If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Matt Mullenweg of wordpress fame recently did an interview with the Yahoo Developer network. This video could have been better.

As usual in my improve series, I’m not going to talk about the content, but the technical side.

The goods

They used a tripod, they used proper white balance.

Nice to have some opening graphics, it gives the whole piece more weight. Though for my feeling, the title should have the same graphic feel and sound as the opening graphic.

Camera

There is way too much headspace. Tilt down a bit. Or even better: use 16:9 widescreen format, which works much better for 2 persons.

Change perspective. Flat on is usually boring. In an interview situation, I would move the camera so we see more of the interviewee’s face, while getting the interviewer more in profile.

Get closer. When you see that a person is talking for a longer time, zoom in. Preferably, have one camera locked on a two shot, and then have a second operated camera, that zooms in — and follows — the interviewee. Thus you can cut between those two, hiding those ugly zooms. If need be, then close-ups of the interviewer can be shot right after the interview.

Watch your background. White background is about the worst for a camera, it draws attention. Jeremy’s head gets almost lost in the background.

Sound

This is the weirdest miking I have seen in a while One huge attention-drawing microphone on the interviewer, and one tiny lavaliere mike on Matt, where no effort was made to hide the cable.

Interviewer and interviewee really should have the same type of microphone, otherwise it just looks ridiculous. Preferably a lavaliere — this would also help the informal atmosphere. And a lavaliere that is hidden under the sweater. If you don’t have time for that, put the wire behind the back of the interviewee.

If you have to use two totally different mikes, do us the favor and use 10 seconds to even those microphone levels in-camera. As it is now, Jeremy is way louder than Matt. If anything, the interviewee should be loudest.

Walter Moss from the Wall Street Journal is one of the most influential technology journalists, and a while back he started a blog, the Mossblog. Currently he is obviously at CES, where he and his team post written and video blogs. Here is today’s offering:

Ouch!

Given his professional, technical background, I am truly surprised at the poor technical quality of the video. I am not even going to start about the camerawork, or utter lack of white balancing; in a reportage the sound is obviously most important. And in this video, sorry to say, the sound sucks. It sucks bad. To help Walter and the Wall Street Journal, I thus suggest that we equip him with some proper gear. I would suggest to equip Walter with

• a Sennheiser MD 46 mike to pick up the interviewee’s words without too much background noise
• a wireless lavaliere microphone to wear
• a manual for the camera, outlining how to set the sound level

Let’s do it

To do this, I need your help.

If you would like to help technology writer Walter Moss to present his work in a technical acceptable way, please write in a comment and pledge how much you will donate. And spread the word. Once $200 are pledged, I will get in touch with Sennheiser and see if they could help out on the missing amount.

The workload over here is still way too high to write proper entries, so I give you, my dear reader, once again the chance to ask me any* question about film/video/tv, and I shall do my best to answer.

(* excluding explanations of what the Circle of confusion is. Or might be. There is a reason it is called just that; I once thought I understood it, but was proven to be wrong. I know what it’s implications mean for my line of work, I just don’t get the physics behind it.)

I’ve always loved mathematics, and graphics. But that the latter can be used to solve problems of the former in such a simple way as displayed in the following video (via gr8egypt and thinking blog) is somewhere between cool and freaky:

Like last week, a really cool video, content wise. Let’s improve it.

4 free improvements

• White balance – part of the beauty of this film is its simplicity. White should be white, not some orangish. Take a clean sheet of paper, fill the whole frame with it, put it out of focus, and do a manual white balance. Voilá, suddenly white actually looks white.
• Camera angle – again, to amplify the simplicity of this concept, point the camera directly downwards. Since most tripods cannot do that, you can always fake it by having the base tilted. That way you also get a comfortable writing position.
• Sound – a picture speaks a thousand words, but that doesn’t mean that a picture has to be silent. Use a sound that plays with the idea of simplicity. Maybe just the pen writiing. Maybe a simple piano tune. Maybe someone whistling. Use the freedom.
• Framing/composition – fill the whole frame with white paper, the upper edge only distracts. KISS.

BTW, a quick way of doing calculations in the web 2.0 age, is to just punch the equation into google. I.e. “367 * 873″ and enter. Voilá.

Starting today, I’ll have a new offer on my blog. Often I come across really good video blogs, or other video films on the net, made by enthusiastic people. Some have amazing content, others are funny, and others again are just plain honest. What all too many of them have in common is that they could be easily improved. From time to time I shall pick out one video I enjoyed (and I am open for suggestions) and come up with some possible technical remedies.

I’ll kick off with Commoncraft’s excellent explanation for us non-nerds about what RSS is, and how it works. (Via Doug and Dawud.) I’ve been seeing RSS buttons everywhere, and have been told many times as to how cool and great they are, but before I had never understood the concept, nor its benefits for me. Now, I am enlightened. So, content-wise a fantastic video. Lets make it even better.