Totally Turning/NWA was a whirlwind for me, as usual. I didn't have enough time to talk to everyone I wanted to. I guess the trick is to hang out for both days. I hope you had a good show.
Ellis
Re: Anatomy of a Lathe video - AAW Discover Woodturnin
What a great video. Are you behind the camera? This could almost be a tutorial for making a professional-quality woodturning video:
- Beautiful, non-distracting background
- Great lighting
- Good video quality, flawless focus
- Use of tripod to eliminate hand-held camera shake
- Clear, easy-to-read text
- Good framing for text and insets
- Text left up long enough to read
- Excellent video framing and composition
- A series of shots, obviously designed with a script
(the closeups are great)
- Clear and logical points, each well illustrated and narrated
- Well edited with tasteful transitions and no jarring jump cuts
- No drunken zooms
- Initial on-camera talent introduction
- Subsequent audio recorded and added in editing
(audio is clear, without background or other noise)
- Narration is clear, words well pronounced
- Subtle but clear safety message at the end
- Consistency in beginning and end
The only constructive content criticism I can provide is minor: at the end she describes using the tailstock whenever possible to secure work and minimize risk of it flying off the lathe. This might have been better illustrated with a small bowl or perhaps the piece she earlier mounted in a chuck instead of the apparent spindle turning where the tailstock was not optional. But a minor point!
Again, excellent video. I did video production for years, everything from scripting to shooting to editing and I've been known to be a little picky. (Ok, maybe obsessively picky...) I still have a hardware-based video editor in the other room I used with BetacamSP and digital tape - way before digital cameras made everything a lot easier and cheaper. Need a stack of decks? :-)
I'm assuming that you at least helped with the video production. If so, I have a suggestion to help take up some of your spare time: produce another video for AAW entitled "How to produce a great AAW woodturning video." Show examples of some things that are good and some that are not. Show what it takes to do a quality production such as this one - background, lighting, scripting, camera, audio, narration, editing software, formats, etc. AAW could put this on the page where they describe video requirements.
There are so many videos out there that have great information that could be much improved with a little education.
I have suggested a "how to video" video to someone at AAW in the past and perhaps it exists now but I haven't seen it.
JKJ
Re: Anatomy of a Lathe video - AAW Discover Woodturnin
Lauren was asked by the AAW if she would do a video describing the parts of the lathe. I volunteered to help put it all together.
I coached Lauren on how to write the script and storyboard the shots.
Our small shop has very distracting backgrounds, so I put a green screen behind her, and behind the lathe for closeup shots, then used chromakey to replace the background with the solid teal color (I tried many different types of backgrounds but we rather liked this one)
I took the first section of her script and put it onto a TelePrompter app on an iPad, and mounted the iPad just below the camera lens. So she could read the text while looking at the camera, one of our sons is a professional actor, but neither Lauren nor I like the idea of memorizing lines. Her head mounted microphone led to an audio recorder in her pocket, and I synced that audio with the video later, so I did not need to use the audio recorded by the camera which was a few feet away from her.
I used a Nikon P7700 compact camera to do the recording. It does a remarkably good job and is easy to control the focus and exposure. I have several camcorders, webcams, and DSLRs... but I like the flexibility and the results this camera delivers.
After I captured all the video (with environment sounds, no narration), Lauren recorded the voice-over narration in our office.
Next step was to bring all the pieces together into the video editor (I used Camtasia 9). The camera shots, the narration, the titles. Trimming or extending the shots, balancing the camera audio with the narration, and of course replacing the background... lots of little moving parts to coordinate, but I have done this many times before (take a look at some of my AAW Woodturning FUNdamentals videos and you will see some similarities)
After rendering the video, we sent it out to a few folks for review and did some tweaking, then rendered the final version. There are a few things we would change (one or two stumbles in her narration), but that's typical of most things I do. Better is the enemy of good!
Most folks won't go through the process I do to make videos, as it's pretty time consuming. However, they might pick up some useful tips by watching the video.
Re: Anatomy of a Lathe video - AAW Discover Woodturnin
I have been spending considerable time mentoring turners and clubs on how to rethink the way they do demonstrations, in particular how to use live multi camera video during the demos (either on site or via the internet)
Many of the techniques that I recommend for live demos can also be used to do recordings.
I will be hosting a special interest night session at the upcoming AAW symposium, a panel discussion with folks who are demonstrating or receiving demonstrations over the net. I have expanded the session to also include things like Facebook live and YouTube live sessions. For example, some turners are now letting others watch them work in the shop... no particular lesson plan.
It's all about sharing, and learning some new skills to improve the quality of the information presented.
