OB Direction – Please Help

[Thaxter Clavemarlton]

Tilt Up
Tlt Down
Pan Right
Pan Left
Zoom In
Zoom Out
Focus
Give me a Two-shot
Give me a Tight Shot
Give me a Cover Shot
Push In
Pull Out
Standby for a slow Rack-focus on my dissolve.
When your tallyn goes out, give be a tight shot on the guy talking.
Close Up
ECU
Medium Shot
Wide Shot

I could go on, but what else wolud you like to know?

[Kaptivate_ag]

Anything really with direction for jibs.

Thanks again!

[Thaxter Clavemarlton]

Boom Up-Down
Swing Right-Left

Start low and standby to boom up quickly

Don’t HIT anyone with the boom! 😉

[Charley King]

[Thax] “Don’t HIT anyone with the boom! ;)”
The absolute most important.

I can’t say I ever used what some would call correct commands. I remember when an intern was telling me about her producing and directing class when she was directing cameras with her instructor over her shoulder. She told a camera to pan left, the other left, nail it.

Her instructor said your commands are very strange, and she replied that’s the way I hear it everyday.

She learned very well from me, I think.

Believe me freelance people have heard everything. You won;t be able to come up with much they haven’t, such as give me a “Micky Rooney.” (little creep) meaning extremely slow push in.

Charlie

[Thaxter Clavemarlton]

[Charlie King] “Believe me freelance people have heard everything. You won;t be able to come up with much they haven’t, such as give me a “Micky Rooney.” (little creep) meaning extremely slow push in.”

I’m always surprised (and a little comforted) when I hear the same “slang jargon” (coming from out-of-town crews and directors for sporting events) that we use commonly in our town.

Things like “bring it up” (instead of “fade up”) and (at the end of a segment or show) “Black City” (instead of “fade to black”), “Rolling and bowling” instead of “Tape rolling and locked”… things like that.

My “regular” crews can also adopt a totally INSIDE jargon that only WE would know.
One such camera command was given MY NAME by the crew on an all-night telethon.
The unique command meant, “Take the hand-held and lie on the floor, shoot up at the singer, and kick your feet” (the feet-kicking had no purpose for the shot, but we had a very obedient hand-held cameraman.)

So, once the crew and director get into sync, the commands don’t need to be absolutely “formal”, they just need to be understood at the time.

[Jon Zanone]

My favorite is ‘WOOF’ – it means stop what you are doing. As in, “2, push in, push, WOOF”.

Whatever you do, keep it short and concise.

Jon

[Thaxter Clavemarlton]

I use “Woof” ALL the time.
Its fun to see the reactions of the newbies. 😉

[Frank Otto]

Then there was the shoot I TD’d for Korean television…three cam music video – mixed crew of U.S and Korean, nothing big. The show was running ok but throught the first segment, the exec producer (Korean, from Korea Broadcasting Co.) and the producer ( U.S Korean speaker – kinda…) kept yammering about something. Then the Exec comes up to me and from there it went like this:

Exec: “He does not understand. Can you make picture bigger?”

Me: “Sure…Two, slow push in…”

A second or two and…

Exec: “No…make my picture bigger.”

Me: “Ok…ready one (already on a wide cover shot) and going thru to one…”

Exec: “Can you make my picture bigger? Not that big…?”

Me: One…slow push in – hold the stage…”

Exec: “Please make picture bigger.”

Now I went thru all three cameras, various tight and wide shots, to no joy for this guy. Finally, the audio mixer ( the brother of the artist we were shooting), who heard part of the previous conversation between the Exec and the Producer, clicks on his p.l. and says: “I think he wants a bigger monitor on the back bench…have him put on a headset so I can ask him…”

Dang….

As to kaptivate’s original question: TThere are just a few phrases or directions that differ from standard camera direction. Those are:

“Arm up/Arm down” – also called as “crane up/down” and is pretty interchangeable.

“Arm left/Arm right” – occasionally uses the “tongue left/tongue right command, a hold over from the days when many studio cameras rode on dollies and cranes instead of pedestals

The next three are ones I’ve used while operating myself, or with many of the music/concert production operators…but your operators may or may not have used them before:

“Swoop and spin” – generally an arm down/arm left or right/pan to hold the target in the center of the screen.

“Arc” – moving the arm left or right only, with the camera in a fixed position

“Orbit” – high arm position over target, camera tilted straight down and panned (rotated) left or right.

I’ve found that it’s always best to have a meeting with specialty operators like crane, jib and steadicam folks and see what they prefer and what their limitations are. Plus each operator has a variant of standard moves that they’ll likely point out to you in rehersals…

Cheers,

Frank Otto