Taos Multimedia

Using a digital photography green screen is easy. The screens are used in both still photography and videos although it's more common in video photography.

First off, you need an actual green screen. Despite the name, this can be either green or blue in color. The choice of color will largely be dictated by what you are photographing as you want to make it easy for your software to isolate the intended image with you.

Purpose made green screens are readily available from around $20. You can look for them in places like eBay, Amazon or your local photo store. Alternatively, you can make your own from fabric or even by painting a roll of paper. So long as the color is consistent, you'll be fine.

Lighting is always a key issue in cinematography. While it's not challenging to learn, but you must learn to see lighting issues right away. Lighting for film is always very tricky and it's absolutely necessary to use a light meter. With film there is a question of the color of the light as well.

With video, the problems with shadow, glare, and color temperature, become much easier to deal with. Film may be challenging, but when it is lit and shot properly it's heaven. That said, in the beginning it is probably more feasible and realistic to shoot with a digital video camera.

Digital video has only been around for a relatively short period of time yet some of the latest models have quite a long list of features. Lets look at some of those features.

One major component of the video camera is the CCD or charge coupled device which acts like the film in the old film type video cameras except it works by capturing the light that falls on it and converting it to electrical signals. It is made up of a grid of individual pixels where each pixel represents a pixel in the captured image.

The more pixels the camera uses the higher the resolution of the image it produces. The CCD quality is also measured by how much light it takes to produce an image which is measured in lux. The lower the lux rating the less light needed and therefore the better the images will be in low light situations.

Thanks to Apple, complete amateurs can make impressive video productions and share them with friends on DVDs. All that is needed is a digital video camera, a Macintosh computer with a Superdrive (one which will burn DVDs), and the iLife suite of applications which normally come with Macs, and of course, a bit of good taste and discretion. This I know from actual experience, and I’ll try to share how it can be done.

In February of 2003, monks from Atma Jyoti Ashram, a small Hindu monastery in Southern California, went on a pilgrimage to India, visiting holy places throughout the country. Being lovers of India, we wished to record outstanding events from out journey so we could share them with friends and relive them ourselves through our videos and photos. We took over twenty hours of video in our two month sojourn, and when we returned, we faced the task of editing the footage to make viewing more manageable.

When doing an interview there need to be at least three people involved. The person being interviewed, you, the interviewer and someone to work the camcorder. It could be argued - I would so argue - that an extra person to handle the sound is a great benefit but this is a policy of perfection.

Interviewing for video is a skill that can be acquired with practice. The key to successful interviewing is research, research and yet more research.