Scenario:
Hello fellow recital shooters. I am hoping to pick your brain about Equip and tips for shooting dance recitals. We are planning to do a 2 camera shoot for a 4 night recital in late spring. Each night the performances are the same but the cast rotates so each class gets to perform on their own. We want to shoot in HDV, edit HDV, archive blu-ray ready (for future resales) and deliver on DVD.

I have searched the boards and read the articles in Boyd's sticky: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/wedding-event-videography-techniques/60275-shooting-stage-shows.html and have learned a lot from these posts. I will be running the wide camera from the back of the opera house and my 2nd op will be running a close-up (foot to head or extended arm) shot from the side of the lower floor. We will be shooting test shots and behind the scenes during the 3 days of dance rehearsals.

Last year, during the rehearsal, I tested my SONY HD1000U from the side and it did great, my PD170 (unmanned) from the rear was unusable (too wide, no definition, awful exposure.) So I am looking to invest in some new equip for this years run. We will run the HD1000U from the side since it performed well last year but I am on the fence about the rear cam.

Now the Questions:
I am looking at the SONY FX1000 with an XLR adapter or a Z5U. Is anyone shooting with this for live events? What do you think of these?
For monitoring, I am considering a 21.5" acer 1080p LCD computer monitor connected via HDMI hanging on the Delvcam LCD1 vesa mount on stand.
What about communication systems, how important are they?
For delivery I am looking at the Primera Bravo II printer/duplicator, does anyone use this is it worth the investment?

What else do you feel is must have in your eventing/recital kit?

Thanks for your help!

Hi Bryan,

You don't mention what you're doing for sound. For the recitals I do I capture area mics and board feeds into my laptop through a mixer-a/d converter. I also get the soundtrack for each show so I can create a mix that sounds natural as well as clean. I also have a small Sony PCM D-50 I hide at the front of the center of the stage to pick up the dancers for tap numbers. I generally only use the camera audio for synching the cameras.

Another thing that really helps is having someone shoot stills during the performances and both before and after to use as artwork, labels, menus, and photo slide shows or end credits.

I don't generally use communication devices (such radios) during a recital shoot but have been a camera operator during a shoot where the director did use radios. I don't find I need them for my shoots but if it makes you more comfortable I'd say use them

Just some of my opinions,
Garrett

Now the Questions:
I am looking at the SONY FX1000 with an XLR adapter or a Z5U. Is anyone shooting with this for live events? What do you think of these?
For monitoring, I am considering a 21.5" acer 1080p LCD computer monitor connected via HDMI hanging on the Delvcam LCD1 vesa mount on stand.
What about communication systems, how important are they?
For delivery I am looking at the Primera Bravo II printer/duplicator, does anyone use this is it worth the investment?

What else do you feel is must have in your eventing/recital kit?

Thanks for your help!

Bryan,

Well, as someone who recently shelled out 25.00 for his daughters dance recital DVD, and was not to impressed with it, I can offer some tips on what I thought were important.

I think an effective means of communication is important. I used to cover live events for a cable station, and we had to know who was covering what. So we had a video switcher directing us thru headphones. Of course in your case, you'll be monitoring your stuff on that big dog monitor, but you won't know what your second cameraman is shooting. Where it does help is if one or the other of you is having a problem, the other guy knows to play it safe, or cover for him.

Sound for this kind of thing is huge, so whatever it takes get a nice clean sound with a mix of ambience is important. You only need one cam to record the master audio, so the second cam doesn't need xlr's. As your rover will be stopping and starting and your wide would be recording the entire thing it makes sense, in more ways than one, for the wide cam to record audio. You'll then have to sound sync individual shots to the master in post which would be a bit of a PITA.

I also used to cover live music events with a single cam. It was draining because I could never relax. Sometimes on events like this, where you have two cams, you tend to relax and think 'oh, well, he's got it covered'. The wide cam on the dvd I bought was shakey (more vibration than shake really). The wide camera (even after editing) was caught in bad mid-zooms. I'm assuming it was because the 'rover' had worse footage so they were forced to use the 'less-worse' wide footage.

