Church Video Production Training, Tips and Terminology

Hey everybody. So in this video, I'm gonna show you a training that I recently did for a company that I work part-time for. This video will walk through some production techniques, tips and tricks, framing, and also some vernacular or language that you can use when you're communicating with your video director or camera ops. So I hope this video is helpful for you. If it is, will you like this video and subscribe to this channel? That would be awesome. We've recently passed 100 subscribers, so now we're on our way to 1,000. So help us get to 1,000 subscribers by clicking that red button beneath me. Click subscribe. If you have any questions about video production or technique or framing or anything like that, put it in the comments or send me an email, joshua@worshipresources.church. Hey, thanks for watching. I hope you enjoy this video.

Hey everybody, my name is Joshua Riggs. I am on the tech services team with Team Tri. And I also help with production. And today we're gonna walk through some video techniques, framing techniques, and also some vernacular, some language that you can use in your live production and in your recording. So when you're helping students record their candidate videos or when you're helping sponsors record some sort of sponsorship video, these are some tips and techniques that you can use to make the video the best it can be. This is Julia. Say hi, Julia. She's here to help me. And also Tim is running the camera. Tim and Scott, thanks for your help today as well. So you can see that this shot is a pretty wide shot. And before we actually talk about framing, I want to tell you about the rule of thirds. So the rule of thirds is that you split the image into thirds. So pretend like there's an imaginary line here and an imaginary line here. It is fine to have the subject centered right in the middle of the frame. So, Tim, if you will, center her as best you can. It's fine to have him or her centered. But this is especially true if you're recording a video. Consider the rule of thirds, and that's where you're going to place the subject in down the line of either the left third or the right third. So let's put her on the left third, uh, Tim. Okay, and now let's zoom in pretty tight for this shot. Keep going pretty tight. So this— let's do a waist up. Okay, so this—

she—

this is rule of thirds, and she's on the third shot, and he's getting it to where this is a waist up shot. So this right here, of course, depending on the background, would be a good shot to record a— just a recording. It does work in live production some of the time, but this is especially true for recordings. So it could be on the left third or the right third. So move her to the right third.

Yep.

So that's centered and a little more to the right. And there's the right third. Okay, so that's the rule of thirds. And we're going to come back to that in a minute. The next thing that I want to tell you about is some, some language. Okay, so push in and pull out are synonymous with zoom in or zoom out. You can use them interchangeably. I would say just pick one and stick with it. Okay, I like push in and pull out. So pull out is to zoom out. So Tim, if you will, pull out on her. So you can see he's pulling out. Tim, okay, push in. So he's going to push in. To her. And you can also give how fast or slow you want that to happen if you're calling cues for your camera operator or for your director. So you can say, pull out slowly, right? So Tim's going to pull out slowly. There we go. So he's going to pull out slowly. Another term that you can use is pan. Pan left or right. So that means to move the camera to the left. So pan left for me. He's panning left and pan right. He's panning right. Okay, so push, push in, pull out, or zoom in, zoom out. You can use that. And then pan left and pan right. Another thing that I want to tell you about, and this may be the most important tip that you're going to learn in this video, and that's what's called headroom. Headroom is the distance from the top of the person's head to the top of the frame. And most— maybe not most, but a lot of videos that I have seen have too much headroom in the shot. So actually, let's put too much headroom in this shot. Okay, so that's good right there. So Julia is, uh, her face is right in the middle, and I think that's where the misconception happens, is we think the face is the focal point of what's going on, so it should just be right in the middle of the frame. But in reality, Everything from her head up is wasted space because we're not even using that space. There's nothing to look at. So a good rule of thumb is for the headroom, if you picture— so Julia, if you will, put— make a fist and put the fist on top of your head. So that fist on top of her head, that's about where the top of the frame should be. Okay, so, so this is pretty good headroom. You can put your fist down now, Julia.

Thanks.

Okay, so notice her eyes are towards the top of the frame and not in the center, and this helps so we can see her hand gestures especially. Okay, so headroom is important. That's the very first thing you need to get right when you're framing your subject. Make sure the headroom— you don't have too much headroom. Okay, so let's talk about, uh, some, uh, different framing options.

Okay.

