Big Screen Techniques for Small Screen Budgets

Professional filmmaking technique is instantly recognized by a few things. Among them is camera movement. We use this jib to start with the camera high and finish low - or occasionally vice-versa. Here we are shooting over a wall at a boutique resort. The camera is dropped from the wide shot to bring the hotel's entranceway with their name and logo into the frame.

JIb shots can add tremendous production value to video. Before the days of DV, camera cranes were massive devices with the operator sitting at the top. This portable one pictured is perfect for any remote location.

Use of a dolly adds horizontal movement to a shot. The best you can do with a stationary (tripod mounted) camera, is pan across the scene. Anytime you can move the camera through a vertical or horizontal plane (and sometimes both) you present the action or the setting in a way that is more like the way it is seen in real life situations.

Dolly shots can also be very effective to follow a moving subject, such as a person walking along the beach and talking to a friend or to the camera. Like boom shots, these dynamic views add tremendous value to a video production.

Whatever the needs of your production - we'll find a way to meet them. Here the teaching kitchen at Samui Institute of Thai Culinary Arts was converted into a studio for the DVD series "Learn to Cook Thai with SITCA."

The camera boom in the middle of the photo at right is mounted on a compact dolly, and allows the camera to be positioned directly over the work surface, raised, lowered and moved fore and aft and from side-to-side, for effective overhead shots of food preparation.