I often get asked by educators, “So what digital video camera should I buy for my classroom?” I can see in their eyes that they want me to recommend a model that will be the ultimate solution for their needs — a model that’s jam-packed with cutting edge features and costs next to nothing. That camera, unfortunately, doesn’t exist (yet). But that’s not the problem. The problem is that they asked the wrong question.
More important than what brand of video camera or how cool the latest model looks is what essential features educators should be looking for.
Mini-DV, DVD-R or Hard Disk Cameras?
You have to record your videos onto something, right? Your options for an affordable DV camera right now are cameras that either use Mini-DV tapes, DVD-R or Mini DVD-R discs, or an internal hard disk in the camera.
In my opinion, this is an easy choice. I still recommend using mini-dv tape cameras over the other two options listed above. The tapes are affordable and mini-DV cameras are consistently getting cheaper. That doesn’t mean you’re getting an inferior product either. It just means that as digital video cameras move toward a “tapeless” standard (hard drive cameras) the mini-dv models will become more affordable. Personally, I don’t trust the hard-disk cameras with storing my footage yet. And what happens if you run out of hard drive space? With tape, you always can buy more and keep shooting. You can also archive your footage on those tapes. If you’re just transferring the video files from the hard drive in your camera to the hard drive in your computer, then what happens if there’ s an accident like a hard drive crash? You’ll lose that footage.
The DVD disc cameras, which are pretty much disappearing from the marketplace, were gimmicky from the beginning. Pass on those.
Essential feature to look for in media storage: Mini-DV
Connectivity
Pretty much any video camera you buy these days will have a Firewire (also known as a IEEE 1394 interface) or USB 2.0 port that will allow you to connect your camera to your computer. That’s been the case for at least five years now. That being said, I realize that sometimes the cheapest stuff is called “free”. And when it is free, it’s free for a reason. So if you’re using a camera that doesn’t have a Firewire or USB 2.0, you can still use it, but if you plan on editing that footage on a computer, you’ll need something called a DV Bridge.
Essential feature to look for in connectivity: Firewire or USB 2.0
Sound
Believe it or not, I think that good sound is more important than good image resolution when you’re purchasing a digital video camera. But aren’t we talking about visual literacy here? Sure, but trust me, poor sound quality will ruin a video faster than anything. As viewers, we tend to interpret complex images pretty well, but garbled dialogue or incessant hissing noises will sour the experience quickly. The good news is that I’m not suggesting that you to go comparing the internal microphones of all the cameras out there. What it comes down to is two things: shot selection and whether or not you can afford an external microphone.
It seems pretty basic, but a lot of newbies to video production instantly forget the fact that if you shoot a close up of someone talking you’re going to get good volume from that person, but if you shoot that same person talking from farther away, your audio volume and quality will slip. Even with so-called “zoom microphones” shooting someone speaking from farther away will never match the audio from a close up cleanly. A way around this is to design your speaking lines to be shot all in close ups.
The other option would be to use an external microphone. In an affordable price range, almost any on-board camera in a “classroom-affordable” price range is going to be about the same. But if that camera has a mini-input for an external microphone, I recommend going for it. That is, if you can afford an additional $250-$400 for a decent shotgun microphone. Now, all good shotgun microphones will have XLR inputs and outputs. Cameras in this price range don’t have these connections but you can still use them with the right audio adapter.
Essential feature to look for in sound: An external microphone if you can afford it. If not, be smart about how you shoot your scenes!
Image Quality
The image quality of your classroom camera should be as good as you can afford. Usually the image quality on consumer digital video cameras is measured in CCD’s. 3CCD video cameras used to be rare in this price range, but they’re rolling out more frequently as of late. Standard DV NTSC is an image that runs at approximately 30 frames a second. That’s the same rate as your television set, however, the resolution isn’t quite the same. We’ve all heard about and probably seen HD TV in action, and it’s a beautiful thing to witness. It’s just not essential for classroom instruction. A relatively new format for consumers or “prosumers” is called HDV. Again, if you’re on a budget, you can stick with the affordable choice. Lastly, if a camera has manual control of its focus and iris, you’re looking good too.
Essential feature for image quality: Standard DV NTSC. Nice feature: 3CCD camera.
Price
Obviously, the higher quality of the features, the more expensive the video camera will be. That being said, the cost of obtaining a high-quality camera for your classroom has plummeted. For school use, you really shouldn’t have to spend more than $400 for a video camera. They get cheaper and they get more expensive, but more importantly, now you know what essential features to look for in a digital video camera on a classroom budget.
Bob Jennings is a Producer for AFI K-12 Screen Education.
At a White House ceremony this week, President Bush awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to author Harper Lee. Bush praised Lee’s 1961 book, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD as a “gift to the entire world” and one that “has influenced the character of our country for the better.
