Video Production Checklist

Video Production Checklist

What to add to your camera bag:

-1 pen to label your tapes (content of shoot, date + time, location)
-1 piece of white poster board or paper for manual white balancing the camera
-At least 1 extra Mini DV tape
-1 pair of covered headphones
-1 small piece of felt (approx. 4” by 4”) for placing under a PZM mic
-2 triple A batteries or 1 double A battery for use with


1. Never leave the equipment room without attaching your microphones to a camera and testing their proper functioning and sound quality through a pair of headphones.

2. Always wear a pair of covered headphones when doing any kind of audio recording through the camera. The input for attaching headphones is on the front (or lens side) of the JVC camera.

3. Always be sure to fully charge your camera batteries before heading out on a shoot.

Steps for Charging the Battery:

-Set the power switch on the top of the camera to “OFF”
-With the arrow on the battery pack pointing up, slide the battery into place
-Remove the battery by sliding the battery release button on the bottom of the camera
-Connect the AC power adaptor to the front of the camera (in the “DC” input), and plug the other end into an outlet
-The Power/Charge lamp on the camcorder blinks to indicate that charging has begun.
-When the Power/Charge lamp goes off, charging is complete.

4. Make sure that you buy only Sony Premium or Excellence Mini DV tapes. The UWM Film Dept. Mini DV tape decks work best with these tapes. Mini DV tapes have different lubricants, and our decks seem to reject other tape brands (Maxell, Fuji, Panasonic) with different lubricant types.

5. Turn the camera on to insert a tape. Insert the tape with the guts or inside part of the tape facing the inside of the camera, and the outside or window side of the tape facing the outside of the camera.

6. In order to access the menu and sound levels for an external microphone, your JVC camcorder has to be set to M or Manual. The camera must be set to VIDEO to shoot with Mini DV tapes.

7. Always make sure that your camera is in SP mode before recording. You should see SP on the monitor for Standard Play recording. If you see LP, hit menu (a button on the back of the camera) and scroll to the A menu, hit SET, scroll to REC MODE, hit SET and you can select SP.

8. Always make sure that your camera is set to record 16 bit sound. To check, hit menu and scroll to A menu, hit SET, scroll to SOUND MODE and select 16bit.

9. Any zoom over 10X moves the image from one with optical zoom to one with digital zoom. My advice is to never use the digital zoom. This lessens the image quality quite a bit. To make sure that your digital zoom never passes 10X, hit MENU and scroll down to the A screen. Select ZOOM and set it at the 10x option.

10. After insuring that the environment, person, place, or object is properly lit, be absolutely sure to Manually White Balance the camera. Do this every time you change rooms, locations, or lighting. Always include a blank piece of white paper or white poster board in your camera case for this purpose. Here are the steps to do this:

-Set the power switch to M
-Hold a sheet of white paper or poster board in front of the subject + zoom in until the white paper fills the LCD screen.
-Press WB repeatedly to select the manual white balance symbol (2 triangles with a square in between). This symbol will appear on your LCD screen.
-Press and hold the WB button until it stops blinking, and then the manual white balancing is complete.
-Once you adjust the white balance manually, the setting will remain even after you shut off the camera. To reset it, repeat the process again. You should manually white balance the camera again whenever you change the lighting or change the environment or room you’re shooting in.
-Avoid scenes with multiple color temperatures of light (indoor light is red/orange, outdoor light is blue, and fluorescent light is green). For example, avoid mixing blue outdoor light streaming through windows with red indoor or household lights in the same shot.

11. Manually Focusing the camera is typically best. Here are the steps to do this:

-Set the Power switch to M
-Press FOCUS, the manual focus indicator appears
-Rotate the Manual Focus dial to focus on a subject
-Press SET on the Manual Focus dial

12. If you're finding that your images look too dark on the LCD screen of your JVC camcorder, or you're unable to adjust the exposure, make sure to set the camera to AGC or Auto Gain Control.

To do this:

1. Hit the menu button on the back of the camcorder.
2. Scroll down to the A menu, and hit Set.
3. Scroll to Gain and select AGC.

