About the peculiarities of lecture video filming

Over the past year I have had a relationship with the recording of more than 1000 lectures of different levels of complexity and I would like to share my experience in this part. This is the promised continuation of the article Trends in the educational environment (a reminder for the university) .

The shooting method varies greatly from the subject of the lecture (technical or humanitarian), the technical means used (chalk and marker boards, plasmas, projectors, etc.), the lecture format (there are discussions and questions from the audience or not), the lecturer's features (he runs around the audience or hiding behind the department) and, of course, the budget.
')
In particular, one should understand that TV experience hinders rather than helps. In principle, we recruit operators without experience, since TV people who are accustomed to a different work scheme do not cope. Different plans, different priorities, a minimum of filming.

In addition, if you are writing a live, not staged, lecture, then there is no possibility to take another double. The operator has no right to mistake. And very little can be corrected during installation. But a live lecture compares favorably with staged. The lecturer forgets about the camera, is relaxed, calm and works with a familiar audience. All this is very well felt when viewing.

So, we can distinguish the following types of video lectures:

Types of video

TV format

Staged educational film on television standards. Written in the studio, a lot of shooting, an active audience, a lot of duplicates. Computer graphics. It is very expensive. Example: Lectures on the Kultura TV channel.

Distance education

Staged short video for 10-15 minutes with a logical start and end. The peculiarity is that such recordings can be created without an audience at all, with one plan. Or even a screencast. Sometimes even web cameras are used for recording.

The most expensive part is the payment for the lecturer. He is required to complete processing of the material. Now it is a trend, most of the applied educational programs will soon be republished in this format. Example: coursera.org

Chronicle (reportage)

The lecture is recorded on video, which is read in the usual academic format.
90 minutes (sometimes with a break), a minimum of questions from the audience, the lecturer works with the usual audience. Special processing lecture material is not required.
Since, in most cases, our universities are not ready to finance staged lectures, and lecturers are not used to working in such a format (high informational density of material, work in front of the camera, etc.), most of the lecture notes in the Russian Federation are chronicle. And these records are sometimes trying to use for distance education, which, in fact, is wrong.

Although I will note that some difficult lectures are simply impossible to rework into a “light” remote format.

The subject of the lecture

Shooting and editing is highly dependent on the subject of the lecture. The easiest way to show this is with the following examples:
• Programming: only the program code is important (screen capture from the lecturer's computer) with offscreen explanations. In essence, this is a screencast.
• Mathematics: only the boards with which the lecturer and his gestures work are important.
• History: a close-up of the lecturer is taken, interspersed with frames from the presentation and computer graphics.
• Literature: if the lecturer does not use the presentation, then you can simply put a static close-up and interrupt it with a snapshot. It turns out the very "talking head". But for visuals, for example, even such a simple recording is better than an audio recording. Although in this case the lecture should be correctly published in two versions - audio podcast and video recording.

Depending on what is important for the final audience, respectively, the plan is chosen. In priority can be boards, and maybe a lecturer. The large and general plan is chosen depending on how actively the lecturer moves during the filming.

Publication

Video recording of the lecture must be published with additional materials. With the presentation, which can be scrolled in parallel watching the video, annotation and reference apparatus. All this information is called metadata. It not only increases the educational value of the content, but also helps index the search engines.

There is also a very time-consuming multiscript format. Part of the metadata, for example, the transcript, is synchronized with the video. When you click on a specific section or word - the video starts from this place. Well and vice versa. This format was developed independently by us and RIA Novosti.

In addition, sometimes lectures are published in a multi-channel version. Two or more video tracks are visible in one player. For example, a close-up of a lecturer and a presentation. Viewer can switch between these synchronized video streams. In my opinion, this is more PR than didactic value.

Equipment

In preparing the video for the Internet (as opposed to TV), a lower bitrate is used. In addition, it is necessary to consider the restriction of user channels. When installing, we assume that a standard 90 minute lecture should weigh about 1-2 gigabytes. All this greatly reduces the requirements for equipment.

In particular, video recording can be made by HD household cameras. Sound - lavalier radio microphones (we use Sennheiser).
Light, in most cases, is necessary to set only when the lecturer is actively working with the projector. Although practice has shown that when installing light the lecturer is very nervous and gets off. Therefore, we practically do not use additional light. Damage to the picture is compensated by a confident feed.

Recording questions from the audience during a chronicle shooting is impossible due to poor sound quality. How many directional microphones you would not use - there will definitely be a student asking a question in a whisper from under the desk. The solution is simple - the lecturer repeats the question before answering.

I plan to write a detailed topic about the equipment later.

Number of cameras and operator role

For chronicle recording, in most cases, one camera is enough.

Our experience has shown that operators with cameras on a tripod create a better product than a director switching between stationary cameras. As is the case with widely distributed media centers equipped with video conferencing systems (such as Polycom or Tandberg).

Conclusion

I am always ready to share my experience. Contact directly with any questions regarding the creation of educational content.