Utilizing Cameras
- in your church
There are many other preset "shots" that will be invaluable time-savers. Experiment and find
others that you'll use often based on your service.
Also, as a camera operator, learn the rule of thirds. This is a biggie, so memorize this.
If you divide the picture into equal vertical thirds, you'd have a left third, middle-third and right
third. The center camera (you must have a center camera – I'll not accept an exception to this
rule) must keep the subject matter in that middle third at least 80% of the time. Why not 100%?
Because people tend to move.
If you zoomed into a waist up shot and tried to follow every body movement to keep the subject
perfectly centered, your camera would ALWAYS be jerking left and right. Stop that! It's OK for the
subject to begin to wander left or right. Don't move – let them ‘sway' in that center-third. Only
when they begin to get to the edge of the screen do you begin to compensate – smoothly – and
then the focus is again on the center-third.
For "side cameras" (off center axis from the center camera by 30 degrees or more), the rule of
thirds is slightly different – but your camera also has these same thirds.
From a side perspective, the subject is usually talking towards either the left or right side of your
screen. If you perfectly center them, the viewer will wonder why it looks like they're talking to a
wall. You need to lead the area they're looking towards by maybe 10%-20% of the screen. It will
seem more natural that, "Oh, hey, he's looking at something I can't see but at least know is there
– the audience."
Training
The need to train your volunteers and practice the camera shots, zooms, pans and overall
movement will necessitate doing drills when nothing else is going on. Drills such as:
Focus on the bottle – rolling a coke bottle away from the camera while staying zoomed in,
tracking and focusing (manually – NEVER, EVER auto focusing) on the text label.
Speed drill – director calls shots in rapid fire – and the camera "op" has only 1-2 seconds
to set the shot up correctly.
Smoothest Operator – who can keep the most consistent zoom, pan and tilt to follow a
moving person on the stage – from wide shots all the way into close ups and vise versa.
Director consistency – audio recording the headset mic of the director onto the videotape
of a service/practice – so that the Director can see how far behind the curve he/she is or
how consistent their commands are to the cameras.
Shading – for those cameras that are nice enough to have a CCU – how even can you
keep the light level during quick light cue changes? Especially useful when shading
multiple cameras simultaneously.
Watch a program with the crew together – you can critique each other and even laugh at
the events the cameras record when you notice slip ups. It's fun, educational and very
good at team building.
With experience, and a few basic concepts, you can make IMAG in service work well.
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Your team will learn why we worship and gain a better understanding of how to worship.
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This is the debut album by EXW friend Paul Langford. Paul is a Chicago based singer, arranger, keyboardist, producer and conductor. Paul has a career that spans 14 years. Paul's work includes arranging for groups like GLAD, Voices of Liberty, VoiceTrek, The Chicago based "Caroling Party" and Day of Discovery Singers. His arranging has appeared on recordings side by side with greats like Gene Puerling and David Maddux, and he has sung with Don Shelton, Bonnie Herman and Bob Bowker, among others.