It’s possible to film without a camera crew while doing field research. Much of my footage for science videos has been shot while conducting research alone or with one assistant. However, it’s essential to have a tripod or monopod to hold your camera while you are working. I typically set up the camera in one location and aim it at wherever I am sampling. It’s important, however, to shift the view around to get the action from different angles and distances. This approach will give you the variety of footage you need to edit an interesting video.

When shooting, I will film for short intervals, stopping and starting the camera periodically. In the following video, you can see how I set up the camera in one spot to capture a sequence of clips while we collected soil cores on an island off the coast of Belize (you can see the finished video here). I simply rotated the camera to different angles to record each part of the process. This approach facilitated filming while working and did not add too much time to the fieldwork.