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The Art of Packing Gear

My wife calls me a gear head, a gear hoarder, a gear junkie– anything that implies I like to buy gear. She’s right. But I like to argue, whether it is for myself or for her, everything I buy has a purpose. This week, I’m heading to Alaska for a month to cover the Iditarod. On this trip, more than most others, gear is necessary. Lots of it. Packing it all up to take on the road becomes a giant jigsaw puzzle. And since I’ve become somewhat of an expert on the topic of being a pack mule, I thought I’d share some strategies.

On the road again…

I have a rather large collection of bags that range in size from satchel to “hike across the country and bring the kitchen sink”. Each one has its purpose, but there is no such thing as the perfect bag. Which brings me to the camera world. How do you pack your camera for the constantly varying jobs?! The following ideas are mostly focused around my RED Epic kit, but it applies to most cameras in the digi cine realm.

First off, if I am staying local, and the shoot is really run and gun, I like to keep my camera fully assembled and ready to shoot. If I know my lenses are going to stay in the 50-85mm range, I will often use the Porta Brace HK-1. Its a great bag that allows you to throw your camera in it fully assembled and bring a couple accessories as well. You can throw it on your back and hike for a couple miles as well, if you really wanted to. The downsides to this bag are when you start adding longer lenses, and you need a lot of accessories. The longest lens I can fit in it is a Canon 30-300mm zoom, and even then you have to do a little finagling to get it in correctly. When you have to figure in filters, matte box, follow focus, batteries, FOOD (can’t go all day without food!) and all the other odds and ends, you are really starting to find its limits.

For shoots where I have a longer set-up that won’t fit in the HK-1, I have spent a while trying to refine. I went from the CineBags system to F-Stop, and then found myself recently trying out TrekPak. Cinebags didn’t quite cut it for me. They seemed a little flimsy, and the pockets fell apart pretty quickly. I am often running around, constantly taking the bags on and off, and I don’t want to worry about a bag ripping apart on me in the field. Cinebags did that to me in remote Alaska, calling for the ol’ duct tape fix to finish the shoot. F-stop is gold standard. I really do like them, but the are expensive. I currently have the biggest model, the Satori, but not with the internal compartments– just the open camera compartment. I can fit a disassembled Epic inside it, and used to do that as a carry on. But I really don’t like breaking my gear down that much just to move locations.

Overall, the TrekPak system seems to fit the bill. It has a fully customizable internal compartment through the patented “pull tab” feature. So if I have something that needs a snugger fit, I just pull the tab, adjust accordingly and put the tab back in place. Done. How is this better than the traditional velcro system? I feel like it’s way more secure, and rigid once assembled. When you have six batteries, an expensive EVF and a lot of other fragile parts, you don’t want velcro giving out, or the padding to buckle and start rubbing against everything. TrekPak has very rigid and secure dividers that offer plenty of protection. The downside is its a bit more narrow and you can’t cram it as full as the F-Stop bag.

It doesn’t matter how great your shooting skills are. If you don’t have the right tools ready to go, you’re going to miss the mark. I’ve seen some really great shoots go down the tubes because the proper equipment was missing. Don’t let that happen to you. No two shoots are the same, so spend some time figuring out not only what gear you need, but the best strategy for lugging it all around.

Avoiding the Noise

I was recently invited by the Iowa chapter of the American Marketing Association to be part of a panel discussion about how to avoid the noise in digital advertising. We’re so overloaded by ads these days, how do you cut through the clutter and stand out? The discussion was a good one. Of course, as I was driving home, a few more ideas popped into my head. And I have a much easier time explaining myself on my laptop, than in front of 160 people.

So, how do you avoid the noise? My first thought: be less noisy. Here’s one of my favorite commercials of all time, that demonstrates this strategy perfectly.

One topic of discussion was understanding when to use certain forms of digital communication. There are a million opportunities to use video, but perhaps one of the most overlooked: replacing written blogs with videos. Content marketing is all the rage right now, and it is a great strategy. But blogs can start to bleed together. A video version puts a twist on this trend. It allows you to demonstrate that you know what you’re talking about through show and tell. Videos are highly popular on social media. And video is great for SEO. Here’s an example of how one of our clients, Yess Yoga, utilizes this approach. Lucia posts a “pose of the week” once a week to her website, Facebook, etc. It is short, sweet and to the point. The strategy has worked wonders for showcasing her knowledge and friendly personality, building her client base and boosting her ranking on Google.

