Shooting Video for the Web

requires a more limited set of techniques than shooting for tape.
The key is knowing what techniques to limit. By Logan Kelsey and Jim Feeley

 To shoot good Web video, just do the exact opposite of what the Blair Witch
 Project filmmakers did. All that hand-held Hi8 shaky-cam shot in extremely
 low light may have generated millions of dollars, but it won't generate good
 Web video. Those hapless film students chose both the wrong equipment and
 the wrong techniques. If you have experience shooting professional video, then
 you already have the skills needed to shoot good Web video. The trick is
 knowing what not to do.

 Lighting
 Hard light is bad; soft light is good. That's the key concept. You don't want
 complex shadows, contrast, or hotspots All those glints and dark corners are
 details that increase image complexity and burden the compression algorithm.
 You want nice, smooth, even light. The more even the light, the better it will
 compress. Think "Doris Day" rather than "Godfather." Your goal is to diffuse
 your light sources as much as possible. Outdoors, use bounce cards to
 minimize hard shadows. Indoors, use a soft light such as those from Chimera,
 Cool-Lux, and others. Avoid on-camera lights. They tend to create hotspots.
 If you must use an on-camera light, use some diffusion fabric on the light to
 help soften it. A typical three-point lighting kit with a soft light will be able to
 handle many situations. Web video lighting concepts are simple, but mastering
 them is complex.

 Framing and backgrounds
 Web video is small. It isn't a Cinemascope viewing experience. Therefore,
 sweeping panoramas-a la Laurence of Arabia-aren't going to work. Web video is
 viewed on at small size, so you'll want to shoot as many close-ups as possible.
 Tight shots let viewers recognize the faces and objects they are being shown.
 So, in most of your shots, keep the camera tight on your subject. Because a
 Web video frame is so small, lower-third titles require a greater percentage of
 the screen's real estate. During shoots, make sure to frame your shot in such
 a way that there's room for big lower-thirds below your head shots. This
 requirement can make it hard to frame a shot the way you want to. But the
 alternative can potentially lead to a lower-third intrud-ing on your subject's face.
 
 The best solution is to establish which shots need lower-thirds-and if these titles
 will run outside the Web video frame-during preproduction. Along with framing
 your shots, you need to consider your background. Again, detail is the enemy.
 You want to avoid fancy lighting and extraneous detail on the background.
 Sorry-no leafy trees blowing in the wind. But avoiding extra detail doesn't mean
 every background needs to be dull and plain. You can keep your backgrounds
 easy to compress but still interesting in other ways. The most useful is by
 throwing your background out of focus. A short depth of field and plenty of space
 between your subject and the background will result in smooth enough imagery
 to allow for both a little style and good compression.

 Motion
 Extraneous motion is a main enemy to successful Web video shooting. While
 well-crafted camera motion can be a hallmark of good video production, it's the
 enemy of good Web video. With Web video, elaborate camera work will detract
 from, not enhance, the message being delivered. For the Web, you must
 eliminate all unnec-essary motion, both within your field of view and from the
 camera itself.
 
 High-motion action, such as in sports or even while your subject is walking,
 causes each new frame of your video to hold significantly different information
 than previous frames. Your Web codec will waste valuable bits on keyframes
 describing all that motion, rather than spending them on improving details your
 care about. Try to keep your subject, whether human or inanimate, as stationary
 as possible. Keep your camera stationary, too. Don't zoom, pan, and tilt when a
 static shot can work as well. When Logan Kelsey shot an interview with mountain
 bike pioneer Joe Breeze, he taped a particular scene once with a slow zoom and
 again with a locked-down camera. When compressed for the Web, the
 locked-down shot yielded much higher image quality.

 In that case, Logan decided the zoom was extraneous motion. You can see both
 the static and the moving shots of Joe Breeze on www.dv.com. But don't make
 every shot locked off. You need to find a balance between acceptable motion
 and decreased image quality. While too much hand-held, high-motion, Web
 video will result in poor content, endless, stationary, talking heads will result
 in dull content.

 Use a tripod
 A stable camera solves one-third of the problems associated with shooting Web
 video. Keep your camera mounted on a tripod for as many shots as possible.
 A locked-down camera helps make each frame as similar as possible to those
 before and after, thus minimizing the image degradation introduced by
 compression...

 Content still rules
 One of these days, we'll all have broadband Web access and Web video will be
 superior to NTSC and PAL. Then we'll be able to shoot for the Web with the same
 flexibility and creativity we can use when shooting for broadcast, film, or tape.
 For now, the Web is a more limited video beast. But despite Web video's
 limitations and potholes, if your content's compelling enough, your audience will
 forgive a few technical flaws.

 Logan Kelsey runs Vertical Online (www.verticalonline.com), a San Francisco-based
 production and postproduction studio focusing on Internet, CD-ROM, and broadcast
 work. You can reach him at logan@verticalonline.com .