Once we got our shot count up I wanted to focus on
transitions. We have always used dissolves, mainly because I believe
cuts are jarring, I still believe this.
Please note
that is my opinion
not a rule, lots of churches use cuts all the time and it works for them
and that is great, for us it's not what I wanted. Also on our switcher
cuts are actually harder to do then dissolves, more on that in gear.
We use almost
exclusively dissolves,with the dissolve time varying based on the speed of the song. This is, I
think, a little dangerous because you can't just dissolve
between any 2 subjects. (also an opinion not a rule) Making good
cross dissolves requires
intentionality to look good, if not the resulting transition is VERY
distracting. To combat this we embraced push-through or push-past
transitions. I strive to keep our cameras always in motion, and when we
get it right the transitions are almost not really there because as one
shot ends another is coming on.
Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up (I get points somewhere for that right?)
The
first shot ends when the camera op has zoomed or moved past the
subject. For example, if a camera op has a close up of a guitar he may
move the camera up the neck of the guitar, once he reaches the end he
will continue the move opening up a large negative space. If we are
doing things right, that space will be occupied by the subject of the
following shot. This gives our IMAG a very fluid and more artistic
feel, making it overall less jarring and as a result less distracting
(which should be the entire motivation for any tech guy) It's also a
little dangerous because it is really easy to mess up the timing.
However, I was of the opinion that if our camera ops were not going to
take safe shots the least I could do is not make safe transitions.
One
the functional side I strove to keep the shots bigger on screen than
they are on stage. Compromises had to be made because of the last
influence, gear.
Our gear had more influence on our
style then I would have liked, that said I think many churches have made
a point of making sacrifices in gear, due to budget, that have dictated
lots of their decisions. We are no different, and the more TD's I meet
the more I discover it's really status quo. It probably should be,
tech isn't cheep and at 30,000 ft it's an easy thing to make a big cut
in favor of LOTS of other things in the budget.
I digress
Our
switcher also makes dissolves vs. cuts a little problematic. It's
actually tougher to make a cut on our switcher, so it influenced our use
of dissolves. Also we take wide shots, not because I want to, but
because to keep the fluid continuing movement, it works in my favor if
the camera is zooming from tight to wide, thus continuing the movement,
over holding a static shot. We only currently have 5 cameras (yes I am aware I said ONLY 5 when most churches have NONE)
Of those 3 are manned 1 is static of the worship leader, and one is
strictly for multi-site/overflow unmanned and locked down, not used for
IMAG at all. With this style everyone moving and only 3 manned cameras,
needing shots every 3-5 seconds, leaves me as the director waiting
often times. We do have a static bail, it kinda breaks the flow but if
the transitions continue on the right pace it's not terrible. Our on
stage cameras are prosumer and don't have CCU, so we have color and iris
issues most of the time, I am hoping to correct that in the next budget
year or 2
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