CBRD Blog

How to make a road video

Having been asked about it a few times, I thought I’d post something about how I shoot the videos you see on CBRD.

First you will need a car. This sounds elementary but it’s quite important. My first video was of Lofthouse Interchange (M1/M62 near Leeds), shot from a range of off-road angles and edited together later. It was just strange. Photos from the roadside work brilliantly, better than through the windscreen in most cases, but the same is not true of video.

You’ll also need something that can capture video - and more of it than you think. Most digital stills cameras do this now, but I use a video camera for higher picture quality and the opportunity to shoot more video. The A329(M) video, which was mostly non-stop 70mph travel, used more than twenty minutes of tape - that went to make about four minutes of sped-up video. So it helps to have plenty of space available.

My camera is a Sony DCR-TRV230e (pictured), which is now six or seven years old and records onto Digital8 tape. It’s not very modern really, but it does the job. Its key asset is a DV port, which allows me to export video to my computer. I get 90 minutes to a tape and one-and-a-half tapes to a battery charge if I keep the screen closed. It sets its own focus and exposure too, which is vital. Normally when recording something I’d consider doing those myself, but driving around, these things have to be adjusted as the video is recorded, especially through tunnels or deep cuttings. My camera also has a slight blue tint to its plastic trim, which I rather like.

The last bit of equipment is something to stop the camera sliding into the passenger footwell as soon as you set off. My earliest videos were shot as a passenger, with the camera on a tripod in the footwell (and one leg between my legs - sudden braking being very much discouraged). This works very well but only if you’re a passenger.

Now that I drive myself around, I have a professional clamp (Hague SM1), which suction-mounts on the windscreen and holds the camera very steady indeed. It’s not the one that was shown when we were on TV, though. The one you see there was owned by the production company, and my clamp was used inside the car for the camera filming Steven and I because it was better than theirs! I would never mount my camera outside the car because I wouldn’t be able to operate the controls without stopping and getting out. It would also get wet.

If you’re not willing to invest in clamps or stands, I understand that gaffer-taping the camera to the dashboard does the job too.

With the camera set up I head off, and before reaching my first filming location, record a few seconds of footage, then pull over, rewind and check it. Usually this means moving in to the passenger seat to avoid disturbing the camera. It’s very hard to position the camera well while parked because you’ll never have a view in front of you as if you were driving along a road. As a result of this check, I can adjust the camera as necessary to make sure there’s no bonnet or windscreen wiper in shot, the framing is square, and the camera is pointing slightly left of centre to catch road signs on the left verge.

Then I can set off and record, being sure to not only to stop the camera but also to turn it off between takes. This saves battery life but also more importantly avoids getting confused about whether you’re currently recording or not. I have enough tapes showing all the dull bits that I had not intended to record, and missing out the good stuff, and I want to avoid collecting any more of them.

Often, I will try to read out all the road signs I pass. If I later refer back to see how something is signposted and it’s not legible, I have the wording recorded. More often I do this for the first three signs I pass and thereafter forget about it and sing along loudly to whatever music I have playing. I can’t sing at all so this means I have to turn the volume down when watching it back.

On an unfamiliar road I will usually do a dry run first, if I have time, to make sure I have some idea where I’m going and what I will be doing. It looks pretty bad on video if you’re changing lanes at the last minute, and if you make a wrong turn your video will be very messy.

Back home, I then record the footage on to the hard disk. If you’re a smug Mac user like me, you’ll already have iMovie, which is perfectly adequate for importing, editing and exporting video. Similar software - not always free - is available for Windows. I’ve never used it but I imagine that the built-in Windows Movie Maker will do the job OK. The edited and exported video then gets squashed into Flash Video (FLV) format using a freeware tool (for which I have to re-boot the Mac under Windows XP) and uploaded on to the web server. The front-end video player is another piece of freeware that is widely used across the net.