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 ! :-)