Pose of the week: Shoulder Stand / Sarvangasana from Lucia Yess on Vimeo.

Avoiding-the-noise challenge #2: B-to-B marketing. This is another area in which video can give you a boost. Sales are often made based on personal connections and emotion. Video adds a personal touch that you can only replicate with a face-to-face meeting. It allows you to introduce potential clients to the faces and personalities that run your business, it helps tell your story, and it can better explain your company’s mission. Video can also show clients how a product is a made. A behind-the-scenes tour can offer “insider” information that gives the client more confidence in your product. Here’s a video we did for BilT Guitars. It isn’t necessarily a B-to-B situation, but you’ll get the idea.

BilT — kid gloves directors cut from 515 Productions on Vimeo.

Challenge #3: how can non-profits cut through the clutter? Video. Video. Video. Non-profits typically exist to improve society, to help people in need, and/or to right a wrong. These organizations are overflowing with stories of both heartbreak and inspiration. Video can deliver emotional attachment in under three minutes. If someone sheds a tear as they’re learning about your non-profit, chances are that person is going to immediately care about your cause. Here’s a recent video we did for the Chrysalis Foundation, that demonstrates this theory:

Chrysalis Foundation from 515 Productions on Vimeo.

Challenge #4: we sell boring products. During the panel discussion, Josh Fleming brought up this example. I could not agree more. They’re selling a boring razor. But the video is far from boring. Keep in mind, it feels a little chaotic, but don’t confuse that with noise. This is creativity, and creativity is the best way to cut through the noise. It may sometimes be risky, but if you can get creative, your product will no longer be boring.

Before you set out to try any of these video strategies, you need to keep two basic principles in mind: quality and creativity. If your video is poorly produced, you will only be adding to the noise, not avoiding it. Unless it is showing something like a meteor hitting the earth, fuzzy videos tend to blend together. But videos that look and sound like film, on the other hand, cut through the clutter. And, as we just saw with Dollar Shave Club, taking a risk and getting creative can pay off big time. Don’t always play it safe and copy what’s already been done. Dare yourself to study a formula, and then go in the exact opposite direction. It may not always work out. But if you don’t give it a shot, you run a greater risk of just getting lost in all that noise.

Note to self…

We’ve fallen a bit behind on the old blog… to say the least. A new blog will be posted within the week. Consider this a reminder to ourselves to get back into the blog routine.

Music Matters

Have you seen this video lately?

It was pretty hard to miss. It went viral in short order and the woman even ended up on the Today show. She was secretly recorded from what looks to be an office window gettin’ her groove on. To what song we don’t know, but the uploader added “Dancing Queen” as the sound track, and what could have easily been a really boring video of a woman dancing on the street turned into something you couldn’t stop watching.

I come from a news background. One of the rules when I was in the business was: don’t use music because it could influence the viewer towards one emotion or another. So when I migrated to the freelance world, all of a sudden I had some options!

Music DOES influence emotion, and that’s a good thing. For the same reason we use shallow depth-of-field shots to direct the viewers attention, we use sound tracks to help tell our story. I watch a lot of YouTube videos and a lot of videos on Vimeo as well. I like to see what songs people use, and how they use them. So I wanted to throw out some pointers for those that are looking for the next piece of music for their video.

First. DO NOT STEAL MUSIC. Lets clarify what stealing is. Did you get permission from the producers and the artists? No? Then you stole it. But you bought it on iTunes? Doesn’t matter. You HAVE to get permission. And permission usually runs a pretty penny. You can generally assume that you will pay anywhere from $1,500 to $20,000 for mainstream music depending on the music’s popularity. Do you remember this commercial?

That song used to run $1,500 dollars. But when the ad did so well and the song caught on, it sky rocketed to $20,000 for a one year, web-only use. WEB ONLY. That means no TV runs, no DVDs, no hard copies of any kind. I’m not saying that it helped sell millions of Kia’s, but the song had a huge impact on the audience.

Second. You can find cheaper alternatives, but don’t settle for something based on price. Just google “royalty free music” and you will find hundreds of websites dedicated to getting you cheap music for your videos. But as the old saying goes “you get what you pay for”. More often than not, you will end up hearing synthesized trumpets and strings and some really cheesy guitar loop. Not fun. Check out Marmoset for some great, affordable music. It leans a little more towards the folky side, but if you dig, you can find a great variety of music. The Music Bed is another great resource.

