UIST 2005 Hints for Making Good Videos
Video is a great way for showing reviewers and the
conference audience the look and feel of your
application. Much of the work at UIST involves highly
interactive applications and examples that are difficult
to capture using words and static images. To misquote
the cliché if a picture is worth a thousand words, then
a good video can be worth many more still.
Although papers must stand on their own, submitted
videos will be sent to reviewers as supporting material.
These hints serve as a guide describing how to produce
an ideal video for UIST. Please do not be intimidated by
the guide. Videos are viewed only as supporting
material, and authors of accepted papers will have the
opportunity to prepare a more.
Anyone who has done video editing and post-production
knows that it is a surprisingly time consuming business.
However, it's garbage-in garbage-out, and if you don't
have good content or message, the best video editing in
the world will not help it that much. So, make sure that
you thoroughly "proof read" your video. The time will be
well spent, and it will probably still only require a
fraction of the time that you have to spend anyway on
video production.
So, how does one determine if the content is good and
the message clear? We suggest you "proof read" or
usability test your video. You can start off by testing
your script with colleagues and friends. Is it
interesting and understandable? Next you may want to
storyboard your video. Do the cuts and transitions make
sense to people, can then visualize how it will look? As
well as being useful for usability testing, the
storyboard should be an important part of your planning
process. Next you should do rough cuts of the video. Do
people want to see more talking head shots or less? Is
the demo clear? Is the pace too fast or too slow? Are
there any particular usability problems with specific
segments of the video? We hope that the hints we provide
to you help you make an interesting and understandable
video.
The tips we provide are organized into the following
sections:
- Planning Before You Shoot
- Pacing
- Content: Exposition and Presentation
- Equipment
- Camera Basics
- Lighting
- Sound/Audio
- Editing
- Capturing and Recording information on Computer
Screens
- Final Thought
Before shooting begins, prepare a detailed script of
the video and rehearse it thoroughly. Your rehearsal
should include shooting the scenes as they are walked
through and then reviewing what you have shot. When you
perform your review consider looking at the image on a
TV monitor rather than the viewfinder of your camera.
Reviewing what you have captured will tell you a lot
about the changes you can make so your video images are
clear to the viewing audience. Questions you may want to
ask yourself while you watch your video are: are there
distracting background noises that can be eliminated
such as turning off the soda machine or shooting when
the heating system is not running? Are all the things
you want in view in view? Can the lighting be changed to
better show the items of interest?
Videos require much more planning and preparation
than most people think. Find someone who doesn't
understand what you do, sit them down and give your demo
to them before the camera arrives. It's good practice in
speaking and helps to clarify the delivery of your
ideas. If your demo involves a larger group of people,
it will be especially important to have the major
scripting and production bugs worked out beforehand.
When you have completed your script.
It is generally not appropriate to hire professional
actors to appear in your video. (However, professional
readers may be appropriate for the audio, see below.)
Usually the most realistic and convincing advocate of an
idea is the person responsible for the research.
However, make sure people who appear on camera speak
naturally, and don't look like they are reading.
Remember that the value of video is as a way of
demonstrating things, so keep talking heads to a minimum
unless they are an intrinsic part of the event or
process being described
Pacing (Really Important)
The video medium is different from either a lecture
or demonstration. The pacing of a videotape presentation
must be appropriate for concentrated presentation
through a TV monitor. Too slow a pace is as common as
too fast. A recording of a live demo often will appear
too slow. Storyboard your script to compose a sequence
of scenes that tell your story. Check that transitions
between each scene give the viewer a sense of continuity
and that the transition style does not distract the
viewer from the video content.
Content: Exposition and
Presentation
The exposition style of your videotape presentation
will greatly affect its impact. Use the multiple modes
of communication that are available simultaneously in
videotape. Always explain (briefly perhaps) what is
about to happen or what is most interesting. Display
screens have few natural navigation aids. Tell the
viewer where to look and what to look for. You might
speak aloud the directions to the camera operator, such
as ``if you zoom in on the top right corner of the
display'' which will help the viewer orient themselves.
Make your point once, and make it effectively; avoid
being repetitious.
Seek variety of image: switch between face, screen,
hands, and slides to keep the viewer's interest. Always
start out with an establishing shot, which shows the
context of the subject and/or group. This might be a
wide shot of the group in a meeting room, a split-screen
shot of users in different locations, a wide shot of a
meeting participant at the computer, or of the entire
computer screen. This helps the viewer stay oriented.
Periodically return to an establishing shot to keep the
viewer from getting confused.
Each shot should be visually well composed. Get as
close to the subject as you can. As a rule of thumb,
place your subject so that it takes up two thirds of the
screen. Avoid having the subject in the exact middle of
the screen. Pay attention to the background and colors;
the eye is drawn to the most brightly colored part of
the scene. Make the lightest and brightest part be the
point of interest.
Avoid visual distractions, such as idly moving the
mouse. Fades to black can be used as transitions between
scenes, but they should not be overused. A full screen
fade usually indicates a change in subject, time or
place, and can be confusing when used elsewhere. Visual
distractions can be caused by patterns such as plaid and
strip shirts. Encourage speakers to where solid colored
shirts or blouses to avoid the perception of shimmer in
the video image.
Use the best quality equipment that is available to
you. The final production quality of a video depends
both on the quality of the equipment as well as the
training and experience of the video maker. If you have
access to a high-quality production studio and trained
personnel, use them. However, production quality can be
achieved with the commercial equipment found in most
universities, companies, and what is now available for
home video production.
