Settlement video + Day in the Life: Record audio or not?

This is an evolving area. You need to decide before you shoot, say, the plaintiff's home life, will you record audio while shooting the video?
Attorneys tell me this depends on if you guess your judge will let you keep your out takes secret, treated as attorney work product.
If you guess your judge will force you to produce all the tape you shot, not just the part that was edited into your finished evidence, then you have to think about what the mic will pick up while shooting. It's possible, with a skilled producer, to end up with a camera original tape that just has the evidence you want on it, but nothing prejudicial. It's called cut in the camera.
I've shot thousands of hours with this mindset, but it doesn't come naturally for producers. They like to shoot everything and sort it out in the edit suite.
If you don't shoot cut in the camera, you eventually will have a shoot where you have case-destroying bits of audio audible on the camera original, things you would never include in the carefully edited final product.

The airtight option is to record no audio. Set the camera's audio input levels to zero, don't connect a microphone, nothing on the tape but hiss.
The middle way is to carefully control what the mic hears. Admonish everyone to be on their best behavior as if the defense were in the room. I like this way.
The unconcerned way, the I'm-sure-my-judge-will-let-me-keep-out takes-secret way, is to just let the mics pick up what they will and decide during the edit what goes on the finished, redacted video.

Case in point: Last week I shot a plaintiff in rehab (WARNING, not safe for the squeamish) who regularly had to have their airway suctioned out. It was very uncomfortable for them and it sounded horrid. That sound will be compelling in court. The jury will cringe at the plaintiff's suffering. No sound, no cringing. But the attorney needed to decide ahead of time, weighing the risks of recording audio.

Audio is the secret weapon of 'video'. You must decide ahead of time about this issue.

Video Deposition Tip: What to wear? It matters.

Go to Wonkette for a ruling on the high ponytail as an acceptable look for someone who wants to make partner. (Not kidding.)
I'm talking about what your deponent should wear and should avoid.
No clanky jewelry.
No rustling scarves that add simulated wind noise to every head movement. Attorneys please copy.
Keep hair off the mic. More simulated wind noise.
No narrow stripes, no small checks. They create a kind of cheap sci-fi special effect of moire that looks alive.
Shiny fabrics are a risk for unwanted glare.
No yoke neck, with bare skin to the xiphoid process. Your poor video producer needs something to clip the lav mic to. Like the poor Scottish railroad engineer who was brought to Illinois and complained, "Ye hah na place to put your tunnels through!"

Some image considerations:
You may want your witness to look poor or rich, sophisticated or just a simple person looking for justice. Dress them accordingly. You'd be surprised at the witnesses who show up in scary clothes.
Hang the coat somewhere besides the back of the chair.
If you want them in a tie, get it on straight and not too tight.

No bright whites against dark skin. Some video equipment and some shooters can't get a good recording of this contrast ratio. I can, but it's not a universal skill.
Some doctors have a special light gray or light blue lab coat for video deps.

The impression your witness makes is a ferociously multi-variant equation. Clothes are a controllable factor. Control it.

Video Deposition Tip: To edit out silences or not?

This is a judgment call between you and your video producer.
I'm for leaving them in, except passive-aggressive silences where an attorney stalks out and the questioning attorney wants to leave the camera rolling. "Wait til the special master sees this!"
To me, this is one of the strengths of video, bringing to the courtroom the kind of timing, demeanor, et al., that the jury would see from someone in the jury box. Does the deponent confidently answer right away? Do they shuffle the papers, change colors, look to their attorney, and give their lying 'tell'?
If I were writing the rules, the long silences that get cut would have old-fashioned intertitles saying how long the excised time was.
Your call, counselor.

Why I make litigation media

Methodist A: Do you believe in total immersion baptism?
Methodist B: Believe in it? I've seen it!

I make litigation media because I believe in the system. I've seen other ways to settle disputes and, as a fallback when nothing else works, courts are the best. The other fallbacks -arson, mob violence, contract killing, canon law -are worse. Arson, say, might be better in some cases, but if I had to pick one and exclude the others, it's litigation hands-down.
Plus, as a freelancer, I get to hedge my moral bets. I work for people I believe in. (There are two talented and successful plaintiff attorneys in Chicago I won't work for.)

So after hugging it out, intercession by friends, and trial by social combat have all failed, litigation is the best bet for society. I'm all in on it.

Video Deposition Tip: HD, SD, 3D

Video now comes in a Super Variety Pak of formats, resolutions, shapes. Here's my judgment call about what to use for video depositions: well-recorded SD, standard definition.
This is the old television shape, before HD appeared with the frame stretched horizontally. And before high resolution pictures made every newsreader nervous about how late in life they're be able to appear.

Here's my thinking: The narrower shape is better for depositions, which are just talking heads. They don't need all that room on the sides of the frame. In fact it's a problem to make sure there's nothing distracting that far to the sides of the witness.
The lower resolution is okay because people look better.

A drawback to using the old SD is that there's a subconscious inference of quality when people see the latest shape and the higher resolution. I don't have any solid research on this, so you're getting my educated guess.

You could hedge your bets by recording in HD, high resolution, horizontal shape, and then just use the middle of the frame. Slice off the sides in the edit suite. That would give the narrower shape with the quality inference of higher resolution. Not to make you nervous, but I'm afraid this is an artistic decision. Not the kind where you press the back of your hand to your forehead and, in french accent, wail, "Ah am an ahtist. Ah can't work like dees!" Just a multi-variant equation with no official solution.

Video evidence, sooner rather than later

Say you'll need to prove to a skeptical defense that someone is actually dead. You may have less than twenty-four hours to get video of the body. Schedule it now or be forced to fall back on table pounding and swearing contests.
It's never too early to document.