Third. Download previews before you buy. Seems obvious but I figured I would throw it out there. Nothing is worse than shelling out cash and then finding out your client doesn’t like the song. Now you are stuck with a song that you probably won’t ever use and you are out a couple hundred bucks. Previews are your friend.

Music Matters

Fourth. If you are looking for something a bit more mainstream check out ASCAP and do an artist or song search. You will find out all the pertinent info about who to contact regarding that song and then you can workout the details from there!

For me, picking the right song is a really fun part of the video-making process. And as stated, it can really hurt you if you choose the wrong song. But the right one can really knock it out of the park!

What’s Hot (or what will be very soon)

IBC is wrapping up and there have been some major announcements that are taking the show. The one that I think is going to be the big winner is the new Arri Amira. This is aimed to take over the market for corporate, ENG, documentary and news shooting.

What’s Hot

The Market is currently flooded with DSLR’s like the 5D mk3, Super35mm cameras like the Sony F3, F5 and F55, and of course the RED Epic. Not to mention Arri’s flagship camera, the Alexa. All of these cameras, except the Alexa, forget one thing: ergonomics. They have all put their time and money into making sure the image is perfect, but let the balance, fit and ease of use on less-than-predictable shoots fall to the side. Now, some might say (and we would agree) that the camera doesn’t ALWAYS need to be balanced perfectly on your shoulder. If you know your style of shooting is going to involve the use of a tripod 99% of the time, then being able to quickly mount it on your shoulder probably won’t affect you too much. But if you are working on a project that involves a lot of run-and-gun-style work, a 5D or Epic with a shoulder rig quickly becomes ungainly and a huge pain to use. Usually, when you start rigging the camera with a shoulder rig, or some sort of setup to make hand held styler work easier, then you start to lose tripod functionality. It’s a catch-22 of sorts.

So, back to the Amira. Since it is aimed at the “not for theatrical release” crowd, they limit it’s ability to 2k. Which is still a great looking image. The sensor is the exact same S35 sensor used in its big brother, the Alexa, so you know the image quality will not be lacking. It will record to a few different flavors of ProRes (LT, HQ, 422 and 444), but the biggest downside is– they are making use of a new card type for this camera: CFast 2.0. As you can see, it is a very fast and robust card, but it means you won’t be able to have just one card type for your camera lineup. Not a deal breaker, but something to think about.

The Amira will be able to take everything from a PL mount lens to a more traditional broadcast style lens, and everything in between, with the use of adapters on the camera body. This is a huge advantage over the other cameras. Since the camera is built to function like an ENG camera, when you add something like a broadcast lens, it will still stay balanced. That’s thanks in part to a really cool adjustable shoulder plate on the bottom. You can’t say that about the EPIC, and definitely not about the 5D.

While we are talking about lenses, its important to note that they are adding selectable internal ND filters, so you can have a very small camera package that is able to cover a lot of ground. No need for a Matte box and a bag of filters for those shoots that require a lot of moving indoors and out. Pretty awesome!

Another really cool feature that is staging this camera to be the most sought after for tight turn shows is “in camera grading”. Being able to apply LUTs to your image is a huge time saver on the post side.

Their website states that the camera will have a very fast boot up time, indicating that between the time you switch it on and swing it on to your shoulder, it will be up and running, ready to shoot. Currently the 5D and similar DSLR’s have very fast boot up times, but the F5, 55 and RED cameras all have slightly longer boot ups. I have definitely missed one or two moments in the past waiting for my camera to boot up– not fun at all.

I can definitely see this as being the next big thing, and it will easily fly off the shelves. I see camera manufacturers like Sony and Panasonic taking a pretty big hit on their ENG lineup, as they are all still in a 2/3″ world and limited to 1080p. If the price point can stay in the sub $30k price range, I think it will have a lot of people pulling out the check books pretty quickly!

Here is a link to the website, and below is their demo reel for the new Amira:

AMIRA Showreel from ARRI Channel on Vimeo.

Our next “What’s Hot” post will be discussing RED’s new announcements at the same conference. A lot of game changers out there! What an exciting time to be in the business.

Permission to put down the camera

I just watched a brilliant video, that offers a good lesson to those of us in the video industry. Many of us are obsessed with “capturing the moment”. Smartphones can fuel that obsession, thanks to the video cameras that come with them. But every now and then we have to step back and remind ourselves: Don’t view life through a viewfinder.

