! Even when a director is calling
the shots, your professionalism is elevated when you exhibit
some responsibility for addressing small failures such
as this.
REWIND: you’re back in the hospital. You pull your eye
away from the lens and interrupt the medical prodigy, “Excuse
me, Dr. Jennifer-In-Training, but would mind terribly if
I asked you to go back over to that window and tap that
needle-thingy again? I missed it…”
Jennifer obliges, the director nods approvingly, and
soon, your editor will be salivating over the marvelously useful
shot you just helped to manufacture.
Another incarnation of the Quitters Never Win (except
in post-production) motif is what I call The “I Know There’s a
Drunk Peeing In the Background, But The University President
Is Still Welcoming The Famous Actress Back to Campus” Di-
Creative COW Magazine — The Asset Management and Distribution Issue 43