So the first one is head to toe. So if you're talking to your cam op and say, give me a head to toe shot, that's going to be— obviously he's going to zoom all the way out until you can see the person's head and their feet. Now notice, as Tim was zooming out, he also adjusted for the headroom. He panned down so that— or tilted down so that the headroom was not too much. Because if you just zoom out, and you don't also tilt down, then the headroom is going to be too wide. So you want to keep that— yes, like that. That's way too much headroom. So close that gap for the head-to-toe shot. Now, the reason you would use this shot is if somebody is— whoever's presenting, if they move around a lot. So Julia, if you will, move around a little bit. So she's presenting, she's doing her thing, she's talking her talk. Notice we don't really have to move the camera much because she's staying in the frame. So this is true, especially if they move quickly. So they're moving quickly, but, you know, side to side, they're very animated. They're moving within the frame and you still want to try to stay with them. But if it's a tight shot and they're moving quickly, it will be much more difficult for you to keep them in the frame. And what you don't want is for them to walk out of the frame so that there's nothing on camera. So if they're moving quickly, if they move a lot, zoom out a little bit and use that head-to-toe shot occasionally. One of the things that you want to do as a camera operator or director, show director, is to portray what's happening on the stage, to accurately portray that. So if you have one shot and you're always zoomed in and the presenter's moving around, you're not really accurately portraying what's happening on the stage. So you want everybody that's watching on video to feel like they're in the room. So that's why a shot like this, a head-to-toe shot, is a good shot to get, especially if the presenter is very animated and moving around. Okay, the next one is called knees up. So this is where the bottom of the frame is on the knees. And notice he's adjusting the headroom. So this is a knees up shot. This is also helpful if they're very animated with their hands, they make wide gestures and that sort of thing, or if they're moving around, you can use the knees up shot. The next one is waist up. So this is— will be the waist up shot, and he's going to adjust the headroom. This is kind of the standard go-to shot for your presenters. You can see their hands, but you can't see anything below the waist. But you can— it also helps because you're zoomed in a little tighter on their face so you can see their facial expressions. This is probably 70% of the time you're gonna be on a shot like this, the waist up shot. Okay, the next one is elbows up, which is a little tighter, so you can see the bottom of the elbows are at the bottom of the frame, and you would want to use this— and I would adjust the headroom, shrink that headroom just a little bit, Tim— you would use this for to really portray the emotion that the speaker is presenting. So if they're crying or laughing or very intense, if they're like, they're telling the story and you want to really portray what's going on with their facial expressions, you would use this elbows up shot to, again, to accurately portray what's happening on the stage. Okay, Tim, I want to get you to zoom out and we're going to talk about what's called looking room. So we talked about headroom. As a general rule, headroom should always be less, more, less than it is more. Looking room is the distance between where the person is looking to the edge of the frame. So, Julia, if you will turn to your right, the other right, turn over to actually face the face. Me? Yeah.

There you go.

Yep. Just like that. So this is what— looking room is used on a side angle shot. So if you have a camera that's on the side, you can see that the looking room is the edge from where she's— from her, the edge of her face to the edge of the screen. This is where that third, the rule of thirds comes into play. As a general rule, you want the looking room to be set— yes, exactly, Tim— so that she's on the left so she's looking here. Otherwise, so put her actually on the right of the rule of thirds. So if she's on the right, all of this space behind her is wasted. We're— nothing's happening here, and there's no— there's no reason to show this to the audience. But if put her on the left now, this shot is a good shot because oftentimes you can get the audience here in this. And so you can— you can see on video that she's communicating to the audience from the side. So now do a 180, Julia, and turn all the way around. Yes. So now if it's, if it's on the left side, she's going to be in the thirds here, and she's— you've got the looking room, what she's looking at. Okay, this— everything back here should be smaller, everything here should be a lot wider. Okay, one other thing. So Julia, face the front now. And you can zoom in a little tighter, just do a head-to-toe shot for her. So one other thing about looking room is if the subject is moving a lot, you want to sort of anticipate the direction that they're going and make sure that their looking room as they're moving is plenty. So if she moves to the left, you're gonna move the camera, but actually you're gonna be ahead of her when you're moving. So let's actually do a knees-up shot for this.

Tim.

So here's knees up and adjust that headroom. Okay, so now let's say she moves to the right. When she moves to the right, you're gonna move that camera with her, but you want to try to keep her in the right third because she's looking this way, she's moving this way, right? And then if she decides to change direction, you're gonna overcompensate. And yes, and as she's moving, so you anticipate the movements that she's making. Again, you don't want her to walk out of the frame. If she walks out of the frame, they can't see what's, what's going on. Okay, so let's do a waist-up shot with Julia now and just center her in the frame. Thanks again, Julia, for helping out today. So in this, uh, this again, this is the standard shot that you're going to use most of the time. The side angle shots is not a shot that you're going to stay on for a very long time. It's again, it's just to help to get the help the audience get perspective of what's happening on the stage. So I mentioned the rule of thirds and the headroom and looking room. These are just general rules when it comes to video production. If you're trying to be creative with a shot, by all means, it's okay to break the rules occasionally. You just shouldn't break the rules like for the whole show, okay? So let's say for instance your presenter is a painter And he— you've seen him where he does these incredible drawings, like with music as part of the presentation. So he's just finished his drawing and you've got a kind of a side shot. And but you know that looking room needs to— there needs to be most of the looking room, but he's facing the audience and his drawing is behind him. By all means, get the drawing in the shot, get creative with that shot so that, again, you're trying to accurately portray what's happening on the stage. So you can show the drawing and the presenter even though the looking room is not technically following the rules. I hope that makes sense. So the big thing is just to be intentional with your framing, with your shots. So think through the production, think through the show, whatever it is you're producing, the recording, think through it and think, what kind of angles do I need to get? What kind of framing do I need to get? And that will help you to set up the show in the best way possible so that you can accurately portray what's happening on stage to those who are watching in the room. Hey, if I can help you in any way, I'd love to connect with you. Just send me an email, Joshua@worshipresources.church. I'd love to answer any questions you have about production or video framing or anything like that. I hope this video was helpful to you. Be sure to subscribe to this channel and like this video, and I'll see you next week for the next video.