SECTION IV: USING MEDIA IN THE CLASSROOM

                             Using Slides in Class

                                  Lois Potter


Using slides for teaching Shakespeare might seem rather passe, now that it's
possible for almost anyone to use video in teaching and even (as we learned in
the Hypertext session at the 1993 SAA meeting) to put together a technically
brilliant computer presentation.  But as things stand most of us don't have
either the time or the technology to produce such results.  Slides, on the
other hand, are relatively cheap, easy to store, and flexible in use.  It is a
lot easier to keep a slide on screen while you talk about it than to freeze the
frame on a video, and you can compare very different kinds of material (I like
to relate emblems and paintings to scenes in plays, or to situate, say,
metaphysical imagery in the context of pictures like those in Gilman's *The
Curious Perspective*.)

*Sources of material*:  Slides can be made from anything--book illustrations,
postcards, your own photographs.  At secondhand and remainder bookstores, I
look for art books (one of my favorites is Robert Hughes's *Heaven and Hell in
Western Art*) and books with lots of theatre photographs (such as glossy
theatrical biographies and autobiographies, Audrey Williamson's two volumes on
*Old Vic Drama*, the various picture book annuals about theatres and theatre
festivals- -you can generally buy these at the theatres themselves, Robert
Speaight's *Shakespeare on the Stage*, and Robert Tanitch's *A Pictorial
Companion to Shakespeare's Plays*).  Theatre programs, exhibition catalogues
and theatre magazines are useful too.  See, e.g., Raymond Mander and Joe
Mitchinson, *The Artist and the Theatre.*

*Getting slides made*: Often the least good slides are the ones you buy in
museums.  It's better to make your own (if you have any photographic skill) or
have them made.  Most institutions have an Educational Technology unit, or
sometimes slides are the responsibility of a particular department like
Geography or Art history.  If you're lucky you may be entitled to have a
certain number made free of charge.  It doesn't usually take more than a week
or two to get slides made--ask beforehand, and don't turn up at the last minute
asking for special treatment, if you want to use the service again.

When you get your slides, be sure to label them at once, so that you don't
forget what they are.  In my early days I often gave very incomplete references
on the label, which I now regret. If the label is too small, you can after all
keep a list of the slides you own plus all the details about them.  Ideally,
you should know the page from which you took any book illustration, because if
you ever decide to reproduce it in a book you will need to get your publisher
to obtain permission.  (strictly speaking, even showing a slide made from a
copyrighted book is problematic, but as far as I know no one has ever mades an
issue of this practice.)

It is also a good idea also to mark your slides in the lower left hand corner;
you can buy little dots for this purpose, or you can put a spot on them with a
waterproof pen.  This will save you the bother of checking which way is up when
you load the projector.  If you put the slides in so that you can see the red
dots sticking up on the upper right hand corner of the carousel, you will know
that you're all right. *Teaching with visual materials*:  When I first started
using slides I went completely over the top, filling every lecture with images
only vaguely relevant to the topic just because I assumed that everyone would
find them as fascinating as I did myself.  Not surprisingly, I got some very
negative feedback.  Now I usually begin with an explanation of why I'm using
slides, often stressing that my purpose is experimental and not necessarily
intended to prove anything.  I try not to show too many (30 is the maximum
number of slides for a straight lecture; if you want to have discussion you
will need far fewer) and I make a point of saying enough about each one to make
it clear why I'm showing it.

Like every other device, this approach has variable results.  I can sometimes
make a point quite effectively with slides: for instance, after showing photos
of six or seven different actors in very different Hamlets, I have taken the
opportunity to point out that, although photographs may look more obviously
dated than critical articles, critical views of Hamlet differ from each other
just as much as these pictures do.  Though I don't show slides specifically to
give people a sense of what the Elizabethan period looked like, this kind of
knowledge is often a by-product, and students sometimes mention how much they
enjoy seeing people in the "right" costumes.  From a discussion point of view,
it's often easier to get students to ask questions about production photographs
than about the text.  Warning: their questions can sometimes be embarrassing,
especially when the blown up photos reveal details that you never noticed in
the smaller photograph ("Who is the man in the big hat standing behind Hamlet?"
 Who indeed?),  To save time, it may be a good idea to give out a list of the
pictures you have used and your sources for them.

