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Tip #478: Break Out of a Creative Rut

… for Random Weirdness

Tip #478: Break Out of a Creative Rut

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

Creativity can’t be forced – but it can be encouraged.

Creativity is seeing the same things in a different way.

Topic $TipTopic

This article, written by photographer Jamie Windsor, first appeared in PetaPlxel.com. This is a summary of what he wrote. (This link also includes an interesting 8-minute video discussing this problem.)

“I worked out that creative block happens for me when my conscious mind falls out of sync with my intuition. What I mean by this is that when I’m creating something, my intuition (or my subconscious mind) is coming up with ideas and my conscious mind is forming it into something coherent.

“But when I get into a creative rut, it’s like my subconscious mind’s engine has stalled and my conscious mind is left trying to run things. The problem with this is [that] my conscious mind can only see what it can immediately access and that can impact my creativity and my motivation.””

Here are five tips Jamie Windsor uses to restart his creative engine:

  1. Stop Trying
  2. Change Location
  3. See Other People
  4. Stop Worrying
  5. Give Up on Bad Ideas

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Tip #494: Pick the Right Microphone

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Tip #494: Pick the Right Microphone

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

The right microphone, more than any other audio component, determines the quality of your audio.

The ElectroVoice RE-20 dynamic microphone.

Topic $TipTopic

This article, written by Chuck Crosswhite, first appeared in PremiumBeat.com. This is an excerpt.

There are three basic microphone types:

  • Ribbon
  • Dynamic
  • Condenser

Ribbons were the original microphone and, because they are seriously fragile, are only used in highly-controlled studio environments.

Dynamic microphones are durable, moisture resistant, resilient mics that are great for capturing loud sounds. These mics are a mainstay at live music venues. These microphones don’t require any external power, so plug it in and get to rocking some sweet vocal tracks. This is a great option for anyone podcasting on the road in unpredictable settings and weather.

Condenser microphones, on the other hand, thrive in controlled environments such as studios. They tend to be much more sensitive than dynamic microphones and have a louder output. These microphones do require an external power source, so you’ll want to check out an interface or mixer with phantom power to supply these mics with electricity. Condenser microphones are also normally much more fragile and expensive, so be sure to treat them well. This should definitely be your microphone choice if you want to achieve a higher-end production value on your podcast.

The article goes on to recommend mics for beginning, semi-pro and professional podcasters. While I prefer Shure SM-58s as a dynamic all-purpose mic and ElectroVoice RE-20s for studio work, I don’t significantly disagree with his suggestions.

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Tip #462: Lighting Day for Night

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Tip #462: Lighting Day for Night

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

Day-for-night scenes require thinking about the quality of moonlight.

(Image courtesy of pexels.com.)

Topic $TipTopic

This article, written by Tanner Shinnick, first appeared in PremiumBeat.com. This is an excerpt.

Day for night interiors can be tough. However, with the right approach, you can sell the effect by controlling, shaping, and cutting out the daylight.

We always hear about day for night exteriors but hardly ever day for night interiors. The first thing to understand when lighting any type of night scene is your main light source — in this case, it’s the moon. You’ll also have many practical sources in the room. However, to give a little lift to the scene, you’ll still want to push some moonlight through a window.

Many people think that the moon is a soft source because it is dim. However, the moon is actually a hard source and casts a hard shadow.

When lighting a night scene, interior or exterior, it’s always wise to rely on your harder light sources like your pars or spotted fresnels. Using these sources, you can easily imitate the quality of light of the moon and create those harsh shadows.

Also, be sure to avoid rooms with white walls. Once you start pushing in your moonlight, the white walls will behave like giant reflectors and start pushing your light in all sorts of directions. From that point, it will be difficult to sell the night effect.

Exposure is a key component when filming any night scene. To really sell the effect, it is wise to underexpose your subject by 2-3 stops. Creating this darkness for the subject will create an evening effect.

Color temperature plays a huge role in selling the effect of moonlight in a night scene. Moonlight is a very blue light source.

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Tip #473: 3 Tips for Perfect Exposures

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Tip #473: 3 Tips for Perfect Exposures

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

Don’t let the camera think for you; let it enable you, instead.

