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Capturing B Roll

Lesson 10 from: iPhone Filmmaking: From Shoot Through Edit

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Lesson Info

10. Capturing B Roll

With the interview finished, work to capture supporting footage, called B-Roll. In this lesson, you'll learn how to add more visual interest to your shot by recording extra B-Roll during the shoot. Cielo also demonstrates how to use a gimbal to add stabilized camera motion video effects.
Next Lesson: Shooting Creatively

Lesson Info

Capturing B Roll

Now we are going to go into the rest of it, which is B roll getting creative shots and doing Mawr filming, and they were going to go into the editing part. So the next segment is B roll and let's show you the video and then I'll talk more about it after we watch it. So now let's talk about B roll. So Bureau is basically extra footage that shows the different surroundings and just adds more visual interest to the overall interview. The first kind of bureau. I'm going to capture our wide shots, So I want to show the environment in which they work. And so, knowing that I'm going to be walking around, I figured I probably want stable footage, especially. I'm gonna be walking down the stairs and walking up a step or two. So I decided that for those kinds of shots to get those wide walking shots in and out of the spaces, the best way to capture that is by using the skim ble. So this Kimble's by D. J. I. And there are a lot of Gimbels that are out there. This is just the one that I like to us...

e and I am going to be using a wide lens for this one because I want to capture the whole environment. I want to capture the rooms. Okay, so I'm gonna walk around first You wanna do is just locked exposure, cause I can see it changing something a hit record. So I'm gonna hold the gimbal a little bit lower and have it slightly looking up. So it's a little bit more of an impressive shot. And now I'm just gonna slowly walk around and we go, um, you'll notice there's a little bit of the gimbal that you're seeing. That's fine. I'm gonna crop that out. OK, so now I'm gonna just walk street. And then the whole reason for this exercise is to just get a feel for their space. So now I'm gonna walk downstairs, so I'm gonna just keep walking through the room and each of the different spaces because each one is actually really unique. So I think it's really important to be part of their story. So we slowly walk through in a panic a little bit, okay? And then we're gonna walk in the other room, just step down, and then I'm going, Teoh Probably end the shot where their workshop is. So I usually do a couple of takes. Just so I have options because I know at one point very kind of, you know, took the wrong steps. So it's always good to have options. So I'm going to do it one more time and, um, and come around with the same way step town. So there are three main shots that I like to get the wide, the medium and the close up shots. What shots are great for establishing where the scene is happening, and in order to capture that kind of shot. I like to use the moment wide telephoto lens, so this is a great lens. It extends what your phone can capture, and I typically will mount this onto the wide lens of the IPhone. So my IPhone has the two lenses in the back and then to capture the medium shots. I actually don't put anything on my phone. I just shoot it with my phone and I'm shooting with the wide lens off the phone. The medium shots are really good for more of a narrative kind of shot. It tells ah lot of the story because you have some context around, you could see the background, but then you also get to capture your subject a little bit closer. So it tells a lot better with story than, say, a wide shot. And then the last shot I like to capture is the close up shot. And so for that, I like to use the moment telephoto lens and I will usually mount this onto the wide lens of the IPhone. And then sometimes I will put it on. Toothy telephoto blends off the IPhone if I want to get a little bit more reach, and these shots are good for really providing texture and detail around your story. And so I'm really picky about the close up shots that I picked because the close up shots are basically telling your audience what they need to focus on. And usually there's some significance to why they need to look closer at that particular subject that you're shooting. So now I want to capture wide shots of each of the rooms, and I asked Phanom to actually come in here is so that she can interact with their environment, so that makes a little bit more interesting rather than an empty room. So I think I'm going to be pointing it the camera this way and capture her, doing her sketches on the board and then also interacting with the prototypes. And then I asked her to kind of walk off camera. So there's a little bit of action happening. Um, I'm using a tele pot here so I can just hold it still. Um, and I don't need the gimbal, cause I'm not gonna be moving around. So this is the ideal set up for this kind of shocked. And so that's just to show the environment and how phenomena Iraq's with their environment, how she uses a table and what she what kind of work she does on the white board. So now we're in the room where they do a lot of their work on the computers were doing a lot of their designs. So this shot is also very important to their story. So I'm standing here in the corner, kind of as much out of the way as possible, and I've asked them to sit at their computers and just work, um, the way they normally would, so I'm gonna hit record and I'm just not gonna move. So I'm just gonna wait and record. Maybe, you know, like 10 seconds of this pick the best Two seconds. So now we're in the room where they record videos of themselves teaching, and I