Class Notes: Week 13
Learning about Josh Steadman (SteadyFilm)
Runs his own production company along with his wife. She’s the boss. She manages his life. Majority of his paying work comes from video. He is currently trying to build the stills part of his vusiness right now.
Webisodes, web spots, TV commercials, documentary style footage. Clients hire you to do libraries of footage. Split time between shooting, editing both video and stills. Hustle, find your new/next client and also maintain your current client relationships. Loves documentary style of interviewing people, loves looking through old photographs. Also does work for RedHat. It’s important to be flexible and also narrow it down to what you like to do.
Why stills? He’s always loved photography. He was inspired by his father. He always takes his camera with him and believes you should always be working as an artist. Likes working with dumbed down and difficult technologies.
Yo, Josh, how did you get there?
I went to Elon College. I was a Spanish major, spent some time in Ecuador. My senior year, I took a couple of film classes and I plugged into what I wanted. I graduated. There is no great path for getting into video production. Didn’t get into any film school or start working. I offered to work for free at a local video production store for about six months and then they hired me to be their low-paid production coordinator. I wasn’t anywhere near making images. It gave me access to the gear, which I didn’t know how to use. Made a relationship with Robert Wooten. You have to find people who are like-minded, a little further along, and willing to share.
Somebody is helping me at every stage of my career. There are still people I ask for help from. You have to keep knocking on doors.
Stay out of the tide before it sucks you down. Build yourself up as much as it beats yourself down.
SOmetimes with promos, the project has been in development for a long time. He was just contracted for a few days -- he was hired as the director. He was involved for four days. That didn’t stop him from following up a lot. When you’re hired as a shooter, you will shoot a bunch of stuff, but two thirds of your stuff isn’t great. You don’t want that stuff getting into the wrong hands and being used, making you look like an amateur. Go ahead and pull a render of selects instead of giving the entire collection of raw footage.
Supercut - Your favorite footage.
Currently, Josh uses whatever equipment is appropriate. He’s used Alexa, C300, iPhones. Lenses have specific character. He rents lenses for the project.
How do you get to know what the image from each lens looks like?
Good question, you roll the dice. Cooke makes some great lenses.
Cooke is warm, analog soft. Schneider are super sharp. ARRI are sharp, but not a lot of flavor. “Like sex on a camera.”
Slow motion -- I shoot no higher than 60 fps. Higher than that becomes more of an art piece.
How he captures humanity
-He has the ability to disappear.
-He gets them to act naturally.
-He observes.
Matt Head - “Best gaffer in town”
Webisodes, web spots, TV commercials, documentary style footage. Clients hire you to do libraries of footage. Split time between shooting, editing both video and stills. Hustle, find your new/next client and also maintain your current client relationships. Loves documentary style of interviewing people, loves looking through old photographs. Also does work for RedHat. It’s important to be flexible and also narrow it down to what you like to do.
Why stills? He’s always loved photography. He was inspired by his father. He always takes his camera with him and believes you should always be working as an artist. Likes working with dumbed down and difficult technologies.
Yo, Josh, how did you get there?
I went to Elon College. I was a Spanish major, spent some time in Ecuador. My senior year, I took a couple of film classes and I plugged into what I wanted. I graduated. There is no great path for getting into video production. Didn’t get into any film school or start working. I offered to work for free at a local video production store for about six months and then they hired me to be their low-paid production coordinator. I wasn’t anywhere near making images. It gave me access to the gear, which I didn’t know how to use. Made a relationship with Robert Wooten. You have to find people who are like-minded, a little further along, and willing to share.
Somebody is helping me at every stage of my career. There are still people I ask for help from. You have to keep knocking on doors.
Stay out of the tide before it sucks you down. Build yourself up as much as it beats yourself down.
SOmetimes with promos, the project has been in development for a long time. He was just contracted for a few days -- he was hired as the director. He was involved for four days. That didn’t stop him from following up a lot. When you’re hired as a shooter, you will shoot a bunch of stuff, but two thirds of your stuff isn’t great. You don’t want that stuff getting into the wrong hands and being used, making you look like an amateur. Go ahead and pull a render of selects instead of giving the entire collection of raw footage.
Supercut - Your favorite footage.
Currently, Josh uses whatever equipment is appropriate. He’s used Alexa, C300, iPhones. Lenses have specific character. He rents lenses for the project.
How do you get to know what the image from each lens looks like?
Good question, you roll the dice. Cooke makes some great lenses.
Cooke is warm, analog soft. Schneider are super sharp. ARRI are sharp, but not a lot of flavor. “Like sex on a camera.”
Slow motion -- I shoot no higher than 60 fps. Higher than that becomes more of an art piece.
How he captures humanity
-He has the ability to disappear.
-He gets them to act naturally.
-He observes.
Matt Head - “Best gaffer in town”
Reflections
Working with others
Chris: How well is school preparing us for collaboration?
Lauren: How do you work with people you have fundamental disagreements with?
Lauren: How can I reject the cynicism?
Interviewing
Lauren: Pointed out the “what’d you have for breakfast?” question
Marina: How much of the interview is edited out of the NPR piece?
Reel
Marina: How do you go about sequencing a reel?
Post-Production
Sarah: Is there a way to fix the lighting issue that they ran into with Xia’s interview?
