hIGHLIGHTS FROM OUR TOP TIPS NEWSLETTER

 

TIPS FOR LEADING THROUGH DIFFICULT TIMES

Getting the best out of your people has never been so critical given the current climate. The talent that works with you need to be better equipped to deal with more responsibilities, smarter thinking and being multi-skilled simply to keep projects and businesses going. 

Here, Alec McPhedran, who delivers the 01zerone’s highly successful Leadership and Management for the Creative Industries gives us a few ideas to think about for leading people through difficult times.

 

Give clear direction. Amazingly, many people working for employers, be it full time, part time, on a contract or freelance still do not actually understand who they are working for or what they are trying to achieve. Many business owners or managers know exactly what the purpose of the business is and it’s unique values yet typically fail to pass it on to those they pay to work with and represent them. People actually enjoy knowing what must be done and working to objectives. What needs to be done, by when, how and within what timescales is a simple guide to communicating clear direction.

 

Develop your talent. When times are tough, training budgets and time is normally the first thing to go. Fair enough because training isn’t actually what it’s about. It’s how do you give people new knowledge and skills that may or may not require training. Every day, you have coaching and mentoring opportunities, on the job training that can be delivered.  Take time out to explain what you are doing, coach them on how to do other things and support their development. Do you want to be an employer of choice? You determine that.

 

Tap into the creativity. You don’t have to have all the ideas. In the creative industries we are surrounded by fantastic people with a wealth of ideas. It a resource you have readily available. Run brainstorming sessions, creative thinking meetings or De Bonos Six Hats for looking at ideas with a new slant. The talent and ideas are around you. Are you using it to your advantage?

 

Praise and reward success. When things are difficult, we tend to be too busy checking problems didn’t arise and then cracking on with the next project. When was the last time you said ‘Well done’ for a good job? A word of thanks goes a long way. The top motivators can be used to reward success. It actually isn’t salary that is top of the list. A feeling of achievement is. You can make that happen. Other things like praise for good work, career development and personal growth all sit in the top five motivators. Catch people doing things well and point it out. It makes a big difference.

All of the above topics are covered during the workshop with a view to help business leaders and managers return to their day jobs and continue to make a big difference.

  

TIPS FOR PRODUCERS WHO NEED TO SHOOT HDV:

Melissa is a camera operator and DP whose camera credits include Tim Burton's Corpse Bride and an Arctic Monkeys video - here are a few basics from her Z1 Shooting Skills course aimed at producers or other non camera staff:

"The main controls that you can operate manually are sound, focus, aperture, shutter, gain control and white balance - but you don't have to start using all of them at once. In certain situations, the Z1 can work well on its automatic settings. However, this allows the camera to make creative decisions that you may not choose yourself: where the point of focus is, what the white balance should be and how bright the image is. We've all seen how cameras can search around for focus or how the image can become obviously brighter or darker mid-shot when the sun comes in and out. Initially take on one new control at a time, depending on how confident you feel."

"Focus - in an interview situation you have more control and your subject won't be moving around too much, so it can be a good time to practise manually taking focus. This is done by zooming into the point where you want the focus to be, turning the focus ring on the front of the camera until your subject is in focus and then zooming out again. Don't forget to flick the focus switch to manual"

"White balance - can be taken off any well illuminated area of white that can be used to fill the frame (eg, an A4 piece of paper). But be aware of what you are using to illuminate your area of white. If you take the white balance in the shade on a sunny afternoon, the colour temperature will be very cool/blue. The camera will therefore cancel out the blue tones by warming everything up.

If your subject is standing in the sun, this warming-up may cause their skin tones to look too orange. On other occasions you may want to 'cheat' the white balance to create a certain look. Again, these are creative choices at your disposal."

"Operating the camera manually can initially seem daunting on top of everything else you may have to think about on the day of your shoot. However, your results will be vastly improved and with a little practice it will become second nature. Camerawork is all about the creative choices you make which help you to tell the story the way you want the audience to see it.

It's easy to use the camera automatically, but sometimes you know best, not the camera! Handily, the Z1 has features aimed at helping to make shooting manually easier, which gives you the chance to make your own decisions and tell a better story."

  

Top tips for how to compress your footage effectively

 

Here we have Simon Walker’s Essential Tips on how to compress your footage effectively for internet, mobile and broadcast. Simon teaches on our Optimising and Compressing Course taking place on 21-22 July at 01zero-one in Soho. Our two day course will show you the best methods to ensure you keep the quality of your work, quickly and professionally.