actually asked them to set it up the way they normally would set it up for when they create the videos. And so we move the tripod in the way here and we don't need to get to long of footage for this one, but just enough to communicate what this room is used for. So as I go from room to room, the exposures always changing. So I'm always fiddling around with my settings and make sure that it's not too bright or not too dark. So I just adjusted it now for this particular room because the other room was really dark. This is the room the Phanom normally just works in by herself. So I asked Martus to step up because this is her room. And so I am going to ask her to maybe interact with some of the bags or, um, just to show how she moves around the space so I'm gonna hit record. And I'm just going to stand here and just observe how Phanom works around her space. It's actually really attempting for me to walk over there right now. Um, but we're going to capture that shot later on when we're doing the medium shots. So that is perfect, actually, that's good. All right. Can I have you working at the sewing machine again? This time, I'm going to be a little bit closer in. Okay, So record nice apiece. And Mom? Ooh, that looks cool. And I'm actually just gonna record So it's a great shot there. So in a capture, a few seconds here and then I'm gonna walk to behind her and do an over the shoulder shot walk, And now we're going to get closer in again so I can see both her hands and her face as she is working on the sewing machine. So I'm gonna come around so I can see her face, not just the back of her head. And so she turned the lineup. So I'm gonna have to adjust the exposure there a little bit. So we need exposure down a little bit. And now we're ready to roll. So now I'm going to do close ups of Phanom working with her hands. Hands are always very interesting. And then you get to see the details of the work that she's doing. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, go ahead, get out of your wing. Right. So she's just getting that piece ready for the sewing machine, and then I'm gonna do a tight close up shot of her at the sewing machines. That's actually really interesting to see the needle going in and out of the leather, so I'm actually as she's cutting us. I also want to capture this. So I am actually going to do a close up of her cutting it. Fascinating. So including pools for him. Stitching these are tools have been around for 200 years. Yes. So what's nice about the way we make bags here? Is that use very old Take weeks. Yeah, and mix them with new missionary, so I'm gonna do a shot of your face. Is any way to kind of your hair? Perfect did that. So this is prepped for hem stitching on the other side on great machines. All right, so now we're gonna show the machine. This is an industrial brown leather solution. And lastly, is it Martus? That's in this room. Okay, I would maybe work with. Yeah. Could you reach for one of the tools or something? It wouldn't make sense to reach 400. Okay, so I'm actually going to shift and try to shoot him from behind. So let me walk around here and capture some of that from the back. All right, So what I'm gonna do now is start capturing the medium shots. And for that, I don't need the wide lands anymore. So I'm actually gonna take that off and we get a closer shot here. So I'm going to show him a lot closer so that I can see both his hands and his face in the shot. So go ahead. Hit record, Okay? And then I'm actually gonna go over his shoulder and see what he is capturing or Mm. Smooth. A little bit and cut. How good. Thank you. Sure. Okay. All right. That's good. And then if you could use the other machine Oh, follow you over there again. It's It's pretty dark over here, so I'm going to have to adjust my settings again, although he does have a little bit that light. A great man. Probably be wearing goggles. I know you know. It's folk. A cool thank you. That was great. I looked really good. Thank you. So there we can put together a whole story. So we have the wide we have the medium and then we have the close up. So the way I owe probably edit this as make it look like it's one moment rather than me, you know, starting and stopping. And so that's the aim for these kind of shots. So now we're going to do close up shots of Nam and Marta's working at their stations. I'm going to focus on their hands, doing what they dio. I'm using the 58 millimeter moment lens, which is a telephoto lens, so that I can capture closer in their hands and other ways that they work. Great. Okay, so now on to do close up of Nam's hands and then of her face, she's working. It's actually a nice were there, So capture a few seconds of that, and then I'm gonna move over to Marta's Martus here, and actually, I'm going to try shooting this way so that the window isn't so bright. So it'll change the exposure a little bit. But first, let me capture it this way, and I'm gonna switch angles around. Okay, so now I'm gonna switch angles around so that the exposure Okay, that's a lot better. The exposures a lot better here. So I'm gonna capture the same shots just from different angle. Capture some of the screen capture. Some of Martus is reactions here. I'm doing great work. And then this is a good shot, actually, because you can see Phanom in the background as he's working. So she's got She's a little bit blurred out, so that's a nice step. The field happening there. Okay. And I'm going to redo phenoms shots, but facing this way as well because the light's better that way. So what do you do? That shot and cut was good. Thank you. That's great. So now for the medium shots, I'm going to take off this leads and what I'm gonna do is capture them again and the lights better this way. So I'm actually gonna shoot from here. So is that an intern do over the shoulder