A short film on Development : Snail and Development

It's been quite sometime that I lay my hands on my Canon 600D especially to shoot videos. I do often click some photos, but to take it out to make a video has been a rare event in last few months.

I've shifted to a new city, Mysore. I am living at outskirts of the city near a bird sanctuary. This allows me to have a closer look at nature around and to rediscover my relationship with nature. I've learnt a lot about and from nature. I've also renewed my connection with so many birds, trees, butterflies and insects I meet everyday.

However, as its happening almost everywhere, in name of human development we are killing nature. Here it was no different. I could see so many instances of nature being destroyed due to our activities. I wanted to do something and the least I could do was to capture the emotions and present it as a short. 

This short film came as a result of that. I cared not for technicals,  lens changing, aperture or shutter speed. I was too focused with the idea in my head. 

Certainly, I could not give it the best possible look and editing. But I do hope it conveys the emotions I wish to bring out. Enjoy the movie and do your bit. Stop activities that you personally do to harm nature and try to raise awareness about the issue. Most importantly, get closer to nature and try to find that lost connection we had with it. It does change life amazingly. It did to mine. I am learning new ways everyday to reduce my impact on nature and finding newer ways to deepen my relationship with it. Enjoy the short ! :-)

Snail and Development from Shashi Bhushan Singh on Vimeo.

Available : DSLR on Rent in Mysore

Hi Friends,

I've recently moved to Mysore and will be happy to rent out my Canon DSLR 600D (along with extra batteries) with a portrait (50mm) and a zoom lens (18-135mm). I can also give Zoom H1 Stereo recorder. I also have a high quality video tripod and a shoulder mount. In short, everything one would need for shooting anything - a short film, an event, marriage, conference, bird watching, outing, corporate event or meeting God ;-) !

As I will not be using it as often for next few months, I thought it'll be better to share with people who might make use of the camera. My only condition is - some basic DSLR handling experience or knowledge. If you are complete beginner, do get in touch anyway -we will see what we can do.

Costing : Just write to me about duration, your requirements and we can negotiate. I don't intend to make money from it, so a lot will depend on whos and whats of the project ! Best deal Guaranteed ! ;-)
Write at : s<dot>shashibhushan<at the rate>gmail<dot com> !

Cheers,

A Short film on DSLR : In between

This is my recent work and one of most satisfying outcome so far. I worked on this along with few friends of mine for almost 6 months. The edit, the music, the story - all looked kinda very difficult for us to be convinced. Two months back, we got a proffesional editor to work on the footage. He did his best but we weren't very happy because the story line remained quite confusing.  Finally, I decided to edit it myself on Windows Movie maker and Cyberlink power director. Here is the final version :-



This was one of most exciting project to work on. First of all, I liked the concept and I decided to shot in full HD. I went to Bangalore to meet a friend and we decided to finish the shoot in a day as I had to come back the next day. We did some hardwork and finished shooting and were quite happy, until we saw them later and realized that the storyline is too confusing to anyone but us.


Original Storyline :
Story of a man who ,like most of us - lives in future, has dreams and wishes and doesn't expect to die anytime too soon. However , one day he just dies while the life moves on.

Specifications : 
Canon 600D , Canon 50mm prime lens, Canon 18-135 mm zoom lens, Full HD (1080p)

My learnings from the project : 
1.) Better plan your shot : We did the shoot in one day, almost adhoc with no planning. Later, I so wished that I could go back in time and reshoot few more shots and it'll make the movie much better. I had no choice but to use the footage I had. Better planning would have really created a better movie and much less work in editing and post production.

2.) Avoid silly mistakes : Be Meticulous 
There are some really silly mistakes in the movie like the ciggrate during the first shot is of different company while the ciggrate during the second shot is of a different company. (Infact, in a retrospect - I think the entire ciggrate scene was unwanted, why should we promote smoking when the story line can do without it.)  In the other shot (time lapse) shadows of me and my friends kept changing the lighting arrangement in the frame. Such mistakes might be noted only by keen observers, but nevertheless it makes the work more amateur.

3.) Shoot close ups : Strength of DSLRs 
DSLRs spill magic when we shoot them in close shots. They are aren't best camera if you want to have wide angle view (unless you've an expensive wide angle lens). Depth of Field is quite fantastic and the composition  comes out pretty good if we shoot not from too far. You can see that we used lot of close up shots in the movie, it came out better than all the long / wide shots I've done before. Basically, shoot only for what you've got right lenses.