Your 5 Essential Tips on how to compress your footage effectively

  • Use proper compression software. Lots of software on your computer will export video, but there's a reason that Apple includes Compressor in the Final Cut Studio suite. Compressor has many more options than Final Cut Pro when exporting and there are settings that can really help make your final files look great. Also, once you've got your settings organised, Compressor does a great job of speeding up your workflow.
  • Export once. Wait until the end of your project before exporting. Every time your save your video into another format, it's being re-compressed, a bit like making a photocopy of a photocopy. Some web videos look poor because they've been compressed several times. Compression is designed to make the file size smaller, but you can still make it look better by compressing from the highest resolution you're working with.
  • Use the right codecs. Edit in ProRes I frame rather than H.264 IBP frame, as it's more accurate and will speed up your renders. Erm ,what? Don't worry, we go through some of the technical aspects in the course (I frame, IBP frame, 10-bit, colour space, resolution, data-rate, keyframes), and how to set these up so you can use them as templates. We also go through workflows that included different frame-rates (for example, how to edit that lovely footage you recorded on your shiny new Canon EOS 5D Mark II).
  • Test as you go along. Final Cut Pro has technology to leverage the hardware in your Mac to make multiple formats look great in the Canvas Window. But the real test is what it looks like after it's been exported. So test this out on short clips as you are working, before the deadline. This will help you identify any problems, and avoid last-minute headaches.
  • Set your Mac up to render faster. By default, Compressor doesn't use all the processors in your super-fast MacPro. But once you set up the Qmaster in system preferences (don't worry, this isn't complicated to do, and we show you how to do it), your videos will compress faster using Distributed Processing, leaving you with extra time for... well, more work!

Simon teaches on our Optimising and Compressing Course taking place on 21-22 July at 01zero-one in Soho. This course will give editors and post production staff the ability to utilise content to its maximum benefit across different platforms and to different briefs. It covers technical information about the best exporting methods (codecs and compression). As well as Creative issues about Multipurposing content for different platforms. Delegate Prerequisites: Existing editors that are required to increase their skill-set to complement their main editing tasks

For full details about the skills you would develop visit http://www.01zero-one.co.uk/course_multiplatform_edit.htm

 
 

TIPS FOR RECORDING INTERVIEWS:

 

Simon Walker from our Internet Film Making course with his essential tips on recording interviews you can use online - obviously his course goes into much more detail than we could fit in here, but just to get you started:

"Lighting, lighting, lighting! If you have limited time for setting up a lighting kit, or you're having to operate without lights, try to reposition your subject near to a light source, or near to (but not right in front of!) a window. A Lastolite reflector can really help in adding a fill or second light source. Modern cameras are great at recording in low light, but the downside is that they add grain into the picture, and of course grain equals noise. When you try to compress a noisy image for the web, it increases the file size and reduces the image quality."

"Use a tripod. If you're planning to compress video for the internet, the more stable your image, the better it will look. The more that pixels change from frame to frame, the more work the video compression software has to do, and lots of camera movement usually reduces the quality of the encoding. Alternatively, if you've been given a clip to edit with shaky camerawork (or have to go hand-held), have a look at the SmoothCam filter in Final Cut Pro. It's great for stabilising

footage, and can also be used to add a echo affect to your clip."

"Look after your sound and get a proper mic. Don't rely on the on-board camera mic - the best way to isolate your subject from any background noise is to use a tie-clip mic. Once you've got your subject sounding clear, watch the recording levels so that they're not too high, otherwise they'll clip and start distorting (wear headphones when recording!). Whilst your audience is more forgiving about pixelated video, they'll stop listening if they can't hear the sound clearly."

"Think about screen size. Those lower-third captions may look great on your monitor, but consider having to read then on a 3-inch screen. Similarly, the nice large titles you've superimposed at the start of your clip will dominate the screen when viewed at a smaller size. Test view your final video at several sizes to simulate what it looks like on different devices - eg, 480x270 pixels is the best resolution for the iPhone and iPod touch."

"Upload in the right format. YouTube currently encodes its videos using the H.264 codec so, to avoid the video being re-compressed after you've uploaded it (and also to keep the file size down), export your clip to an MP4 file or QuickTime movie using the same H.264 codec. Also, don't change the native frame-rate: if you've shot the footage at 25fps, then keep that as the frame-rate for the uploaded file (which will help keep the audio in sync with the picture once it's online)."

 

For more information please call Erik on 0207 0251988

01zero-one designs bespoke training for TV, Film, Interactive and New

Media, Games and Digital Design industries.