For my birthday, which was earlier this month, my Dear Spouse gave me my very first video camera! It is a Canon FS100, which is just like a Canon FS10 or 20 except without any internal memory. The distinction is moot because everybody just uses removable SD cards anyway. Also I had received Corel VideoStudio 12 to handle any editing. I immediately produced a very bad test video which I won't punish you by linking to here, but if you really want to know, you can look backward in my LJ ;-)



Here's my new purple friend overlooking the scene of my new opus. No, I did not PhotoShop in the LCD display, that's really what it showed! No, don't ask me to pull that lucky shot off again, I'd never manage in 1000 years ;-)

The video I am working on has a working title of "Reparing a Christmas Light" and it shows me soldering electrical wires and then glueing broken plastic parts. It even shows the light working in the end! Right now I am just doing silent shots, since I figured trying to coordinate the scenes to be the exact length with good dialogue at the same time would probably make my head explode.



I shot it in our exercise-cum-junk-room because it has a high ceiling. Also it had a closable door to keep our "fur children" out.  Here's the "stage" surrounded by camera, 2 lights, etc.



My very high tech soundstage is made of cardboard. Note the soldering iron, sponge, electrical tape, etc. ready to hand. There's also a Maglite I used to illuminate a clear part from the inside so the camera could see through it well.



In the interests of not making myself crazy my first time learning the camera I skipped some stuff you're supposed to do, for example white balancing. However, I did make a shot list and crossed off each one as I accomplished it.  Aren't I organimizated?

The next step will be to take all the stuff I shot today and put it together in VideoStudio 12 to make a silent movie. I'll keep you guys appraised as to how that is going. 



And yes, there is a happy ending ;-)

--Kaas