Writing Center Shoot

What I did...

In the recent Writing Center shoot, I was responsible for a few things:

1. I was responsible for setting up the primary camera angle, and making creative and practical decisions (like using only one camera).

2. I also elected to help the lighting crew set up the final lighting set up that we had, and I created a situation for the camera people and lighting people to work together (so the camera op would sho the lighting people what was going on on screen).

3. During the shoot, I fixed the problem of people looking off camera by giving my job to another person and explaining to the on-camera talent exactly where we wanted their eyes. (This was for the last two actors. Unfortunately, I missed the first day of shooting because of a job potential.)

4. I coordinated with a person from the writing center and led a team of three people to direct, plan, light, and shoot B-Roll including a directional walkthrough with a steadicam, moving shots of the area in the bottom of the library, a shot of the sign for the Writing Center, and shots of students actually being tutored.

What I learned...

A fourth light really helps a three-light setup. Adding a fourth light to the back (camera right) to illuminate the other side of the talent's face was actually very useful.

Explaining what you want to talent is always best. The whole reason you have someone on camera is for them to do what you want. The best way for them to do what you want them to do is to let them know exactly what they should be doing. Not explaining that we want their eyes on the camera didn't work. When someone would say "make sure to look at the camera," it didn't really help. A full explaination like "pretend the person feeding you lines doesn't exist and just keep your eyes on the lens for the entire shoot" doesn't make the talent nervous. That just allows the talent to move forward knowing what we want. Getting everybody on the same page is extremely important.

Wireless (battery powered) lights are invaluable. We used them to be an on camera light (to light the person at the end of the walk in shot). We used one to fill the desk area (hiding the light behind a pillar). And, we almost used one on the sign above the greeting area of the main desk in the writing center, but we found another light to do that without being seen.

I did miss one day of shooting, but I learned a lot from that day, as well. :)

Modules, Plugins, & Expansion

We've been discussing expansion for different content management systems. Seeing front end and back end expansion was really cool to differentiate. After seeing all of the back end customization for Drupal, I wanted to look up what WordPress had to offer. I was surprised to see a lot of the same things [with quite a bit of variation].

For instance, I found multiple variations of CAPTCHA, allowing me to choose what method I want to use to ensure that users are not robots. One, for example, makes a user click and drag different items depending on the command that is written [Put the duck in the pond!]. Others provide math equations. One option had pictures of animals that the user had to identify. I tried it out about ten times, and I found that without a space or comma it didn't work. I definitely want to test these things out extensively, before deciding on one. After installing six different CAPTCHA programs, I went with a pretty standard version with distorted text.

I'm currently looking for an WYSIWYG HTML Editor for users [I already have one available in the back end of things]. When I find this, I will install it to make it easier for users to post with some variation in their text. I hate the little note at the bottom of every comment box that tells users which HTML tags that they can use in their posts. It's ugly and old. This would be a great replacement.

While looking for the WYSIWYG HTML Editor, I came across an editor that allows me to go to the front end of the website and create edits from there [much like editing in the live view in Dreamweaver]. This functionality is AWESOME! I'll show screenshots in my next post!

I'm glad to see that WP isn't totally useless! It has great expansion options! I'm looking forward to exploring more plugins :)



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