20 AFV Winter 2013.pub - Federation of Australian Movie Makers

Setting correct exposure on a consumer camera is not always easy. Sometimes it’s downright impossible. That’s becausethe manufacturer has deemed that the user of his camera is not intelligent enough to work out exposure or isnot enough a videomaker to see exposure errors right in front of his/her face, or does not care anyway. Is there ananswer? Yes! Don’t buy cameras like that.Just a couple of other things to think about: If you are doing a major documentary on black cats living in a coal mine,you are going to finish up with dark grey cats in a greyish fog, as the auto exposure struggles to convert black to itsnative mid-grey.Another situation where problems of this sort are commonly evident is a shot taken in a room where windows, lookingout into daylight, are totally burned out. Not good! Or a shot taken in a shaded area where a bright background isnotable only for its nuclear attack look. Extra not good!If you have a black person and a white person standing against a mid-grey wall (well, anything’s possible), becauseof the exposure system the wall will be correctly exposed, the black person will be slightly over-exposed and thewhite person slightly under-exposed. Is this really what would happen? And, if so, how would you fix it?This ramble has not given much advice on how to fix exposure problems—that was not its purpose. The purpose wasto bring to the attention of some video users that what their camera delivers is often not right. Many, especially newcomers,take the view that, “That’s the way it is,” or “That’s normal”. That, in fact, is not how it should be and notnormal. The first step in fixing the problem is recognising that there is one.Neal RevilleSHORT BITSWhen’s Easter?Kids know what date their birthday is every year and that Christmas is always 25 December, they evenknow Valentine’s Day is 14 February, but Easter? Well that’s a mystery every year. Even the adults ask thequestion annually “When’s Easter this year?”Easter can fall anytime between March 21 and April 25. So the easiest way to explain to the little tykes isto tell them after the March 21, find when the next full moon is and it’s the first Sunday after that.Paddy & MickBloke at a horse race whispers to Paddy next to him "Do you want the winner of the next race?"Paddy replies "No tanks, I've only got a small garden."A coach load of paddys on a mystery tour decided to run a sweepstake to guess where they were going.The driver won $60!Paddy finds a sandwich with two wires stickin out of it. He phones the police and says " I've just found asandwich dat looks like a bomb."The operator asks, "is it tickin ?"Paddy says "No I tink it's beef"The Irish have solved their own fuel problems. They imported 50 million tonnes of sand from the Arabsand they're going to drill for their own oil.Paddy says to Mick "Christmas is on a Friday this year"Mick says "Let's hope it's not the 13th."Paddy's in the bathroom and Murphy shouts to him. "Did you find the shampoo?"Paddy says "Yes but it's for dry hair and I've just wet mine."Page 26 AUSTRALIAN FILM & VIDEO—VOL 20 WINTER 2013