A new edit for my first short video

At last... I thought I'd never get to post this !

About a year ago I shot my first video, a documentary on a Mayo born guy called John Monahan, who I had met while doing a photo project with the Rehabilitation Centre at the National Council for the Blinds. 

John was a legend in there, and filled faces with smiles with his jokes and stories. I shot this piece in one day, with little equipment, just my Canon 5d MkII on a camera tripod, and a Zoom as well. It's only now that I can tell how I could have benefited from having more gear with me (starting with a video tripod and a  viewfinder !).

I'm still happy with what I've shot and since my first edit was very poor, and I've learnt a lot since, I think John deserves a more appropriate work to compliment his words and his story. It's tricky, though, to do a reedit on your own video... I loved re looking at the clips I shot and rethinking about the framework of the video but as well as trying to pretend I never storyboarded the shoot and take it from scratch, the footage has to allow a new structure to appear. And it seems like mine allowed me a bit of tweaking but not that much.

It reminded me of what Walter Murch said about the major drawback of digital (non linear ) editing. Because the access to the media isn't random, you don't have to go through footage you're not looking for, which you had to in the moviola days and made you constantly look at material you could have discarded by mistake. 

So I had a thorough look at all I shot and recorded (the sound is crucial, throughout the video, especially at 2:01) to make some changes. 

I realised that the first edit I made was most importantly the final part of a project,my first video project. Yes, there was room for improvement on my editing ( I used Premiere on a 3 year old Dell PC by the way...had to replace the hard drive 3 months later !!) but what I've learnt by doing this reedit on Final Cut Pro isn't all the tricks I know now and didn't at the time, it is the fact that my whole approach of the project wasn't the best. 

Excessively organised as I am, I planned my shooting with John, I was so conscious of not wasting his time (in fact I only spent 2-3 hours with him, including a good part of walking from one end of the park to another, and the rest of the day on my own) that I had planned all he was going to say. 

We had talked so much during the photo project and all the time I spent at the NCBI, I knew him very well, and I had made up my mind on what I wanted to say about him, what questions to ask him for my story but most importantly what he was going to answer me. I restrained him in what I wanted the documentary to be about and I didn't let this fantastic character show all his colours. I don't mean that I tweaked reality but I feel I put some "blinders" to the story, I limited it at the shooting time when actually the decision should be made post shoot.

So a year afterwards, I'm quite happy with having done this, as my first video work, but I also see how inexperience and stress limited the potential of this little vid, or at least rejected the power of spontaneity, how rewarding it can be to let people open up to you and be what they want to be. Actually I did know, as a photographer, that the best shots are the ones in between the planned and structured shots...strangely I didn't let the Videographer Me know about that !

It's happening in the Phoenix Park, Dublin. Hope you like it ! As usual comments, advice, suggestions are very welcome. (for full HD, go to Youtube)

Talk between Conor Horgan and Ruairi O'Brien

I was lucky enough to attend a talk between award winning  Directors/DOP  Conor Horgan and Ruairi O'Brien  at Filmbase this week and it was really inspiring to listen to these men talking passionately about their previous work and how they managed to put all the right pieces together to make the great movies and shorts that they made.

The talk was oriented towards the special relationship between the director of photography and the director. How they choose one another, how they complete each other, what it takes to make a successful movie and the reality of a film set.

What I took from it is that it is really about chemistry and the synergy of people that commit to a story and a movie, rather than the gathering of technically skilled people. Conor for instance explained how he picked Suzie Lavelle for One Hundred Mornings when he realised that they had several inspiration shots in common for the script. Later they searched together for the right house in the right location and spent 2 weeks planning the movie, scene by scene.

Both Ruairi and Conor very much agreed that the success of the process of filmmaking lies in not only the extensive preparation but also – and maybe more importantly- in how adaptive the crew and the director are to the unforeseen problems / circumstances, rather than following the storyboard shot by shot, and how the director is willing to be helped and to listen to his crew's suggestions.

We got a few visual treats with clips of movies they did. These ones are my favorites, they hold a bit of magic and poetry in their own way.

Here's the making of Deep End by Conor Horgan. The short itself is viewable here. I love how this playful child-like dance is made so effortless and peaceful. Conor said the shooting of it only took 1 day 1/2 (or was it 2 days 1/2?) but so much preparation and rehearsing was put into it, every single move was storyboarded.

And Ruairi spoilt us with a short, Teeth, that, as a DoP, he had tried to convince directors to make for a long time until he decided he would do it himself, with his dad as one of the actors.

It's hilarious and touching at once. Though there's no dialogue, and probably BECAUSE there is no dialogue, it really portrays well the kind of relationship old friends can have.

On the importance of a model release form

Not happy to give up my idea of videoing my daily cycling pilgrimage, I just found a little toy that could do the job while also being a very versatile companion that could do more than just bike vids...since the weather is convincing me that the comfort of the bus is better than the freedom of the bike these days, that will be for later.

Moving on to a more serious subject : model release...when, what, how, why...

I met 2 lovely ladies who run their studio not far from where I live and I was telling them about the project I did on Grafton St, over 2 years ago, where I stopped random people on street and asked them to pose for me.

At that time all I wanted was a fun challenge that would hopefully lead to an exhibition and a bit of publicity for myself - and the outcome was great, I got 3 very good friends, 1 wedding, 3 of my best boudoir shoots ever, my favorite baby shoot, an interesting collaboration with a colourful Russian Poet and indeed a sucessful exhibition out of it. 

