Shooting Better Video - Part 2

June 15, 2011

Interview with Steve Stockman, author of the book How to Shoot Video That Doesn't Suck: Advice to Make Any Amateur Look Like a Pro

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Mike Carruthers:
If you want the video you shoot to look and sound great a good rule to remember is to get up close and don’t shoot until you can see the whites of their eyes.

Steve Stockman:
What we say with our mouth is only part of the information that we convey. The rest of it is all in our eyes and the wrinkles in our forehead – you can’t see any of that stuff if you’re too far away.
 

Steve Stockman, author of the book How to Shoot Video That Doesn't Suck...

People are really the stars of video. I mean it’s nice to shoot a broad expense of the Grand Canyon but it’s not going to look really good when you play it back on your iPhone.  So what we’re shooting whether it’s a sales video or home video is people – faces are where the action is for people it’s where the emotion is and where a lot of the message is.

And Steve says; resist the temptation to use the zoom on your camera.

That’s because 10x zoom means 10x shakier. So I recommend that people zoom with their feet. You should walk really close to them; turn the zoom lens all the way down so your picture is nice and wide.

Because when you do that 2 things will happen.

1 is you’re going to engage better with your subject so they’ll pay attention to you, if you ask a question they can answer it. The other is if they actually say anything you’ll be able to hear it. Because even though there are zoom lenses there’s no such thing as a zoom microphone. So if you’re sitting across the room trying to record something somebody’s going to say it’s going to sound terrible.

To hear the complete unedited interview, click here