*Taking your slides on tour*:  Since slides occupy very little space they are
easy to take on a lecture tour; they don't seem to be affected by the screening
at airports, though I know some people argue to the contrary.  Most places can
come up with a slide projector and, if you're lucky, a remote control.  I have
had a few disasters: at a school in Staffordshire it took a good two minutes to
get each slide into the antiquated machine with which they had provided me;  at
Prague, where there was no remote control, the projectionist got so completely
out of focus that most of my argument was meaningless; at Bochum, the bulb blew
up as soon as the machine was turned on and we all sat for 20 minutes while the
projectionist looked for another one;  at the University of Maryland I could
operate the projector only by dropping each slide individually into the slot
and then catching it when it shot up again like a piece of toast.  You can see
the moral of all this. INSIST on seeing your equipment and the lecture room
beforehand; load the projector yourself, making sure the slides are the right
way up;  make sure they don't give you a carousel designed for thin cardboard
slides if yours have plastic mounts.  In a modern media room, you will be able
to control the lights from the front, maybe even dimming them to the point
where students can both see your slides and take notes, but you are more likely
to have a choice only between too light and too dark.  If you opt for the
latter- -total blackout--be sure to ask for a reading light, or even bring your
own flashlight in case of emergencies: it's amazing how few people realize that
once the lights are out you won't be able to see your notes.


                          Text, Eyes, and Videotape:
                   Screening Shakespeare in the Classroom