13. When shooting indoors with your JVC camera, be aware that it needs a lot of light to produce a high quality image. Use a tube kit to flood the space with light, and then use the Exposure button to dial down or dim the exposure. This has always proven to deliver the best results. Otherwise you will end up with a grainy and/or out of focus image.

-Set the power switch to “M”
-Press Exposure + the Exposure Indicator appears
-Rotate the Manual Focus Dial to adjust the exposure.
-Press the SET button on the Manual Focus Dial.

-To return to Automatic Exposure, hit the Exposure button twice.
-If SET is not selected on the Manual Focus Dial, Manual Exposure won’t work.

14. Don’t break the timecode on your Mini DV tape. Be sure to record some dead space on the tape after a critical scene. If you decide to rewind your tape to review something you just shot, be sure to park the tape well into that dead space (at least 10 seconds) before starting to record again. The tape needs to be backed up at least 10 seconds into footage previously shot in order to keep the time code from breaking.

15. Never use the onboard (or built-in) microphone on your camera. Your recordings will contain camera system noise, and the quality of the recordings will be low.

Always use external microphones to record sound. Microphones with a mini or 1/8 inch plug are ready to plug into your JVC camera. Plug them into the “MIC” input right under the lens at the front of your JVC. To attach other external microphones, use the ¼ inch to mini adaptor cable in your camera bags. You can plug the mini end of the adaptor cable into the “MIC” input at the front of your camera. Then plug the microphone with the ¼ inch plug into the end of the cable with the ¼ inch input.

16. Batteries for specific mics.

17. When you plug in an external mic on the JVC, you see a L and a R light up on the lower left corner of the LCD screen. As sound is being recorded by the external microphone, a series of bars will light up. They are green and red. The sound should peak with one red bar only.

The last 2 or 3 red bars shouldn’t light up.

If the sound reaches the 3rd or 4th red bar, your levels will be hitting too near or at 0 decibels or 0db. You never want to hit O Db. This is known as hitting the brick wall. Your sound will screech and become unusable.

18. To create a sense of depth or space in a soundtrack, it takes a mix of 3 elements:

Foreground sounds: Louder sounds that seem close

Middleground sounds: Soft to medium loud details from the immediate area.

Background sounds: Soft sounds that seem far away.

You’ll be responsible for testing the sound levels of any recorded audio in Final Cut Pro. In Final Cut Pro, you have a tool called the audio meter. This meter will show you the levels of the sound you recorded with your camera.

The general rule for voice or foreground recording: -12db to -6db

Middleground sounds, like a zipper being zipped or a water fountain: -15 to -3db

Background sounds, like sounds from a meadow or sound outside a city window: -20 to -15 db, though they can be recorded at higher levels and lowered in Final Cut Pro.

19. To create a dynamic soundtrack you should try to include sound with low frequencies, mid frequencies, and high frequencies:

Low Frequencies: In the audio frequency range, those from around 20 Hz to 250 Hz. These frequencies add bass warmth to recordings. Some common sounds with pronounced low frequencies are: traffic and machinery "rumble," bass musical instruments and the lowest tones produced by the human voice.

Mid-Frequencies: The part of the frequency range from 250 Hz to 4,000 Hz. Most of the sound that we hear comes from this portion of the audible range, but if a soundtrack has only mid-frequencies it will lack warmth (low frequencies) and clarity (high frequencies).

High Frequencies: In the audio frequency range, those from around 4,000 Hz to 20,000. These frequencies add clarity to recordings. Some common sounds with pronounced high frequencies are: consonant sounds of human speech, sizzling, rain and cymbal percussion.

20. Be sure to record at least 5 minutes of uninterrupted ambient sound in each shooting environment. Air has a sound, and you will need a long and seamless recording of “silence” in every space you shoot in for use in editing. After recording a sound, don’t stop recording immediately. Record dead space before and after each critical sound source.

21. I would recommend using the RE-10 microphone (especially good for voice and middleground sounds) or the PZM microphone (best for background sounds) to get the best audio levels on your JVC camcorder.

22. Don’t forget to bring a supply of double A and triple A batteries for use in the microphones.

23. If you’re using a tube kit for lighting, never touch the bulb with your fingers. Always use gloves when operating the hot lights. Let the lights cool off completely before packing them up.