os5_defender

=HOW TO PRODUCE KICKASS VIDEOS THAT WILL BRING LOTS OF LOVE AND MONEY TO YOUR SCHOOL = - Will Layman & Tim Lyons, from The Field School in Washington, DC

**Thanks to the folks who came to the session, asked good questions, and laughed at our schtick.**
We set out about a year ago to create a bunch of video content for our Whipple Hill site -- realizing that we hadn't really taken advantage of the capacity for video and that people love it. We wanted to create six or seven "feature" videos for the front of our site that would really sell the school's unique attributes, AND we wanted to create a 10-12 minute video for a gala celebrating the school's 40th anniversary. The deeper we got into making the videos, the more we learned -- and the more we learned about having to get better at it, technically and substantively.

Many of the videos shown at our presentation can be found on the front page of Field's website; the rest can be found here:
 * [|Field School Alumni - If It Weren’t for The Field School]
 * [|Field School Alumni - Mollie]
 * Field School Alumni - Kathleeen
 * [|Sports at The Field School]

**HERE'S THE STUFF YOU NEED**
This is the Canon XF100. It's great! Buy it! It's what you need for your "camera 1" duties. 2 memory (CF) card slots, 2 XLR inputs, stereo onboard mic, external physical controls, small form factor. $3,000 from B&H.
 * THE CAMERAS**

This is the NIkon D90; it's what we used for our "camera 2" duties. It's great! You can use all your fancy huge aperture lenses with it for killer shallow depth of field looks, & easy zoomability. Manual focus only in video mode - eek! Also great for camera 2: iphone! Flip! anything!


 * //Whatever gear you end up using, it is CRITICAL to have 2 camera angles ("camera 1" and "camera 2") for interviews & other documentary-ish setups - it's hard to overstate how important it is to have usable B-roll available for the editing process. __And get a tripod for camera 1 so you can set it & forget it!__//**

This is the Lowel Rifa eX55 Pro Kit. It's awesome! Buy it! Perfect amount of light for a small interview, high quality construction won't break down on you when you need it to work, and it comes in a molded plastic hardcase that is PERFECT for travel //and// storage. Lights are fragile, & the hardcase makes this kit a no-brainer for a portable professional quality kit that'll get the job done every time. $900 from B&H.
 * THE LIGHTS**

This is the Sony ECM-77B omnidirectional cardioid clip-on microphone. The video you shoot will be 100%, completely worthless if your sound is bad—this is a simple truth that we learned the hard way. Learn from our idiocy! This guy is THE microphone for interviews: sounds perfect, small profile, comes with clips & a hard case. $400 from B&H.
 * THE MICROPHONE**

Unless you're used to something else (FCP7, Adobe Premiere, etc.), Final Cut Pro X is a great platform for editing your videos. For iMovie users, it's an easy transition to this much-more-powerful next step. $300 in the App Store.
 * THE SOFTWARE**

**HERE'S THE KIND OF STUFF YOU SHOULD PRODUCE**
We started by doing videos based around interviews with community members -- kids, teachers, parents, alumni. These are GREAT because the community can speak more eloquently about the school than YOU can. (Usually.) But.

Doing videos only based around interviewing faculty, alumni and students soon proved to be too much of a good thing. As crucial as it is to get your people speaking to the community and the world, film after film of just folks TALKING was dull. So we found some other ways to make interesting school videos.


 * INTERVIEWS**
 * use a “gimmick question” or three - they're //great// for short responses
 * mistakes - you want them, they’re human, they’re un-slick
 * pauses - you want them
 * use people who look & sound good and are //comfortable// on camera. duh.
 * rambling - DOES NOT WORK
 * make a list of the same questions for all interviews - ask them in the same order!
 * scheduling your subjects is very, very important
 * end product: many voices on one topic - or - one voice on many topics


 * GRAPHIC ONLY**

We found that the creative use of titles from the FinalCutPro software was very compelling. Combined with driving music, a purely graphic video can be short but BIG in impact. See our "Be Yourself" video for an example.


 * SCRIPTED w/MANY VOICES**

Sometimes you know exactly what you want the voices in a video to say but getting those words from interviews is tough. So we wrote some stuff (and took some stuff right from our viewbook) and simply asked people to read it straight into the camera -- dead-on. We cut these together so that the bit was being read by many people, added titles, the it killed.


 * VOICEOVER**

This is the oldest trick in the book. It works. Still photos, Ken-Burns-ed up, with a strong voice-over. Easy and quick to produce!


 * SCRIPTED DRAMA**

And sometimes you just have to get fancy. So we wrote a little drama with dialogue and costumes and all that. It was hard work, but there was nothing random about it -- we knew exactly what we wanted. And we could film it quickly and edit together. The results are funny and compelling, but the message wasn't clear to everyone and so it actually wasn't as on-message as it should have been. That can be a danger -- but it was fun making it!

**Okay, everybody: go out there and make your school better understood and loved with video. You'll be a hero! And a STAR!**

 * ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________**

Hi, Thanks Will and Tim for an informative and entertaining Open Space session. I learned a lot. I've produced a few videos for St. Luke's School and it's a lot of fun - if anyone else is interested, I'd love to share my work and see the work of others, get feedback, share tips on new techniques, new gear etc. I'd also love to know if anyone knows of good professional workshops to attend. Those interested can just post your info here.

Here is our website featured videos gallery: https://www.stlukesct.org/featuredvideos

And my email if anyone wants to contact me - smockd@stlukesct.org