- So over the last 20 years, or so,
of myself working in production,
I have come to learn a very good way of covering interviews,
and maximizing your production time.
This would be to always shoot with more than one camera
when possible, and here is why.
The first and most obvious reason for using two cameras
would be during an interview shoot.
Two cameras really help you in a few different key ways.
The first it allows you the ability to have a place
where you can edit and cut up an interview.
So you don't have to have a jump cut.
You have another angle you could cut to.
Having this other angle you can cut to,
or having another camera that's beside the other camera
that allows you to go into a different shot,
allows you to make the edit more seamless.
Now you can also do this, or something similar
when you're shooting in 4K, and editing in an HD timeline,
you have the ability to crop in the image,
and make it to appear to not be a jump cut
because you can jump in to a tighter framing on there,
but if you're shooting in 4K and you're doing a 4K finish,
this is not gonna really help you,
and there is other benefits for shooting a second angle.
I'm gonna go more in depth on using two cameras or more
to shoot an interview and that kind of setup,
and what you'll be looking at doing in a later video.
In this video we're gonna start covering up
some more reasons why
shooting with more than one camera at a time
is really beneficial for your production.
So another big scenario where shooting two cameras or more
is when you're covering a scene, capturing B-roll,
or when you are really trying to maximize your productivity,
and speed up things during a shoot.
Now most of us are used to filming with more than one camera
during a shoot, maybe not at the same time,
but having multiple cameras on a shoot.
You might have a camera you're using for handheld,
and then switching that onto a gimbal.
You might be using a drone,
and you might be using something else like an action cam.
So, obviously, you can't really use
all these cameras at the same time,
but this is when a second shooter,
or a second person handling a camera,
a second camera operator, or a third camera operator
can really help speed up a day of production.
Here are a couple of different situations
from jobs I've done in the past.
The first type of shoot
is when you're working on capturing branded content,
or documentary work,
and you're trying to capture your content in the moment.
This is some footage from about five years ago
on a branded content piece we did for Porsche.
We were creating a story of an Olympic rowing coach,
and we had one early morning
to capture all the content we needed
in about a four hour window.
This included the interviews,
and all the B-roll of him working with his athletes.
At the time we were working with a C300 Mark I as the A cam,
and a C100 Mark I as the B cam.
When we captured the training footage,
they were really doing a practice, or training session.
So at this time, my good friend,
and director of the spot was on the C300
capturing content with the rowing coach close up,
knowing that we would maybe be going to use
some of the audio, and what he was saying from that part.
And then I was using a Sony FS700
to capture the B-roll footage,
and the beauty, or slow motion footage.
We were doing this all at the same time
because we couldn't do separate takes of things.
They were actually doing a training session.
This is by far the best way to capture this type of scene,
especially when you can't, or you don't really want to,
or can't ask them to do things over again.
Another similar style shoot was more of a commercial shoot,
but this is where we were capturing content
for a landscape software company.
And we had three days of production,
but we were capturing a lot of different spots
over those times.
So we were capturing multiple spots,
and we used myself shooting as a DP,
and also a second camera operator
working with the exact same camera to capture the content
so we could cover the scene.
I could be capturing things wide,
and he could be capturing tight shots.
We could be shooting stuff over each other's shoulders
of the talent.
This was really needed.
I mean, we likely maybe wouldn't of doubled the speed
of the work we did,
but we probably would have needed another day, or two days
to capture the amount of content we did
when we were able to shoot two angles, and two frame sizes
during the same takes.
It drastically increases the productivity of a shoot.
And it does so without drastically increasing
the cost of the production.
So this is a big thing here.
The time savings and production level
well outweighs the extra costs of another,
or two other camera operators, and camera rentals.
So for documentary and branded content work,
this really has been our go-to for the last while.
We have found it so more beneficial
to having another angle to cut to,
especially when doing documentary work,
when you're, again, working in the moment,
you're not setting up something,
you're not setting up a scenario.
You're actually capturing something
where somebody is doing something.
Somebody is experiencing
somebody having a real conversation with another person,
and we don't want that to be staged, or to feel staged.
So when we use two cameras,
we're able to capture both angles,
and it really is a big deal.
Now, the best way to do this
is to have two of the same cameras.
This will help to ensure
they match as perfectly as they can.
You can be shooting in the same profiles.
You can make sure your base ISOs are the same.
You can make sure your aperture is the same
on the same lenses,
but if you cannot shoot with the exact same cameras,
I still think it's beneficial
to shoot two cameras when you can.
For example, when doing an interview, if I had a Sony FX9,
and my B camera was my A7III, and not a second Sony a79,
I would still rather have that.
They don't match perfectly,
but you can both shoot them in S-Log3 or S-Log2,
and you can get them to match very close,
and with color correction,
you can really make it not noticeable.
That is a big thing.
I would still rather shoot with a second camera
that is not the exact matching camera.
Again, it's beneficial to have the exact matching camera
because it's gonna make it easier to match in post,
but if you own, say a GH5, and an a73,
I would still rather have that set up as a two camera shoot
than not having two cameras.
For the extra effort, say especially for an interview,
it is well worth setting up a second angle,
and for covering some of their scenes
to try out some different angles,
it can work very, very well.
So let me know in the comments,
do you find it beneficial to shoot with two or more cameras,
or is this something that you're going to look at trying
if you haven't done so already?
The next video will be more in depth
on shooting a two camera interview how to set that up,
things to think about when you're doing it,
but thanks so much for watching this video, guys.
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