On the cheap

A rare work-related blip...

We've been learning how to shoot some cut-price, in-house videos at work over the past few weeks. There's been a lot of trial and error involved (mostly error, to be honest), but we're slowly getting to the stage where we can actually produce something that looks halfway reasonable.

Those who know anything about shooting with green screen (the technique for removing backgrounds so that the presenter can be placed in front of any other scene or picture) will be horrified by the state of our backdrop. We've some extra clippy things arriving next week which should help to smooth out the worst of the wrinkles. Surprisingly, even in the state it's in, we're able to do a pretty clean cut-out.

The big black boxy thing on the front of the camera is a cheapo teleprompter unit. It allows us to put the script on an iPad and then project it up in front of the camera using a special two-mirror. Apart from the camera (a Canon 700D), it was the most expensive part of the kit at (I think) around £300. It's amazing what you can do these days for very little. A few years ago, this set-up would have costs ten of thousands.

So, anyway, a not very interesting blip, but I thought I'd share it as it's sort of photography-related...