THE ONE MAN BAND

"Gosh," you think. "My packages would look so much better if only my photographer knew how to shoot!" But your problem is, you ARE your photographer.

Shooting college football and looking happy about it!

Many aspiring reporters have to start in jobs which require them to work as both reporter and photographer. I worked three years as a "one man band" in Salisbury, Maryland and I quickly learned that the better my shooting looked, the better my reporting looked. I also learned a few things that might help you sharpen your self shot work.

THINK VIDEO

If you work as a "reporter/photographer" you probably spend most of your time thinking about the "reporter" part of your title. Make it a point on every story you shoot to spend some time just thinking about your video. Good packages always have distinctive shots throughout them, especially at the beginning and the end. Stop for a moment to figure out what your opening shot will look like. Take another minute to think how you can shoot a memorable ending shot.

SHOOT YOUR STORY

Well, duh! That seems pretty obvious, doesn't it? What I mean is that you need the reporter part of you to keep the photographer part apprised about what the story is and how you want to tell it. Then the photographer part has to figure out what video you need to do that. For everything you say, there has to be something to show.

I once did a news story about a drug checkpoint police had set up. At one point in the package I say,

REPORTER AUDIO	SHOT SHOWS
Florence County and State Police set up a checkpoint	Police cars and scene
along Interstate 95	I-95 sign
near Sardis	Sign to Sardis
looking for drugs	Drugs found

FLORENCE COUNTY AND STATE POLICE SET UP A CHECKPOINT ALONG INTERSTATE 95 NEAR SARDIS LOOKING FOR DRUGS.

I knew as I was shooting that I was going to say something like that and made sure to get shots to match exactly what I wanted to say. It looks pretty simple here but you'll be amazed how much faster your packages will move if you match one shot of video for every two to five words like I do in this story.

GET CLOSE

The closer you get your camera to shots, the closer a viewer can get to your story. Instead of a wide shot of police cars in the drug checkpoint story, I squatted down next to one, started with a tight shot of a police car's door then stood up as I panned to a wider shot of the scene. For the shots of the signs, I walked up as close to them as I could while still fitting them in the frame. This gave me a cool low angle view.

There is more than an asthetic benefit to doing this. Ever notice how when you have to zoom in to get a shot, it looks more wobbly and is harder to focus? Think about it. Zooming in is really just taking the wide shot and magnifying it. Zooming in will also magnify any movement you make or any focal problems you have.

Try this. Got the shot you want? Good. Now zoom all the way out and move toward whatever it is you're shooting until you have the same shot. Your shot will look better and stay steadier.

GET STEADY

Other things you can do to steady your shots include putting the camera on the ground or on a table. I had enough equipment to carry already so I didn't lug around the tripod until I was ready to shoot my standup. I looked for substitutes. I mentioned the ground. Can't get much steadier than that, can you? You can get great low angle shots by putting the back end of the camera on the ground and putting a battery or other handy thing under the front to tilt it up.

STAY STILL

You'll capture some of the best action by not moving the camera at all. Make sure you shoot lots of steady, still shots. Quickly paced packages usually come from quickly paced editing, not fancy camera work. Write so that you mention a lot of things quickly and edit your video to the words like I did in the drug checkpoint story. All the shots except the opening one stood still but the package really moved because each shot only stayed up long enough to cover the two or three words I talk about it.

Camera movement can help illustrate your story when used purposefully. If you're going to talk about someone walking from Point A to Point B ten feet away, that's a good time to shoot a shot in which you pan from Point A to Point B as you explain that the person walked from A to B. If you shoot a shot in which you move the camera, know what you're going to say to justify the move.

I once did a car safety story in South Carolina in which we found that five children in the state had died one year solely because they weren't safely buckled inside the car. I ended the package with a shot that started with two girls in the backseat of a car. I slowly zoomed into the face of the girl closer to me as I said, "Doesn't sound like a lot. Unless one of them is yours."

Be especially careful with zooms because while you can pan (move side to side) and tilt (move up and down) your eyes just like a camera with your neck, your eyes can't zoom so shots with zooms will stand out.

THE STANDUP

This is the part where you bring an extra light stand to set in front of the camera to get a focus where you're going to stand, right?

	Shooting my standup and getting involved in the story.

I remember the last time I did that. I zoomed in to get my focus, shot a good standup and discovered when I got back to the station that I had forgotten to zoom back out after getting my focus and that my good standup was instead a good shot of my nose!

Here's what I did to focus my standups: turn the focus all the way up and zoom all the way out. If you're behind the camera like you're shooting, grasp the focus control on the lens and turn it clockwise, or up, as far as it will go. You'll be focused for things close to the camera. Then zoom all the way out. Focus up and zoom out. Then leave it alone! If you do this, you will always be in focus as long as you don't stand closer than two feet from the camera or any farther than about ten feet.

Then all you have to worry about is framing the shot. If you just need a center shot, there's a trick for that, too. Stand in front of the camera and look at your reflection in the lens. Then lean back and forth from your right to your left and watch how your reflection moves. You should see one part that moves in the same direction you do and another part that moves in the opposite direction. When the two reflections merge, you're centered.

If you want yourself in the right or left of the frame, a little more practice with the centering technique and you'll be able to put yourself anywhere in the shot you want just by looking into the lens.

That leaves figuring out how much head room you need. I don't know a shortcut for this. If the camera is at eye or nose level, you will have to tilt the camera down to avoid having too much head room. I used to make my best guess, shoot a trial standup, rewind the tape, look at it through the viewfinder then adjust the shot.

You may see shooting your own work as no more than a necessary evil. For all its difficulties, shooting your own stories can teach you a lot about how to use video in a story, which is something your photographer will appreciate when you get that job that doesn't require you to shoot.

In the meantime, remember: the better you shoot your stories, the better you'll report them.