and showing context how this all works together. And then I'm gonna go around and I'm going to shoot um, Phanom from this angle. So here's phenomena on a capture her face. So that's a good medium shot there, A little bit of the monitor. Thera said, get out of the way. So this is good, cause you could see what she's working on now we're gonna do is medium shops of Nam and I'm just gonna have her sketch on the board and I'm gonna do over the shoulder, and then you can kind of see what she's working on in how all these sketches evolved. So I have were kind of on the left so that I can see some of her sketches on the right. And then I'm gonna come around and capture shots of her from this angle so that I could see your face in her hands and because it's bright over there, um, I have to adjust exposure, and then I'm gonna try. Getting a shot from that angle is well, the exposure is a little bit better, so I'm gonna do a few seconds of this and I'm gonna come around so that lights a little bit better. I think so. Now I'm gonna do medium shot of phenoms sketching and then hold it for a few seconds and cut. All right, so now I'm going to do close up shots, and in order to do that, I like to use my telephoto lens, which is the moment 58 millimeter right here. So I'm gonna put it on the IPhone that twisted on so that I have a closer viewpoint of what she's doing on the board. And so I'm going to hit record and doing a close up shot. It really gives you. I like using because it gives you texture. You can see you know how big the strokes are of the marker, and it just get tells a really more detailed story. So, Phanom, if you could do more sketching and I mean, I hit record and now it's a tighter shot. And actually, I'm going to extend this a little bit so that I can anchor it to my body. So it's a lot more steady, Um, and then because when you do tighter shots, you can really notice the shake. So it's really important here to be stable. That And then I'm actually going to change angles and shoot from this from the side and really focus on her hands and her experts sketching here. And I can I'm gonna try to I see what she's issues, sketching what's in her hands. I'm gonna incorporate what she's holding with what she's drawing, and we have a few more seconds of that. Actually, that was really interesting like that. So close up on that. Perfect. So that was plenty of footage to work with. All right, so I feel like a fake working actually could be captured. Some shots of you just fake working with prototypes. Okay, so I'm gonna continue shooting with the tight shots. Perfect. You can follow her along. I actually want to see her face. Actually, can you hold that? I'm gonna so you can actually see the headphones And the by key things cool. All right. So with those three types of shots, you get the whole story together, and when you put them all together, it just really provides a lot of context and detail until it's a really great story. All right, so that was getting B roll. There are three things I want to say about that? The 1st 1 is It's not that choppy when you're filming wide, medium and close up. I typically it's more fluid than that. Usually it's shooting. Why, then you already medium there and then you're already close up. So but for because I was teaching, I broke it up and it was like Now is the wide shot. Here is the medium now, is it? But generally when I'm shooting, it's It's a lot more fluid so that I get all of the action. So when Phanom was at the sewing machine, normally I would go from wide and just follow her and then and then go close. And so I just want a newt that it's not that choppy when you're actually doing it. The second thing I want to know is that you'll notice the footage looks washed out. I was shooting and log mode in filmic pro so log mode not to get to know color expert, but it allows when you shoot in log mode in filmic pro. It allows you to capture more dynamic range, but it has that washed out look. Afterwards. You have to color great it to add back in the color. So luckily, filmic pro and loom effusion or Tuapse that work very well together. So that in loom a fusion of the editing app they have a filmic pro d log that you can apply back onto the footage. So if you're looking like, why's that all look washed out? That's the reason why Because it was all in shot and log, Um, that I had 1/3 point, which I think I'm forgetting the third point. Yeah, so their point is some of the footage was shaky because I was talking as I was filming. So I was talking to the cameras filming, so I actually like a few pieces. I used an app to stabilize. The footage at the APP is called a mole CEO on the on the phone. E M u l s I o. If you have really shaky footage and you need it to be a little more steady, you can use that app to stabilize some of your footage. So I did apply that to some of the things that I captured. Were there any questions on the bureau? Yes. How did you decide whether to capture it in landscape or portrait. That's a good question. I knew, um, that it wasn't going to be on I g TV or it was the platform on which it's going to be on. So that's really good to know ahead of time. Where you going to put this thing? And this was probably either going to be on their website or on YouTube. It wasn't for Instagram I d TV, which are the typical places where you watch portrait vertical video. Good question. Yeah, that was a question that had come up as well was what? If you're trying to do both? How are you managing vertical and horizontal hell for the same types of shots? Two. You start with one and then switch Teoh. I've actually done that. I've done because typically with these shots, especially for a B roll, you don't need to capture minutes, right? Sometimes, for example, her Phanom at the sewing machine I just captured maybe 10 seconds. So