4.) Better story telling :
I think any movie with good story line is worth watching. The story line in this movie doesn't come out so well. I think this is a movie that needs certain explanation to the audience to really communicate what I wanted to show. A good movie will be self explanatory. I need to learn this one.

5.) Editing can do wonders : 
After watching some 4-5 different versions of same footage, I realized the power of editing. Editing can completely ruin or improve the footage and story telling. I think editing is as important to shooting itself. I learnt a lot about non-linear editing, using flashbacks and various symbols to communicate the message in this short film. However, this is perhaps my first real editing project. I need to grow a lot here.

Thanks for reading all the way. Wish you all the best. Please share your feedbacks to help me improve.

The biggest pitfall for beginners in DSLR : Exposure

Having a good camera and lens kit is just the beginning. To be able to shoot right shots is totally a different ball game. I've seen much better movies on Canon T2i than those shot on 5D ! So, it is more about the creature behind the camera. By the way, here is one of the superior product from Canon Rebel T2i , a very famous DSLR short film : Uncle Jack -

 As I began learning about DSLR - the first words to demystify were shutter speed / aperture and ISO. Lovely articles are available on internet, various videos explain it clearly and these concepts aren't very hard to understand anyway. Once I got some hang of these terms, I thought I am through ! Yeah, I know what aperture and how it works. I know shutter speed and its dynamics and I understand the meaning of higher ISO. I thought - I am game for the best DSLR movie to be shot.

 I went out and almost all of my shots are either - Underexposed or Overexposed. I don't have additional accessory to see the LIVE OUTPUT, I rely on my eyes (which don't have 6/6 vision) and the small LCD screen in camera to decide the exposure. Everytime I finished shooting, I had to reduce contrast, increase brightness or at times completely Re-Shoot the entire sequence.

 Right exposure was and still is one of the biggest challenge I faced while filming with DSLR. I think it is a skill to be learnt. Here are some tips which I use to get right exposure :-

1.) Histogram : The greatest benediction for right exposure 
I never really took the while crazy mountain like ugly graph that sometimes popped up on my camera screen.    I thought it is some spooky stuff for the highly technical guys ! Only later I learnt that Histograms can be the best friend of the budding DSLR filmmakers to get the right exposure - without which any movie is a waste product.


Histograms can help know on the spot , while shooting - whether our shot is underexposed or overexposed. It is a great help. Spend time to learn about it. 


Here are few good tutorials : -


http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/understanding-histograms.shtml


www.mdavid.com.au/photography/histograms.shtml

2.) Play with Aperture and ISO not as much with shutter speed : 
One can change exposure by changing either -
1.) ISO
2.) Shutter Speed
3.) Aperture
4.) Lens
5.) Filters

Lens and Filters are to be used only in advanced and exceptional situations while DSLR filming - you cannot really use very high shutter speed as it makes the video look very jerky and funny. (unless you plan to use it creatively in your storyline). Thus even shutter speed is more or less fixed for DSLR film makers. Infact , for film look the shutter speed is fixed to 1/50th of the second for 24 fps recording.
This means the only tools to play along to get right exposure are Aperture and ISO. 


Use combination of ISO and Aperture to get right exposure. Keep an eye on histogram.

3.) Use your natural sense of lighting : 
Right exposure means nothing but right amount of light in the scene. Our eyes and brain - know whats right ! Use it. Simple things like - shifting shooting time to softer sunlight around 9-10 AM instead of bright afternoon at 12-1 can help in getting right exposure with minimum exposure. Other things might include changing orientation or camera angle, switching OFF/ON any artificial lights.

4.) Do a test run :
Last but not the least would be just do a small dummy shot with desired setting, come back and check on laptop or bigger screen to see if you are happy with the exposure. This small investment of time will help us avoid regrets at the end of entire day's shoot !

Right exposure is not only important for film making but also for our own life ! Going out of one's comfort zone, meeting different people, travelling - allows one to become a better footage ! ;-)  

Deadly Sins of DSLR filming

Some deadly sins I committed while DSLR filming : 

As I learn more about movie making and DSLR. I realize how pathetic I've been in some cases. After understanding some very basic rules of film making, I sometimes feel like having committed a sin. So here is a small list of sins I realized that I have committed :-

1.) Thou shall not zoom : 
Zooming is fun but only when done really very selectively and carefully. DSLR zooming is not very easy and smooth when recorded. It can makes the video look immature and gives a feeling that the movie maker is confused about what he wants to show in this scene. Keep it simple. Static shots to begin with. No wonder most proffesional film makers only use Prime Lenses most of the time.