               Stephen M. Buhler, University of Nebraska-Lincoln


  In using videotaped excerpts from film and television versions of Shakespeare
the potential rewards greatly outweigh present and possible problems; such
credits and debits should, however, be calculated beforehand.  Some practical
problems are considerable and important--the availability of performances, the
expense of equipment, the demands of time--but I will not deal with these here.
Instead, I will focus on the pedagogical rewards and hazards of using video
excerpts, by way of persuading more teachers that the practical problems are
worth tackling and by way of preaching to the performance-oriented or
-interested choir that we could make better use of this resource.
  Screening excerpts from just one production of each play assigned in a course
can lead to a cumulative experience of seeing and hearing Shakespeare performed
that is revelatory for students.  Even now, their earliest encounters with the
plays can too often be marked by Gradgrindian dullness: bound to word-by-word,
line-by-line explication; divorced from any clear sense of performance or, in
all its senses, play.  That state of affairs is, happily, improving; despite
this, the ability of students to engage imaginatively with the texts is still
limited by their lack of exposure to classical drama--even in film or video
form. The dynamics, as well as the aesthetics, of contemporary cinema and
television differ markedly from those of the classic theatrical experience:
screening Shakespeare in the classroom can at least begin to redress that lack.
 More than this, though, the inevitable differences between the students'
understanding of plays from initial reading and their understanding of scenes
from viewing serves to open up a fruitful interpretive space.  There is, of
course, a danger that some students (though not as many as one might fear) will
accept a given production's take on the scene as the "right" one.  Comparing
two different versions of the same scene helps to offset this danger, and
brings rewards in its own right.
  Using paired excerpts for the purposes of comparisons can alert students to
the range of interpretive opportunities offered by a Shakespearean playtext: if
neither version is given preferential treatment (and if class discussion can be
encouraged beyond the privileging of present-day cinematic conventions), both
versions can be explored and appreciated both for what they bring to the text
and for what they derive from it.  Such openness can effectively exorcise the
bugbears of definitive Shakespearean performance and definitive Shakespearean
reading, with all their deleterious consequences.  For beginning students the
task of arriving at such definitude seems (as it is) impossible and therefore
scarcely worth attempting.  For more experienced students the illusion of
having achieved such understanding can lead them to overlook those dimensions
of a play that are inevitably neglected in the search for an "authorized
version" and therefore blind them to the insights realized by a production that
highlights those neglected aspects.  A genuinely comparative approach to
excerpted performances does much to encourage the development of a broad
interpretive field-of-vision.
  One danger that still presents itself is the tendency to open up the reading
of Shakespeare at the expense of closing down or closing off responses to
performance.  It remains easy to fall into the trap of showing and watching a
certain performance for certain things only.  Sometimes an emphasis on one
aspect of the production completely overrides other elements.  How the text is
edited or rearranged (a clear and present temptation for those of us with
New-Critical or Old-Textual training) or how a character is portrayed are
issues with which many viewers who lack extensive technical familiarity with
stage or screen simply feel more comfortable.  Even when we do consider other
elements of performance, a little learning about a given production can be just
as dangerous: we ascribe to the production a master-theme that becomes our
"definitive" reading of how Shakespeare is interpreted in this particular case.
 By way of illustrating the limitations of such an approach and some avenues of
escape from those limits, I want to share a few of my ongoing experiences in
discussing the film versions of *Henry V*.  Laurence Olivier's and Kenneth
Branagh's productions of the play arewell suited to a comparative treatment in
the classroom because of their wide availability, because of their obvious
differences in conceptualizing Shakespearean stagecraft and its relation to
film, and because of Branagh's constant and shrewd awareness of his formidable
predecessor.  Accepting either Branagh's own terms of the dialectic at work
between the versions or simply their own prior reputations as offering
Shakespeare "at war" and "not at war," however, can interfere with our
perception and appreciation of these films generally and in specific scenes.
  There is a growing body of materials and criticism about these films and
their relation to Shakespeare's playtext; some of these resources appear in the
bibliography that follows this essay.  Here I want to mention the materials I
have found most useful in approaching *Henry V* on film.  First, there are
published versions of Olivier's and Branagh's screenplays: Olivier's, in the
Classic Film Scripts series, includes a brief foreword by the director;
Branagh's, printed in conjunction with his film's release, has a more detailed
