Osmotics Video Shoot for Dillard’s
This was a product info shoot with the President/Founder of Osmotics Cosmeceuticals for the Dillard’s DTube site and to play within the stores for their Osmotics sales teams. I shot this with my Nikon D7100 and Tascam DR60D MkII audio recorder/mixer with Sennheiser eW 100 G3 wireless transmitter/receiver’s and a Voice Technologies VT500 lavalier mic. I lit the scene with (2) 500-LED dimmable photography lights and an 18-inch fluorescent ring light. All were rated at 5600ºK.
My camera was set to a custom user setting (U2) set to 640 ISO at 1/60th shutter speed, Picture Control was set to Vivid, with a sharpness at 6 and contrast at 3 (everything else was set to 0), the video setting was set to 1920×1080/24p. I used an 18-105mm Nikkor VR lens with Hoya UV[0] haze and circular polarizer filters. I did forget to record the lens settings (which I’m pretty sure was set to f/4 at a focal length of 24mm). Unfortunately, the camera doesn’t record much metadata in video mode. It will not record actual focal length, aperture setting, +/- exposure values, ISO, etc. It will only record white balance, picture control and the most basic lens info (i.e., 18-105/3.5-5.6). Regardless, I still love this camera, since I mostly use it in manual mode, with manual lenses, as well as recording the settings… um… manually.
Those that want to know my opinion of my audio system can read my post about the Tascam DR60 MkII. However, if you want to know about the lavalier system — read on.
The Sennheiser eW 100 G3 transmitters and receivers are great tools, albeit expensive. A single transmitter/receiver kit runs around $800-900. I purchased a dual mic kit (w/ the VT500 lav mics and eW 100 G3 plugin XLR transmitter for handheld microphones) around 5 years ago and they still perform to specification. The price has come down a little since I bought them, but not by much (maybe $300-500?). The thing I love about the VT500’s are how they perform in echoey rooms. The suite that we shot was about 3000 sq. ft., and had very old wooden floors and redbrick walls with roughly a 12.5 ft. ceiling. So, as you can imagine, it was very echoey. The lav mics performed admirably. The room echo was barely noticeable. In fact, I’d say that it was moot, since I had to purposefully and determinantly listen for it.
In summary, this was an interesting shoot. Not much of a learning experience, as it was pretty much, a paint-by-numbers project, but it’s always a good experience doing projects like this. I am one of those filmmakers that likes to work on something that I can learn something from, but working on projects like this is a great way to improve on your skill set. It’s just like attending seminars or forums that cover things that you already know. The intrinsic value of this is that you know for a fact that you are still following up on the current standards or trends.
Thank you for taking the time to read this blog. I hope it was informative and educational.
Q. Ajimine 