I like my job. But there are days I really like my job.
This weekend, I covered a sunrise hot air balloon launch at the Green River Festival in Greenfield, MA. My assignment was to shoot a lot of photos to be made into a gallery. On top of that, I wanted to experiment with combining video, photo and sound. The end result, posted above, was a pretty okay package made with my whole backpack of gear.
I shot most of the photos with my kit 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 lens, which I’ve been ignoring a lot lately in favor of the 35mm f.2 prime, because the subject matter (big, bright balloons!) called for wider shots. Video was shot with my handheld Canon HD camcorder, without a tripod, because I had too much equipment as it was. Most of the nat sound came from the camcorder’s on-board mic, but the interviews all came from my Zoom h2 audio recorder.
I went with the Zoom for two reasons: One, I had concerns about wind affecting the audio quality of my shotgun or the on-board mic, and two, I wanted to get away from an oft-used crutch in Web news video: the talking head.
Because the visuals in this story were so striking, I thought it would be best to ditch talking heads altogether. I still introduce characters with lower thirds, when I’d rather have done it with sound Radiolab-style, but I feel like the story moves along faster without people talking awkwardly into a camera. It’s amazing how much more comfortable folks are around my goofy-looking recorder than they are in front of a video camera.
The sound in the piece leaves something to be desired. Chalk that up to my lack of experience driving stories with audio. I had the foresight to grab the sound of the fans, and the propane burners, but any other sound you hear in there besides the interviews is just stuff I was fortunate enough to get with the camcorder mic.
It’s tough to be thinking about audio as you make sure you’ve got everything you need by way of photo and video at once, all while drifting 1,000 feet over Western Massachusetts. But you won’t hear me complain. The package leaves a lot to be desired, but it’s one of my favorites, and I think I took a lot out of the experience.
Also, balloon rides are pretty cool.
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