The first day of my internship, we were shooting a volley ball tournament so basically we had not control over what to shoot. There were a lot of people in this event and the games/matches were spread out in three different locations, the inside of the Pier, the parking lot, and the school across the street. This was my first day there so it was chaotic to shoot and we had to move around with all the equipment like tripods, lens and all that. After a few shoots, I became used to it. Moving across the crowd, changing lens quickly and setting/moving the tripod became a typical day at my internship. When we are not shooting, we are in the office editing the videos and that’s fun too because this is where I learn skills on Adobe Premiere Pro. My major is communication design but this internship focuses on Film/Production but it still helps me built creative designs because a video is design, it’s a vision of someone’s art in a motion picture.
The first thing that I learned is not really a skill but more of tip. The event we were shooting was a volley ball tournament and he told me a tip he calls “fishing”. “Fishing” is like real like fishing, we set the camera at a certain spot and just wait. You wait and hoping something will catch the bait, in other words, hoping something cool or exciting will happen on camera. During the event, John waited at certain spot and waited and waited, until something amazing happened and are relief that it been caught on film. This helps me be patient on the field and gave me insight on how the real world works of shooting film. You can’t capture everything on film but you can catch the best part. You don’t whats gonna happen so that is why you set the bait and wait for something to bite.
At the office, I learn a lot about Adobe Premiere Pro. I knew the basics of the program but John showed me some short cuts and editing tips to make the video better. One feature I use a lot now is the transition called crossfade. Crossfading is a great way to cut one clip to another. I used other effects like color balance or motion steady but Cross fading is something I used in all the videos so far. This helps me transition clips and benefits my film a lot because instead of using the entire raw clip, I can shorten it and combine clips in an almost flawless way.
Another thing I learned is to do interviews. During my first interview shoot which was at an Art Gallery, we were in control of the environment, lighting, sound and the mood of the video. John written down some ideas/questions he wanted to make sure to shoot but he only looked at it once. He made the interviewer comfortable and made it seem like it wasn’t an interview. John, who was behind the camera was asking him questions but then his questions leads into a new topic and then generates a new topic and it just continues. I learned there are many way to do interview and this method made it seem it was a conversation and it captures real responses with face expression, change in voice tone and makes it causal. It wasn’t boring is what I’m trying to say.
I used a camera before and I pretty good at keeping it steady and safe from harm. But with John’s camera I felt uncomfortable using cause it was not mine and very expensive. This is something I learned to overcome. In the real world, there are so many directors and camera man out there fighting to get the best shot, John was one of them. John always told me to stay behind when he wanted to get a better shot even if it meant he was going to run in front of the stage and capture it. I learned to take risk, to get the best shot I needed to have the camera ready and go climb, run, or sneak your way to get that shot. I’m using the camera now but still haven’t gone to that level doing whatever it takes to get that shoot. Hopefully after this internship, this is something I am able to do without any problem.
