20.14 How do you shoot and/or edit softcore footage?
Description
This article is from the Sex Movies FAQ, by director@gti.net (The Director) with numerous contributions by others.
20.14 How do you shoot and/or edit softcore footage?
S. Andrew Roberts, our editor in the field, tells us that while
it's theoretically true that a second camera, positioned slightly
differently from the "main" camera could conceivable capture soft-
core footage at the same time, many variables come into play that
usually spoil the added effort and expense.
1. Most sets are rather intimate. Small if you prefer. This is
because the available stages are rather small overall and a
variety of sets is required for each shoot. Thus the sets are
small. On top of that, the area occupied by the performers is
typically small, usually just a bed or sofa. Considering all
that, there isn't much room for the main camera and a guy
holding the "C" light and a guy with the microphone boom let
alone an extra camera.
2. IMHO, there's only ONE good position for a camera to be in
given a particular position of the performers. The second
camera is relegated to a lousier shot. Worse yet, often times,
BOTH cameras are capturing the SAME image. Or...both cameras
are capturing hard-core footage because each feels that the
best available shot at the moment. This is all because there's
no communication between each cameraperson and the director.
Since the director is likely to be onstage just outside the
camera's view, he is not going to bother to talk each camera
into any particular angle since anything said by him will be
picked up by a microphone not far away. To move the director
off the stage and into a sound proof room would also require
a communications system which would add extra cables to each
camera and yet another cost to ever shrinking budgets.
3. On a typical two-camera shoot, as one camera is in position
capturing an image, the other camera is moving to a different
position so as not to be in the way of the first camera and to
attempt to get a different image. The result of this is almost
constant noise on the set as people reposition themselves. If
that's not bad enough, there is an added person who will also
try to control the actions and movement of the performers by
speaking at inappropriate times. The result is a soundtrack
problems, ignored during the shooting with the usual solution:
"We'll fix it in post."
Well...I can't fix it in post because there is less good sound to
work with and more instances where it's needed.
4. Some additional technical problems also arise during two
camera shoots. Often, the camerapeople hired have their own
cameras and each camera's video, chroma and hue levels have
drifted to vastly different settings. No porn shoot hires a
video technician with remote camera control units to adjust
and maintain levels nor do they balance the cameras together
on industry standard reference charts and dolls. The result is
usually tapes that have different levels that may or may not
be able to be matched in post. Guys like me who spend big
bucks on extra playback decks, Time Base Correctors and Color
Correctors can usually match levels reasonably well, but
editors without these necessary components usually turn out
products where the colors change at each edit point.
Additionally, nobody bothers to lock the time code generator
of one camera to the time code generator of the other camera.
Thus, it's impossible to lock tapes together so that one can
dissolve from one tape to the other at the correct time.
Occasionally, you can find dialogue, noises or body movements
to sync the tapes but the moment one tape pauses, the sync is
broken and had to be manually reset. PAIN IN THE ASS!
5. The producers refuse to pay extra for editing even though I
have twice as much footage I must sift through. They think the
extra footage is a favor. It's not! It makes for more work and
more fixes left to the editor. (Yes, this last reason is a
very personal indeed and not objective at all.)
Some instances are made for two cameras. Multiple-girl gang bangs
come out much better because there is action occurring
simultaneously all over the set and one camera cannot possible
capture it. That leads to a much longer shoot to get the necessary
footage of all participants and the performers are usually losing
energy long before sufficient footage is shot. Multiple cameras are
best used in situations where the performers do not move around the
set and the cameras can be locked-off on tripods. Bill Majors
shoots his bondage videos very successfully in this manner.
Continue to:
My Books
