Health and Safety tutorial

On Monday's lesson we had our Health and Safety tutorial and we were introduced to the equipment we will use in the project. :)

We will be using professional recording cameras in order to achieve a professional standard quality to our thriller. The camera is a JVC GY-HM100, the smallest professional format camcorder. It is very practical because it is small and we can carry with us with ease, and it is less exposed to the risk of falling as it isn't heavy. We must be very careful when working with the cameras, therefore we had a Health & Safety lesson to avoid major problems when using the camera. Our teachers watched each one of us doing the following:

•  Inserting and removing the sim card correctly.
• Inserting and removing the battery correctly.
• Opening up and closing down the tripod correctly.
• Inserting and removing the camera from the tripod.

We also were told how to use the camera buttons (how to turn it on/off, how to zoom in/out, how to change from auto focus to manual focus, etc) and a few rules + advice to when we are using the camera.

•  We mustn't touch the lens, because if they get damaged, it will ruin our footage and lens are expensive.
•  We must ensure that the camera is tightly held on the tripod.
•  We must hold it accurately and safely.
•  We must leave the camera always in safe places.
•  We mustn't expose it to rain or liquids, or anything that might damage the camera.
•  And of course, we must always leave our Media ID cards to borrow the camera, and take it back as long as we gave all the equipment back.

The Tripod

The tripod legs can be extended twice. We should first extend the legs, and afterwards we should open it. We must ensure that the legs are completely open and extended, there is a green bubble that shows whether the tripod is levelled correctly or not. It also extends its top part, it reaches a very high level, really appropriate for high angle shots. Tripods are really helpful to get perfectly still shots or reduce shaking, levelling the shots correctly, and getting good angles.


The battery & sim card
The battery can record approximately 120 minutes, if we are going out for long we should always have a second battery available. The memory card in a full high quality can support 1 hour of filming, what should be enough to a 3 minute opening, but in case we need another one we can get it. Also we need to be careful to not delete or lose any work from our memory cards.