Mockingbird, a staple on the reading lists of thousands of schools nationwide, won Lee a Pulitzer Prize in 1961. The 1962 film adaptation directed by Robert Mulligan and staring Gregory Peck won 3 Academy Awards in 1962 including Best Actor for Mr. Peck and Best Adapted Screenplay for Horton Foote.
To Kill a Mockingbird has also made frequent appearances on many of the AFI 100 years 100 Movies lists. It is # 25 on the all-time top 100 American movies, #2 on the 100 most inspiring films, the music composed by Franz Waxman was ranked #17 as best film score and Peck’s Atticus Finch is listed as the #1 hero on the AFI 100 Heroes & Villains list.
Educators all over the world use the movie to teach the book and the book to teach the movie. Comparing this book to the film it inspired has also made its way into the teaching of AFI Screen Ed Process as a means of understanding how the written word can correlate to and contribute to the understanding of visual grammar.
Shots=Sentences, Scenes=Paragraphs and so on. The medium may differ but the telling of great stories remains central to the human experience.
The AFI Screen Education Center congratulates Ms. Lee on this honor.
Question: When do we usually see video cameras? Weddings, births, birthday parties, school and sporting events come to mind. Now ask yourself how often you actually sit down and watch those videos. How often can you get someone else to watch? Are these videos interesting? Do all those long continuous shots, wild moves and dizzying zooms make for compelling viewing? This ‘default mode’ for shooting video create the visual equivalent of a run-on sentence. This is because most people use their home video cameras to document an event rather than tell a story.
The irony of this situation is that most people living in western culture during the last 50 years have learned to decode and understand a nearly continuous and increasingly sophisticated stream of visual information. Visual language, with its unique vocabulary and grammar, is effortlessly comprehended by even the youngest members of our society. So, with all the prior knowledge and experience gained from years of watching TV and movies, why do most home movies look like home movies?
It’s a matter of literacy.
Although we quickly learn to read the visual language around us, “writing” visually (by accessing screen vocabulary and grammar to communicate rather than to just comprehend) is a skill typically reserved for highly trained media professionals and enthusiasts. The AFI Screen Education process begins by bridging that visual literacy gap in a transformational way. By accessing prior knowledge, and engaging as a group to construct and define criteria for what makes good visual storytelling, Screen Education teachers and students bridge that visual literacy gap—a first step in engaging with filmmaking as part of mainstream curriculum.
It begins with The Door Scene.
Resources and instructions for using The Door Scene and all of the LIGHTS, CAMERA, EDUCATION! series can be found at AFI.edu, the Screen Ed website and by searching “AFI” on Discovery Education streaming .
Occasionally we get a question that gives us pause, and also allows the staff here to reflect on why we love movies! Like this question from Charles, an 11th grader in Conneticut who asks:
“I recently got into a heated debate with several students on which movie was better. Pulp Fiction or The Princess Bride. I was amazed to see how many people stand behind The Princess Bride. Could you please end our debate by telling me what movie is better and why? I still can’t believe this is a real topic of discussion. ” -Charles E.
I hope we never stop arguing and debating about our favorite movies so I didn’t settle the issue. Instead we tried to give Charles and his friends something to think about…
Ultimately, the question of which is the best of anything is a very personal one, especially in the subjective area of the creative arts. I’m not surprised that these two films are being debated in this way. Both THE PRINCESS BRIDE and PULP FICTION are films that have their origins in different types of mythology. BRIDE represents the kind of fairy tale mythology that speaks to America’s shared European roots while FICTION represents a more modern-era American mythos, detective and action novels of the 30’s &40s, and popular culture of the post-50’s era. The archetypes represented in both films also speak to our shared understanding of story and character, from the princess in distress, Buttercup and Mia Wallace to the dark hero Wesley and Vincent Vega, even Indigo Montoya and Butch, as the ‘loner on a mission’. Both movies tell great old stories in engaging ways.
To pick a favorite of these great movies, is tough. I’d look at two factors, first how the basic crafts of filmmaking and storytelling are applied in both movies. Second, which of these films would you send out on the next space probe to represent the best of humanity? In my opinion THE PRINCESS BRIDE wins on both counts. The technical challenges of BRIDE I think trump FICTION, you need not look much further than the duel sequence between Wesley and Indigo to get a taste of the old style swashbuckling films, somehow Vincent & Mia’s dance contest performance don’t rise to that level of grand cinematic storytelling.
The main point that I think distinguishes BRIDE is that the entire story is told by a grandfather to his grandson. Peter Falk’s patient reading of the story to a first skeptical Fred Savage who starts the movie playing video games eventually gives in to the joy of the story and the low tech medium it was related from, the written word…a book. One generation telling stories to the next is how we as humans pass on knowledge and and build civilizations.
Charles, for these reasons and many others, given the choice of which film entertains but also speaks to the best of what humanity has to offer, THE PRINCESS BRIDE would be my choice to open the 1st cineplex on Mars.
THE PRINCESS BRIDE is #88 on the AFI 100 Years/100 Passions list of great American love stories of all time.
