Resilient River Basins 3 Minute Video Instructions

What you need to make your video

You will need two smartphones, one to record video and the other for the teleprompter.

Ideally you need three people.

The Presenter
Camera (mobile) operator
The third to hold the smartphone with the Teleprompter app, or ideally on a larger android tablet.

Alternatively you can have the same person filming as holding the teleprompter phone so you only need two people.

If you have a drone or a more professional camera and you are confident, please consider using it.

Before you start, delegate who will do what.

How to use a Teleprompter Mobile App

Set up the Teleprompter App;

Install Simple Teleprompter from the Play Store at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.schakib.julian.teleprompter
Go to settings and disable the “Mirror” function
Set the font size to something like 72 so that you can read the text. You can also set the line spacing if you need to.
Set the Delay to 10 seconds
Set the Scrollspeed to 4 or 5 but this will need to be adjusted depending upon the font size you choose.
Paste the text from the script from the end of this email. I’ve added it and reformatted it making it easy to copy from this email.
Set your phone to autorotate horizontally and hold it horizontally.
Before you start filming, test the settings and adjust the speed and font size to match the distance from camera you hope to use.
Try to relax and get into storytelling mode (rather than power point meeting presentation mode)
As the countdown rolls on the teleprompter, take a nice slow breath and make sure your posture feels relaxed and comfortable.

How to film your clips

Safety First!

Everyone should always check it is a safe place to film! AND before you start filming what is behind you before you start filming! You might step backwards while you are concentrating on filming and have an accident.

Permissions First!

Make sure you are not upsetting anyone filming, make sure you aren’t putting yourself at risk, or creating conflict with other people!

Sound is very important!

Try to film somewhere where there isn’t heavy machinery or traffic!

Hold the camera very steady!

Hold the camera steady at all times when filming. If you want to move the camera, move it very slowly and smoothly.

Simple rules to filming people speaking factual content to camera.

Hold the camera/phone horizontally and as stable (unshakey) as you can. (We aren’t making a Tiktok)
Always place the presenter’s eyes a third of the way down the screen, look at the image below.
Do not film them straight to camera, have them present at a slight angle, this creates “looking space” (squares on the right in the image below).
Fill the “looking space” with something which makes sense, in this case rivers and trees or something related to your work, e.g. drones in your office or someone/people doing something work related.

Try filming it very simple at first like the picture above, then experiment once you have the "safe shot" in the "can"!

Then you can try other shots if you have time like the ones below.

Remember if you move the camera, move it very slowly.

Advanced Filming Tips!

You can try filming different shots as in the image above. Wide shots are very useful.

If you try walking and talking shots - get someone else to guide behind the camera person with a hand on their shoulder gently guiding them backwards.

If you are confident and have one, you can use a drone held in your hand, without the rotors turning, to film the shot, as this will be much steadier and better quality than a mobile phone.

Any questions, please email me (Matt) ! (matthew.walsh@fao.org )

When you have finished filming and have the video files, please email them to me via Dropbox, Google Drive, WeTransfer or similar.

Script To Copy Paste Into The Teleprompter App

Resilient River Basins: Counting Fish from Forests for Food Security, is a joint initiative between FAO’s Forestry and FAO’s Fisheries and Aquaculture Divisions to transform management of fisheries and forestry resources through multidisciplinary collaboration across watersheds.

Resilient River Basins is an innovative package of activities that harnesses cutting edge technologies such as remotely-sensed data to improve data collection, bridge digital divides and build capacity for understanding watershed-based approaches for sustainable resource management and food security.

Sustainable forest management and healthy riparian forests protect inland water systems on which freshwater fishes depend.

Many of the world’s most vulnerable people depend on aquatic ecosystems and their services for nutrition and livelihoods.

To support sustainable watershed-based management of these ecosystems, stakeholder input to land-use planning is therefore essential.

Through integrated watershed management, Resilient River Basins supports the resilience and sustainability of local food systems, in support of sustainable development goal 2, Zero Hunger as well as sustainable development goal 6, Clean Water and Sanitation, and both sustainable development goals 14 and 15, Life Below Water and Life on Land.

Initial activities are focused in the Kafue River Basin, Zambia, where FAO is partnering with the Center for International Forestry Research and WorldFish. The partners have worked together to synthesize and analyze available information relevant to forestry, freshwater, and fisheries.

Remotely-sensed forest cover data was processed and mapped across the nine sub-catchments of the upper Kafue River to understand patterns of land-use change.

In particular, riparian forest condition was assessed across

the watershed and its sub-catchments

and linked to existing data on river flows and on fisheries production.

Layering climate forecasts across sub-catchments then enables consideration of future changes in temperature and precipitation from both a fisheries and forestry perspective.

Remotely-sensed information and maps were discussed with a broad range of stakeholders from forestry, fisheries, and the water sector at the project kick-off meeting. Outputs of that meeting are guiding implementation of on-the-ground activities including stake-holder interviews, water-temperature monitoring, and a household survey about the role of forests and fisheries for food security.

One of the exciting innovations of the Resilient Rivers work is the utilization of drones and development of a comprehensive and multi-disciplinary training for three experts from forestry and three from fisheries, enabling these experts to become fully-licensed drone pilots. Partners will use the drones to enable ground-truthing of remotely-sensed data, to film and communicate watershed function and ecosystem services as well as to design and implement an aquatic ecosystem monitoring framework.

Next steps will include stakeholder review of information to design aquatic-indicators and development of an eLearning course linking forests, freshwater, fish, and food security. Global scaling-up will also be enabled through creation of watershed-based tools for assessment of remotely-sensed data and capacity building activities with partners and stakeholders in the Magdalena River watershed, Colombia, and the Sepik River watershed, Papua New Guinea.