How To Make A Section Part - V

BentFilms’ new project Cop Me And My Newb Joey is just a few months away. A video compilation of the best submitted amature skiboarding videos. Each month we’ll be giving out some pointers on how to shoot/edit/make a legit skiboard seciton. Take these tips in, and you’re skiboard section could be put in the next BentFilms flick!

This month FOCUS & DIRECTION. Without it, videos are a visual diarhea of randomly assorted clips.

The most successful videos have FOCUS & DIRECTION in every aspect of shots and edited clips together. This is helped exponentially by foresight. For those of you who watch skating videos, you know that they sometimes use a hip hop or a rock theme to hyper-symbolize the riders overall section.

Although we encourage you to look beyond this typical hip hop or rock theme into a broader, less stereotypical and oversaturated sense, they are good examples of SPOON FED focus and direction in a video. When thinking of your shot, its important to think of all the shots you previously got on tape, and the spots that you are going to get next. Keep it uniform or make it clusterfudged. Regardless, have some direction!

A good trick to this is correlation of filming techniques and styles like the ones we’ve talked about over the season.

Focus and direction will keep everything coming out of the screen clean, comprehensive and appealing. When making a section, from filming to editing to location, having an idea or purpose beyond what is simply in front of the camera lens makes it much more interesting. Talking to your riders about what you want to accomplish is KEY! Hindsight is 20/20 but foresight is essential.

How To Make A Section - Part IV

BentFilms’ new project Cop Me And My Newb Joey is just a few months away. A video compilation of the best submitted amature skiboarding videos. Each month we’ll be giving out some pointers on how to shoot/edit/make a legit skiboard seciton. Take these tips in, and you’re skiboard section could be put in the next BentFilms flick!

This month LIFESTYLE SHOT and the advantage of FILLER.

So we touched on this in last month feature; the whole world surrounding shredding on sticks is much more vast than the act itself. Adding filler and lifestyle shots to a section and it adds personality and style to the riders or yourself, and makes it a lot more entertaining than a bunch of 2 second clips of faceless short stick riders played over until the music fades out.

Documentation and representation.

Look at yourself. What do you see? I see a white man with a big nose, wild beard and condom tall cap of Dutch descent whose great great great great great great grandfathers didnt treat the Native Americans too well and may have a few blood stains war-painted on his past. Doesn`t mean I can’t film some lifestyle shots of myself blacking and pup pupping some shots at the camera to play the fool every once in a while.

Shredding and filming a video part gives you the opportunity to offer an audience a charicature of yourself, yourself, a satire of yourself, and a few shakes more or less. I call it playing with form. At any rate, you have the opportunity to create a 4 minute presentation for your peers, so whose to say what flare you can and can`t offer to the world.

Granted, for Copmeandmynewbjoey, we want raw un-edited footage and a song you have permission to shred to, but with it, we encourage you to send us a detailed explanation as well. We will do what we may, but its all considered. Leave it in our hands and provide us with plenty of shred, stoke and things you think are beautiful/stupid/irrelevant/interesting. Who knows what will happen, theres always a bonus reel!

How To Make A Section - Part III

BentFilms’ new project Cop Me And My Newb Joey is just a few months away. A video compilation of the best submitted amature skiboarding videos. Each month we’ll be giving out some pointers on how to shoot/edit/make a legit skiboard seciton. Take these tips in, and you’re skiboard section could be put in the next BentFilms flick!

This month COMPLET SHOTS. Key to making you section interesting and entertaining.

Folks!

Think about a good photograph. The rules and neglect of compositional rules in one single photo is more then your brain mojo puke can harnass, so the possibilities with motion and shooting action is vast vast vast. Avoid setting up a tripod and shredding till your batteries are dead, unless the static angle is super tight! A four minute edit of the same angle on the same flat box is not what you want, and is gonna make you section long/boring/painful to watch.

Incorporating the slightest degree of cinematic intent can help your shots tenfold. Be creative and look at every time your boy hikes the jib/powline/tree defense spit mule kick/followcam off the lip etc… as the possibility to shoot an epic, or at least an interesting shot, even if dude doesn’t make the trick, how did the shot look? The complet lifestyle around skiboarding is much more vast than just the act itself!

Think of shooting in a narrative way. Rider come into frame from the left, the anticipation builds up as he rides towards the box/jump/rail/urban set up. The climax, does he land the trick? and then finally, he rider out of the frame to the right. That’s just one example with one shot. You can also think of the whole section in a narrative way, with a visual story embeded into the editting/filming. Give your rider’s personality, instead of unrecognizable people behind helmets/goggles/bandaners.

