My son, aged 21, has been asked to do a video CV. Apparently these are very much the thing these days – just like recorded auditions back when I was helping to find a kid’s presenter in the ’80s. I watched around 200 awful pieces made on BetaSP for No Limits, and then someone else found Philip Schofield.
These days of course you can do it on your phone or your laptop/tablet webcam, as Robin was telling me. “You don’t have to go all professional”. But of course I can’t have my son looking a plonker – I’d look a plonker too, when people found out what I did for a living, though I must admit that I haven’t done much of that stuff lately, I’ve spent lot more time writing various computer code projects and building my O gauge copy of 41312.
One thing I was lucky with a while back was not letting the BBCs first purpose built DV kit go on the skip with the others I made. It came home here and was much used on BBC projects and training till I left and then it just sort of stayed here. The VX1000 continued in use till the pictures were the wrong shape. I’ve had thoughts on willing the stuff to the Science Museum but they don’t seem to be much good with history these days. Perhaps they are just overwhelmed.
So I started digging around in here for the gear I needed, and part way through realised again just how things have advanced in no time at all. The SD card I recorded on holds enormously more information that the 2″ tapes I spent years heaving around the TC basement in the 70s and 80s.
It isn’t sensible to record 4:3 on a VX1000 any more, but a few years ago I bought a Canon Legria HF S100. Records in 16:9 HD, a bit better than a webcam, but the top mic really isn’t the tool for the job even if all those people on YouTube think it is. Back when we started with miniDV we discovered that the digital recording system on DV tape was pretty good, but getting pro sound onto it was a bit of a pain. I’m the only producer I know to have booked a soldering iron out of TC stores in order to make up an adaptor from 2x XLR to 3.5mm jack. A while after that, a Canadian company called Beachtek started making a proper adapter, and Beach boxes were much used till the camera manufacturers caught up with who was using their gear.
My Canon Legria, being just a palmcorder, needs the Beach box, and I can’t find it. It’s sat here for 20 years with occasional use and now I CAN’T FIND IT! I spent a whole chunk of yesterday hunting and finally gave up. I certainly wasn’t going to use the top mic, so somehow I had to find another way. Separate sound it would have to be, with clapper board – well, clap, anyway – and syncing in the edit just like back in the Pres film cutting room a long time ago. Stashed in the back of the cupboard was a Tascam US144 magic box bought on eBay years ago. It takes XLR and midi in, and gives you USB out. Sort of like the Playschool useful box, and even has phantom power. Another eBay find was a Stagg microphone, a £30 Chinese rip off of a Neumann U87. For voice it’s amazing. I’ve never played with a U87 but I bet it’s difficult to tell the difference. So – connect them to the laptop and run Audacity (it’s free folks!) and the sound was sorted apart from a slightly more fiddly edit.
Lighting next, and the leftovers of the BBC first trip into DV came in useful again. We had needed simple very lightweight lighting kits, and I (the BBC) had bought three Lowell Reporter two lamp kits, as much used in the US. The others are gone – I condemned one myself after someone had packed it up whilst still hot and melted the mains cable. This last kit is here and looked after and has done a lot of work for the BBC and subsequently. I have a standard interview setup – keylight is a reflector brolly and backlight has a half CT blue. Sets up in a few minutes and is cool enough to take apart when you’ve finished thanking the interviewee. A dining room chair against a plain wall in the bedroom, the not-Neumann on a cheap rubbish mic stand that I bought also on eBay, the laptop on the clothes box from the bathroom, and the camera on the original DV kit tripod bought from HiWay Hifi in Tottenham Court Road in 1996. Turnover, clap, boy talks – rather well I was surprised to find. Two takes and we’re done.
Several years ago I discovered that academics could come by large amounts of Adobe software for not much money and paid £300 for stuff including Photoshop, Premiere, After Effects and quite a bit more. Being a slightly academic these days, I was eligible. So, the SD card comes out of the camera and into the reader on the main computer. Meanwhile the audio on the laptop is exported from Audacity across the home network to a folder on the same machine. Open Premiere, sync up the clap and we’re watching the result in ten minutes.
How things have changed…… how will they change?
Bernie 18th February 2016
PS Skilled copywriter needs job –
