Video Clinic, Part 2

Shooting the Underwater Footage:
     This lesson gives some hints to get interesting video. Mostly, these are things I've learned the hard way, by making boring, disjointed videos. Remember: if you don't get the scenes in the first place, you can't edit them into a great movie.

Be in Position.
     Want to make the world's most boring video? Just follow your fellow divers around, filming their fins. ("Gee, is MY butt really that big? No, I think that's Jack.") Be in position when the action starts.

Anticipate what's about to happen, then swim ahead so you're ready to film the action from a good viewpoint. The best videographers have big fins and slow dive buddies. Your video will be more interesting if it shows divers arriving, rather than a steady diet of tank bottoms and fins.

Give Different Looks.
     Do your scenes all look the same? Any viewpoint becomes boring after a while. You need to vary your shots. Unless the action is riveting ("Boy, that shark's really hungry, isn't it? And did you see how the remora darted out to eat that finger?"), your typical viewpoint should be held less than ten seconds.
     Switch views in a natural, storytelling way. For example, viewpoint one is diver approaching sponge, six seconds. Viewpoint two is diver's-eye view of sponge with fish peeking out, 4 seconds. Number three is reverse cut to closeup of diver's face, 3 seconds. Viewpoint four is closeup of fish, 5 seconds. And the final view is a wide-view shot of the diver turning from the sponge to swim on.
     The sample scenes below show how a garibaldi-feeding interaction could be filmed:

	Cut 1 Establishing shot. This shows the general location and the unfolding action.		Cut 2 Interaction shot. Moderate closeup that shows what's taking place.
	Cut 3 Reaction shot. We see the diver's gaze and expression. Cool!		Cut 4 Diver's-Eye view. After showing the diver, we see what he's seeing from his viewpoint.
	Cut 5 Reestablish. The view from above reinforces the spacial relationships.		Cut 6 Closeup view. Cut in for high-voltage intimate look at the action.
	Cut 7 Transition shot. The diver joins his buddy swimming away.

     During long action sequences, such as fish-feeding, look for new viewpoints. Get high above the action and film a segment there. Go in real close for a view of the diver's excited eyes. Shoot a diver's-eye view of garibaldis being hand-fed by holding your camera directly over your dive buddy's shoulder. Look for a silhouette shot by getting low and putting the action in the sunspot.
     And whenever you stop filming, you should find a new "look" before you fire up again (especially if you're doing "in-camera" editing as you shoot). A break in the action is called a "cut," and you should never make a cut without changing the view. Either go in closer, go back, go to a diver's-eye view, or go to a view of your diver's face.
     At least one of your "looks" should establish a sense of scale and position. This is usually the wide-angle shot. Show where the video subject is in relationship to other parts of the scene. For example, you can pan from a closeup of a TV on the bottom to the sunken sailboat it came from. To establish a sense of scale, always include a diver in at least one view of your video subject.

A diver is probably the best way to show scale. In this video of a sea pen, I first showed the pen in closeup to pique viewer interest. Then I showed its true size by cutting to a wide shot that included the diver.

Hold the Camera Still.
     Do you get seasick watching your video? ("And that thing on the rock that just went past is a... No, Ralph! Not on the couch!") In many amateur videos, the camera swings back and forth, up and down, hardly giving the eye time to fix on anything. "Panning" (moving the camera to take in the whole scene) should rarely be done, and if necessary to tell the story, should be done very slowly.
     Consider yourself a tripod for your camera. Settle down to the bottom, get still and comfortable, then let the action begin. Adjust the camera weighting, handles, and lights so it's easy to keep the housing rock-steady. Don't try to follow every move a fish makes. Let the critters move around in your frame.
     Instead of a sweeping pan of the scene, consider a "swimover." A diver's-eye view of a rapid swim through the kelp bed, or along a shipwreck, works much better than a horizontal pan.

For this video of our visit to a shipwreck, I swam rapidly with the camera from bow to stern. I felt this was more dramatic than sitting on the sand and panning from one end to the other. The 8-second swimover also showed the parts of the wreck in detail, so the viewer knew the location of the hatches and ladders that we explored later.

     Jim Church, famous underwater video author, gives three rules for shooting video that's comfortable to view. The rules are:
           (1) Keep the camcorder steady.
           (2) Keep the camcorder steady.
           (3) Keep the camcorder steady.

Keep the Viewpoint Consistent.
     The different "looks" your camera takes should be natural viewpoints. That means you film from the narrator (camera's) viewpoint, or from the viewpoint of your diver model, or the viewpoint of the sea critter he's looking at. From these viewpoints, it's OK to go closer or further away, but it's not OK to suddenly start filming from some other arbitrary angle -- you don't switch viewpoints without a transition scene of some sort. And you need to "introduce" any actor's viewpoint by showing his relation to the scene in a wide shot.
     Confused? OK. Let's consider some samples. (1) View of shipwreck, looking from the right at the tilted deck; cut to view from the left looking at the hull. Inconsistent viewpoint -- you changed the angle of view too radically without a transition shot. Instead, view shipwreck from right, tilt up and zoom on diver approaching shipwreck; cut to diver's-view swim-along of the left side of the ship. Consistent.

At left, a sand-level view from the bow shows divers exploring the wreck. It's confusing to switch suddenly to the closer view at right, where we're looking from above the stern.

(2) Closeup of eel peeking out of sponge; cut to diver's face gazing in wonder. Bad. You didn't establish the location in space of your participants' viewpoints. Better sequence: Closeup of eel; cut to wide shot of diver looking at sponge with eel peeking out; cut to diver's face.