Check out RobotFood`s snowboard movies for a great example of COMPLETE SHOTS.

How To Make A Section - Part II

BentFilms’ new project Cop Me And My Newb Joey is just a few months away. A video compilation of the best submitted amature skiboarding videos. Each month we’ll be giving out some pointers on how to shoot/edit/make a legit skiboard seciton. Take these tips in, and you’re skiboard section could be put in the next BentFilms flick!

This month CAMERA MOVEMENT & PLACEMENT. Dynamic shots can be a lot more engaging than the standard non-moving static shot.
PLACEMENT - When placing your camera, take into account what we talked about last month with framing, composition, simplicity and focal points.

ANGLE - Low angle shots are going to glorify the shot, make the jump/rail/cliff look bigger than it really is, but this can distort perceptions. Make sure to mix up angles; for those of you who watch skateboard videos, you know how easy it is to get lost in the same fisheye low angle handrail shot over and over, no matter how good the trick is or the location is. When editing we will touch on thisagain.

TRIPODS - No matter how good that stabalization feature on your camera is, it’s not as good as a tripod. Tripods help for almost any static or panning shot.

PANNING SHOTS - We follow the rider into the trick and stop as they take over as the focus of the action. Panning helps keep the footage interesting while a rider is stagnant. Remember, its all about the shred, so keep the movement minimal when the bank is moving, money!

FOLLOW CAM HINTS - A handle on top of your camera is always nessecary when filming good follow cam lines. A homemade handle is easy to make. (EXAMPLE) Stay low, close, and keep your eyes downhill and because you aren’t looking through the viewfinder or LCD screen, keep the camera around your coBrah’s midsection this will take some trail and error to get on lock down so start your follow cams on slow jib lines.

Best thing to do is practice your camera movements. Don’t expect to have it locked down first try. Fact is the first pan/lines shots you shoot are probably going to be totally useless.

How To Make A Section - Part I

BentFilms’ new project Cop Me And My Newb Joey is just a few months away. A video compilation of the best submitted amature skiboarding videos. Each month we’ll be giving out some pointers on how to shoot/edit/make a legit skiboard seciton. Take these tips in, and you’re skiboard section could be put in the next BentFilms flick!

This month, FRAMING and RULES OF COMPOSITION. The basics, knowing these in theory and practice is what’s gonna make your shots looks proffesional.

FRAMING - Using the environment wherever you are to accent the shot and keep the rider as the FOCAL POINT of the shot. Be sure not to be too close to the action, if you can read the stickers on the skiboards, back it up! You should be able to see the rider from head to toe on the screen with a bit head room but too far away is bad unless the handrail is huge, the mountain exists or the jump is legit. There is close-up exceptions for style, if your pinpointing just the FOCAL POINT of the rider in the paticular shot, for example, the feet on a switchup or the hands on a grab for another shot that you are doing a DOUBLE ANGLE on and plan on doing some clever editing.

SIMPLICITY - Very important! Having a crowded chairlift in the background or any sort of extra clutter can DIVERT THE FOCUS from whats important in your shot. If your background is cluttered behind the rider, he won’t stand out as much and your shot won’t look good. Blue sky on white snow works best. Forests and crowds of lurkers simply complicate things.

DEPTH OF FIELD - The space in front of and behind what you are filming is very important. Playing with these distances and focus in regards to each can give different stylistic effects. For example having tree branches in the foreground with the rider off in the distance, or having the rider up close with mountains or a sunset in the distance is called extended depth of field and EMPHASIZES SPACE. A shallow depth of feild is when there is not a lot of distance between foreground and subject and the background is almost non existant.

LIGHTING - Is the rider just a sillhouette? Have sillhouettes been played out? Is in TOO BRIGHT noon hour or ROYAL BLUE morning sky? Is it sunset, nighttime, halogen lit dirty disgusting park shots? Best time of day to shoot is sunrise and sun set, with the light coming from behing the camera, that way you’ll get the sharpest colours. When the sun is up high, the colours are not as saturated and turn all nasty grey. If you’re shooting at night in a lit park, avoid having the light shinning directly into the camera or avoid shooting in parks at night all together!

KNOWING WHEN TO BREAK THE RULES - Rules are made to be broken, a lot of the times the best and most artistic looking shots break a rules or two, but do it well. Do what feels well, but be concious of what you`re doing… This is the first step. Strive on with awareness.