"Tony Morgan" wrote in message
...
In message , lid
writes
Hi,

We have been shooting some video in school to help kids with their Maths.
Using a camcorder we have fixed the camera on a A4 piece of paper whilst
the
teacher draws various mathematical diagrams. Our first attempt produced
too
dark an image on the A4 paper so we borrowed a light from our Drama
department and used that to illuminate the paper.

The result was a much brighter image but as the hands moved around
drawing
the diagram on the paper the brightness of the paper changed. I have
tried
the colour balance filter in Liquid Edition which has improved the
footage
but it's not brilliant.

Is there something that we haven't done correctly or at all?

All our footage was shot indoors using a Canon MV 500i camcorder.

The way to go is to use a lightbox, and use OHP water-soluble pens
(Staedleter Lumocolor or clone). Shoot in a darkened room.

A variation on this is to use an overhead projector (being a school you
might have one of these). With this as well as the above, you can use
prepared OHP film transparencies pre-marked with the prep work. Use a
proper screen, but a white wall will do, and shoot the screen or wall.

Another option that works very well is to use Camtasia, in conjunction
with a graphic tablet, but that software is expensive. With this method
you don't see the pen (and hand) writing, just the writing. Camtasia
comes with a video editor that allows voice-overs and call-outs.

--
Tony Morgan
http://www.camcord.info

Firstly I want to thank everyone who has posted replies in this thread. I
have found all of your information extremely useful and when we have our
meeting tomorrow (Friday) to look at the footage I will be passing on the
recommendations made here.

We do have a graphics tablet which we haven't used as we wish to capture the
hands setting the compass, measuring the distance etc. The process is more
important than the result. Could we use an old OHP base as a lightbox,
drawing on OHP's filmed from above looking down towards the OHP base? Not
that we have many around these days, 72" Interactive whiteboards in 1/3 of
the classrooms.

I will post back after we have tried your suggestions.

Thanks once again.

Andy.