Too much movement is a common problem with many
videos and is a problem that can easily be avoided by
adopting some simple camera techniques. Using a tripod
can give a stable image by removing the potential for ?amera
jiggles?and can also ensure that the image seen appears
level. Minimizing the use of panning, zooming and other
moving shots can also help. Use the pan and zoom
capability to get your subject in appropriate view prior
to the shoot. When you do use pan or zoom, begin and end
each moving shot with a static shot.
Carefully consider lighting when preparing the area
for the shoot. Avoid using several different sources of
lights when shooting. It can throw off your colors and
has the potential to have the subject of interest appear
to dark or too bright during the course of the shoot.
When reviewing your video look for distracting dramatic
shadows on walls, poor contrast between the subject and
the background, or ghoulish shadows on faces, a common
occurrence with overhead lighting. Using directed
diffuse lighting could help solve some of these problems
caused by poor lighting conditions. When recording
information from a computer monitor check for glare and
adjust your lighting to remove or reduce the glare as
much as you can.
Many cameras enable you to do white balance
adjustments. Make use of this feature as it can greatly
enhance the contrast between your subject and the
background.
Avoid using different sources of lights when
shooting, as it will throw off your colors. For example,
avoid taping in a room with both natural and artificial
light sources. The white balance setting adjusts the
camera to your lighting. When setting, focus the camera
on the color that you want to be filmed as white. This
could be a sheet of white paper or the whitest color in
the scene, depending on the effect you want. Avoid
having too much white in a scene because it will make
all your other colors too dark. Monitor your video
levels. White levels should be at 100 units, and black
levels should have a pedestal of 5 to 7.5 units. If
possible, include 30 seconds of color bars and tone at
the beginning of the tape. The color bars must be
generated by the camera or editing equipment. Color bars
copied from another tape are worse than none at all.
The quality of the sound can impact the quality of
your video. As with light there are simple techniques
that you can employ to add to the quality of your video.
Often the camera microphone does not give adequate
sound. To over come this problem, the sound can be
recorded separately, however, synchronization of the
video with a commentator can often be a problem when
adding the voice over to the video. Consider using an
off-camera microphone that is directly fed into the
video camera used in the shoot. It can give you the
quality sound you need and remove the need for you to
add a voice over and synchronize the voice with the
images. Removing background unwanted background noise is
helpful. Sudden and repetitive sounds often can be
avoided by asking those in the room of the shoot to not
rustle paper, clear their throat or jingle the change in
their pockets. Doing the shoot between on cycles of the
room? heating/cooling system is another possibility and
shutting windows to eliminate street noise. When doing a
commentary near a computer ?using "talking heads,'' try
to do these with the computer off, or with the
microphones arranged so that the computer noise is not
picked up. If you have a sound meter available USE IT to
perform sound checks during the shoot. The sound level
should constantly stay at the middle range level. Avoid
sound spikes above and below the mid-range level.
Finally, many successful videos use trained readers
for the dialogue, which you can find by calling acting
schools or radio-stations. The final dialogue should
have clear should enunciated words and the style should
be neither too soft, slow, or fast. When you listen you
will know when it is right. OH ?turn off ALL cell
phones!
As best as you can edit the original raw footage or
stills and when all your editing is complete make your
master. Loss of quality is less likely to occur with
digital video but even then you must be careful with
special effects and compositing.
Because of incompatibilities of resolution, refresh
rate, and interlacing, it is often difficult to get good
shots of computer screens on video. Two ways to capture
the image: by pointing a camera at the screen, or using
a scan converter or video encoder to translate the
computer's signal directly to an NTSC or PAL signal or
videotape. You will probably need to experiment to find
the best way of capturing screen images on video.
Most people will film the screen with a camera. In
this case, darken the room to enhance contrast, and set
your white balance to match the white of the screen.
Position your camera to avoid rhomboidal windows from
the curved face of the display. You will have to pan
around the screen to show different parts, because the
video will usually not show the entire display in
sufficient resolution to read text and see the graphics.
If you have problems with one camera, you might consider
borrowing or renting different cameras to see if you can
obtain better results when shooting from the screen.
Try to find a display that has a refresh rate that is
compatible or synchronized with the NTSC video camera
rate of 30 frames per second (25 frames per second for a
PAL video camera). Most displays are not, so you will
get a crawling refresh line on the tape. In this case,
try to wait until it is not visible before each video
segment. If there is a continuous beating or flashing on
the video, this means that the refresh rates are
completely incompatible, and you should probably not
make a video of that screen. Sometimes shooting the
image from a flat panel (LCD) type display, can remove
some of the problems seen with the traditional computer
monitor.
If you have hardware that converts your computer
signal to NTSC, you can record directly from your
computer to tape. A major problem with this is that
single pixel horizontal lines will flicker badly (in
fact, all odd number width horizontal lines will flicker
somewhat). Most modern scan converters filter this out.
Check to see if your scan converter has a filter to
reduce flicker. Some scan converters have zoom
functions. Use this feature advisedly as you would use
the zoom and pan on a camera. If your display is color,
limit color saturation to 75 to 80% and choose hues
carefully, especially reds, to avoid exceeding the NTSC
color bandwidth.
Accepted video may be published on the UIST
conference DVD. Since this DVD is encoded in NTSC
format, video originally shot in PAL format may need to
be converted before it can be put onto the DVD, which
may affect the quality of the video. If you have the
technical possibilities, you may consider shooting and
editing your video in NTSC format to avoid the need for
conversion.
Making a video is hard work, but as any attendee of
UIST will tell you, a good video is worth its weight in
gold. |