ASK & DISCUSS INDEX

10 years, 10 months ago - Daryl Folkard

Hi All,

Thanks to all who have responded here and emailed me directly.

Very helpful responses. Will get back to you when I can give more detail on the project.


Daryl

10 years, 10 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

The wide lock-off absolutely, without question, don't even start without one. Different live directors or vision mixers lay their patches out differently, but when I do it, I ALWAYS patch the wide lock-off to channel 1, so no matter what else is happening in the show/event I don't have to look for the master, I can spot a developing situation and hit the bottom left-hand corner of the desk and go straight to a take of the master and pick it up! It costs money to shoot iso's, but the master wide is the iso you should always always get as your get out of jail shot for sure!!

10 years, 10 months ago - Martin Jangaard

Daryl,

Yep, I agree with Paddy and Adam and in my experience, whether working on small intimate gigs or huge charity performances at the Albert Hall, two things seem to always get overlooked or neglected. First, of course and as mentioned, is the sound. The audio recorded from the onboard camera mics is normally not good enough, but is pretty vital for the syncing reference in the edit! Also, this track might prove vital, in order to add in some necessary ambience to the final edit sound mix.

Do try and get a feed from the house PA to at least one of the cameras and use the onboard mic on another channel for the guide/ambience. But beware, because the mix from the house PA can often be pretty specific for the venue and in-house speaker system and is not the same as a proper live OB mix. The in-house mix fed to the PA, is often just supporting the natural live sound of the venue. Many moons ago, we saved an after event edit of a big charity event in the Albert Hall, because we were the only people to actually record the ambience of the venue on an old onboard mic of a Betacam SP camera, set on a wide locked-off shot. The concert featured huge choirs, but there were only close-up mics in the actual PA feed. The acoustics of the venue wee creating the huge effect for the audience.

And then second, on the matter of the wide shot, this is invariably forgotten. There might be some wide-ish shots from the main cameras, but it's always wise to shoot the whole performance on a locked-off wide. I hear you say, well that's a waste of time and money, but it will often prove to be the "get out of jail" shots, that you'll need in the edit. This can be done very affordably, and for several years now, I've been using locked off GoPros to do this. They are very cheap, tiny, great in low light, easy to rig, don't need a separate operator and very unobtrusive. Also, they can be controlled by the iPhone App and can record for hours etc. Go mad and have one at the back of the venue do a super-wide of the whole event, one at the front of the stage covering a wide of the action on the stage and then one looking back at the audience on one of the speaker stands or on the lighting truss even. Then shoot on two other cameras, one with a zoom and the other with primes and job done. Good luck with it all.

10 years, 10 months ago - Adam Watkins

Hi Daryl,

Paddy makes good points - especially, I'd say from experience, regarding the low lighting and audio. It all depends, I guess, on how unobtrusive you need to be - which I would imagine would need to be 'very'. If you're able to get audio on the cameras you're shooting on great, but you would probably want to think about picking it up separately from mic(s) on or around the front of the stage and/or from the house PA/audio system. I've shot a few filmed performances including a multi-camera job. As Paddy mentions, it is possible to use a vision mixer, though to be honest I just shot with 2 cameras and edited using the multi-camera mode in FCP 7 to produce the 'filmed performance' for documentation purposes for the clients.
As with everything, it all comes down to the budget and what's achievable with that...

10 years, 10 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

I love 'live', I'd take it over features any day! How exciting! I've done a wee personally bit and worked on a heap of live filmed events - mostly music arena/stadium events but it's not a world apart to shoot in a theatre.

You would typically cover it with multiple cameras, and use a vision mixer to create a live edit (which you can fix in post). This usually interferes with the audience's experience though, so the promoter needs to allow for 'seat kills'. You also need to consider lighting - theatre lighting is often too dark and uneven for cameras, so you will probably need to boost it. Of course the point of filming 'live' is that you get the audience noise - which means you'll maybe need occasional reverses to see the audience, and if that's the case you also need to light them! Audio - it'll take some thinking about, especially if the show isn't already coming through a PA.

Do you have a decent budget?

10 years, 10 months ago - Sam Seal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0inlZHw_G0g&list=UUqrrKUW9TwI-mgJqLKFK0_A&index=37

I know a little bit about this kind of thing.