While I had used a camera before in a
previous class, I was still extremely rusty and was very unsure of
myself when it came to using one. It was not until class when we
started going over the basics that I started to overcome my fear of
this expensive piece of equipment. It was just like Johanna E.
Katchen said when talking about the reluctance of using a camera, you
should realise that “a
video camera is just a machine.” One that I could successfully
operate with enough practice.
My
partner on my assignment and I took out the camera and started
practising with it. We started pretending we were doing interviews
and a mock piece to camera. We started to gain more confidence. As I
went to my first interview, the setting up took a little bit longer
then I would have hoped. Luckily my interviewee was extremely
understanding. I had the focusing right, the white balance was
looking great, the shot of her was in frame perfectly. There was one
problem. The lighting was horrible. For some reason, no matter how
much light we put on her, not matter how many curtains we opened or
how high I put the gain, it was dark. And to make matters worse, the
camera was flashing a ¼ sign, indicating that I needed to put the
filter on. I didn't because I thought that was ridiculous, it was way
too dark already. Needless to say when I got to the editing room and
looked at the footage, it was so dark it was just about unusable. So
I talked to the brilliant tech guys that lent out the cameras and he
soon explained to me that the iris was probably closed too much and
that was why it was so dark. From then on I learnt my lesson and the
images were no longer dark. I started to become a lot faster at
setting up the equipment and now feel extremely confident with the
camera. It all just came down to practice.
References
Katchen,
JE 1991, 'Using the Video Camera to Improve Speaking and Performance
Skills', Papers
from the eighth conference on English language teaching and learning
in the Republic of China, no.
8, pp. 531-540.
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