2.) Thou shall not Pan :
I liked the landscape , I wanted to share with my audience. I panned. It sucked ! My story had nothing to do with the landscape. Furthermore, panning added nothing more creative or artistic to the scene. Finally it was not very smooth and done at a really funny shutter speed. What a sin ! Pan only if you can't avoid and story demands it.

3) Thou shall not hand held : 
I have scene the cameraman mostly carrying a camera on them, in their hands.Cameraman stereotype is to hold one on your shoulder or hand. I wanted to look like one. I took the "hard to fit in hand" DSLR and handheld shot most of my scenes. As if using tripod would make me look unprofessional ! Beautiful shot screwed up cause I handheld it. Ofcourse handheld has its use, but till you know exactly WHAT ! Stay with Tripod/Monopod !


4.) Thou shall not use Autofocus and Auto-Exposure mode :
You are supposed to have the subject in focus and well exposed, well in advance - not when one starts to record ! I committed the sin - I started recording and as my subject moved - I half pressed the focus button to change the focus and exposure (auto mode) and got it recorded ! Not to forget , the bonus - sound of focus ring motor. Plan your shots,well in advance. Decide what areas need focus and how will your achieve it (in case of dynamic subjects when you need to change focus area) - Choose an exposure well in time and ensure its compatible with rest of the footage.

5.) Thou shall not use high ISO : 
To get exposure, at times I changed ISO to 800,1600 or more, instead of finding a way to change shutter speed/aperture,adding additional light or using another lens. Higher ISO gave me a very grainy footage - almost unusable. Stay with ISOs 800 or below  unless you know what you are getting into with higher ISOs.

These are just some of the mistakes I made. There are many more I keep making. I'll keep sharing my learning about them as I go along.

Wish you all the best for your filming.

How to learn DSLR filming ? : My favorite DSLR Filming Learning Resources

When I began my journey of learning to make DSLR films, I spent lot of time hunting for artilces, videos, books. There wasn't much available as it was quite a new wave. However still there were poineers talking about it. There were lot of blogs/vidoes that helped get foundation. Below I give some of the videos / books/ links that helped me :-

1.) Philip Bloom :-
Philip Bloom is one of the early adapters of DSLR and a poineer in the area. He has many videos on DSLR video. Going through these videos provide us with very good foundation. Explore :
http://philipbloom.net/category/education/

Shooting Video with a DSLR from Vimeo Video School on Vimeo.


2.) Youtube Tutorials by this Gentleman :- 

3.) Book : DSLR (Crafting Cinema Look) by Kurt Lancaster 
 
This is an excellent book for beginners , particularly because it is a nice collection of real time case studies and gives links to many good resoureces on internet. It also gives basics of cinematography (although very superficial) and various DSLR terms/functions. This is particularly good if you are a Canon 5D/7D user as it talks about them at a lot of place. Any canon user will find it quite useful while other DSLR maker will also learn a great deal.

However I would not recommend buying this if you want absolute value for your money. But if you have some budget to buy a book. Go ahead and buy...It'll certainly help.

http://www.amazon.com/DSLR-Cinema-Crafting-Film-Video/dp/0240815513

Final Tips  :
At the end I'd just like to say that we cannot learn everything from one place or source. One has to read, see movies, meet people, make movies and do whatever is possible to learn about DSLR film making. For me the best way to learn has been by making movies and analyzing them "how could it have been better ? " and taking feedbacks from other people.
Spend a lot of time in understanding basic technology  - aperture, shutter speed, fps, ISO, Coloring, White balance, editing techniques...it all pays off !

Most importantly, put into use whatever you learn ASAP so that it imbibes into your mind's learning. Keep the learner in you alive and be observant ! Rest will just start falling in place !

Good luck ! :-)

My third DSLR short film : The Sunset

This one just came because the last time I completed a shoot-edit was more than 4 months. So I decided I need stay in touch. Moreoever in summer the sunsets are so beautiful that they can inspire any photographer or film maker :-)

So I wanted a story around sunset and as usual my poet friend Ramesh Anna came with a simple scene description which I shot below as "The sunset". I am not particularly happy with this one. I think this is very mediocre work and I've not made much improvement. I need work more creatively and work harder to learn more about DSLR film making and the art and science of it. Nevertheless as usual , it was an enriching and satisfying experience. Please share your feedbacks on composition/exposure or anything.

