I need to post about one of our recent weddings, but I'll stay on-topic here: corporate shoots
I can't disclose the name of our client, but it was a one-shot, greenscreen, talking head narrative that will run on a Flash page with embedded Power Point content. The edited version will run about six minutes.
We purchased a model DV-11 teleprompter from
Prompter People and got the carry case also.
It arrived promptly and I could see right away that the case was an excellent idea. The DV-11 would be nearly impossible to transport safely without this well-made case.
I got the narrative text in rtf format and imported into the software that came with the teleprompter. The software was a little flaky, but I finally got it working. The DV-11 setup fairly quickly and easily. The prompter flickered for the first five or ten minutes, then it settled down. Our testing went fine..
However.. the night before the shoot, we decided to test one more time. Good thing! I ran into two problems - I'd forgotten one of the steps to setting up the teleprompter and the software refused to work properly.
Now, I'm a former software developer and a current web developer, so I'm no stranger to software issues, but nothing I did could coax this program into working properly - and all it had to do was set font-size and color, wrap and scroll properly - yet it would not.
I had not installed Office on my new laptop, but my brother-in-law (with whom we were visiting), came to my rescue with a six year old version of Word which I ran in temporary mode. Word let us set color and font size and properly handled wrapping, but it would not auto-scroll, of course.
So, when it came time to do the shoot, Jean handled the "page-down" control on the laptop. One of the things the Prompter People software was supposed to handle was sending the screen image to the prompter and flipping the image, but this was a task our laptop needed no help with. In fact, we had both screens operating - the laptop's and the teleprompter's.
As for the narration text, it read like it had been written by a software engineer, not by a marketing guy, so I "gently" rewrote all twenty-some pages of it, and saved as a separate version in case the client (a large software company) would insist on their original version, but they did not. They loved our version and even took it a step further, marketing-wise.
It took us a full hour to load our gear and setup in the assigned room. The room would have been large enough, but a huge conference table ate up most of the space. I setup the greenscreen in a corner with 500w photoflood reflectored key light on my right side and same type for fill on my left. I back-lit the subject with a 200w focusing Omni with barn doors. I used relatively flat lighting as I wanted to emphasize my style from the previous videographer who had the subject side-lit with such harsh shadow that he seemed somewhat nefarious.
By having key and fill at oblique angles, I prevented shadows from appearing on the greenscreen which was now evenly lit from the natural room light and the two 500w photofloods.
The shoot went well but when we got to the ending, it seemed flat. I discussed the idea of adding a punchier ending for marketing purposes and the client eagerly agreed. Within about five minutes he'd written a great close (he was the sales manager) which we shot, then called it a wrap.
While packing our gear, I discussed the possibility of doing the next shoot as a two-shot with characters loosely based on the Apple commercials. The client liked the idea, then expanded on it by suggesting different locations, etc.
I think we're headed toward a long relationship.
An unfortunate incident marred the close of our shoot though. As Jean was packing gear into her case, an employee of the client knocked over his coffee cup into her bag, drenching a VX2100 and other gear.
I quickly grabbed the camera and wiped it off with a hankerchief, but at this weekend's wedding shoot the camera refused to auto-focus and the switch that handles exposure (from auto to manual) refused to move, apparently stuck from the cream and sugar the guy used in his coffee.
