Quick Lesson in Filming a Dance Cover

Filming a professional-looking dance video requires more than just a camera. The videographer must take many factors into consideration when shooting.

Lenses and Lighting

For example, various lenses allow you to capture moments from interesting perspectives that cannot be observed by the human eye. Properly placed lighting makes the skin smoother and more even. In addition, more lighting means that the camera can be optimized to shoot at lower ISO (light sensitivity) values. Lower ISO leads to a less grainy video, more accurate colors and much higher overall quality. Lighting can also be used to flourish a video to create more contrast. Higher contrast in the footage makes the shots more cinematic.

Motion and Stabilization

Once we have the lens and lighting, the next step is to add some motion and stabilization. The simplest form of stabilization is just using a tripod. However, stationary/still shots can get boring very quickly. This means that we want to add some motion into the footage. While handheld techniques can work in some instances, they can be very shaky. This is why we have several stabilizing tools including a slider dolly, a monocam stabilizer, a glidecam with body armor, and a 3-axis gimbal. Each tool adds a very different look to the video.

Video File Formats

Next, you must consider which file format you want your video to be in. This gets really technical, so you might want to consider leaving this to us to decide.

To start off, what is the difference between 1080HD and 4K (2160UHD)? In the most basic sense, 4K is just means the video is 4 times bigger than the the standard HD. Where you only had 1 pixel before, now you have 4 pixels. This means your video is much clearer and has more detail. However, the downside of 4K is that the sensor for each pixel on the camera is much smaller. Therefore, you need more lighting to achieve the same exposure level as a DSLR. This is why we don’t offer 4K with basic lighting, because it would turn out very dark.

Secondly, videos that we record can be compressed, uncompressed or RAW. A standard DSLR camera, like the Nikon D750 can only output compressed files. Compressed files have a very small file size and are easy to work with, but they give you less detail and flexibility in color correction when editing. However, having an external recorder allows us to record in ProRes 422, which is an uncompressed output. With a better camera like the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K, the default is uncompressed output with an option for RAW. RAW videos are huge with infinitely more color and detail.

One of the limitations of a DLSR camera is that it can only shoot and output in 8-bit color. The 4K camera output is naturally 10-bit, and RAW video can generate color at 12-bit. This translates to color in this 3-channel (RGB) color combination:

  • 8-bit is (2^8)^3 = 16.8 million colors
  • 10-bit is (2^10)^3 = 1 billion colors, and
  • 12-bit is (2^12)^3 = 68 billion colors.

Higher bit rate helps differentiate colors better, so that when you add in a blue or red filter for the background, skin colors don’t turn blue or orange as well. In general, it gives more flexibility in color correction.

 
 

Camera Settings

Next, choosing the frame rate, shutter speed and shutter angle will affect the overall feel of the video. Frame rates are generally 24fps, 30fps, or 60fps. Generally, 24 frames-per-second is the standard frame rate and provides the most cinematic look. This is typically what you see in movies and short films. With 30fps, the video starts to feel realistic. This is what your phone camera and Snapchat records. 30fps has less of a fantasy feel and more of a reality TV feel. When you have 60fps, the video basically feels like a video game. Every movement is silky smooth, and is especially helpful so that slow motion videos don’t repeat frames. Along with shutter speed, we have the shutter angle. The shutter angle affects the motion blur of the video. The recommendation for films is generally 180 degrees. However, because dance videos have a lot of motion, we usually choose 90 degrees. The settings to default to are 24fps at a 90 shutter angle. On a DSLR, this is 23.98fps (24p) @ 1/100 shutter speed.

Kai Zhou