What baffled you when you began filming?

A warm welcome to all. Here we talk about films, which people put onto YouTube or Vimeo and embed here. The idea is to allow useful, friendly discussion.
col lamb
Posts: 680
Joined: Tue Oct 16, 2007 9:51 pm
Location: Preston, Lancashire

Re: What baffled you when you began filming?

Post by col lamb »

Ignoring my days with that celluloid stuff, I started videoing in 1992 and used crash editing on an SVHS VCR.

Then I got into editing on a very slow PC with a Miro DC30 card and Premiere 4.5, yes Premiere does go back a long way. It was a nightmare of a time with PC crashes and rubbish support.

Best advice if you have a camcorder and PC/Mac, learn to use the camcorder, learn to edit, watch and analyze movies, practice.

Best advice of all join a Club and The IAC

If you have a problem and want advice post it on this forum, othere non-IAC forums can soon find the post highjacked and quickly way off the original subject

We are here to help each other :D
Col Lamb
Preston, Lancashire.
FCPX, Edius6.02, and Premiere CS 5.5 user.
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tom hardwick
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Joined: Mon Jan 29, 2007 9:59 am

Re: What baffled you when you began filming?

Post by tom hardwick »

What puzzled me most when I began filming? Depth of field and diffraction losses.
Coming from the huge 36 x 24mm frame (35mm slides) down to a 5.4 x 4mm frame (Super-8) I couldn't understand why it was so darn difficult to isolate the subject from the fore and back-ground.

And shooting Kodachrome 40 Super-8 film outdoors in bright sunlight meant shooting at f/10 or so. Great for covering up the focusing blunders foisted upon us by lying split-image rangefinders, but terrible for image resolution when you're shooting through 22 elements using what was very short focal length lenses.

tom.
john ingham
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Joined: Tue May 22, 2012 7:29 am
Location: Exmouth

Re: What baffled you when you began filming?

Post by john ingham »

One simple thing that can get over looked... (as I did)...carry a bottle of lens cleaner and cloth, especially when filming near the sea :roll:

apart from that..enjoy :lol: i am
Keep trying, for one day you will get it right
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TimStannard
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Joined: Fri Feb 11, 2011 5:20 pm
Location: Surrey

Re: What baffled you when you began filming?

Post by TimStannard »

john ingham wrote:One simple thing that can get over looked... (as I did)...carry a bottle of lens cleaner and cloth, especially when filming near the sea :roll:
...but don't expose your lens to the sea! Screw on a clear or Ultra-Violet filter and leave it on your camera. Clean that. And when you scratch it, well, spend another few quid on a new filter rather than a new lens (which is generally not possible or economically worthwhile on consumer cameras anyway)
Tim
Proud to be an amateur film maker - I do it for the love of it
john ingham
Posts: 221
Joined: Tue May 22, 2012 7:29 am
Location: Exmouth

Re: What baffled you when you began filming?

Post by john ingham »

One of the biggest things I'm finding hard is the whole jargon, there are things on the camera and edit software that gets me staring into space :|
i guess there are to many to mention and I do try to google each word meaning...

i know i'm not the brightest button on the tunic, and do like to think i have some common sense :lol:
but it would be nice if some of these were made easier for dummies such as me
Keep trying, for one day you will get it right
Chrisbitz
Posts: 198
Joined: Thu Feb 07, 2008 2:31 pm
Location: Orpington, Kent

Re: What baffled you when you began filming?

Post by Chrisbitz »

john ingham wrote:One of the biggest things I'm finding hard is the whole jargon, there are things on the camera and edit software that gets me staring into space :|
i guess there are to many to mention and I do try to google each word meaning...

i know i'm not the brightest button on the tunic, and do like to think i have some common sense :lol:
but it would be nice if some of these were made easier for dummies such as me
In some ways, the correct terminology has it's place - and that's not at all the same thing as Jargon - I would actually say that this forum has very little Jargon, and I'm usually the first to make fun of some pompous ass using Jargon to make himself look clever! :-)

Can you give any examples of Jargon that's used here?

On the other hand, if the correct terminology was scrapped in place of simple explanations, nobody would ever learn the correct terminology! :-) and we'd all use 20 words when one would suffice!

This is exactly what forums are for - and this is the IMPORTANT BIT... If anyone uses a term that you don't understand, the whole point is that you ask what it meant, and I can guarantee that they will actually be overjoyed that you've commented to ask them!
I like to make films, this is- my Youtube account. What's yours?

"all of the above is nothing more than nonsensical ramblings, and definately should NOT be misconstrued as anyone's official policy"
john ingham
Posts: 221
Joined: Tue May 22, 2012 7:29 am
Location: Exmouth

Re: What baffled you when you began filming?

Post by john ingham »

Hi Chris

No..Not the forum..when I say jargon or terminology :lol: i mean all the things in editing software or camera set ups... ie, chroma phase, DRS effect, MATRIX or TCG, plus many more, these things may be familiar to many of you, but to me, being a simple floorlayer who enjoys filming they are goobledegook, that is why i have said this in, the what baffled you section,

i have nothing but praise for the responce from the members on here
Keep trying, for one day you will get it right
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Betamax Kid
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Re: What baffled you when you began filming?

Post by Betamax Kid »

I wished someone could have explained to me in the 60's when this young boy got his first Standard 8mm cine camera and how to work out how to turn the film over without exposing it to daylight. Things did improve fairly quickly with the advent of Super 8 in 1965.

Incidentally I have just scanned up my Standard 8 home movies and Dads. The colour still looks perfect and I was 3 in the first film also having hair!


I'm still filming Super 8 by the way and more recently with 50D Negative which looks remarkable when scanned up although making films that way then cutting on the timeline is a different approach to film making so I guess I was baffled in a way switching from a splicer. Good fun tho :D
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