Night Club Shoot
 

Hi there,
I'm going to be covering a band ( www.jayharris.ca) at a night club this weekend. The club is a typical Stage, Dark background with Spotlights. I'm going to use my JyHD10. I was just wondering if anyone has covered a similar event with the camera and could offer some advice. I've never shot with spot lights. Thanks in advance.
Darrin

Hmmm, the camera is brutal with very dark and very light lights, so I can just say, be VERY careful. Watch out for light "clipping" and way too dark scenes. Don't forget, the camera is never 100% manual, so moving it from a lit to dark scene will produce ugly irising by the camera.

heath

Hi Darrin,
Live band shoots are a blast ... you'll have a riot!
Audio is number 1. The image is secondary.
If the band is using lighting for performance by using a controller and multiple scenes, this can cause havoc. A well lit scene that stays consistant is what you want. Ignore the zebras and expose for the faces. If this is single cam coverage you would be best to have a set of tracks and move a little. If you have a second cam, let that cam wander everywhere and keep cam 1 as the safety cam. Tons of jump cuts in the edit bay.

As for audio, best to use multiple field mics or a well placed stereo pair. Your sound check will confirm the location of these. The live board operator will have to dial in early and stay there with little deviation.

Try to overlight the foreground and expose for that while ignoring the background. You might need to bring additional lighting. If this is in a bar/pub, most of them think a multi-coloured array of 12 volt track lights are sufficient. Cute, but underpowered.

Best way to record sound is through your mixer then line to the safety cam and remote deck like minidisk.

How to get the setup just right? Set 1 is for set-up and experimentation. Have the band skew their set list so that the second set has the key material. This way the first set is used to stage for the second. You can get some of the third set, but by then the bar patrons are louder, dancing more and generally making an alcohol induced mess of your recording.

If none of that works, have the band do a nice set on the Wolfe Island ferry in the summer and intermix the result. At least the background will be full of eye candy.

Great advice, Jimmy, more "optimistic" than me! The HD10 is a good camera, but I've been spoiled by the DVX100A and the FX1.

heath