Video in Educational Research

 This page presents some handy checklists to guide your shoot.

• Things to do before the day of the shoot
• Things to do before recording
• More things to do before recording
• Things to do while recording
• Things to avoid doing
• Top Ten To Do's
• Top Ten Don'ts

 Things to do before the day of the shoot

• inform students and parents
• plan your shoot, considering class plan, activities, materials
• do a dry run, practice!
• make sure you have necessary cables, adaptors, extension cord, duct tape, etc.
• set the time of day on your camera correctly
• choose a tape length at least 15 minutes longer than you think you need
• check the batteries in your microphones with a volt meter, and/or replace the batteries

Things to do before recording

• select a primary focus (e.g. group work, or full class discussion)
• get good sight lines to the primary focus
• get microphones as close as possible to the primary participants
• try to get faces and hands
• set your camera to manual focus, and focus on an object in your focal plain
• sound check! Headphones ON!!
• glare and backlighting check!

 More things to do before recording

• consider secondary focusses
• tape down wires
• label your tapes
• record with timestamp visable
• consider biases of your picture and sound
• experiment with alternative angles
• use AC, not batteries

Things to do while recording

• wear your headphones
• start recording before class begins, stop when class is empty
• use a tripod as often as possible
• teacher should use "ice breakers" (small jokes) to relieve tension
• try to capture faces and hands
• capture linkage between talk and materials
• make yourself invisible (avoid sudden movement, noise, intrusion)

Things to avoid doing

• keep wires away from heavy foot traffic
• minimize glare and backlighting
• use closeup shots only to temporarily capture materials
• don't focus on teacher to exclusion of students
• don't move microphones or overtly make participant aware that suddenly "you're on!"
• don't move camera rapidly
• avoid MTV production value (frame spilling over with action, rapid disconnected shots)
• leave the camera running (don't start and stop)