Visionary Dave Bigler. He saw it all coming.

I went to Dave Bigler’s Production Company in Saratoga today for a three hour lesson on video techniques. I have a lot of work to do. Terry Leahy gave me a great lesson and took me out into Congress Park and he and Dave each played being a dog at some point, and the lesson was great.

I learned about wide openings, how to use the tripod, B-rolls and cutaways.  About mixing frames, changing perspectives, tightening scenes and angles. Good stuff, all true. I sensed some of this.

Mostly I learned that I am not yet doing too much right, although Terry thought I was good on composition and visual sense. Sounds familiar. I used to work in television and heard some of these same terms, but I rarely ever think about television (I was executive producer of the CBS Morning News for a couple of years).

I like some of the newer videos, but I want to take a breath or two until I figure it out. And technology, as usual, is helping me do that. I took a bunch of video in Saratoga, but when I got home, I found the camera wouldn’t load them onto Imovie, or Imovie wouldn’t accept them from the camera. Shut down, frustrated.

I think we messed with some setting or another. I couldn’t call Apple because they are overwhelmed with calls for the new Ipad2.

This is the story of technology, right? But the lessons were very useful, very helpful and I can’t wait to try them out. So Sara Friedman is going to call me early in the morning to see if it’s an Imovie problem, and if not, I’ll have to run the camera to Saratoga at some point and see if the Bigler wizards can figure it out.

I’ve got some homework, too, but I might be reduced to the Iphone for a few days until I can figure it out all out.

Technology, like life, tests are patience, determination and calm.

I am going back for more lessons next week. All I need is a camera. So back to stills for at least a little bit unless Sara can figure it out. I might even read the manual.