Video editing breakdown: “Everyone needs a painting”

It’s not often a video story comes knocking at my door. A few weeks ago, Pat Adams, my next-door neighbor, came over to my house to ask me how she could get in contact with Dan Pelle, a co-worker of mine at The Spokesman-Review. Adams told me she had painted a picture of Pelle’s dog Koko, who died in a vicious pit bull attack last year, and wanted give the painting to him.

I learned Adams has been churning out dozens of oil paintings of people’s pets that have died, and that most of the painting recipients had never met her. When she told me she did the paintings free of charge, I knew I had a story.

I spent a few mornings shooting Adams as she painted. As you watch the video, take note of some of the production and editing techniques I used:

I start the story with a video title card with music. This short opener allows web viewers to adjust their audio. It also makes a great thumbnail for Vimeo, if that is where you upload to.

I open the video with Adams painting at her kitchen saying: “I love to paint…”  I use a camera slider to add movement in the first two shots. It gives the video a cinematic feel and helps reveal my subject for the first time.

At 0.24 I introduce Adams with my opening narration. “For the past thirty years, artist Pat Adams has set up a painting easel and palette on her kitchen table…”  Yes, I could have told this story without narration, but I don’t think the storytelling would have been as efficient. In this video, I only narrate in places where the story needs definition or a transition of time or place.

When I started shooting with my Nikon D4 DSLR–a great low-light camera–I didn’t think I needed to light Adam’s kitchen. But the cool window light mixed with the warm incandescent light made it tough to get a clean white balance. Thankfully, I had a light kit at my house next door, and a few minutes later, I had two quartz halogen lights set up to bounce off the white kitchen ceiling. The white balance improved dramatically with the added warmer, softer light.

Audio. I love using a wireless mic on subjects. The audio is clean and dynamically full compared to using just a shotgun mic. It has one other huge benefit—it allows the subject to be more natural without having a big microphone pointed at them from a foot away. I can be across the room shooting wide shots and still be getting wonderful soundbites to use later in the edit. Where the wireless mic paid off in this story is when Adams would talk to the painting. Those parts were emotional gold when I assembled this story later in Final Cut Pro X.

In the first minute of the video, Adams reveals, as a young mother of a Down syndrome child, she had a small stroke. Her cardiologist told her she had to paint to relieve the stress. This is the first gold coin in the video. I don’t reveal the true direction of the story yet because I want to pull the viewer in and surprise them with the next revealing moment.

At 1.06, I say: “Adams put her brush to canvas. At this point in the video I use a super-tight shot of her brush dabbing the canvas with paint. This is one of my favorite clips in the video. I shot it with a 60mm macro lens. It helps hold viewer interest in the story because I am showing them something they can’t normally see.

The interview. I waited to do the interview until the second time I shot Adams painting. This allowed me to ask better questions. I kept a mental list to things Adams told me during the first shoot, which then helped me formulate better questions to ask her in the formal interview.

The next big gold coin comes at 1.47. Adams says: “I think the first animal I painted was Sage…” This is where the first emotional tug in the story comes. It reveals what the story is really about, and hopefully, keeps the viewer engaged in where the story is going.

Music. I learned a valuable lesson about how to use music after I posted the video asking for feedback on a Final Cut Pro X forum site. Professional editor Jeff Bartsch gave me this advice:

“Big sloppy rule of thumb: in much doc/reality/verite TV, you’ll find that most cues of music run between 30-60 seconds. Anything longer runs the risk of saying the same thing too many times or getting old. At the moment, the piece is 6 minutes and has only 2 cues of music that are pretty much the same, though the piece has multiple sections of exposition and progression of thought.”

What Bartsch helped me understand was I needed to use music as a transitional element. As the scenes, or tone of the story changed, so too should the music. I added in three more music tracks, each to fit the different tones of the story. It was a huge improvement (Thanks Jeff.)

At 2.15, I start showing some of Adam’s animal paintings. I used an out of focus photo of a painting palette as a colorful background. I use a drop shadow on the paintings to set them off a bit from the background.

The one thing I kept telling myself as I shot Adams as she painted was to, “shoot wide, medium, tight, tight, tight.” The variety of the tight shots really made the editing job easier because I could use those shots as transitions between scenes.