introduction and extensive commentary in the director's descriptions not only
of the film's action but also the characters' states of mind.  Second, there
are two recent studies which help to challenge some of the received notions
about these films.  Ace G. Pilkington's *Screening Shakespeare from "Richard
II" to "Henry V"* notes important differences between the published Olivier
screenplay and the actual film; he also considers Olivier's early draft (or
"treatment") and shooting script.  Peter S. Donaldson's "Taking on Shakespeare:
Kenneth Branagh's *Henry V*" provides an overview of Branagh's encounters with
Olivier as actor, director, and cultural icon.
  Olivier's film of *Henry V* has similarly achieved an iconic status,
presenting an impressive facade that often deflects closer scrutiny.  An
awareness that Olivier appropriated *Henry V* for the purposes of propaganda
and morale-building during the Second World War, combined with the obvious
casting of himself as the hero-king, has led many observers to assume the
director has effaced thoroughly the tensions which animate Shakespeare's text.
When one considers the constraints, psychological and otherwise, of producing
both a propaganda and a commercial film during wartime, one may instead be
impressed at how scrupulous Olivier is in at least considering--if hastening to
resolve--many of those tensions.  The immediate experiences of loss and
destruction shared by his primary audience demanded some candor toward war and
its costs.  But the same life-and-death struggle in which his fellow citizens
were engaged also led Olivier to be tentative in his exploration of the
divisions and competing interests that would lead again, in history and in
Shakespeare's Histories, to civil war.  Instead, Olivier's version presents a
vision of comprehensive British unity or, at least, a singleness of purpose
shared among Britons.  Ethnic differences are noted and effaced: even Pistol's
prejudice against the Welsh captain, Fluellen, receives its due comic
comeuppance.  Ethnic prejudice is the only reason left, besides Pistol's
surface bellicosity, for his *animus* against Fluellen: in this version,
Bardolph is not hanged for disobeying an order against looting, so Fluellen
cannot refuse Pistol's desperate plea for him to intercede on Bardolph's behalf
(Pilkington 105).
  Some sense of the costs of Harry's ascendancy and success as king is
communicated, however, which requires further reassurance that the cause for
which these costs are suffered is just.  One excerpt which captures this
tension is Olivier's rendering of the disguised King's debate with a few of his
common soldiers.  In Shakespeare's playtext, Michael Williams directly
questions the justice of the war Henry prosecutes in France and endeavors to
attach responsibility for the war's outcomes--especially the deaths of soldiers
like himself--on the King.  But in Olivier's film, the horrific vision of the
soldiers' dismembered joints coming together on the Day of Judgment (4.1.134-
146) is assigned not to Michael Williams, portrayed here with insouciant
cynicism by Jimmy Handley, but to a very young Alexander Court, as played by
Brian Nissen (Olivier 59).  After hearing Court verbally purge himself of the
horror, and subsequently receive the disguised king's reassurance that his
"soul is his own" (4.1.177) the film's viewers see Court settle down to sleep
and *become* the wretched slave who, in the subsequent soliloquy, sleeps in
Elysium at the king's own cost (Olivier 61).  In some ways, this treatment
helps to contain the threatening judgment offered by the "latter day" speech:
the actor's youth suggests that Court's fears stem from inexperience, a lack of
battle-seasoning; his immediate somnolence suggests that fatigue contributes to
such jitters.  And certainly the laconic delivery of Bates' lines by Arthur
Hambling (offering a rustic version of the stiff upper-lip) and the view of
Williams as genial grumbler lessen any sense of challenge to Henry's authority
or his meriting of success.
  Kenneth Branagh's depiction of the same scene reacts strongly against
Olivier's version.  Branagh has expressed the terms of the dialectic at work
between his film version of the play and Olivier's in this way:       Although
Olivier's film had been welcomed and celebrated as part of the       war
effort, its seeming nationalistic and militaristic emphases had created       a
great deal of suspicion and doubt about the value of *Henry V* for a late
twentienth-century audience (Branagh 9). Branagh's "post-Vietnam" (and
"post-Falklands") version deliberately enters into conversation and debate with
Olivier's on a number of levels, although here he concedes that many of the
differences are matters of emphasis and even, as Branagh says, of "seeming."
The terms of conversation include a strong element of personal ambition--not
only the King's, but Olivier's and Branagh's own. Branagh has recalled how the
gradual allaying of his "personal paranoia about having to 'prove myself' as an
actor . . . helped [his] playing the role immeasurably over the long months of
the Stratford season" in which he first played the role for the Royal
Shakespeare Company (Jackson and Smallwood 102). But that same resolve to prove
oneself is clearly a central component of Branagh's conception of the role, and
a strong factor in his directorial debut with the film version (Donaldson
60-61).  The terms of debate include the kind of realism with which war is
represented: Olivier's movement to naturalistic cinema still idealizes the
