Speed Up Your Workflow with A Director's Monitor!

[Music] today we are here with my wife me me you are the uh director for pretty much all of our stuff and you edit pretty much all of our stuff too so we're going to do a behind the scenes look at one of our recent events we shoot mainly Live Events and for most people you would think like oh there isn't really like much directing when it comes to Live Events and for the most part that's true right like for weddings you're not really like directing actors but I would say like there kind of is yes it's almost like editing on the spot if I'm directing it not shooting it our client is this um membership program for families who have kids they have all tons of fun activities for all the holidays for most of the weekends and they're heavily focused on kids activities so all our videos that we edit that Mama edits is going to go on Instagram basically reals uh so it's a vertical format 9x6 format and the way we shoot is we shoot horizontal and then we crop in for the uh vertical format correct so framing on set is very uh important usually it's it's me on the main camera and then you you have a bcam and then when we when you're not shooting on the bcam you can kind of see what I'm shooting and what's what are some thoughts that you have when you're going into like a live shoot there is little plany involved cuz it's a live event but when I arrive on location I would take a look at the big picture to see what kind of Y shots that we can get cuz for close-ups It's relatively easier cuz you can just shoot it on on the spot but for white shots you need to take a look around and see what angle is the best and you have to take lighting into consideration as well we forgot to mention there's one little caveat to the stuff that we shoot and that is we can't show any faces so no faces of kids no faces of like parents and families and stuff like that that's part of the the challenge I guess of shooting these Live Events it's like how do we shoot a live event of kids of people without shooting like their face talk to us about like what goes through in your mind when you're looking for uh shots on location and what you're looking for when you're uh editing in your head first off why shots I would pick something as a foreground to kind of cover up people's faces but sometimes if there's no foreground that you can use then make sure that your shots are further enough that you only see blurry faces if that makes sense for example if there's a DJ in the middle and every one is kind of facing towards One Direction then you will go to the back and film their backs make sure that your camera's rolling the entire time so when you're in the editing room that you pick the moments they have motions that they are moving their hands or they're dancing and Etc through like body language then is really what we're looking for okay so uh we use this monitor on set um this is the Fel World T10 this is a 10in monitor I like like it I love big monitors cuz as the Director you really need to see every detail in the shots and you are responsible to check for everything basically cuz it's just the two of us we don't have any scripty or um production designer so I do a lot of the staging if we're filming food cocktails and still stuff now when it comes to like uh usability of the monitor what did you think I like like this this is very lightweight um it doesn't overheat and it's big enough for me to see everything most of our stuff is in Sunny Condition it's bright enough the color is very accurate and I love that it comes with the hood it's really helpful in the sun I saw like a lot of times you were kind of like you kind of had your your face inside the Sun hood or I have to take off my jacket and put it over the monitor yeah yeah if you don't have a sun Hood that's what you would do yeah yes cuz I like monitors that it's just a monitor instead of a monitor and then recorder cuz for director's monitor I'm holding it for like a long period of time and constantly moving with it and sometimes I can't hold it I need to put it down when I need to Stage stuff so lightweight is very important for me personally for directors is something like this important on set yes I believe all directors deserve their own monitors it's very important important that you are checking everything in the frame cuz some people they don't check their monitor they're always around actors if I didn't have my own monitor I would be using yours it would be so crowded sometimes if you have camera movement then I can't really be near your side in that case I'm just observing the movements with my eyes instead of checking what's actually showing in the monitor which is what the audience would be viewing in the final stage having my own monitor helps me stay focused in what's in the frame I can give real time Direction uh while you're shooting for example I can just tell you to pin left tilt up adding more movements by observing it on the monitor instead of having you to do playbacks for me all the time it's way more efficient this way I think I made a mistake staging one in the food shot because I didn't see it in the monitor I was just staging the food um with my eyes and they look fine but in the shots they look too scatter they don't look nice so that would be one example that I would definitely use monitor for future shoots MH that was funny because like that was like the only like scene that we didn't have the monitor uh available we were just we just had off to so I we just didn't uh think we needed it I guess having the monitor there 24/7 is pretty much going to be how we operate from now on I think we don't have a second AC we're using autofocus so so sometimes he does not notice if something is in Focus so that responsibility falls on my shoulder especially when the objects are like very close to each other but like you know not you know it's like not the same Focus plane and it just automatically focuses on like the further one when we're trying to shoot the nearer one does a monitor like this help you get the type of shots that you want yes with the monitor I can easily check if I have enough white shots for editing when you're looking at the Monitor and you see the shot that I got you're mentally like checking it off MH you're like okay we got the shot of the kids running around okay now let's move into a close-up also for closeup I'm able to see the details of let's say a cocktails garnish or like a shot you dip the chicken