The next story gold coin comes at 3.07 when Adams says: “What’s the scariest thing in handing someone a painting”? I cut to Adams walking out of her kitchen with a dog painting and giving it to a young couple in the living room. Adams voice over continues to talk about her fear of rejection, but at the same time, the couple tells her they love and are amazed by her generous gift. This is where understanding the power of the edit—how you can weave different threads of narrative and have it all work together to advance the story–is so important.

At 4.00 I take Adams out of the house and into her car to deliver the painting to Dan Pelle. Other than knowing that she is bringing him a painting of his dog Koko, they had not met until he opens his door. I just told Dan I was going to be there and to just ignore me during their interaction.

I shot some driving scenes on the way, and then a shot of Adam’s pulling into the driveway. This is where it starts to get technically messy. I switched to a traditional video camera for these scenes, because in run-and-gun situations, I find a DSLR is too slow to focus and make auto balance corrections on the fly. And because my video camera has two channels of audio (shotgun on the camera and a wireless on Adams) it gave me backup audio if one of the audio channels failed.

My favorite edit comes as Adams exits her car and shuts the door. I straight cut directly to Pelle opening his front door and greeting Adams. In one simple edit, I cut a whole bunch of time out of getting Adams from her car to the front door. I think it works, but it is a bit jarring.

At 4.30, Adams is invited into the house. It is technically challenging to go from outside daylight to inside incandescent mixed light. I put the camera into full-auto mode and hoped for the best. As I headed into the house, the camera was recording Adams and the Pelle’s as they introduced themselves. I can’t really shoot any cut-aways to cover the weird transition of white balance and exposure shift. Later, as I was editing this scene, I added a still photograph of the dog painting to cover of some of bad color shift. I always strive for perfection, but sometimes it just out of reach.

The next gold coin is the interaction between Dan Pelle and Adams during the painting hand off. It is emotional (for her) and yet what Dan Pelle tells Adams is heartfelt.

So how to get out of this story? Ira Glass, producer of “This American Life” says that a good story has to have a moment of reflection to remind the viewer why it was worth spending their time watching your story. As I was reviewing my footage, I came across this audio gem: “Its wonderful to see them. It’s like having your pet back home. Everyone needs a painting,” said Adams. I knew this clip was going to be my ender, my moment of reflection in the story.

“Everyone needs a painting” has gotten a lot of positive feedback from viewers. “I’m bawling in front of my computer,” is one common comment on Facebook. Knowing that my edit instilled an emotional response, makes me feel confident I told a compelling story.

 

The change: Video storytelling and the rise of the DSLR

It happened so fast. The change. One day, photojournalists were just doing their thing. Shooting daily photos for their newspapers. Maybe even an odd photo story or two. A lucky day was getting a page or a double truck on Sunday to showcase all their hard work.

Video at newspapers was out there on the fringes. A few staffers braved the online world and embraced a new way to tell a visual story. Except this time, it was on the World Wide Web. No space restrictions here. Most traditional still shooters shrugged their shoulders and continued on with the status quo. Video cameras were for “TV types,” they said.

Then the layoffs hit hard. In 2009 and onwards, photo departments at many newspapers were gutted. Hundreds of staff photographers were tossed onto the streets to fend for themselves. To freelance.

In the midst of all this chaos, a new type of still camera was quietly released by Canon. The 5D Mark II had a little secret– it could shoot kick-ass HD video. A few brave photojournalists used the new technology to produce stunning imagery. Images unlike anything ever seen in the video camera world. Shallow depth-of-field shots and cinematic looks that mimicked film dropped many jaws along the way. The smart ones ran with it. Reinvented themselves and in doing so, reinvented the genre of documentary filmmaking. Overnight the doc film industry changed. Shooting with Film stock was done. Former still photojournalists, once resistant to shooting video, now embraced it.

The commercial still photography market tanked as a “billion of photojournalists” raised their iPhones and posted their snaps on Flickr.

Because the DSLR camera was familiar, still photojournalists could buy in without judgment. The taint of video, hidden in a tiny package of a pro DSLR camera gave courage to those that once scoffed at the idea. It did not matter that the DSLR was much harder to shoot with than a traditional video camera. What did they know? They had never shot with a Sony or Panasonic video camera with built-in stabilization and pro audio inputs.

The aftermarket kicked in with a plethora of accessories to make the 5D Mark II easier to focus and improve the bad audio the camera outputted.