conditions of battle, especially the medieval variety; Branagh's slide into the
mud entails both looting the fallen and combat that is less decisively
one-on-one, less chivalric.
  Interestingly, the scene with Michael Williams shows Branagh's Henry less
willing than Olivier's monarch to "bear all."  He applies his little touch of
Harry in the night only to substitute warlike anger for the near-paralyzing
fear some of his soldiers feel, not to take on their burdens.  As in the
original play, there is deft skirting of the whole issue as to whether this is
a "just war."  Olivier's film borrows from the Latin mass in proclaiming
*dignum et justum est*--it is right and just--immediately before a truncated
version of Henry's prayer to the "God of battles" (4.1.289-305).  Branagh's
version does not avail itself of even such mediated divine approval.  In fact,
Branagh suggests that the King fills a void left vacant by the Church.  At the
beginning of the scene in Branagh's film, Williams receives a blessing, upon
being shriven, which has no calming effect on his nerves: if anything, thoughts
of the hereafter shake him all the more thoroughly, since the grizzled veteran
(portrayed by the actor Michael Williams) is the one who conjures up--and is
haunted by--the ghastly vision of soldiers' limbs coming together at the Last
Judgment.  At the end of the scene, Henry himself will be shaken by his direct
appeals to the Almighty, as the script specifies: "The feverish prayer will not
work" (Branagh 93).  While this shared fear lends Williams' challenges
increased authority--as does his age and obvious experience--it also begins a
movement toward solidarity between Henry and all his men, especially these
soldiers.  Even during the intentionally ironic anthem "Non nobis," sung while
the survivors recover bodies from the Field of the Dead, audience members may
note the King's kinship with Williams and Bates as they and he load bodies onto
the cart, and be moved by Henry's kiss of farewell on the head of the slain
tavern boy.  Rather than see the King's own head bent "as if in shame" (which
is Branagh's account in the published script, p. 114), we may see it bent
simply in mournful sorrow or in exhausted relief.
  Which, then, is the more "anti-war" rendering of these scenes and of the
play? Olivier's version, for most viewers, does downplay the terror and the
challenge implicit in Williams' invocation of both the individual day of
judgment that comes to many in battle and the general judgment at the end of
time.  In contrast, Branagh's film invests considerable attention and emotional
weight into Williams' meditations and thus underscores both the horror of war
and the weight of responsibility.  Certainly the categories of "war effort"
film and "post-Vietnam" film fit comfortably with such responses.  But these
categories might preclude our perception of other, less formulaic aspects of
the directors' filmic interpretations and might limit our responses to them.  I
have already suggested some of the ways these versions can work against the
dominant interpretations ascribed to them.  Here let me acknowledge how many of
those observations are indebted to the discussions and debates that have arisen
among students and colleagues who have seen these two renderings of that
particular scene.  In first developing the classroom comparison, I thought I
"knew," to some substantial extent, these two interpretations of the
Shakespearean playtext: I often framed the discussion accordingly, leading any
given group to see these films from the same perspective.  Fortunately, the
independence of several groups and a developing openness in structure for the
groups' responses have contributed to broadening my views and enriching further
my experience of these films and the playtext.
  The session with the members of the "Shakespeare and the Languages of
Performance" institute was especially instructive.  Despite my own awareness of
how much I could learn from the participants, given their experience and skill
in Shakespearean performance and scholarship, I still seemed to operate from
the assumption--however unconsciously--that I had something *like* a definitive
word on these films.  Fortunately, the structure I'd devised for viewing and
discussing the excerpts helped in resisting definitude.  First copies of the
passage as it appears in a standard teaching playtext, the Signet Classic
edition, and copies of the scene as it appears in the published version of
Olivier's screenplay were distributed to the group.  To make it less likely
that everyone concentrated on textual matters--however important in this
instance-- the "viewing guide" which follows was also distributed.  Loosely
adapted from Patrice Pavis' (310-11) influential "Questionnaire" for responding
to stage performances, it asks viewers to concentrate on aspects of the films
they might otherwise overlook.
*****************************************************************
                               VIEWING *HENRY V*
Today, we'll focus on two versions of the scene in *Henry V* where the King,
while dispensing a little touch of Harry in the night, converses in disguise
with three soldiers--John Bates, Alexander Court, and Michael Williams.  The
first version is from Laurence Olivier's 1944 "war effort" film; the Second
World War provided not only a context but the impetus for Olivier's account of
"this star of England" and his reign.  The second version is from Kenneth
Branagh's 1989 "post-Vietnam/Falklands" film production.

