Balancing Coverage and Efficiency (MMM#43)

Hey everyone,

Madeline here with the 43rd entry in The Movie Minute. Today we’ll be digging into why it’s important to measure how much footage you shoot on a project.

In addition to my work as an assistant editor and DIT, I also have the duty of shooting B-roll with my GH5 on projects that I go on set for such as Legacies Alive and Special Operations Warrior Foundation events. However, something that I’m doing my best to improve on is to be more efficient with the footage I shoot, as I often end up doing more filming than necessary, which only ends up making things more taxing in the long run.

So how and why do I end up often overshooting? Usually this is because it’s quite a challenge to balance coverage with efficiency. Since b-roll forms a crucial part of the work we produce, such as short documentaries, highlight videos, video resumes, reels, etc., it’s important that I try my best to get a good amount of coverage. At the same time, shooting too much footage can eat up valuable space on our storage media, as well as bog down the project file which can in turn have a bottleneck effect on the editing team, slowing down progress on deliverables.

So that’s why going forward with any projects I’m shooting footage for, being more diligent with what and how I shoot remains key, especially considering the project itself and what the deliverables will be (reels, highlight video, etc.). This especially holds true for smaller-scale projects such as Legacies Alive events, where it’s important to predict when something important or powerful will happen and then capture those moments with the camera, in addition to focusing on small 5-10 second clips that effectively present these engaging moments. 

With longer projects like SOWF’s EPIC and C2CT, things get a little more hairy, especially when total footage size can be at least 1 TB, compared to the few hundred GB on events like the Mountain Man Memorial March and Gold Star Family Picnic. This especially holds true since not only are we shooting content for a highlight video, but we also craft video resumes that make use of large interviews that can take a lot of time and space (especially with the high bitrates of the FS7!) For these kinds of projects, much of the same principles apply, but even more diligence is crucial when deciding what to shoot. 

Overall, balancing efficiency and coverage can be quite a challenge. Nevertheless, it’s an important skill to master as a camera operator, as it will be beneficial for the whole team in the long run, resulting in amazing and engaging stories to tell.

And that concludes this entry in The Movie Minute. Wishing you all the best, and see y’all in 2! -Madeline

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