The Sunset from Shashi Bhushan Singh on Vimeo.

My Second DSLR Movie : For you..

For You from Shashi Bhushan Singh on Vimeo.

After being excited with the result of "The scent"  and learning about shutter speed and aperture from various online blogs and resources, I was ready to take on the second short film. Like the first time, K.Ramesh came up wit a very sweet idea of a small short film depicting human emotions. He named it - For you. My art teacher Marimuthu Anna and a student Priya - were soon convinced to act in the movie.

This time we needed a bouquet, a graveyard. We immediately rushed to nearby tree of "flame of fire" (Palaash in hindi) and got some flowers. (We only took as much we needed to avoid wastage of natural resources and beautiful flowers  ! ) We made a holy cross with two sticks and found an isolated land near our campus to be used as graveyard. ( A puppy just happen to come as a surprise guest in one of the shot :-) )

This time, I used manual exposure for first time and reduced the resolution to HD, increased ISO to 800. Only later I realized that I did not use the best settings. Some of the footage was too grainy, I should have used lesser ISO.

I used Cyberlink Power Director trial version for edit. The final product is presented above. Your feedbacks/comments/complaints will help me improve. Thanks.

My first DSLR short film : The Scent (Learning and Experience)

Sitting at the sunset in the school where I am a teacher I was itching to start creating movies with my new DSLR. I was too curious to know how it’ll look like. I approached two other teachers – a science teacher and the art teacher and told them that I want to make a short movie just to test the camera and also do something creative. Thus – the Scent was born !

The idea was by K. Ramesh , our science teacher, extraordinary human being, and a published haiku poet. He gave me a haiku like story of a blind man and a stranger. I immediately decided to go ahead with it. The result is below.

The Scent from Shashi Bhushan Singh on Vimeo.

My learnings from my first movie :

1.)    USE MANUAL FOCUS AND MANUAL EXPOSURE : One of the biggest mistake I made was that I decided to use Auto exposure and Auto focus for the entire movie making. The camera kept rotating for a long time before it could give me a good focus. The exposure was different for each scene as the sunset colors were changing in the sky and natural light itself was diminishing. As I progressed the movie shooting, the camera kept increasing ISO as the light was reducing. The result was that I had some shots which were either Over/underexposed and others were grainy because of high ISO.

2.)    DON’T IGNORE Composition details :

Can’t hate myself enough for leaving my camera bag and a prop (a wooden stool) in the composition. I forgot to remove it from the frame. It was sheer stupid mistake on my part but it helped me learn about how such stupid things can actually spoil the impact of some shots.

3.)    Focus and Expose before pressing record :

I know this is like the most idiotic thing to say but I did learn it through my first movie ! I kept pressing record before auto exposure and focus. Infact at times I half press the button to get better focus/exposure while recording. The result was I had spoiled some really good shots and my poor actors had to re-take it couple of times. I also had tough time editing the movie because of these mistakes.

4.) DON’T use all resolution you got :

Knowing that my Canon 600D can do FULL HD ! I went for full HD while I’d have never even seen this movie beyond a 32inch LCD screen ! I did not have good editing software or computer to take care of such huge files. Pain for no use at all ! I could have done a HD or even lower resolution shot and got almost the same result in much less time with much much less labor. Now, I usually shoot my films in HD mostly except some shots where I'd prefer Full HD. This makes life easier with all the resources and softwares I have.


Overall, I enjoyed making the first movie with new DSLR technology. It was fun and lot of learning. I liked that I was able to create the continuity with a single camera by using it at different angles. I liked composition in some shots. A great beginning to this exciting journey ! Lets see what awaits...

How I chose to buy What I bought ?

New to the world of DSLR and on a very tight budget, I wanted to make the best buying decision. Here is how I solved my dilemma of "which camera to buy if I wish to start movie making ?" :-

Stage #1: Read , Research and Review In first stage I started reading about stories of various budding film makers, photographers. I read blogs, various reviews of cameras on website like CNET, did my research on all available options. I came to know that there are many ways to get started. I could buy one normal movie making camera (which is used by news people comes the cheapest) - makers were Panasonic, JVC, Sony. I could buy digicams from Sony, Nikon, Panasonic or I could enter a new zone of DSLRs !