As you consider the differences and continuities at work between these two
scenes--and also at work between these versions and the Shakespearean
playtext-- narrow the focus a bit further, and compare and contrast the
versions in *one* of the following areas:

1)    Design: set, costumes, lighting, dominant colors.
2)    Casting: age, physical size and shape, facial features, roles in other
      productions.
3)    Sound: music, clarity of dialogue, voice-over, effects, vocal delivery,
      accents.
4)    Text: deletions, rearrangement or reassignment of lines or scenes,
      interpolations of original or extra-textual material.
5)    Camera: angles, focus, depth and duration of shots.
6)    Characterization: emotional state, mannerisms, suggested history and
background, social status (and attitude toward that status).  You might use one
or two words to sum up or to describe each character in the two versions.
7)    Movement--physical and emotional: blocking, group placement and dynamics,
personal interaction.
8)    Overall Impression: the "feel" or "tone"; pacing; the guiding
interpretation;   the intended and actual affective impacts.

The list of elements within each category is *not* exhaustive; you might find
other aspects which apply to each general term.  Also, as the last category
implies, these focuses are somewhat arbitrarily divided--all the elements
overlap and coalesce in the filmic experience.
*****************************************************************
  In a classroom situation, numbers can be counted off by the students; after
viewing, the students can work initially in small groups devoted to the element
designated by each number.  After discussion, each small group can then report
on its respective element to the class as a whole, both sharing and eliciting
observations and insights.  The members of the institute selected their own
areas of concentration, and the diversity of their selections and their
willingness to offer individual viewpoints redressed any lack suffered in
skipping the small group work.  Also, combinations of elements and their
resulting effects were explored almost immediately.  For example, the warm,
roseate light amidst the darkness which marks the scene in the Olivier film was
seen in conjunction with the casting of the very youthful, rosy-cheeked Nissen
as Court.  Refusing to attribute automatically greater sophistication or
honesty about war to Branagh's staging of the scene, many members of the group
directed our attention to the poignancy of having this painfully young man try
to prepare himself simultaneously for the violence and devastation of war and
for the condition of his soul throughout eternity.  The discussion drew
parallels with the exigencies of maintaining a fighting force during the Second
World War itself, as indeed younger and younger men were called into service
(and older and older men, too, who could be reflected in the decidedly
middle-aged Bates of Olivier's film).  For these viewers, the sense of doomed
innocence which culminates in the slaughter of the "boys and the luggage" is
intensified by Olivier in ways Branagh does not match.
  Meanwhile, Branagh's version was acknowledged by other members of the group
to address the "just war" issue more directly, but they noted that Branagh's
Henry is more concerned with instilling warlike aggression in Williams than in
providing a rationale (or not) for his military policies in France.  He
succeeds in that morale boosting enterprise, however inadvertently, as
Williams' near- paralyzing fear is replaced with angry contempt for his
visitor's appalling, apparent naivete.  Even here, one commentator noted,
Branagh's Henry "proves himself" as an instinctive leader, a motivator.  The
cold, blue light that pervades the scene--coloring the characters' faces--was
observed as lending further credence to Bates' commentary that "as cold a night
as 'tis, [the King] could wish himself in Thames up to the neck" (4.1.114-115).
 The lighting was also seen as part of a series of direct answers to Olivier's
own visual and emotional decisions about the scene.  But by reconfiguring the
emotions at work in Olivier, the group had gone far in reconstituting the terms
of the dialectic in which Branagh had engaged.  Further, the visceral power of
the scene in the playtext and in any performance of it had been deeply affected
and enriched for me by the communal experience and analysis of these scenes.
  I realize that this lengthy--but by no means complete--review of the
institute participants' thoughts, along with my own and those offered by other
groups, about the passage in filmic performance might also serve to limit the
perceptions of others.  That is not, of course, my intention.  It is rather my
hope that the rehearsal of developing, shared perspectives on the playtext and
its renderings will suggest the potential and potentially unbounded
fruitfulness of the comparative approach.  The absence of boundaries is not, I
think, a result of radical indeterminacy or of the infinite play of signifiers,
that unsettling counter-image to the Tillyardian cosmic dance--however useful
those concepts have been in challenging the quest for authoritative readings.
Instead, I prefer to think it is the result of *inexhaustibility*: that of
playtexts, with their intricate intertextual negotiations and the infinite
variety of their potential stage and screen actualizations; that of
performances, with their rich interplay of sights, sounds, and other sensory
contacts, their exploration and exploitation of social, cultural, and communal
relationships; that of students and teachers, of readers and audience members,
whose roles constantly shift and reconfigure in discussion.  In resisting the
notion that any of these can ever be (much less need be) exhausted, the
comparative approach to Shakespeare in Performance can help to stave off
pedagogical and interpretive burnout.

WORKS CITED

Branagh, Kenneth.  *"Henry V" by William Shakespeare: A screen adaptation.*
London: Chatto and Windus, 1989.
Donaldson, Peter S.  "Taking on Shakespeare: Kenneth Branagh's *Henry V*."
*Shakespeare Quarterly( 42 (1991): 60-71.
Jackson, Russell, and Robert Smallwood.  *Players of Shakespeare 2.*  Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Olivier, Laurence.  *"Henry V" by William Shakespeare*.  London: Lorrimar, 1984.
Pavis, Patrice. Dictionnaire du Theatre. Paris: Messidon/Editions sociales,
1987.
Pilkington, Ace G.  Screening Shakespeare from "Richard II" to "Henry V".
Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1991.
Shakespeare, William.  *The Riverside Shakespeare.*  Ed. G. Blakemore Evans.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin.


           Some Suggestions for videotaping performances and classes

                                  David Kranz
                               Dickinson College

I. Preparation

a. Spend some time getting to know your videocam(s) by reading the manual and
playing with all the buttons and switches.  Use a tape and see what different
features (e.g., manual or auto focus, zoom) will do.  Test the camera's limit's
with regard to light and sound.

b. Use tripods whenever possible.  At the very least, have one for your long
range or establishing shot camera (the video camera that is likely to be
operating throughout the performance/class).

c. Make sure that all your battery packs are fully charged and have extra tapes
available.  Buy and use high quality tape cassettes only (more expensive, but
worth it, especially if you will be editing).

d. Try to find out in advance the limits of your "fields" in terms of width,
depth, and height so that you can get what you need in the frame and still stay
reasonably close to the action.

