I feel like a small child let loose in Toy world when presented any new type of video camera I haven’t gotten my hands on before. All new buttons and an external microphone, a menu you haven’t searched all the options for (where is that zoom? oh there it is!) and then there’s the few moments of pretending to be a national geographic videographer in the central planes of Africa, silently documenting the natural world, observing the life you just left through a set of mirrors and LED flip out screen. After the novelty wore off (only a little though, I’ll always feel like I’m Alfred Hitchcock or David Attenborough for a moment whilst holding a video camera), we tacked our task. We were to film a short interview video in groups about “How to survive the first 6 weeks of Uni”.

Checks pulse

Wanting out video to fit into the comedy genre, we first headed to the building 9 editing suites, a quiet space to experiment filming with the external microphone, we filmed one segment of the interview here. After that we headed to the rooftop of building 5, to experiment using the clip-on microphone (I know 100% there’s a much more technical term for it but god I can’t think of what it might be). We filmed the intro and a segment of the interview here. The collection of vending machines near the RMIT library was next on our hit list, once again using the clip-on microphone, as this area was quite busy and we needed the dialogue to be picked up and the ‘hussle and bussle’ of other students moving around the area to be in the background. Lastly we set up at the bottom of the stairs leading into the alumni courtyard to film the outro. At each location we ensured we captured shots of tilts, pans, close-ups, zoom, mid and wide shots and cutaways. I found the Sony equipment really good to use, the external microphone did not produce the quality audio that the clip-on microphone was able to, so if I had to use this equipment for a project I would go for that attachment 100%. The zoom on the camera was nice and smooth, although the lens doesn’t allow for focus like my own personal camera which I really enjoy using. The video quality from the camera was good and I really liked the tripod, and all the freedom it gave us to move and find the perfect shot. It was a really interesting activity and gosh does it make you bond with a camera quick, it’s like speed dating. You know what I mean.