I use a short Manfrotto monopod to stabilize the camera - combined with an elastic camera strap. Works pretty well, and it's simple and cheap. For sound, I have a Zoom H4n recorder mounted on the monopod to the side of the camera, with a short shotgun mic connected to it in a shock mount. I also have another person recording surround sound (stereo in the case of this particular video,) but that's a different story. I use PluralEyes to synch sound to picture in Final Cut Pro.

thanks James for sharing the information!

curious about the elastic strap James, do you mind expanding on how you use it in conjunction with the monopod? the shots look great!

Just a normal elastic camera strap. I use a monopod head that has a quick-release handle on the side, so my right hand is there, my left hand is on the monopod itself, and combined with the camera strap I have this nice, floating three-point stabilization for moving shots. Unfortunately I can't post a photo here, but you get the idea.

Thats great - thanks so much for the explanation!

For the DVX100:
Use 24pA mode, shoot as flat and neutral as possible, color correct with a good colorist. Do not use auto-anything. Use your ND filters and shutter speed to adjust exposure and shoot with the iris as wide as you can keep it.

digitalcontentproducer.com/desktoppost/depth/video_oneman_pipeline/

Thanks for the tips James. Great article as well.

No I don't have my music posted separately. All the music here is just made with my laptop - I made that song you're talking about in an hour during the sound mix because all the live sound for that cloth working section was no good.

James, are you using pro tools or similar to compose your music?

I've been using Logic Pro - I'm not really a power user, but I understand the program well enough to make the sort of music in this clip. If I were making a choice right now of what sound application to buy, I think ProTools would probably be the one, just because it's a lot more widely used in pro studio environments.

This is all shot with the Canon 17-55mm IS 2.8 lens.

Thanks, del n,

My Sari's Mother short documentary is available on the 2-DVD set of Iraq in Fragments, which one can get on Amazon:
tinyurl.com/37nkmmm

All the focusing in the clip is done with the LCD on the 7D - no add-ons. I agree it can be a bit tricky in bright light, but practice makes perfect, or at least watchable.

Hi Dave --
In answer to your questions:

Yes, everything was filmed with the 7D mounted on a short Manfrotto monopod - both stationary and moving shots.

The jello effect happens when you have vertical lines moving quickly in a horizontal direction across the screen. On the other hand, if you are following some action with the camera, it usually means that the object you're filming is being held relatively still on the screen, despite whatever movement from walking, etc. - so you avoid the jello effect. In short, the secret is to pan only on motion, follow the action in your moving shots, and you won't get as much jello.

hope this helps.

That would be nice, but seriously, I haven't had much problem with rolling shutter issues for some reason. Could it be this is a bigger problem with the 5D than the 7D?

Indeed, it is a bigger prob with the 5D as the sensor is larger. don't know exactly why (more info. to process?)

I try to film at the ends of the day. Expose for highlights. Shoot with the iris as wide as possible. All natural lighting.

I use a bracket that is designed for attaching a side-mounted flash to a SLR camera. The bracket is just a long aluminum strip that looks like it might be this one:

bhphotovideo.com/c/product/93392-REG/General_Brand_VA322_Straight_Flash_Bracket.html

It fits between the monopod head and the actual monopod body, and it allows me to attach both the H4n recorder and also a shock-mounted KMR81i Neumann mic. Send me an email and I'll send you a picture of the rig: james_longley AT yahoo.com

For translations my usual practice is to sit with a native speaker and go through the material sentence by sentence. I write down a timecode, play a sentence, the translator gives me the rough translation, I type out a clean English version, then another timecode, and so on. Sometimes it winds up being hundreds of pages of stuff. One hour of interview can take a day to translate. For my Iraq in Fragments film there wound up being almost 2000 pages of typed, time-coded transcripts that we used in the edit.

I'm a little confused about your question -- you mean why not use a Panny 150 as opposed to the Canon 7D, or the DVX100?

The video above is shot with the Canon 7D, and I transfer CF cards at the end of every shooting day to two duplicate Lacie rugged drives. I find I rarely shoot more in a day than fits on a 64GB Sandisk CF card, but I usually have a couple 32GB cards in my pocket, just in case.

I make a folder on the drive labeled by date, and inside that folder I have folders for video files, stills, and audio that I record separately. (one folder for the camera-mounted recorder, and one for the surround sound recorder.) This keeps all my media for a particular shooting day together in one place, and makes it easier to deal with in post. Later I synchronize the 7D video to audio using Pluraleyes. This workflow will likely change a bit with the new version of Final Cut Pro due out in June.

The pictures are good. It's small. It's not expensive.

Thanks, Dave. Very kind of you.

I've only been nominated.

I think the camera operator is more important than the camera. I still have the Canon 7D, but I'll probably be moving to the Canon C300 as soon as it's available.

The DSLRs present a lot of technical issues, particularly with sound and moire patterns, that you might not experience on a proper video camera.

I like to have the large sensor - that's the reason I'm using the 7D for video. I could switch to the Sony FS100, but it's missing things I want such as built-in ND filters - and so I'll wait for a fully-functioning video camera with an excellent single, Super 35mm-sized sensor such as the Canon C300. I was able to look closely at this camera when it was unveiled in Los Angeles, and I think that the C300 camera will suit my needs for a while - at least until they release something better. It's perhaps more expensive than it should be, but I think the design is much more manageable than the alternative Red Scarlet X or the Sony F3 cameras - particularly for doing work in difficult countries with lots of dust/rain/heat/cold and bad national power grids.

In your case, it will depend on what you value in a camera and what your budget is.