PentaVision's "What's Your Story?" Blog

SWAG:  Stuff we all get, souvenirs wearables and gifts, (or whatever you call it), free stuff (as I call it) is good.

Debate all you want whether it works or not but I can tell you, you give me something and I will wear it or use it. I was recently on location shooting a project for Vista Host in Nashville and I was wearing my favorite Zacuto tee shirt. A guy walked up to me and started asking about what we were doing and then asked me what Zacuto was. I told him about their company and the next day, he tracked me down and told me he had found something he had been looking for on their website. A guy from Indiana (me) plus another from Tennessee equaled an order for a company in Chicago – all from a tee shirt.

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Why is it you can have a light on for the entire time you’re setting up and blocking a shot but right when someone calls “Action!” the lamp burns out? How can it be that when you look away from the viewfinder for a split second, when you look back, there’s a car parked in your perfectly-framed shot? Who thought it would be a “cute setup” to have a dog AND a child? With lines? If that last take was “perfect,” why are we doing it again? How come when you just start getting to the usable portion of a great interview, the battery warning light flashes ugly red?

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Quality or quantity. You’ve heard these words used to describe plenty of things; work, products, food and even people. In the world of digital media production, they are often used to describe one very important element; light. Yes, light. Brightness. Radiance.  Illumination. Without quantity, it becomes a project for radio. Without quality, it becomes an average, ordinary, just like everybody else looking video.

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When working on a video project, the sound or audio portion of the project often becomes a “stepchild” and gets neglected.  What you need to realize is that audio is 50% of your final product.  Why spend extra money on an awesome location with professional on-camera talent, and then record the audio with a cheap microphone on the camera?  Recording quality audio in the field is just as important as making sure your video looks spectacular. Read the rest of this entry →

It’s the end of a long 12 hour day of shooting. The producer yells,”Who has all of the tapes?” Dead silence. No response.

Suddenly, laughter erupts on set with claims of “Remember the good ol’ days?” and “Do people still use that tape stuff?” Read the rest of this entry →

More and more, video crews have started to use different camera filters, lenses and attachments to give their finished program a certain look. One of the more popular devices as of late is called a depth of field adapter. This adapter enables the camera operator to use 35mm prime film lenses on any type of video camera. It attaches to the front of the camera and houses a small rotating piece of ground glass. These adapters help you to control what subject matter is the main focus in a particular scene.

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“HD” is a general term and it refers to High Definition. As you may be aware, it’s quite the buzzword these days. It seems that you can’t go a day without hearing about the latest in HD televisions and program broadcasts. But when it comes to your company’s specific video program, what should HD mean to you? Read the rest of this entry →

Camera movement is an element of film and video production sometimes highly overlooked today. With the invention of the zoom lens, the physical movement of the camera and tripod location has changed and evolved. Often it is easier and less labor intensive to simply “zoom in” rather than moving the camera itself. Read the rest of this entry →