I was hired by the National Gardening Association to shoot, direct, and edit 2 more how-to videos in a series I started with them last summer. It’s been a thoroughly enjoyable process, especially as I’ve had the opportunity to work with gardening expert Charlie Nardozzi who serves as the series writer and host. Charlie has the right blend of professionalism and humor with an ability to ad-lib the right content for the moment.
For lighting and grip work, I hired James Valastro, a production veteran with a keen eye for image and story. While I shot these latest two videos, I relied on James for extra punch on lighting Charlie, operating his home-made door dolly on 10ft PVC pipes, and providing a critical eye in our Sony CRT monitor. I could not have gotten the solid image results I got without James’ key assistance.
The camera I used was a Sony FX1 HDV. Despite some of the limitations of this camera (no XLR inputs! Had to use a Beachtek Dual XLR to mini adaptor) and shooting and editing on HDV (compressed files are still cumbersome), I like the image out of this rig. It was the same one I used on the Edmunds Middle School Career Carnival.
For audio we used a Sennheiser Evolution G2 100 Series – Camera Mountable UHF Lavalier Wireless System on the talent. We got clean sound except for a few spots in the greenhouse during Vegetable Seed Starting – after reshooting a few takes the radio frequency seemed to settle down. Had the budget allowed for a dedicated sound person, it would’ve been a bonus. I was just lucky to have James as an extra set of ears and eyes.
The entire video series (produced by Charlie, National Gardening Association, and me) are viewable in their playlist at garden.org
