tiny vipers at kexp

this was the highlight of my week. chatting with jesy fortino before her set at kexp. i have a lot of respect for musicans who manage to fold time and space with mere sound waves. communicating these feelings are hard enough but also to get into that headspace where you are capable of accessing them. amazing. tiny vipers is not just another girl with acoustic guitar singer songwriter shindig.

KEXP inStudio 11.1 from More Dust Than Digital on Vimeo.

i had no part of this shoot. i think i might have handed someone an extention cord but i was a happy bystander of a professional set up.

some things i might have done differently? maybe fewer cuts. i like the static shots, sometimes inconventionally framed. my only biggest complaint is silly but, i don't like the camera on the other side of the microphone. i know most people don't think it looks wrong but to me its jarring.

i like the wide shot that is kind of washed out while the other shots don't really match. i believe the wide shot was captured with a different camera. these mixed media shoots are tricky. more tricky than you'd think unless you've tried it before.

more dust than digital is a seattle based video production company in the university district. they volunteer their expertise to kexp and i would love to work for them!

shane tutmarc at kexp

i volunteer with jim beckman once a week at kexp. its a great opportunity to practice shooting video because he's happy to get any help, open to new ideas and quite patient when those ideas don't work.

he and i shot this video together on canon xha1 cameras.



i had problems with the manual setting here and i am embarassed by the results.

using manual settings can be tricky but it is not hard if you think strategicly about what each of the settings does and how you might adjust them to best serve your situation. to take the weight off the thinking, make a system for yourself and stick to it.

first i set the shutter. this setting limits the durration of time that any frame is exposed to light. too long, and the frame appears smudged and overexposed. too short, and the frame is dark. for most situations, i find the 1/60 or 1/90 to be good enough.

then i set the gain. this is how the camera works in low light situations and it works kind of like selecting an iso for film. more gain is like a higher iso. the picture looks exposed but it will also look grainy. best to stick with the lowest iso you can.

finally, the f stop. smaller the number, bigger the appature. a big appature (f2.8) will let in more light while a small appature (f16) will have a much more open depth of field.

my mistake in making this video is, i did not think about ballancing all of the zones of the scene. i set the exposure not thinking that the scene was unevenly lit. so there are parts that are very dark. nothing looks overly exposed so this tells me i set the exposure for the most lit part of the scene. big mistake!



complains about the camera: not sure if the lense can hold a focus. also, too heavy for hand held but center of gravity won't allow shoulder mount.