Two camera coverage eases the shooting and edit process in the traditional interview.

Today, I use two small High Definition cameras to give simultaneous “close-up” and “medium” shots. With matching cameras and the ability to line up the two videos on the non-linear edit system’s “timeline,” cutting back and forth between the cameras is cleaner with faster production. This has been possible only in the past few years with significant advances in camera quality and size and a dramatic reduction in price.

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Taking the measure of the Wagi Valley in Papua New Guinea’s central highlands. At the ready, a shoulder-held camcorder.

With the advent of the camcorder in the 1980s, the “one-man band,” that weighed-down lumbering figure from the local news station, could actually have some mobility and become a videographer.

Now, technology has taken us that next step, not only freeing up the cameraman with better quality in a smaller package but speeding up the processing and editing with laptop non-linear video editing that has all the features of a post house in a mini-footprint. We no longer talk about a one-man band. Now, the videographer is a “one-man studio.”

The camera is tapeless with the computer ingesting files at more than 7 times real time, speeding up the entire edit process.

The cameras weigh one-third of what the big one’s do, facilitating unique high and low angles and the avoidance of ENG operators classic low-back problems. The rapidity and depth of laptop editing can even mean a “fine cut” in the field. With the videographer editing his/her material you never miss those “great” shots that the post-production editor misses. And with broadband internet becoming the standard, if you have the time you can deliver the final product anywhere in the world within hours, and at negligible cost.

Editing material for the Red Cross at their base in Port au Prince, Haiti

Who knew? It seems I’ve been a “Preditor” and didn’t even know it. In case you’re as behind the times as I was, a “Preditor” is a PRoducer EDITOR who, shooting his own material, can get to a location, shoot the story, edit it and get it out. Haiti was a good example: shooting during the day, back in time to edit and satellite the material for U.S. or European broadcasters. The technology has finally caught up with what I do — cameras shoot PAL or NTSC, laptop computers edit on the fly — it can be pretty effective. It’s the ultimate one-man band.

Carl’s friend attached herself to his pinky while he was covering a Red Cross distribution of household supplies.

Cameraman Carl Hersh in front of the Port-Au-Prince National Cathedral, now a ruin.

The day after the 7.0 earthquake rocked Haiti, Carl got called by Austrian television to cover the disaster. After scrambling for gear and some provisions, he was on a plane bound for the Dominican Republic. An overnight convoy from Santo Domingo wound through the mountainous border into Haiti and, finally, Port-au-Prince. The once vibrant city lay in ruins. The destruction and human suffering was so pervasive that it moved even this veteran of natural disasters and civil wars. Carl took up residence in a small Port-au-Prince hotel that was secure, had running water and electricity (at least, intermittently), but no phone nor internet. Communication the first few days was limited to text message updates. After nearly a week of filming and editing, including footage of mass burial sites too gruesome for broadcast, Carl’s assignment with the Austrians wrapped; however, he was asked by the American Red Cross to stay on and document their relief efforts. With literally millions of people in severe need, Carl was impressed by how the Red Cross focused supplies, managed sometimes huge, desperate camp populations to make sure the right support got to the people who really needed it. Now that the so-called “aid bottleneck” has been cleared and supplies are reaching the sick and distressed, Carl is back home with insights and kudos for his work. Despite the horrors, he is in good spirits, having rubbed elbows and comparing notes with the likes of Sanjay Gupta and Jesse Jackson. His diet was destinctly local: fresh mangoes, goat, and beer.

The Japanese artist Jun Kaneko has been creating huge artworks since he came to the U.S. almost 50 years ago. When the Morikami Museum in Delray Beach, Florida installed an exhibit of his works we were on hand to document the process. How do you deal with ceramics that can weigh over eleven hundred pounds? Very carefully! Here workers lower one of Kaneko’s massive ceramic heads into place. With a quick edit our video is now part of the exhibit. It will give visitors a behind-the-scenes view of what it takes to handle works like these. To see the full video, click on the link below.

Above Monument Valley Arizona

There are memorable shoots and MEMORABLE SHOOTS. This one falls into the latter category. We were on location in Arizona filming a series of programs for a British children’s show called Cat’s Eyes. We were wafted over the hallowed Monument Valley locations of John Ford’s westerns on an early morning balloon flight to capture images that would visualize wind and soil erosion for British tots. This same shoot took us in a chopper over the Grand Canyon and into some of the West’s most incredible landscapes. Thanks to Willy Gomez for taking time away from awesome audio to capture this shot.

Kathy interviews former Parrot Jungle horticulturalist Nat DeLeon in front of a standing-room only crowd.

“Tell Your Story,” a standing-room only workshop on capturing oral histories, packed out the meeting room at our local library, last night. Kathy demonstrated interviewing and listening techniques in a conversation with Nat DeLeon, groundskeeper and horticulturalist at the historic Parrot Jungle, where the library now stands.

Carl taped the interview for the community archive and gave tips to would-be documentarians on how to get the best audio and video for their family histories.

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Carl tries to figure out how to shoot a full-size camera in a mini-chopper.

Back in the chopper again — this time for German television. We’re setting off to shoot another ocean-front estate bought with diverted investor funds. Was this chopper tiny? We think some kid on the ground had joystick control.

An interview set-up for a Family Stories taping.

This past weekend we filmed the latest “Family Stories” personal history. With our background in documentaries and fascination with history, “Family Stories” is a logical extension that helps preserve family, community and corporate legacies. We produce entirely in high definition ensuring forward compatibility and preservation. Expert interviewing creates an “oral history” that can be woven with archive photographs and film to give a sense of time and place.

With two, side-by-side cameras we do a simultaneous record that makes the editing process amazingly fast and painless. One camera holds a medium-wide shot while the operator adjusts the other to a close-up or medium close-up depending on editorial content. Lining up the video elements in Final Cut gives infinite edit possibilities.

Shooting the Fantasy Fest throngs and thongs, a Halloween tradition.

Spent Halloween in Key West filming for a “reality” show pilot on wild vacation spots. True to its 30 year tradition of celebrating the one day a year when it is legal to cross-dress (does anybody enforce those laws, now?), Key West pulled out all the stops, and with a lot of body paint, covered up to a PG-13 rating. A cruise ship with 2,800 nudists disembarqued in the morning and in the buff, but quickly moved to waiting body painters and donned knitted socks and pasties to avoid shocking the locals (impossible to do). I’m sure the hot weather moved many to wish they could remove what little they had on, but Key West has ruled that body paint no longer is sufficient to satisfy the “clothing” requirement of local ordinances.
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