Soon the former photojournalists were now calling themselves filmmakers. The old ideas of us (still) vs. them (TV) dissipated. “Us” became “them,” but in a different way.

Video storytelling changed. The entry point into the documentary film world flattened. An army of new filmmakers, not confined by the limitations and cost of film, were unleashed. Stories, some short, some long (most too long,) gave rise to publishing platforms like YouTube and Vimeo. No longer did you need a TV to showcase your vision. Shoot and edit your story yourself, then post it to the Web. Maybe even enter a film festival or two.

Former photojournalists, the ones newspapers turned their backs on, were the most creative with the new DSLR video medium. They brought a keen sense of composition, moment and storytelling to the table. But sometimes that was not enough. They needed to understand that great imagery did not a great story make. Each failure was a learning opportunity.

The unfortunate ones were the Nikon shooters. The Nikon D90 was the first DSLR to have video capabilities. But Nikon took a nap after that release. Canon became the de facto standard for DSLR video. The release of the Nikon D800 and D4 played catch up and now a lost generation of Nikon users are joining the fray of filmmaking.

I sit here now stewing, one of the first still photojournalists that embraced digital video storytelling at a newspaper. I was a change agent; embracing the idea that video was an important path to enhancing our online content. In those early days of 2004, our website was mostly text-based with a few postage stamp-sized photos sprinkled about.  I evangelized, I shared, and I taught video sequencing to anyone who wanted to learn. I produced hundreds of video and multimedia stories. I even survived 11 rounds of layoffs at my newspaper. But now I feel like the old man talking about the good old days. Many of my photojournalists friends who left newspapers unwillingly are doing incredible documentary video stories now.

Video storytelling is hard. It takes commitment to keep learning. To keep pushing the boundaries of what is possible with the tools available.

In the blink of an eye, things change. It comes down to how you respond to that change. Give up and you stagnate. Embrace and you risk failure. Fear is the great equalizer. I keep telling myself  “no fear, no fear.”

I really love video storytelling. Though now I feel the cool kids have taken the torch and somehow passed me by. I tell myself I still have knowledge and experience on my side.

Inside me is a storytelling machine waiting to be unleashed. My Nikon D4 beckons. The world is full of stories. The only one that keeps me from telling them is fear.  No fear. No fear. No fear.

Teaching video storytelling

Having just finished teaching a community college Intro to Documentary DV Production class, I’d thought I would share with you my formula for instructing students on how to shoot a video story in a way that makes the editing process go smoothly.

I always tell my students that even Michael Jordan needed to learn the fundamentals of basketball and the same goes for video storytelling. Much of what I teach is based on what I learned at video storytelling workshops like the Platypus (class of 2005) where the language of TV was drilled into me with the rigors of a U.S. Marine boot camp.

I continue to practice what I preach by shooting and editing video stories for my newspaper’s website. I’ve taught these video fundamentals at a half-dozen video storytelling workshops I’ve coached at. It is battle-tested and works with students who have never shot video before. The textbook I use to reinforce what I teach is the just published “Videojournalism: Multimedia Storytelling” by Prof. Ken Kobre.

Baby steps…

I assign my students five shooting assignments over the course of an 11-week quarter. Each assignment builds onto the next.

VOX POPS 

The term “vox pop” comes from the Latin phrase vox populi, meaning “voice of the people”. The vox pop is a tool used in many forms of media to provide a snapshot of public opinion. Random subjects are asked to give their views on a particular topic and their responses are presented to the viewer/reader as a reflection of popular opinion.

This is a group assignment where the class comes up with one question that they will ask of their subjects. Each student has time behind the camera and asks the question of at least five strangers. In this case: “It is 2012 and knowing the world is about to end, what is the one thing you would want to do before you died?”

We shoot on campus and I float amongst the groups reminding them to get the camera and mic close enough to their subjects and to make sure to hold the camera steady as possible etc.

The process for students is messy and challenges them to face their fear of talking to random strangers. At the end of class, I gather all the tapes and take them home for the night where I quickly edit about and hour’s worth of footage into a 45 second video.

In the next class, I start the discussion about what could you do with all that raw footage? Could you tell a story with it? I then show the edited video of their work. Quick cuts, matched action shots, editing on motion are all in the video. I start to see the light bulbs over heads coming on.