Capturing moments that matter, of course, is important. But if you live your life through a camera lens, you’ll miss out on real life. It’s important to come up for air, and pay attention to what’s going on in your peripheral vision. Sometimes that’s where a better moment is happening anyway.

It can happen to the best of us. A photographer I used to work with, who is incredibly dedicated to the craft, was out shooting fireworks on the 4th of July a few years back. He was so caught up in capturing how people were reacting to the fireworks, he didn’t shoot a single frame of the ACTUAL fireworks. Missed them completely. And since it’s hard to tell a story about fireworks without any video of fireworks, his footage was pretty much useless. We all had a good laugh about it. At Bill’s expense, of course. (Sorry, Bill! Such a good story, I couldn’t resist repeating it. AGAIN.)

Viewfinders galore!

For me, the moment, 45 seconds into the video, of the guy videotaping himself proposing to his girlfriend hit home. Believe it or not, the first thing my soon-to-be-husband said to me after I had walked down the aisle in my wedding dress was, “I think I forgot to turn on the wireless microphone”. Seriously. He had set-up the camera, which a friend was manning, to get video of our wedding. And instead of thinking about saying his vows or how gorgeous I looked in my dress, he was concerned about the sound quality of the wedding video. How romantic? Don’t worry. The mic was on. And his heart was in the right place. Love you, honey!

Video geeks, myself included, can do themselves a favor by putting down the camera every once in a while. Because sometimes, it is better to LIVE in the moment, rather than capture it.

Creating Content

This month, Yess Yoga opened a new studio just south of downtown Minneapolis. For a business that officially launched just a matter of months ago, this is a huge step– and the result of incredible success in a short period of time. Our friend and client, Lucia Yess, has achieved that success because: she has a genuine passion for yoga, she works her butt off, and she has grown into one savvy businesswoman.

Painting the new YY studio, and loving every minute of it

Building a business from the ground up takes strategy. When you’re at square one, where do you even start? Social media is a great place. But content for Facebook and Twitter doesn’t grow on trees. You have to create it. You need to constantly and consistently feed the social media beast, in order to create buzz, to get people talking and build up a following. And that’s where video can be a valuable tool.

Part of Lucia’s strategy for growing a loyal client base has involved posting short videos on Facebook and Twitter once a week — a “pose of the week”. People eat them up! For potential clients, it is a free sample of her services that helps their yoga techniques. What’s not to love? So people “like” and “share” and “re-tweet” and spread the word. Because it is video, potential clients also get a glimpse of Lucia’s glowing personality and develop a personal connection to her. People get to know her and like her. When you’re looking for a yoga instructor, that kind of connection is key.

When it comes to driving traffic to her website, this strategy works like a charm. Every time someone on Facebook or Twitter clicks a link to a pose-of-the-week, he or she is directed to the YY website– where the video is posted. And while potential clients are there, they can learn even more about Yess Yoga– and figure out what classes best fit their schedules.

As for search engine optimization (SEO), video is tough to beat. According to a study by Forrester in 2010, a page with a video on it is 53 times more likely to achieve a page one result on Google. Now imagine 52 of those pages on your website– one for each week of the year.

It may sound like a huge undertaking to produce 52 videos. If you’re organized, it really isn’t. It took Lucia one day to shoot enough videos to last an entire year. And that was without sacrificing quality. Which is also key. If you want this strategy to really work, the quality needs to be top notch. Seriously, who shares a grainy video with their friends anymore? Unless that video is showing Moses parting the Red Sea, not many. But when a video is shot really well and looks like a movie, people perk up and pay attention. It adds to the buzz factor.

The possibilities for businesses interested in creating a video series are endless. Restaurants: recipe of the week. Retail: fashion secret of the week. Home and garden: weekly tips and tricks. You get the idea. The secret here– is to have fun with it. If it’s a painful process for you to produce a video, you better believe it is going to be painful for a potential client to watch it.

Now… after all that hard work, why not unwind with a class at Yess Yoga? Mention this blog, and you might just get a discount!

Countdown to Fall

Courtesy: Rebecca Palsha, Anchorage photographer extraordinaire (seriously, is this not a gorgeous photograph?)

Alaska will always hold a special place in my heart. It is, without a doubt, the most stunningly beautiful place in the world. I loved living there. But this time of year always made me a little uneasy. Fall is on the way. Which means winter is on the way. And every time you turn around, the fireweed is there to remind you of it.