But when I set up the white backdrop on Grafton for the first time, I had no idea where it was going to bring me, it was all about the synergy of me and the people of Dublin :-D So I also wasn't sure what I was or would be using these pictures for and thus I realised it was vital that I get people to sign a model release. 

It can be quite a tricky exercice : how to word the document so that it covers all uses you may have in the future, in a clear straightforward way, while avoiding giving the impression that you intend to abuse of their image. It really has to be a very fair contract that no party feel misled or offered an imbalanced deal. Similarly convincing strangers that you are trustworthy enough to be given the permission to use one's image, and that the project is really worth overcoming natural suspicious or shyness about the whole thing.

I really found a mad connection between how I felt myself (since I was working for a few hours during 4 afternoons) and the responses I got from people, no matter how I pushed myself to be as friendly as a Concern fundraising chap - wait, that's not a good analogy...anyway, I REALLY always gave my most convincing self and if my head said "it's raining anyway, he should say no, I ll get a miserable look on his face" or "I wouldn't say yes if I were him, I mean, his picture might end up in an exhibition and I'd hate that idea!!" - that's a personal problem I have with my own image. I'm a Gemini and this shows my biggest duplicity - then 9 times out of 10 the person in front of me would say"no thanks"... Considering the small fall rate (I have an eye for the exhibitionnists and the good people I guess !), this really meant that how much I thought I wasn't showing it on the outside, what was going on, self doubt, slight guilt, dismotivation or disbelief, was leaking out !

Anyway, I mostly asked for the form to be signed after the snaps because by that time the rapport is there, we had a laugh and the stranger have a vague idea of what I've done and knows me a bit more.

Having the model release forms helps me going forward with this project in the directions I wanted with the confidence that I was not going to upset anyone or give anyone who participated the idea that I misled or abused their trust.

Here's the document that I tailor made for the project. It is quite a simple release form but it covered all I wanted and didn't include jargons that even I could struggle understanding, never mind explaining.  Why would you use complicated words if your intentions are quite simple ?

Portrait studios like Venture have their own way to get a legal consent from their clients for potential future use of any picture in an advertising or marketing use, in the form of small prints at the bottom of the order form which certainly most clients sign without paying attention ! I'm sure they do try to get in touch with the client prior to the release of the picture.

For several reasons, and maybe this is specific to Ireland, I'm not sure, release forms (as well as written permissions for the location etc) and letting the public know when a shooting is on is more crucial when videographing than photography in order to stay away from troubles.

Last year I shot a short documentary about how a great guy called John gradually lost his sight when he was a teenager and how his experience of nature changed since (by the way, check MyTube in a week or so, I am working on the new edit of this short !). Although there was a 200% trust between us since he also participated in my "Vision" project, I still asked him to sign a document (which I read to him), especially because his relatives could have been overly protective and misjudge a genuine interest in his experience of senses for something not as ...

A South African instructor from the NCBI once told me he had been reported to the police by a visually impaired's neighbour who was overly concerned about the presence of this stranger !

So here's the much thorough document I used for the video. It was given to me by Deirdre Kerins who works on documentaries that are broadcasted on TV.

A final note to say that getting release forms signed is worthless if you don't reference them (who's who), file them and back them up properly ! Plan ahead how you are going to organise your data, whether it is your footage or the paperwork, and be consistent so you know all is where it should be at all time. 

 Share your own ideas and experience on this, I'd love to know !

Portrait photographer, Dublin,    event video, boudoir photography, portraiture, studio photographer,   baby photoshoot,  creative photography,   Ireland, advanced photoshop retouching,  irish portrait photographer, romantic photoshoot, female photographer,family portraits, HD DSLR video, corporate headshots, baby pictures, videography,

Bike videos - Zoom Q3 HD on trial...

Armed with my trials and failures with the "heavy" G11 and its unsuitable partnership with the Hama bikepod, I was quite hopeful to see a good marriage in the Q3 and the Bikepod.


The Q3 is light and upright, its new HD version is actually slimmer and lighter than the regular Q3, and its video quality isn't bad for a piece of equipment that is marketed as an audio recorder before anything.

Strangely enough the HD video with sound took less space on the 2gb card than the 640X480 format of the G11...I managed to get around 10min more ! that's not a good sign, is it ?


I leave you the surprise of the picture quality while cycling with the sample footage below but just on the general shooting quality of the Q3, though I was impressed with the sharpness of the images (and the auto focus when a close object came within range), it really fails to estimate the right exposure even in basic situations like the one I shot, which was just a very sunny morning. It underexposed the whole scene by at least 1 stop, 3 towards the end when I was in shade. Since it did tilt toward the sky with the shocks on the handlebar, that's probably where it started to get the exposure based on the top part of the video.


The lens is approx 50mm (I actually found no documents or anything to confirm this, which is mad, all it says is that you have a digital zoom and the aperture is 2.8 which is pretty cool btw) and so I was quite disappointed not to have a wider lens that would be allow me to show the whole scene.

Anyway, I've been waiting about a week before posting this because I was quite gutted that Plan 2 didn't work either.


 I guess like Lorna commented in the other post, the best option is to get a liptick cam on a helmet and forget about the video / photo option combo.