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Communicating your ideas is usually critical to the success of your work. Giordano and Peter have wide experience both presenting and reviewing technical presentations. They recommend silent videos, and give details that will help make your presentation successful.
Producing a fancy video costs money, and above all it takes a lot of time. You spend days writing a script, weeks shooting video, and more days editing the video. Here are some proven tips that allow you to make a pretty good video for a conference.
- To avoid the problems of sound recording, synchronization, enunciation, formulation, noise, etc., just leave sound out and explain the video ad lib.
- Carefully think about a script. If you use a silent video, you do not have to write it down, although that helps.
- Practice to make sure you can communicate your point and make an impressive demo of your system in 5 to 7 minutes.
- If your computer has a video output, use this output instead of filming off the computer display.
- If you have to film off the computer display, rent a professional camcorder with adjustable blanking. Adjust the it until the flicker completely disappears on the monitor.
- Set up your system in a dark room to avoid any reflections on the screen. If the camcorder has a red light, cover it with masking tape.
- Use a monitor with a flat CRT, if possible. The lens field of focus is curved with an opposite radius than the CRT, so it is difficult to have the whole CRT in focus. Cheap computer monitors flicker a lot and are not usable.
- Place the camera on a very sturdy tripod and with the optical axis perpendicular to the CRT faceplate (put a pocket mirror in the center of the image and move the camera until you see the center of the lens in the mirror through the view finder). Focus very accurately.
- Adjust the white point of the camera on a white background.
- Remember the TV resolution is only a fraction of the computer display resolution. Use large fonts. If your windows are small, zoom in. Often AV chairpersons at conferences prefer the VHS format, whose horizontal resolution is approximately 200 dots per scan line.
- NTSC video is based on the YIQ color space and the color gamut is reduced so the signal can be transmitted in a relatively narrow frequency band. To avoid blooming and other artifacts, use only colors that are in the NTSC (or PAL or SECAM) gamut. Beware especially of magentas.
- Do not rely on the viewfinder other than for aiming. Connect a good NTSC monitor to the camcorder output to tightly control what is being recorded.
- Do not point with your finger. Use a pencil with an eraser-head.
- If you goof, do not try to edit the tape. Just record your 5-7 minute demo again from scratch.
- Good luck!
Giordano Beretta & Peter Schnorf- Do you have more questions, or can you add to this topic?
Contact Giordano or the Editor!
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