Basic Video

1. Never leave the equipment room without attaching your microphones to a camera and testing their proper functioning and sound quality through a pair of headphones.

2. Always wear a pair of covered headphones when doing any kind of audio recording through the camera. The input for attaching headphones is on the front (or lens side) of the JVC camera.

3. Always be sure to fully charge your camera batteries before heading out on a shoot.

Steps for Charging the Battery:

-Set the power switch on the top of the camera to “OFF”
-With the arrow on the battery pack pointing up, slide the battery into place
-Remove the battery by sliding the battery release button on the bottom of the camera
-Connect the AC power adaptor to the front of the camera (in the “DC” input), and plug the other end into an outlet
-The Power/Charge lamp on the camcorder blinks to indicate that charging has begun.
-When the Power/Charge lamp goes off, charging is complete.

4. Make sure that you buy only Sony Premium or Excellence Mini DV tapes.

5. Turn the camera on to insert a tape. Insert the tape with the guts or inside part of the tape facing the inside of the camera, and the outside or window side of the tape facing the outside of the camera.

6. In order to access the menu and sound levels for an external microphone, your JVC camcorder has to be set to M or Manual. The camera must be set to VIDEO to shoot with Mini DV tapes.

7. Always make sure that your camera is in SP mode before recording. You should see SP on the monitor for Standard Play recording. If you see LP, hit menu (a button on the back of the camera) and scroll to the A menu, hit SET, scroll to REC MODE, hit SET and you can select SP.

8. Always make sure that your camera is set to record 16 bit sound. To check, hit menu and scroll to A menu, hit SET, scroll to SOUND MODE and select 16bit.

9. Any zoom over 10X moves the image from one with optical zoom to one with digital zoom. My advice is to never use the digital zoom. This lessens the image quality quite a bit. To make sure that your digital zoom never passes 10X, hit MENU and scroll down to the A screen. Select ZOOM and set it at the 10x option.

10. After insuring that the environment, person, place, or object is properly lit, be absolutely sure to Manually White Balance the camera. Always include a blank piece of white paper or white poster board in your camera case for this purpose. Here are the steps to do this:

-Set the power switch to M
-Hold a sheet of white paper or poster board in front of the subject + zoom in until the white paper fills the LCD screen.
-Press WB repeatedly to select the manual white balance symbol (2 triangles with a square in between). This symbol will appear on your LCD screen.
-Press and hold the WB button until it stops blinking, and then the manual white balancing is complete.
-Once you adjust the white balance manually, the setting will remain even after you shut off the camera. To reset it, repeat the process again. You should manually white balance the camera again whenever you change the lighting or change the environment or room you’re shooting in.
-Avoid scenes with multiple color temperatures of light (indoor light is red/orange, outdoor light is blue, and fluorescent light is green). For example, avoid mixing blue outdoor light streaming through windows with red indoor or household lights in the same shot.

11. Manually Focusing the camera is typically best. Here are the steps to do this:

-Set the Power switch to M
-Press FOCUS, the manual focus indicator appears
-Rotate the Manual Focus dial to focus on a subject
-Press SET on the Manual Focus dial

12. Don’t break the timecode on your Mini DV tape. Be sure to record some dead space on the tape after a critical scene. If you decide to rewind your tape to review something you just shot, be sure to park the tape well into that dead space (at least 10 seconds) before starting to record again. The tape needs to be backed up at least 10 seconds into footage previously shot in order to keep the time code from breaking.

13. When you plug in an external mic on the JVC, you see a L and a R light up on the lower left corner of the LCD screen. As sound is being recorded by the external microphone, a series of bars will light up. They are green and red. The sound should peak with one red bar only.

The last 2 or 3 red bars shouldn’t light up.

If the sound reaches the 3rd or 4th red bar, your levels will be hitting too near or at 0 decibels or 0db. You never want to hit O Db. This is known as hitting the brick wall. Your sound will screech and become unusable.

You’ll be responsible for testing the sound levels of any recorded audio in Final Cut Pro. In Final Cut Pro, you have a tool called the audio meter. This meter will show you the levels of the sound you recorded with your camera.

The general rule for voice or foreground recording: -12db to -6db

Middleground sounds, like a zipper being zipped or a water fountain: -15 to -3db

Background sounds, like sounds from a meadow or sound outside a city window: -20 to -15 db, though they can be recorded at higher levels and lowered in Final Cut Pro.

14. Be sure to record at least 5 minutes of uninterrupted ambient sound in each shooting environment. Air has a sound, and you will need a long and seamless recording of “silence” in every space you shoot in for use in editing. After recording a sound, don’t stop recording immediately. Record dead space before and after each critical sound source.

15. I would recommend using the RE-10 microphone (especially good for voice and middleground sounds) or the PZM microphone (best for background sounds) to get the best audio levels on your JVC camcorder.

16. Don’t forget to bring a supply of double A and triple A batteries for use in the microphones.

17. If you’re using a tube kit for lighting, never touch the bulb with your fingers. Always use gloves when operating the hot lights. Let the lights cool off completely before packing them up.

Miranda July