1 of 3
Photos courtesy of LifeMission Church, Olathe, KS
2 of 3
3 of 3
When I started directing our multicam productions, I had no prior experience. Not unlike many of our readers, there was a need, and I filled it. Over the last five years, I made a few mistakes training new video directors once I got the hang of things myself. I want to save you some time and frustration, so I’m sharing what I learned.
Here are few mistakes you can avoid as you start duplicating yourself via new video directors.
Don’t Train a Video Director Who Hasn’t Been a Camera Operator
If someone signs up for your team but only wants to be a director, you might have to disappoint them. Unless they’ve already directed video elsewhere, they’ll need to spend a number of Sundays behind a camera before they can truly understand what a video director is doing.
Camera op time makes better video directors for a few reasons.
Multicam production moves fast—and for newcomers, it can be a total shock.
First, anyone new to the team must get comfortable with coms chatter. The pace of any multicam production can be a lot for some people, and newcomers simply don’t know what it’s like. To see how someone handles the pace of the production, I do one of two things—
- First, for new camera ops, I sit them on a tripod camera for a Sunday or two and then ask how they feel about the chatter and the pace of things. This also gives them a chance to learn the camera controls without the pressure of walking around the room to find shots.
- Second, for new ProPresenter operators, I have them simply shadow an experienced operator for a week while wearing a headset to get used to the calls and how it sounds to communicate with the video director. If they feel comfortable, we move on to the next phase of their training.
The second reason that video directors need camera op time is that a video director needs to know how a camera works and how to frame shots so that they can communicate what they need in a way that camera ops understand.
Does a camera look too dark? Well, that might be an aperture adjustment or an ISO adjustment, and the director has to be able to work through that with the op. Does a shot need to be framed differently? The director has to be able to communicate that to an op. There really is no good way to direct without first being a camera op.
If you want to direct great video, start by running a camera.
Don’t Make a Clone of Yourself
What I mean here is that while you will obviously pass on your knowledge and technique to a trainee, once they start directing, you need to give them leeway to be creative. If you did your job well, they’ll be able to find some creative shots and sequences that are fun and unique, and you need to be ok with it being “different” from you might do.
Service Capture Framework During Verses / 1st Choruses - 1
A great way to help yourself here is to create a framework for directing, which will give everyone the same starting foundation from which they can be creative. It creates consistency while not constraining creative freedom, sort of like a trellis for a vine. They vine can go however it grows, but it is attached to the frame of the trellis.
A framework can be something as simple as a written document that highlights what a production team is trying to achieve with some basic guidance for accomplishing that goal. Here’s the framework I’ve written up for our team:
We go over this from time to time, and again—it’s a guideline. We don’t follow this exactly. It just helps everyone get on the same page as a foundation for their own creativity.
… they need to learn to swim in the deep end. I can’t do that for them.
Don’t Hold Their Hand For Too Long
I go by a three-week training process for video directors (after they’ve spent a few weeks on a camera)—
- Week One: an early start to go over the gear and how it works + basic concepts, followed by shadowing an experienced director during Sunday services.
- Week Two: they start to direct, but under the watchful eye of an experienced director
- Week Three: they are directing, but I am there as a safety net
That’s it. As I’ve said before, I delegate by the 70% rule, which says that if anyone can do a job 70% as well as I can, I let them do it. My goal in those three weeks is to get them to that 70% benchmark and then let them learn on the job, because there really isn’t any other way to learn how to do this job other than to just do it.
I don’t want a video director to be dependent on me; I want to be able to rely on them when I’m not around, which means they need to learn to swim in the deep end. I can’t do that for them.
Video directors are the lynchpin for your whole production, so be intentional about avoiding these simple mistakes. Hopefully you’re able to skip the tough process I’ve experienced