First stage I just got knowledge of cost, availability, pros and cons of various options.
Stage #2 : Narrowing down the options

The regular cameras were bulky, costly and common while digicams looked too casual with almost every tom, dick and harry carrying them to mama's parties and it was not good on quality and flexibility.

Venturing into the World of DSLRs was a very exciting option because they were newly launched, they had a touch of more seriousness and professionalism, they give really good quality and are quite flexible (lens,settings etc..) They weren't too costly.

Stage #3 : Choosing a DSLR and Defining my objective

At this stage I had to take a clear stand on various questions like -

"Why am I buying a camera ?"
"What I wish to do in future with this ?"
"What are my key objectives - photography, filmmaking or both ? "
"What types and size of films I would be making ?"
"What quality would make me happy ?"

Answering these questions gave me lot of insights. The world of DSLRs was open with Canon's EOS series, Nikon 3000D, Samsung's newly launched cameras, Sony's DSLRs being the key options.

First I froze on BRAND : Canon - because canon offered better technology as far as video is concerned. Leaders in the field of DSLR film making have been using Canon 5D, 7D and the like more often than any other makes. This assured me that Canon product will be a better choice.

Then it was a question of which model. Here budget made it easy for me. I had budget of around 50 thousand Indian Rupees. So, 7D, 5D were completely out of question.

Stage #4 : Living the Confusion

There were only few really cool models in my budget. The key confusion for me was between Nikon D3000 (a lot cheaper than canon's model 600D), Canon 600D, Canon 550D (almost same as D3000) and Canon 60D !

Nikon was rejected inspite of being the most economical option because it did not offer Manual exposure mode for videos ! I had not really understood how important it was when I was buying it (as I did not totally understand whats exposure and how it might affect) - but from whatever little I knew - I wanted control of exposure.

Canon 60D was semi professional, larger sensor size and slightly better quality as compared to 600/550D but it would cost me more and I wanted some good lens too.

So, I was down to 550D/600D - I chose 600D because it was the newest model (when I bought it) in EOS series, it was upgrade of 550D and it had a moveable LCD which I thought would come handy in shooting at strange angles. The money I saved by not buying 60D, I chose to spent on Tripod and lens.

Stage #5 : Buying the accessories
I saved money by choosing an entry level DSLR inspite of semi-professional because I knew I had to buy other stuff for film making. I bought a nice robust Tripod with bearings (for smooth rotation) , I bought 18-135mm lens inspite of kit lens 18-55.

Stage #6: Supporting the purchase
Once the purchase was not of Canon 600D with 18-135mm lens and tripod. I had to support this decision to make it most workable by covering up the weaknesses in my camera and lens.

First thing I realized was that I need better sound recording as Canon 600D offers only Mono recording. So, I bought a stereo recorder Zoom H1 along with a collar mike (Audio technica)

Second, I understood after making first few short films that DSLRs are not easy to handle like the regular Video cameras because of their size. Hence I bought a shoulder mount (cowboy, cheapest version).

Sooner , I also realized that 18-135mm lens was not among the best lens. Film makers recommend using prime lens. Although prime lenses were quite expensive I chose to buy the cheapest Canon- Prime lens 50MM portrait lens f1.4 as I was primarily planning to do portrait film making (documentary, interviews)

Today I am happy with all the decisions I've made. I've got what I wanted. I think my suggestion to those planning to buy a DSLR camera would be to clearly define objectives and spend enough time on research before taking a decision. But also keep a deadline so that you don't keep researching forever, you better sooner start shooting :-) ! Action !

Learning DSLR Film Making

I had this "keeda" of making movies since my college time. I kept making some kind of silly videos with whatever camera I could get my hands on.

I earned some money and wanted to pursue it little more seriously and I bought an entry level DSLR with video - Canon 600D.

Here I was - I've a camera in my hand. I've a copy of book - 5 Cs of Cinematography, I've Philip Bloom's blog address, I know few friends abroad who are making movies using DSLR.

It set me onto a journey of exploring DSLR film making. I still know almost nothing. But sharing the learning might be interesting. I can learn from sharing and getting feedbacks and others can learn from my mistakes or good takes ! Hence this blog !

I also discovered that DSLR film making in India was quite new and unknown to many. I also found that the group of DSRL filmmakers in India was missing. There were hardly any blogs from film makers from India. Hence this blog.

Welcome to the World of DSLR Film Making. Lets explore and learn together ! :-)