Final pitches
Summer: Talk about your idea for your final pitch
Notes from today
Josh works at Baldwin&
Match.com
-Heard alot about how it got started
-Saw a need, people were trying to find love
Importance of the timecode
Fred Bass
-Strand bookstore
-Hunter saw recognition since he had been there
Editorial responsibility is sometimes ignored in podcasts; sometimes it’s very stream of consciousness
How does Charlie Rose keep it interesting?
Referencing the soundcheck -- what did you eat for breakfast?
“What’d you have for breakfast?” or “What did you do last night?”
-The importance of listening and weaving conversations back into the interview
-More intimate, less of a stage
It seems difficult to tell a story by just asking a ton of questions?
-Match.com person seemed like a bad person
The ideal consumable audio podcast?
-15 minutes
Marina loves the long podcast format
The podcast really allows for audiences to have an intimate connection with a subject and even an interviewee
Up to the interviewer to take control of the interview.
-You have to have a relationship with the person on camera. Even if you’re just the camera op, you have the responsibility to speak up.
“Take a drink of water. Let’s take two minutes and then we’ll reset.”
-Josh just talks to subjects enough for them to calm down.
-Instead of prefacing them, he teases it out
-”Talk to me like I’m your mother, and you need to explain your job to me.”
-”Why do you even like working here?”
-*Act excited about it; act like you’re interested
-Be more hesitant in documentary work, but in branded content, coach a little more
Hunter brings up a play and the director just talking to an actor so much that they truly understand why you have to deliver a line a certain way. Being a good interview is just being a good director.
Actors are not just actors; they’re there to perform. They are there for you. People who are not interested in being there are difficult to direct. They don’t want to be there.
Perhaps try playing the empathy card. Everybody is different and there is no formula to interviewing somebody.
“We’ve already talked about that.”
-Try moving to other topics and come back to the original topic.
Instagram story
-Interviewer gave away the story a little too early
-Subject wasn’t even that talkative
-Don’t put words in their mouth
-Danielle hated this story
Serges sums up this podcast as a need that NPR found but couldn’t throw a ton of resources towards
-Affirmation of hearing other people’s stories
-He was more forgiving because he understood what NPR was trying to do; he understood that the story was collected without tons of bandwidth.
3DJoes
-Meeting the founders allowed an opportunity to share their voices with the audiences who love them
-Sometimes people just want to hear the entire interview; sometimes people want the interviews to be tight and quick
-Know your audience
Chris: How well is school preparing us for collaboration?
Lauren: How do you work with people you have fundamental disagreements with?
Lauren: How can I reject the cynicism?
Interviewing
Lauren: Pointed out the “what’d you have for breakfast?” question
Marina: How much of the interview is edited out of the NPR piece?
Reel
Marina: How do you go about sequencing a reel?
Post-Production
Sarah: Is there a way to fix the lighting issue that they ran into with Xia’s interview?
Final pitches
Summer: Talk about your idea for your final pitch
Notes from today
Josh works at Baldwin&
Match.com
-Heard alot about how it got started
-Saw a need, people were trying to find love
Importance of the timecode
Fred Bass
-Strand bookstore
-Hunter saw recognition since he had been there
Editorial responsibility is sometimes ignored in podcasts; sometimes it’s very stream of consciousness
How does Charlie Rose keep it interesting?
Referencing the soundcheck -- what did you eat for breakfast?
“What’d you have for breakfast?” or “What did you do last night?”
-The importance of listening and weaving conversations back into the interview
-More intimate, less of a stage
It seems difficult to tell a story by just asking a ton of questions?
-Match.com person seemed like a bad person
The ideal consumable audio podcast?
-15 minutes
Marina loves the long podcast format
The podcast really allows for audiences to have an intimate connection with a subject and even an interviewee
Up to the interviewer to take control of the interview.
-You have to have a relationship with the person on camera. Even if you’re just the camera op, you have the responsibility to speak up.
“Take a drink of water. Let’s take two minutes and then we’ll reset.”
-Josh just talks to subjects enough for them to calm down.
-Instead of prefacing them, he teases it out
-”Talk to me like I’m your mother, and you need to explain your job to me.”
-”Why do you even like working here?”
-*Act excited about it; act like you’re interested
-Be more hesitant in documentary work, but in branded content, coach a little more
Hunter brings up a play and the director just talking to an actor so much that they truly understand why you have to deliver a line a certain way. Being a good interview is just being a good director.
Actors are not just actors; they’re there to perform. They are there for you. People who are not interested in being there are difficult to direct. They don’t want to be there.
Perhaps try playing the empathy card. Everybody is different and there is no formula to interviewing somebody.
“We’ve already talked about that.”
-Try moving to other topics and come back to the original topic.
Instagram story
-Interviewer gave away the story a little too early
-Subject wasn’t even that talkative
-Don’t put words in their mouth
-Danielle hated this story
Serges sums up this podcast as a need that NPR found but couldn’t throw a ton of resources towards
-Affirmation of hearing other people’s stories
-He was more forgiving because he understood what NPR was trying to do; he understood that the story was collected without tons of bandwidth.
3DJoes
-Meeting the founders allowed an opportunity to share their voices with the audiences who love them
-Sometimes people just want to hear the entire interview; sometimes people want the interviews to be tight and quick
-Know your audience