If we see the diver at left hunker down trying to see something on a rock, the transition to what he's seeing (the abalone) is natural, even though it's reversing the angle of view 180 degrees.

(3) Rear view of diver swimming out of kelp into open area; cut to front view of diver pulling up to kneel on the bottom. Bad -- no transition for this change of viewpoint. Rear view of diver; as he's half-way through the kelp strands, cut to front view of the diver half-way through the kelp (film the trip through the kelp twice, from behind and from the front); now cut to closeup of diver settling to the bottom. The continuous action of the diver provides the transition. A change of viewpoint during continuous action works best if there's some natural frame such as kelp, cave opening, or door of a shipwreck to keep the action "locked" to the location.

Here our diver is providing a transition for a change of viewpoint by pointing into the cave. The cut from the diver outside to the lobsters inside now feels natural.

     You can cut to closeup or wide-angle views from the same viewpoint. These are natural-feeling transitions, and the viewpoint remains consistent. But keep the general angle of view consistent -- don't cut from a wide-angle left view to a closeup right view of your subject (unless your viewers can't tell the difference).

Change-of-distance is a natural transition. The change should be a major one -- half as close or twice as far away. Here we cut from a medium-distance view of this gorgonian to an individual branch.

     Use camera motion to change viewpoints. For example, if you're looking at a sea fan from the right, insert a "swim-by shooting" as the camera moves around the subject before looking at the sea fan from the left.
     Use the diver's gaze to change viewpoints. If you're filming a gorgonian fan, you shouldn't switch from left side to right side without a transition. But if your first viewpoint (from the left) shows a diver just behind the sea fan gazing intently at it, you can now cut to a right-side closeup view of the gorgonian branches, because the diver's gaze has provided the new viewpoint.

Let it Happen.
     I once wondered why I only saw bass while I was hunting crawdads, and never when I was swimming around with a spear gun looking for them. Now I know. Fish will move away if you're moving towards them. Call it paranoid, but they seem to think that something big, black, and bubbling that's headed straight for them might have gastronomic intentions.
     If you settle down to the bottom and go about your business, the fish will come in to eyeball you. So don't chase after the fish with your camera. All you'll get is footage of fish tails. Stop, act like you're slow, stupid, and definitely non-hungry, then record the action as it happens.

Capture a Story.
     Thirty seconds of divers swimming. Another 20 seconds of divers swimming, somewhere else. Different set of dive buddies, swimming. Cut to view of your guests yawning. To be interesting, video must tell a story. There's the big story ("I went on vacation"). Within the big story, there are sequences ("I went diving"). And each sequence is composed of individual pieces ("I saw a grouper"), each of which is a miniature story.
     For each of these stories, you must create a beginning or introduction, tell what happened, then provide an ending or transition. A good way to begin the big story (the vacation) is a "leaving home" scene. Unless you're making a "how to pack" instructional video, make it brief.

An example of the beginning of the "big story." Use six seconds of your traveling partners throwing their gear in the car, followed by five seconds inside the car as it heads down the road, then five seconds of divers taking their gear out of the car at the dock.

     For the end of the story, shoot a few seconds of divers greeting their spouses or washing their gear back home.
     Your smaller stories (sequences) must also have a beginning and an end. Each dive is a sequence. (Although in practice, most videographers compile the footage from several dives to create one "composite" dive that has all the required scenes.) Show the beginning of the sequence -- divers jumping into the water. I like to shoot one diver jumping into the water while I'm on the boat, then shoot another diver from the water as he jumps in.

A diving sequence should have a beginning, like the water entry at left. It should have an ending scene, like the diver approaching the boat's ladder at right.

     Show the end of the sequence, underwater as divers reach for the boat ladder, or topside as divers climb out. Create a break between dive sequences with topside action, such as divers playing cards, cleaning equipment, telling dive fibs, snoozing.
     Each subject (piece) within the sequence is also an independent story. The piece must have a beginning, or a transition from the last segment. Usually, the beginning of a story piece is a shot of divers swimming. Now show the action, varying the viewpoint (within the rules we discussed earlier) to keep viewer interest. For example, show five seconds of a diver positioning his body to look under a rock ledge (wide view). Next comes four seconds of lobsters inside the crevace. Now cut in for a closeup of a single lobster, five seconds. Then show three seconds of the divers face with a "wow" expression. Then intermediate view, show the diver pushing away from the hole and turning to leave. The story piece is complete. Four seconds of your dive group swimming provides the transition to the next piece.
     The scenes below show how an encounter with a spearfisherman can be presented as a brief but complete story.

	Cut 1 Establishing shot. Story begins a view of barracuda schooling with a diver in the background.		Cut 2 Action shot. As 'cuda move past, the view jumps forward to the diver stalking the school.
	Cut 3 Closeup shot. Cut to closer view of diver taking aim and hitting a fish.		Cut 4 Reaction shot Diver excitedly shows the fish to the camera.
	Resolution scene Clock-wipe indicates passage of time, revealing new scene of barracuda being cleaned.		Note: after the wipe transition to on-deck, your video should probably stay there a while, showing other on-deck activities.

Click on the garibaldi for the next lesson.

About the author: Bruce Argyle writes medical education software. He began making truly bad dive videos in 1990. With the aid of a computerized editing system, his videos have progressed from stupendously awful to merely amateurish.