shooting a choir
 

Just in need of some quick tips for shooting a choir.

Lights?

Sound equipment?

Acoustics?

Point-of-view?

Any hints would be of great help.

Thanks,

Michael B

Assuming you are taping them in a church or regular 'choir digs'

Soft light maybe. Just to take shadows out from their eye sockets and under their chins.

They may already be set up for sound and you can just tap into the sound system. Otherwise it is difficult to get good sound without a sound stage and a lot of hardware and knowledge.

POV . . . As long as you are not shooting up at them, it should be OK. Shot directly down on them would be interesting. Go for two cameras or shoot single-camera, Hollywood style to get differing views. Shoot them holding the music, Closeups, etc.

Acoustics: the easiest would be to use 1 or 2 microphones and do a stereo recording. This is the best if the acoustics of the church are good and the performance is done so it sounds great in the church. Probably the best thing to do is an A-B stereo microphone setup. check out the "DPA microphone university" website (google search that). You need 2 omni microphones for this stereo technique.

Record during a time where there isn't traffic and airplanes.

You could do a multi-camera shoot, but that could be painful. It really depends on how much money/satisfaction you are getting from the job and what they want. Multi-camera shoots are a lot of work, whether you edit it live or in post.

But you can do the equivalent of a multi-camera shoot by having them perform the same piece a few times. Then you can get some cutaways, etc. Easy to cut into the edit.

Multi-camera shoots are not that difficult to work with if you have editing tools that don't get in the way.

Probably half my work, certainly all the weddings, birthdays, graduations, etc., are multi-camera.

Once you work out what is comfortable for your workstyle, it is reasonably easy.

Best to turn all the cameras on and then don't stop until you are done. That way they only have to be synched once.