fingers the ketchup if you don't have it blown up and you're just looking at it on the on on a on a smaller LCD screen on the camera you're not able to kind of visualize like how it's going to look on the phone because it's the the LCD screen is so small so with a monitor like this like look at how big the monitor is compared like see that it's exactly the same length as like your phone so like if you have the the guidelines on the monitor you're able to accurately tell like oh what's going to be shown exactly inside of the phone so if you're like oh if we shoot a a closeup and it's way too close and it takes up the whole frame then it's like it's not a good shot I remember remember the first time we film this type of events the white shots aren't wide enough because we are viewing it from the LCD screen and it looks white enough but once you put it on the phone it's too close that you would see the details of people's faces you will recognize who they are MH so that was a problem for us there's a trick that it might sounds simple but it took me a while to realize this is how you maximize the amount of coverage that you could have when you do y shots make sure you're not just stay in one location or just move left or right a little bit let's say you can go up the stairs or you can go super low you put the camera on the floor make sure you have different perspective instead of just angles if that makes sense I still do that a lot uh which is one of the things that you told me not to do um is that I just stand there in one corner basically of the room just kind of like go like this MH if I use this let's say in the beginning of the video I can't reuse it in the middle cuz for the audience they're too similar they cannot tell that they're two different shots there's a rule that every time you change angle you have to do it more than 45° for Live Events like this I don't think changing angles is enough you really need to move to a different location let's say the first White shot you get is the front of the room the second shot you will get is through some different foreground at the back of the room that way the edit feels like it flows way better um and it doesn't look like we're just jumping around through different shots cuz they look different who do you think this monitor is ultimately for I think this one's definitely for a director I can totally see script supervisors using it production designers cuz they if they want to check to see what's in the frame or what they when need to add then this would be good for them as well gear is something that you you usually don't let me buy for good reason you know for a good reason we don't need to be spending money on stuff that we don't actually we don't need every gear that's on the market right now the new lenses new camera yeah we need stuff that will work that will make sense as a business instead of a hobby um so with that in mind for the amount of uh features and accessories that you get with the monitor which is is the sun hood and this little kickstand HDMI cables and stuff like that this is 200 bucks would you feel comfortable getting a monitor like this for 200 bucks I think so yeah I would pay $200 for this is it useful enough to justify the 200 bucks definitely yeah yeah okay all right a couple last thoughts about this monitor here um I do all the rigging for this monitor my wife does all the viewing on the monitor so it for her it's a little bit of a different uh perspective when it comes to this mon monitor especially when it comes to rigging it up for ease of use portability first thing I want to mention is that while I do think this kicks inand is sort of useful uh the fact that it only comes with uh a single/ qu in Mount on the top side and bottom uh is a little bit problematic because yes you're able to mount it onto the kickstand and you're able to tilt it like this and have it you know view it in a couple different angles but the more you do it the faster this thing comes loc it it already came loose it came loose already by itself because I just uh I just yeah that happens a lot because it's only a single screw on the sides uh and it's not very secure that way it's it just doesn't secure itself to the monitor it's easily able to come loose by itself as you just saw me do that was kind of scary not going to lie this little kickstand here does have these quarter in mounting points right here that you can put onto like a light stand or some something like that that has like a 1 quarter in thread so you can poke through and screw it on but because it's such a small amount of like contact point it's not going to be like the most secure way of mounting this onto a stand this monitor does have the uh the Visa or V vesa Visa uh 75 mm mounting points on the back you will put like a mount on the back and then it would go on a c stand that way you have a lot more like connection uh to the actual stand itself and not just like a flimsy little bit of threading that you're putting the monitor on however it's a little bit of a hassle to find the right Visa Mount the battery plate is very close to the uh the mounting points so when you have your plate on here especially with the ones with like the the knuckles the securing Knuckles on the side like that it actually will Jam this part up it'll also Jam this part up as well because there's just not enough space to put everything on the back of the monitor so I wish the back part of this monitor was a bit bigger like maybe like a couple like an inch or half an inch on the sides like this would spread out everything a little bit better and give it a lot more like breathing room so that I can mount everything on the back all at once I really also want these manufacturers to come out with their own cage that way it makes rigging up the monitor a lot easier like I can put handles onto the side via NATO rail or like a 38 Mount or even something with like a already locating pin that would be a lot better but this is something I've already talk to fuel World about and they are probably going to make something like a cage for their T10 monitor or their other monitors as well okay that's pretty much it for this video uh hope you guys enjoyed the behind the scenes look especially with my wife coming on thank you to her shout out to her for coming on and breaking down her process if you like this video hit that like button subscribe helps out this channel a lot but until the next one my name is Alex CH I see you later bye [Music]