Shooting Live Band Concert
 

Hello,

I will be shooting a live band (music showcase) concert and although I saw the "sticky" section for shooting stage shows had some specifics. I have 3 cams: vx2000, vx2001, and HC-7. I wanted to get some suggestions for camera placement for best results? Btw, a DVD will be produced from this.
Lastly, the band will have a sound professional recording audio so this won't be a problem. Here's what I have for stabilization: Bogen 501/503 heads and a good set of legs (not sure which ones). I also have the 560B monopod, spider brace, and a 8 ft dv jib (studio 1). Hope this helps. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Troy

Hi Troy,

I've done a couple of these in the last year, being given only 4 days notice to do them and with basicly no practice/pre-setup time.

On the first one, I sat up in the back center of a High School Theater, since they had singers coming down the isles. In that one, I could not use the sound board as they failed to mic the live musicans.

On the second, in a middle school gym, I had to setup center, across from a raised stage on a 2' riser. I had to use the sound reinforcemnet board, even though not set for recording, as the acoustics were terrible.

Inspite of a lack of proper setup for either lighting or sound, I got lucky and got good enough video/sound to put both to DVD for the Non-Profit group putting them on.

If you can get in some time ahead to look for setup options, lighting, etc. it would be of great benefit. Try to get the lighting folks to work with you to get some simblence of decent lighting for Video. Work with the sound person to try to get the best sound you can. Get at least one cam as high or higher that the performers. Have at least one cam stationary. If you can, use one cam to do a bit of roaming for closeups and other fun shots.

Harold

Depends on stage height.Do you need scaffolding to get height?or is there a balcony?
I'd suggest 1 camera center. To set set distance from the stage, zoom full wide and position the camera so that you get full stage shot.Use as a CYA camera.
1 camera mobile on the side of the stage that gives clear shot of drummer.This camera is on stage.
The jib on the opposite side.Just make sure it won't interfere with lighting.
PS. It would really help to have a comm system and director.

When I filmed Dramarama last year in Dallas we had 6 cameras, 1 Boom, 2 DA 78's, etc. I had 1 camera on left stage on the floor, 1 on right stage on the floor, 1 on boom which was in the middle of the floor but 2/3 of the way back, 1 up in the balcony, I had mine handheld, and the last one was backstage for a band member point of view.

Now we were filming in the Granada theater in Dallas, which is medium size, so it worked out well.

When Dramarama came back to Dallas this year and played at the House of Blues, I only brought 2 cameras, I had each one set up in the upper balcony on each side. I did have one of the cameras plugged into my Macbook with an external drive and used iMovie to do a dump while filming on tape at the same time. it worked so well I will continue to do something like that each time.

Something I did while filming DR the first time was rotate the switching of tapes, in a clockwise motion. That way I always had footage from at least 2 cameras going while recording the audio on the DA78 decks, that way no video would be missing from tape swaps. I also had the camera on the balcony that was next to the house board tapped into the board as a backup incase anything happened to the DA78's.

Hope that helps, and gives you ideas on how to shoot your show.