I think you need a sound (I don't mean audio) strategy going in. Something like; Wide cam find a nice, well composed, well exposed shot, and capture and monitor audio there.

The rover - who would be the best, most experienced operator, must be on glidecam or steadicam (no handheld please), unless it's a solid shoulder mount and the op is very experienced.

If you've got a good team of two, the safe wide, and the well schooled rover, you get should get very good footage even with less than pro gear.

I'd suggest a 3rd cam, but it's just more to edit. You should be fine. Sorry if it sounds like a rant, those were my thoughts on a recently purchased dance recital DVD.

Good luck!

...You don't mention what you're doing for sound...I also get the soundtrack for each show so I can create a mix that sounds natural as well as clean...Another thing that really helps is having someone shoot stills during the performances...I don't generally use communication devices (such radios) during a recital shoot but have been a camera operator during a shoot where the director did use radios.

Sorry, that was a glaring oversight on my part. The CU cam will be using either on camera shotgun to record ambient (tap, crowd, etc) or we will use two boom mount shotguns at opposing sides of the room to get a more even stereo effect. The wide camera will be plugged into the board via XLR and I will be asking for a copy of all music in case I need to mix it in post. I didn't include photog info but we have a pro photog who will be taking live action available light stills.

Well, as someone who recently shelled out 25.00 for his daughters dance recital DVD, and was not to impressed with it, I can offer some tips on what I thought were important. I think an effective means of communication is important....in your case, you'll be monitoring your stuff on that big dog monitor, but you won't know what your second cameraman is shooting...I'd suggest a 3rd cam, but it's just more to edit. You should be fine. Sorry if it sounds like a rant, those were my thoughts on a recently purchased dance recital DVD.Good luck!

Ken - I completely understand. This is for the studio my daughter dances for and my dissatisfaction with the current offering is how I started getting involved so to speak. After her first year, i went to the manager of the studio and asked some very poignant questions about the quality of the DVD. This last year i could see some improvements in the DVD that came directly from the conversation I had with the office manager, but it still was much less than it could have been. So last year, I shoot the dress rehearsal and created a mock DVD and proposal, established a partnership with a great photo studio to handle portraits and brought in a great photog to take available light stills during the performance.

We are still troubleshooting dual monitoring for the HD1000 (so that he can have full monitoring at his location and I will be able to see both shots) but haven't solved that issue yet. Per the owner of the studio, both cameras will be stationary. So tripod mounted all the way, she also does not want any jibs, steadicams or any other equip to distract attendees from her masterpiece.

I originally was looking at a 5 cam SD shoot with steadicam in the wings, but it became unwieldy for this event and not cost effective. So we went back to the drawing board. After shooting HDV during the rehearsal, i determined that we needed to do this in HDV to do it right. Of course if I had my choice I would be doing it with 5 red cams in 4k with jibs, the steadicam, and a full crew but I had to land on what was cost effective and in everyone's best interest.

So this year we are planning a 2 operator/2 cam HDV tripod mounted shoot with ambient sound on the CU cam and board sound on the rear cam, both cams will run start to stop with staggered tape changes between performance (ie cam1 tape change after 5th number, cam 2 after 6th number, etc.) It may burn a little extra tape but i want full coverage on both cameras. Next year i will probably add the third cam and operator.

As to communication equip, we have been looking at a system by Eartec from B&H, or renting from a local company but the rental ended up costing only $100 less than buying so that was not viable. After reading some of the live performance threads on here, I am now thinking of asking the opera house if we can rent space on their in house com, if they can provide us a dedicated line. but to be honest, i think my second op is good enough to run freestyle but i was wondering what you guys had experienced thus far. Thanks for your input and I look forward to more.

Hi,

If I was to shoot a Recital and budget is of no constraints, I would do this set-up

2- Camera ( 1- Master/1-Roving)- ISO Record
2- HDV Deck Recorder
1- Audio Mixer ( so you can control what’s coming out of the House system)
1- Video Mixer
3- Monitors ( Cam 1, Cam 2, Master)
1- Clearcom System ( 3 headsets)- Communication
1- Person to call the shots
1- Person to record

This may seem a lot but this set-up will save you time in post as the finish product is basically edited and you just need to put in OBB & CBB in post.