(Image courtesy of pexels.com.)

Topic $TipTopic

This article first appeared in PetaPixel.com. This is an excerpt.

One of the first things beginning photographers learn is the relationship between ISO, aperture and shutter speed. Known as the “exposure triangle,” this is the basis of the photography world. Here is a short summary of how each component affects your image:

  • ISO: The sensitivity of a film, or the base sensitivity (and gain) of a digital camera sensor.
  • Aperture: The opening of a lens used to control the amount of light necessary to expose the sensor/film; in addition, the aperture is used creatively to control the compositional use of depth of field.
  • Shutter Speed: The length of time of an exposure, usually measured in fractions of a second and sometimes in whole seconds.

Locate your Camera LCD Brightness setting in your menu. Most cameras are set to ‘Auto’ LCD brightness to adapt to the ambient light around you. Setting the brightness manually gives you a more reliable way to judge what you see.

Locate your Highlight Alert function in your camera’s menu system. Highlight alerts are a flashing overlay that can be enabled to alert you when you’ve blown-out highlights and lost that information. This means that if you take a photograph with portions of it so bright that no detail is recorded at all, the portions with the missing detail will flash on the screen.

Locate your Picture Style settings in your camera’s menu system. Your camera will likely default to the ‘Auto’ option and we don’t want that, in fact, none of these picture styles are ideal so we are going to make our own User Setting. You want to make this custom picture style as flat and neutral as possible. I’ve turned the Contrast, Sharpness, and Saturation all the way down to keep the image looking as flat as possible to retain all the information in your image.

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Tip #477: How to Test the Lenses You Buy

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Tip #477: How to Test the Lenses You Buy

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

It is better to test your lens than find a problem during a shoot.

(Image courtesy of pexels.com)

Topic $TipTopic

The team at PetaPixel and Michael the Maven have an interesting article and YouTube video on the importance of testing your lenses. Here’s the link. This is an excerpt.

You may not be aware that no two lenses are exactly the same. Why? Sample variation. Performance can vary widely from edge to edge or from wide to tight.

Here’s a quick way to test your lenses: Set your camera on a tripod in front of a flat, textured surface like a brick wall and snap photos at various apertures: wide open, f/2.8, f/4 and f/8. Feel free to add in f/5.6 if you’re feeling comprehensive. If you’re testing a zoom lens, we recommend repeating this process at various focal lengths as well.

Try to get the sensor as parallel to the wall as possible, and inspect each photo from the center out to the edges. It should be immediately obvious if you have a really bad lens at any particular focal length.

Then, as a bonus test, shoot some power lines against a blue sky and see if the lens is producing any dramatic chromatic aberration, which will show up as color fringing at the high-contrast edges between the black wires and the blue sky.

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Tip #457: Low-Tech Perfomance Boost

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Tip #457: Low-Tech Perfomance Boost

Brian Thomas

Dust is the enemy, keep your gear clean.

Topic $TipTopic

My 2015 MacBook Pro was no longer smoothly handling anything; its performance was a fraction of what it was. It felt hot and the fans were racing.

I investigated and followed all the advice, eventually reinstalling everything and resetting the rest. That seemed to help a bit but it never completely solved the problem.

Then, I had a brainwave! I carefully opened up the back and practically choked on the dust and fluff! A couple of minutes of carefully hoovering [vacuuming] the debris has completely taken care of the problem.

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Tip #460: 5 Tips to Improve a Boring Documentary

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Tip #460: 5 Tips to Improve a Boring Documentary

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

If your doc is boring, look to your story first.

(Image courtesy of Pexels.com.)

Topic $TipTopic

This article first appeared in PremiumBeat.com. This is an excerpt. The primary goal of any good documentary is — first and foremost — to inform. However, to inform an audience well, you have to put something together that has all the elements of compelling entertainment. If you find yourself working on a documentary project that’s starting to get boring, here are some quick tricks to help you get back on track.

Work on Story and Structure. Whether you’re just starting out on your project or are deep in the editing process, you should ask yourself the following: If you were to sit down with a pen and paper, could you write (or sketch) out the entire story and structure of your film? If not, why not?

