Best settings for filming in front of a whiteboard (classroom)?

[blankpoint]

Hi. I've just got the HV20, and though I've been working in Photoshop and web and print design for years, the world of video is quite new to me. I have been reading tons, but have been unable to make my actual videos look good.

I need to film instructional videos. These are mostly just teachers talking and writing on a whiteboard. The camera is stationary on a tripod, and the whiteboard fills the entire shot. The teacher is standing in front of the whiteboard, filmed from about the waist up.

On my first try, I messed with the 24p mode, and I managed to do all the pulldown and such, but I think for the type of videos I'll be producing, I don't need this cinematic effect enough for it to be worth the extra effort. So from now on, I think I'll be filming in 60i HDV mode.

My main problem is with the color balance and shutter/aperture settings. I'm filming indoors in a small room with 8 flourescent overhead lights. It's pretty bright... and yet my footage comes out quite dark. In Premiere, I can up the gamma a little, and bring the White down from 255 to 140 in the Levels panel, and that brightens it up adequately, but I'm sure it would be ideal to capture the footage at the correct brightness. One issue is that the footage appears MUCH brighter on the camera than it does after I transfer it to the computer. If I up the exposure more than a notch or two, I start bleaching out detail, including the stuff the teachers are writing on the board. What about white balance and so on? Anybody got any ideas what settings would be ideal?

My second problem is with some strange artifacts I'm seeing in my 60i footage. When the person in front of the board moves, there are very prominent weird jagged lines around his edges. When he stands still, it looks sharp and good. I'm using the CineForm HDLink trial, and I'm thinking this problem is happening because I'm not importing the footage correctly through that software. It didn't happen when I imported the 24p footage using HDLink. I've left it on High quality, automatic detection of interlaced/progressive, and haven't checked the options for pulldown or interlacing removal... can any point to correct settings for importing 60i footage using HDLink?

I'd appreciate help with either of these problems.

[blankpoint]

Just wanted to elaborate a little on the second problem.

I think it's probably not a problem with my HDLink settings after all. When I import directly through Premiere, the footage looks the same. In HDVsplit, same thing. So I guess the actual footage is bad, but any idea what caused it? I filmed in snow mode, hoping that would be best considering I'm filming a foreground subject against a whiteboard.

[voodeux]

1. White balance manually of the white board: a no-brainer
2. Increase your exposure compensation, otherwise you'll be dealing with a grey-board.
3. Detail means closeup. You can't expect it on a far shot. Perhaps you need to stage this event slightly and confine the 'talent' to writing and standing within a smaller area. This will allow you to zoom in more. Alternative, have someone manning the camera for the tight shots needed to capture detail
4. Audio, wireless mic...nuff said
5. Lighting. It can always be improved. Overhead lights are not face-flattering. Consider a softbox which would allow a more even exposure between face and board.
I do way too many of these, and they take experience, patience, technique and a bit of luck.
BTW, 60i or 30p (if final destination is web)....screw 24p.

[berighteous]

When I shoot class lectures (every week) I just set it on auto (and usually put the camera in DV mode. HDV is totally overkill for a classroom lecture where the whiteboard is full screen. HDV takes 3 times as long just to get the footage in, trim, add titles, export and DVDify.)

I shoot with classroom flourescent lights and use a Rode videomic. In a classroom setting the motor whine is picked up by the internal mic.

What are you producing and what is your output format? (streaming media, DVD, bluray, etc.)

I do weekly science classes for a powerpoint happy instructor. Four hours of powerpoint slided projected on a whiteboard (watch the glare!) plus labs where things can explode. Fun...

A couple years ago I did a 10 DVD set for a home educators conference - 40 hours of instruction, with 6 classes going simultaneously. I'm still twitching...

[blankpoint]

Thanks for the helpful responses. I've done some more test footage in the mean time as well.

To answer some of the questions, I'm producing ESL (English) lessons. The look does not need to be completely professional -- the teachers give short lessons on YouTube, and write on the whiteboard during the lesson. It would look better of course to do the text in overlays and such, but that is too much mastering work for the type of lessons we're producing right now. They're mostly short, YouTube-length lessons, but now we're also doing longer classes of about 30-50 minutes each, which we'll be charging for. Delivery right now is just on the web: YouTube and our own server for the longer paid lessons. We'll be doing DVDs in the near future. I'm shooting HDV for future-proofing mostly, but I'm sure the online streaming delivery standard will be 720p soon enough anyway.

@voodeux
1. I've tested using manual white balance on the whiteboard, and while it does look alright, it seems to make the whole scene overall look a bit too cold.
2. I took your advice on this and it definitely helped a lot. I was afraid to even put the exposure up more than one notch initially, because my crappy earlier camera (Sony SR40) would wash out all detail when I did that. With the HV20 and my lighting, it looks like giving a +3 exposure is about right.
5. Going to try to rig a softbox and see if that will help my problem of the teachers' faces being too shaded/dark. Doesn't help that my primary teacher is black.

One question I haven't been able to find the answer for - I'm shooting in HDV 1080 60i.

Assuming my final delivery is the web, should I have HDLink deinterlace the footage to 30p when I import? Or should I import as 60i and just when I render the final project have Premiere encode it as progressive? My instinct says the former, but would there be any reason I would want to leave my source footage interlaced?

[voodeux]

Can't answer your last question without doing a test. Should be easy enough. Use a short sample clip recorded in 30p and 60i, try out both methods...there might not be any visible difference (especially when final product will be on web). Your final encode for web settings will have a greater impact on the final quality.