Watching the fireweed bloom is like watching an upside-down hour-glass. When the blooms reach the top, winter is less than six weeks away. As you can see from this picture, the clock is running out. Time to start digging out the hats and mittens.

If you’ve been working on a video project, or thinking about starting one, the clock is also running out for getting those picturesque shots of the outdoors. Summer typically offers the best opportunities for shooting video. Green grass and green leaves don’t go out of style as easily as snow and ice. In the wintertime, people are more forgiving if the season in the video doesn’t match the current time of year.

Staying organized and ahead of the seasons is a good strategy to avoid getting stuck with video of snow or worse– having to delay an entire video project until next year. On the flip side, if you need shots of snow for your video, now is a good time to start planning for it. And don’t forget about the opportunities those fall colors provide.

When you’re mapping out your year, be sure to keep the seasons in mind. If you live in Alaska, the fireweed will help remind you– whether you like it or not.

State Fair strategy

Why do you love the Iowa State Fair? Chances are, if you asked ten people that question, you’d get ten different answers. Grandstand performances, 4-H exhibits, Midway rides, fill-in-the-blanks-on-a-stick…. you get my point. There is a very obvious reason why the fair continues to be one of the biggest attractions in the state of Iowa, year after year: there is A LOT to do.

It can also be a little overwhelming. Where do you start? If you have a two-hour time limit, what are the highlights you can’t miss? If you’re going with the kids, how do you make sure they don’t get bored and throw a temper tantrum in the middle of the pork tent? It can require some strategy.

The process of creating a video is often very similar. Let’s say you want to do a video for your website about how fabulous your business is. You have two dozen different examples of why your company is better than the competition. But chances are, most people watching the video won’t care about every, single example. And the more examples you give, the longer the video will drag on, and pretty soon some viewers will get bored and move on to the next thing. (It doesn’t help that our attention spans seem to shrink with each passing year.)

The trick for creating a good video is focus. Focus on a few points you want to make and stick to them. Keep it as short and sweet as possible (typically between 90 seconds and three minutes is ideal). Focus on what is visual about your business. What would catch the viewers’ eyes or ears, and get them to perk up and pay attention? Is there something memorable– funny or nostalgic or sad– that would hold their attention for a few more seconds? That, right there, is what it all boils down to: catching and then capturing someone’s attention. You have to get customers in the door before you can make a sale. A good video can get them in the door, by capturing their interest. Once that’s happened, you have time on your side to use other platforms to secure the sale– for instance, the “about” page of your website, where you have unlimited space to list off all the reasons why your business is the best.

Now. Back to the question at hand: what do YOU love about the fair? For me, it’s the onion rings. I just wish they came with a side of TUMS. And a breath mint.

What’s hot

Every time you turn around in the video industry, there is a new toy or a new trend. I’m more than a little obsessed with keeping up with it all. So why not be productive and start blogging about what’s hot and what’s not?

Let’s kick it off this month with Gimbal Stabilizers:

As with all things, I am sure there was a design that has been floating around for quite some time, but a company, Freefly systems, announced its latest piece of tech at last year’s NAB conference, the MoVI. The MoVI utilizes an electronic three axis gimbal system to take all the shaking and bouncing out of your shot. So… really, they just announced a more computerized steadycam system. While I do see some flaws in the design right now, it definitely has some awesome advantages. Here is a behind the scenes video to show you what I mean:

As you can see, it’s versatile and can be easily modified to suit your needs.

With the announcement, everyone and their brother with a little tech knowledge announced their “cutting edge” design. Which essentially meant they copied the exact same set-up, just built it cheaper and are selling it at a fraction of the price (MoVI runs about $15k). That being said, the new-comers are all announcing systems that are only capable of flying a 5D or similar. Some, like these guys, are starting off REALLY small, gearing their set-up towards the likes of GH2 or Black Magic Cinemas Pocket cam.

While I applaud the innovation and am really excited to see where this leads, I see some glaring flaws in the set-up. For one, we shoot EPIC on almost everything. Can you imaging flying a fully kitted-out EPIC on that rig?! That’s nothing but forearms holding it up. Whereas the tried and true steadycam system utilizes springs and counter weights to smooth out the image, meaning you can operate all day without taking the camera off (ok, all day may be an exaggeration, but a 5-minute take is a breeze). That is next to impossible on the MoVI system, or anything similar.

My take: this month it’s hot, but I see it becoming a very specialized set-up that after a year or so becomes very out-dated….. but I guess that’s our industry now.