They now get it: editing=storytelling. Now we’re off to the next assignment:

Cutting Carrots

The cutting carrots is a well-known video assignment given to new solo video journalists at the Video News International storytelling boot camps in the early 90s.

The premise of cutting carrots is to learn the basic foundations video sequencing by shooting something repetitious (like someone cutting up carrots.) The goal here is to shoot as many types of shots that you will later edit together into a montage.

This is a group assignment, where each student shoots another student at his or her class computer as they do some work. The key is to get them to move beyond shooting a scene with one long wide shot. This assignment introduces the concept of sequencing. By breaking down the long video clip into many different shots—wide, medium, tight, over-the-shoulder, shooting the action (fingers on the keyboard) then shooting the reaction (the face of the subject,) students learn the fundamental principle of video sequencing, which is the compression of time.

Students then use Final Cut Pro X to edit their footage into a short sequence of shots. For many it is their first time in a video editor. The editing assignment is not stressful because I have prepped the students with basic tutorials on how to edit in FCPX. I tell the students to make the edit as clean as possible. I then sit down with each them and enhance the edit. I find almost all the student sequences are too long. I start by trimming time from each clip to make the pacing faster. I find edit points where a matched edit would work, I show them why it is important to let the action come into a frame and then leave. To me this one-on-one is the best learning tool they have. Many students I’ve had who have basic video editing experience tell me, “why hasn’t somebody shown me this before?” We’re rolling now. On to:

Sequence A to B

Now let’s take sequencing to the next level by showing someone going from point A to point B. You must utilize enough shots so that a viewer of your finished video understands what is happening even though you have dramatically compressed time in the scene. When shooting a sequence like this, you have to anticipate the action.

In this assignment students really have to think about the shots they will need to complete a moving sequence showing a fellow student getting up from their desk, walking out of the building, getting on a bicycle and riding off. In real time this could take a few minutes, but by shooting wide, medium, tight, action, reaction, the final edited sequence is about 30 seconds. I stress to the students to anticipate the action, to let action come into and out of frame because it makes for natural edit points later. I make sure they understand that tight shots are great transitions between scenes. The editing process is the same. I let them struggle with it first and then I sit down and show them how to make the edit better. Again most student clips are too long. Some shots are redundant and need to be cut. We work together to find ways to match the action of the outgoing clip to match the incoming one. By the time the assignment is done most of my students are ready to actually tell a video story.

Widget Maker interview (A-roll + B roll = story)

Time to take what you have learned so far about sequencing and shot selection and produce a short video story about someone who does something interesting. It could be an artist, or someone who has an interesting job. How about a friend that has a cool hobby or sport? Just make sure to choose someone who does something visual.

Now students are tasked with finding, shooting and editing their first video story. These aren’t journalism students, so much what I teach about video journalism is foreign to them. I stress the ethics of truthfulness. That with documentary, they need to be truthful in how they shoot, and how they treat and portray their subjects. Between these shooting assignments students learn about audio gathering fundamentals, and how to conduct and light an interview.

I ask students to find a subject who does something visual—an artist, craftsmen etc. In the first year I taught the class I said I didn’t care about them creating a full story as much as I wanted a solid b-roll sequence that matched with what the subject was talking about. I was surprised that many students took the assignment further by crafting an actually story from their interviews and b-roll. This year I made storytelling a priority and the work was stronger because of it.

Final Documentary Project

Whereas the Widget Maker assignment was about telling a story with one subject, the students’ final documentary project expanded out to include multiple subjects, but with an eye on keeping the stories less than five minutes long. With only three weeks left in the quarter, this assignment is the most stressful and challenging for students.

Throughout the quarter I am pushing students to come up with ideas for their final documentary. Many stories fall through at the last-minute. Still, I’m pleased with much of the work, considering the level where the students were before they entered the class. For the final project, I really stress story and story construction. Many students struggle with how to open their docs. I steer them away from starting their video with a talking head. I push them to gather more natural sound b-roll so that they can weave it in and out of their interview clips. As deadline nears, the more time a student lets me work with them on their Final Cut Pro X timeline the better shape their story takes and the more, I believe, they learn. On the last day of class, I always wish there was more time to make the final doc projects better.

I created a class resource blog where all students were authors and could post content and comments and their projects. Check it out. All the above assignments are in the toolbar and you are free to download, change or adapt for your own use.