Video Assist

A video assist unit is used to display the image seen by a film camera on a video monitor.

Normally when shooting on film, the only person who can see the image is the camera operator who looks through the camera's eyepiece. A camera which is equipped for video assist splits the image between the ground glass in the eyepiece and a small black & white or colour video camera which sends its signal to a video monitor. So now the image being filmed by the camera can be viewed simultaneously by the director and other members of the crew. The scene as filmed can also be recorded onto a video recorder and then immediately played back to check the action. This operation is sometimes performed by a video assist operator.