"Neal Rasmussen's Tips for Severe Weather Videography"
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As I've been chasing for a while, and have learned a thing or two, I thought I'd share some tips with |
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Tips for Videography
I'm so tired of the MTV look of so much tornado footage. Tornadoes are awesome, powerful forces of nature. I really don't think the wild panning zooming and yelling adds anything. In fact I think it insults and distracts. I can name several filmed tornadoes where the scene shows a huge funnel and debris being hurled through the air, as playing cards towards a hat. It starts to pan down to where the action is, almost there, what's happening, and then, whoosh, back up to the funnel! Arrrg! My impetus for these tips is two fold: first, that kind of footage has zero scientific value, no storm structure and no debris origin; secondly, from an aesthetic point of view, it's just horrible. Ok, enough said there, here are the tips: 1) Try to have the camcorder on a tripod. Ok, it IS a lightning rod, but how much more of one than you are, I don't know. It will, however, make a world of difference in the quality of your video. It will also allow photogrammetery, a method of determining debris speed, to be done much more easily. Get a good sturdy tripod too. A method to test a tripod is to extend the legs to full height, but not the top stem, and then grip the head, push down hard and try to move the head in a circle. It shouldn't move much. If it does, and the legs bow like a limbo dancer, try another. I use a Bogen-Manfrotto. I love my Bogens, and Manfrotto is just such a cool word! ;-) 2) If your camcorder allows it, and let's hope it does, turn off the autofocus. We want the tornado in focus, not the raindrops on the windshield. To focus using manual focus, zoom in to the subject, then focus, and then leave it alone. You zoom in to focus because it is much more accurate. If you focus when in a wide-angle shot, and then zoom in, you'll notice it gets fuzzy, and just have to refocus again. Now if your camcorder doesn't have a very good monitor or LCD screen, then a trick is to zoom in, hit autofocus and let the electronic brain do it, then switch back to manual focus. This might not work though, if there's not enough contrasting objects. All autofocus systems can not focus on a dust cloud, as they rely on sharp edges, such as power poles or buildings, with sharp outlines. 3) Either zoom in, or zoom out. Zoom in if you can see the ground debris. Dust or plywood. This is for the photogrammetery and structural engineering folks. And once zoomed in, don't pan constantly, just let the tornado move across the frame and then pan to reposition. If you can't see the ground debris, zoom out completely to a wide-angle shot to get storm structure. This is for the Observational Scientists and aesthetics. Heck, you might even loose your 'target fixation' and notice a developing wall cloud that will soon have you for supper. 4) Pan and zoom slowly. Only when zooming in for a focus check, it doesn't hurt to do a very fast zoom. Hopefully, these will be edited out, otherwise you make old folks like me nauseous. Do try some nice zooms or pans though. One of my best video bytes is on the Anadarko Tornado of May 3rd, 1999. (See 'Movies' page) I zoom in to nice tight shot, then zoom out slowly to encompass the entire storm. Also a pan the storm for structure. It's one thing to say, "And it had about 20 inflow bands!", and another for the Observational Scientists to SEE them. Now I'll contradict myself here. If you want to do a time-lapse later, using a computer capture, don't touch the tripod or camcorder at all. On the other side of the coin, if you've been filming the tornado, or squall, for 10 minutes, and you see a new wall cloud forming, inflow stingers, or strange anvil shape, please swing over, or up, and get a few seconds of it. You'll make the Observational Scientists very happy! :-) 5) Take a Valium! Ok, seeing a tornado does tend to get the adrenaline pumping, but do give me a break. Some of the total out of control panic I hear is just sad. Work yourself up into this panicky state and you're greatly increasing your chance of getting hurt. Not to mention the fact that you just sound ridiculous on national TV. Oh, yes, I've thought of hiring a person to sit in the passenger seat and add some "color commentary", but dismissed the idea as too, well, low class. It is helpful to verbalize observations that are not apparent in the video, such as: where you are; what time it is; what direction the camcorder is pointing; wind speed and direction; start of precipitation and intensity; and occurrences, direction, and type of lightning. Also note structural features such as inflow stingers, and other cells that might influence the storm at the time, or in the future. This is helpful to scientists, and sounds more professional than, "There's a tornado!", in a voice that is strangely two octaves higher than normal. 6) Put some art in your scene. If it's an F5, who cares, and possibly it will distract, but more often than not, using a little creativity, or just plain old composition will help. Try and get a barn in the foreground, or a windmill, or another group of chasers. Also try using the "rule of thirds". This rule of composition states that the horizon should be 1/3 rd of the way up. Not a thin sliver of black near the bottom of the frame. I used to be bad in this respect, and still cheat a bit on some shots, especially wide angle shots where I want as much of the structure of the storm as possible. Try a pan from a close shot of the wheat stalks wildly waving, and then zoom back to the tornado or storm. Sounds ridiculous if there's a tornado, and can be, but then again, you just might make The Learning Channel producer very happy. :-) |
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