Animate or Illustrate When Needed. Adding custom illustrations or animations to a documentary project can be very appealing to documentary filmmakers. However, overusing animations or illustrations is something to avoid — and it can become expensive and time-consuming, depending on the number and quality of the illustrations and animations.

Add Movement and Transitions. In addition to animating or illustrating B-roll or specific scenes, other smaller editing tricks can actually be quite helpful for speeding up sequences and making the general tone and style a bit more appealing.

Alternate Means of Exposition. Consider letting the mystery of your story develop in some areas. Sometimes, all you need to make a compelling documentary is a few sentences over a black screen to provide all the exposition you actually need. Other things like lower thirds, narration, or interviews can provide the rest.

Make Those Tough Cuts. Documentaries are notorious for requiring tons and tons of filming and footage. At the end of the day, you’d much rather someone watch your film and say “I wish that was longer” than “I wish that was shorter.”

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Tip #461: 3 Tips to Shoot a Conversation in a Car

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Tip #461: 3 Tips to Shoot a Conversation in a Car

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

There’s a direct correlation between believability and dollars and/or time.

(Image courtesy of Pexels.com.)

Topic $TipTopic

This article first appeared in PremiumBeat.com. This is an excerpt. There’s something about the cinematic road scene that is deeply embedded in American film and culture. However, from a DP’s perspective, it can be one of the most difficult and taxing set-ups to tackle.

Green screen. This method involves the least amount of moving (parts, and in general) but the greatest amount of post-production. Leaving the car stationary and setting up a green screen will allow you to control the scene as much as possible. However, it will require some serious editing chops to fill every mirror and window reflection in a believable way that looks natural.

Camera Mount. The car mount method (dash cam, side mount, etc…) would be your best DIY small-production option. It’s also the riskiest in terms of possibly damage to your camera or gear. The small dashboard cam might be the safest shot possible, but it’s also one of the most used. Unless you’re project is embracing a practical DIY approach, it would be worth it to invest time or money into other options.

Tow Car. This is the professional method of choice. The tow car gives you maximum control of your car “set” while in a natural, uncontrolled environment. Tow car production still requires a production team and solid coordination (especially for filming scenes multiple times from multiple angles). But if you can afford a tow car (or makeshift trailer), you’ll get the most authentic cinematic look.

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Tip #441: Lighting for a Cinematic Look

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Tip #441: Lighting for a Cinematic Look

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

Less lighting, with more control, is the secret to “cinema lighting.”

When it comes to lighting, less is more.

Topic $TipTopic

This article, written by Zach Ramelan, first appeared in PremiumBeat.com. This is an excerpt.

A common misconception among aspiring or soon-to-be filmmakers is that you need a lot of huge, expensive lights to really pull of a professional, cinematic look. That was true once, but not anymore.

By taping dark household fabrics around an overhead light source you’re able to cone and channel the light so that it eliminates spill on the background.

NOTE: Be careful about excess heat burning your fabric.

If you want a realistic look chances are that’s actually with minimal light. Find one source that you can control and work around that.

A crucial key tip for cinematography is that direct light usually looks the worst. You can defuse it by pointing at a white wall or angle it so it makes a much more subtle glow on your subject. Unless it’s necessary to the style or story direct lighting looks unflattering and unnatural.

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Tip #442: Find the Funny

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Tip #442: Find the Funny

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

Funny takes work.

(Image courtesy of Pexels.com.)

Topic $TipTopic

This article, written by Jourdan Aldredge, first appeared in PremiumBeat.com. This is an excerpt.

The art of the comedy short film is actually nothing new, and can be traced back to the earliest days of film and cinema with the works of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. Here are some tips to finding the funny and creating quality comedy shorts and videos.

The initial planning helps set the tone. The goal is to explore ideas. You can do free association with just yourself and a piece of paper. Ideally, once you’ve “found the funny,” you can start putting those ideas to paper by planning your outline, script, and shots.

A good way to work is to cover your bases and make sure you have every shot you’d need to put together an edit. Then, once the rigid work is done, loosen things up and do as many takes as you can stand.

Another simple trick that can help out in the edit is to shoot several reaction shots. Comedy very much lives in faces.

When is comes to editing, comedy lends itself to quick cuts, especially to reactions.

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