“What? He’s doing video also now?”
That’s what my brother-in-law said when he found out I was attending a video workshop. Funny but that’s where I was on a Sunday morning. In fact, the workshop ran on till past 7pm! We had a blast.
Why would a stills photographer attend a video workshop? Well, my DSLR has been called a VDSLR but I like what Vincent Laforet calls it, a HDDSLR — a SLR that shoots HD video. It’s also a world apart when working with stills and video. It’s not easy but it’s something that requires a different kind of planning, approach and all that stuff.
While I’m not sure if I’ll be producing a lot of movies, I do believe that no learning is wasted and that if you only stop learning when you die. So, even from the stills photography side of things, movie-making does give you a few ideas and a cinematic approach is not a bad thing to add to your array of styles or ideas.
It was fun to see how things are done in the movies and learn some interesting camera tricks as well. There was basically an overload of information and I think it would be best done as a 2-day workshop as the video project takes time to work out, and do. Also, movie-making isn’t a solo endeavor so teaming up is a good approach but time is a biggest factor here. That said, the entire workshop taught me a lot of things, not to mention that if you want a cinema look, try not to use the zoom! That’s pretty easy… zooming on a HDDSLR is not the easiest thing to do.
Sorry bout the some of the photos below… I was using my iPhone as the class pace was fast and loaded, making it difficult to reach for the HDDSLR and take notes at the same time! The only thing I wish there was more off would be more examples and sample videos but this is an intro workshop so can’t go into such depth. Time to save up for my Redrock Micro video DSLR rig and the Intermediate Video workshop 🙂
A fun thing would be to have a Collision Conference or Re:Frame right here in Malaysia.
By the way, I’ll post our end result once I get the final copy from Karan.