it's easy enough for you to flip the phone to Vertical if you really wanted Teoh and record it another 10 seconds of the same. So that's otherwise. I have two phones like Ideo. There's another way, dude, But yeah, it is getting more complicated now with the different ways that you cannot have the phone. Awesome. Um, I did have a question about, um, Todd had asked in a couple of people having a conversation about zooming in and whether that's something that you do or do not do and why, And also in addition to that on sort of the using the native camera app and uh, then that zoom functionality or the two X functionality. So can you talk a little bit about zooming? I tried not to see um, and it's for me. It's better to zoom in the edit than it is to zoom while you're filming. Because it's a digital zoom, it degrades more resume in E. I mean, you could do for yourself. Try it out. Try zooming in. You'll see. It degrades the quality of your video, so I typically don't zoom. If I have to be a little bit more closer, I will add another lens on you can. If you have the phones with the two lenses on the back, you can double up. You can use your, um, your telly lens and then put on the telly moment lesson. You have a little bit more see, but I try to avoid it. But I've told people before, If it's absolutely, really, really important for you to have that in your story, then you have to weigh the pros and cons. Is it okay if you have grainy, You know, it's slightly degreed footage. It's fine. Um, go for it. You know, if it's important to your story. So I say, you know, use your judgment. There's another part to that question. Uh, I think I think something. Something about the native camera using using the zoom functionality within the native camera. Yeah, maybe just versus using? Yeah, Pro. Um, there about So the zoom that the same I like if you were to zoom, which I'm tell you, not Teoh basically in filmic pro. I would probably do the zoo me there because you have control over the speed of which he zoom so you can have a softer know instead of the, you know, jag exhumed that you would have on the regular native camera because he can do that seeming on the name of cameras if you had to pick one, you have a lot more control with your zooming and filmic pro. I want to tie in the shot list to the bureau that we just watch what we captured in the video and you'll see that I checked off pretty much a lot of the things that I have on the shot list. So you didn't see me, But as I was shooting, I was looking back. I printed it out at my document, my shot list, and I was like, Oh, you know, do we still want to do this and then also ordering your the way you capture your footage because you want to be as efficient as possible? You know you don't want Teoh Goto just cause you're capturing medium role medium shots. You don't want to go from room truly what kind of want to everything that you need to do in one room. So everything that we needed to do inside we did inside and then things that we were going to shoot outside. We shot outside, so there was no going back and forth and all of that, so I was trying to be as efficient as possible. So some of these things got reordered But I did make sure Teoh, look at it and see. OK, Did I get this? Get this, That I get this. Okay, um then the next one is The most important thing about the B roll is that you do have a menu of footage to choose from. It's always good to have more. Um, because you don't want to be in the edit and be kicking yourself and say, Oh, you know, that would have been a good shot. So you want different shots? So you saw me shooting the same thing from different angles, right? From different vantage points sometimes is pointing out sometimes I was pointing down, so you just could Sometimes when you're editing, you want things to flow a certain way. If things were going a certain direction So you wanna film the same thing, but maybe film it different ways, different angles, different speeds, different directions. So that's always good to practice. Okay, um and then make sure to film whatever makes the story or subject unique. So, um, for this shoot, the three d printer was very important. That made them unique, I think just the rooms themselves that really made the agency unique. So Ah, it was making sure as I went through as I did the beer, uh, went through my shot list. I made sure that all the new things that I saw that I didn't know about prior to creating the shot lists that I did capture that.

Ratings and Reviews

Chrystelle Hadjikakou
 

Being a beginner in all things video, watching this live class left me excited to try out a lot of things on my iPhone, not to mention I learned loads. Cielo showed us the full process from shot listing to gear to preparing the shoot and then shooting and editing, which was very enlightening, also I want to thank the people who were on the chat, because sharing tips and tricks was great too! Thank you for the awesome work!

Linda
 

This class was great! Cielo offered really good information. It was probably more than I needed since I am a beginner, but it inspired me to try and use it for the simple reasons I took the course. But it also showed me what is possible and how I can eventually upgrade what I am doing. It's good for people who are really into photography and telling the story of entrepreneurs (which is so important these days) can use their photography skills to help business owners stand out whether it's your side hustle or main career.

Greg Bird
 

I just finished the class and I enjoyed it quite a bit. It is perfect for someone like me just starting out and I recommend this class to anyone interested in making mobile videos. I look forward to diving into the more extensive editing course next. Thank you!

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