Textbook- Chapter 3

Chapter Three:
Let’s Film!


WHAT? YOU WANT US TO FILM? Well, yeah. You can’t make movies without camcorders! You need to learn how to operate them. Now I couldn’t find a diagram, so you’ll need to pay close attention to my instructions.


HOW YOUR CAMCORDER WORKS

The camcorder usually has three modes.

CAMERA/TAPE MODE- is the mode where you copy an image onto your tape. In other words, where you do you filming.

MEMORY/ MEMORY STICK MODE- is the mode where you copy an image onto the camcorder memory. Sometimes this requires a Memory StickTM .

PLAYBACK/VCR/VTR MODE- is the mode where you view footage on your tape or memory (each camcorder has a different way of doing this).

We aren’t going to work with Memory Mode in this class, but it’s nice to have.

BUTTONS, BUTTONS, EVERYWHERE!

There are a lot of buttons on your camcorder. There are three important buttons that you must know!

RECORD BUTTON- Usually bright red, this button will begin and stop recording. When used in Playback mode, it has no function.

MODE TOGGLE SWITCH- This will switch between modes.

ZOOM TOGGLE- Usually on top, and accessed with your index finger, this will zoom in and out.

MENU OPTIONS

There are a couple of Menu Options but there is only one that you need to know.

PICTURE/DIGITAL EFFECTS- These are used to give your picture special effects, but I wouldn’t use them unless you were absolutely sure that’s what you want, because you can edit them in post-production.


SO, HOP TO IT!

Filming itself is not something that can be written about in books so well that it is better than actually doing it yourself!