lancecarr12 's List: This Week's Picks

One of the "rules" of both photographic and video shooting is the the Rule of Thirds.

Simply put it means that you place your subject or the main focus of the frame at a point to the left or right third of that frame leaving the other two thirds more open.

You can read more about following and braking that rule here: Breaking Composition Rules in Video https://diyvideoeditor.com/breaking-composition-rules-in-video/

ONe particular breaking of that rule is to have the subject constantly centered in the frame and by doing so a slightly surreal aspect is introduced.

One of the best proponents of the is Wes Anderson who just loves him some center framing!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xnr-a8myHI4

This is a video that is quite obviously operating at a level that you and I are probably not operating at!

However I wanted to add it to this week's Friday Roundup because although the techniques may be a little out of reach, the concepts behind them are major and basic.

We have probably all heard the statement that the most important part of video is audio and this video really shows how that works for real.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soAMDF0DpPU

I would like think that my journey in creating reasonably good looking footage for social media content was like a sailing trip through the Bahamas... but that's not how it really went!

It was probably more like a lost and panicked meltdown in the swamps of Louisiana but fortunately I managed to get there in the end.

My two main bugbears when I look back on it all were lighting and audio with most of the other problems I had stemming from one of those two.

I spent hours (weeks?) faffing around with trying to deaden the sound in the place I was videoing before I finally worked out that if just used a modern lav mic with noise cancelling, I didn't need to do any of that!

I use this one Hollyland Lark M2 (https://amzn.to/4mhKCxz) and of course there are others and I could spend more hours researching in circles but at the end of the day it really does the job.

The other big problem was that although I had a good camera to shoot with, my footage always looked kinda bad.

Again I faffed around with all sorts of settings in the camera and other stuff all to no avail.

Ultimately I discovered I had a lighting problem and not a camera problem and that the answer to that problem was a pro level light on a stand with a softbox.

My choice at the time and what I am using today is this light, the Godox SL60W (https://amzn.to/4a5ZhHF) on a solid lighting stand (https://amzn.to/4g5BD1p) with a Wellmaking 34" Softbox (https://amzn.to/43YC4Dq)

Once I started using that setup, my life became so much easier!

So the thing with softboxes is that there are a gazillion choices out there as far as size, shape and price go so in the video below you can see some choices but more importantly, why certain features may or may not apply to your video style.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHJNIhwJii4

Well in a move that shocked absolutely no-one, Casey Faris has just release his updated Resolve Course for Beginners.

Similarly unsurprising it is of course free!

Generally speaking Casey does this either annually after Resolve has been updating for s while or whenever a new full version is released.

This one is as a result of DaVinci Resolve moving from version 20 to 21 with the public release Resolve 21 coming out of Beta in the past week or so.

If you are using Resolve or if you are considering switching to it as your editing program then this is definitely the video for you.

For those that are already using the program this isn't just an intro to any of the new features or changes to settings etc.

It is great way to take a fresh look at the program from a pro's perspective and maybe learn a few new tricks or, like me, find out there was always a much easier way to do something!

For anyone new to Resolve then this is a no brainer.

There is simple no way you can kind of "stumble around" the DaVinci Resolve user interface and think that somehow you are going to end up working it all out!

There is simple too much going on in there for that to ever happen and all you will probably do is deepen the confusion!

Casey is a great teacher and is always careful to explain things thoroughly as he moves along.

On top of that he also provides free access to download all the assets he uses for each step so you can follow along as he goes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjxiH2Tm4JE