e. Make a case, with the director/instructor, for lighting which is uniform
over the "field," flat (low contrast), bright but not glaring, and, if
possible, from only one light source--outdoor, incandescent, or fluorescent.
Videocams often react to high contrasts by blacking out the low light areas,
and mixed sources often have detrimental effects on color.  In addition, a lack
of bright light reduces depth of field, making focus difficult for the video
camera.

f. If possible, use two cameras.  The primary, or long range, or establishing
shot camera should be set up to encompass the "field" at its widest angle
setting and be placed as near to the center line (middle of stage to middle of
audience) as possible.  The second video camera should be available for closer
work but clearly outside the frame of the first videocam.  Talk with the
director/instructor to determine the best location(s) for this camera.

g. If your primary, long-range videocam is over fifty feet from the
performers/instructors, consider using an external remote microphone wired to
the long range videocam.  Set it up inconspicuously closer to, but not within
five feet of, the actors/instructors.

h. Set tape speed at the fastest setting (usually "standard play" or SP) and,
if possible, test run the cameras for a minute or two to see if framing, light,
sound, and the like are within tolerable limits.  Watch the test on a VCR if
possible; if not, watch it through the lens of the camera (no sound).

2.    SHOOTING

a. Turn on your cams and "bleed" your new tapes (on "play") for thirty seconds
before the actual shooting.  Having the "leader" tape may be useful in editing
and cam be used for titles and credits if so desired.

b. Press the "record" switch on the longer range camera at least five seconds
before the scene or class begins.  Ditto the other cam for parts of scenes you
want to film closer in or from different angles.  (Most cams take a few seconds
to begin taping after you press the "record" switch).

c. One cameraperson: Let the long range cam run throughout on its own.  Use the
second cam for cinematic variety, shooting sections of the performance/class
from various positions, distances, and angles.  (Editing, of course, will be
required after the taping.) Two camerapersons: Some use of the zoom capability
on the long range cam may now be possible.  (There are dangers to such use
however.  See below.)

d. The two cam shooting allows you to cover the action with one when the other
(usually the long range cam) loses battery power or gets close to the end of
its tape.  Just move the second cam to the best position, start recording with
it, and then stop the first cam to replace battery pack or tape or both.
Remember to "bleed" the new tape, of course.  Try to stop the first cam at a
moment, preferably longer than a few seconds, of no sound and start recording
again at another like break in sound.  (These opportunities will make editing
easier.)

e. Common problems.  Try to avoid (unless formally or aesthetically
appropriate) the following:

Camera movement (except panning and zooming), particularly jerky hand-held
attempts to be a dolly or a crane.

Excessive, jerky, and badly timed zooming during recording.  It's better to
find the distance you want on the telephoto of the second cam when not
recording and then record for eventual editing into a "cut."

Panning too fast or too much.

Focusing problems with the telephoto or zoom capability.  Using the telephoto
on auto-focus can result in many temporarily blurry frames, especially when the
subjects on which you are focusing are moving or when lighting is not even and
constant.  (If you want a rack-focus effect, use manual focus.)

Framing problems, especially with the telephoto feature.  Actors may go outside
of the frame if you try to zero is too much with the telephoto.  This is
particularly bad when you cut off speaking heads at the top of the frame.

Off-frame sounds, like change in your pocket or whispered evaluations of the
performance near the cam's sound boom.

Extremes of lighting, as noted above.


f. Cinematic possibilities.  With the second camera, you may wish to try
variants of shot (medium, close up, extreme close up), angle (high, low,
oblique), lighting (under and over exposure), moving camera (pans--reaction,
swish, tilts, hand-held cam), mise-en-scene by camera position (imbalanced,
tight/loose, symmetric/asymmetric, camera proxemics, aleatory/anticipatory
set-ups) and montages (fades, expressionistic cuts).

g. Either "bleed" the tape for a minute or two after the performance is over or
just let the camera(s) run on record for a while

3. LABELLING, COPYING, AND EDITING

a. Remove the cassettes from the cameras and put labels on them.  Make a copy
of all tapes just as you would for files in a computer.  Put labels on these
cassettes ("an unlabeled tape is a lost tape.")

b. Using a videotape editor if possible, splice in the appropriate scenes from
the second cam onto the tape from the first or long range camera.  If sound
disjunctions are a problem, try to make the cuts when there is little or no
sound, or use the sound from the first cam with the video from the second (if
your editing equipment has this capability).

c. Make a copy of the editing tape and label it.