My 2 cents.

I did the annual recitals for a prestigious dance school here in Winnipeg for many years and we used almost the same setup that Noel suggests, except we used three cameras, all manned (one wide in the house, two at either edge of the front of stage). In terms of audio, I always asked for music and announce mics on one aux send and barrier tap dance mics on another aux send, recorded to separate channels so I could control the tap "mix" in post.

Noel - I see where you guys are coming from and I respect it. My second op is like minded, he has worked on live broadcast events before with a full broadcast crew. In my experience with other live events, concerts, and presentations I have done unless I am doing IMAG then I would rather edit all in post instead of switching.

...If I was to shoot a Recital and budget is of no constraints, I would do this set-up...may seem a lot but this set-up will save you time in post as the finish product is basically edited and you just need to put in OBB & CBB in post.

...for us budget is an issue because this job will generate a set amount of revenue. If I spend more than that than, it was fun playing station manager but no profit. Besides, I have 4-6 weeks to edit and deliver and I want to use that time to tweak the editing to be the best it can be with all the bells and whistles. This method is good for live TV because it has to be done this way, but for DVD, you have the time to go over your footage carefully and make the edits you need. For us, the switch is out. The xlr adapter we use is a field mixer that also can convert xlr to mini out if needed so we will have a good bit of control over the audio level once it gets to us, but not the mix which is fine because the guy running the board is a pro and if we should have music issues, i can dub in post from the source discs. The main issue for the board sound is occasionally troupe members are mic'ed and that can't be recaptured in post(ADR is not an option as most of the troupe scatters over the summer) also if the levels are great than no post audio dubbing will be necessary.

So our set up is: 2 cam-2 Operator (with other investments and op payments that is what I can afford this year.)

Cam 1-HVR HD1000U
CU (foot to head or extended arm-small groupings etc.)
Tripod mounted with boom audio for ambient sound
Monitor for camera to pull focus etc.
Tape changes approx every 50 min between sets

Cam 2 - Model TBD considering FX1000 or Z5 or...?...
Wide or large groupings follow on solos
Tripod mounted with board audio for house sound
Monitor at camera to pull focus
proposed - 2nd monitor to monitor cam 1 shot
Tape changes staggered to one set after cam 1

So back to the OP, this is what I need help with.
Now the Questions:
1. I am looking at the SONY FX1000 with an XLR adapter or a Z5U. Is anyone shooting with this for live events? What do you think of these?
2. For monitoring, I am considering a 21.5" acer 1080p LCD computer monitor connected via HDMI hanging on the Delvcam LCD1 vesa mount on stand.
3. What about communication systems, how important are they?
4. For delivery I am looking at the Primera Bravo II printer/duplicator, does anyone use this is it worth the investment?
5. What else do you feel is must have in your eventing/recital kit?

So i went back to my thread and realize that with the loss of inflection in written vs. spoken word, i may have come off a little sharp. Not looking to ruffle feathers here and very much interested in learning from your shared experience.

I am looking to get total equip cost down to around $6500 or less and about $950 of that includes consumables (tape/DVD-r/cases) and i am paying my second op $1400 to shoot this event. So my profit margin is already slim and doesn't have room for a live switch, HDV decks (originally looked at M15U but it is discontinued-so no dice) and am really on the fence about the Eartec wired intercom. (with 2 headsets and cables it is about $650) The Primera Bravo II is $1600 by itself but to outsource print only for 8 disc versions will be $1056. So what do you guys think? Are we on the right track? Shaun - I noticed you mentioned using barrier mics, I have had good experience with shotgun mics are barrier's even better?

What other equipment should I consider? Thanks for your input!

Last year i used my Ikan V8000HD to monitor (during our test run) but found it lacking a little. I think this is due to it being 800x400 res which is why we are looking at using the 21.5 inch Acer Monitor that is truly 1920x1080p with HDMI input. Is this as good an option as it sounds or am I setting myself up for a problem?

Bryan:

What a painful shoot for the sake of better video. I have done a few and it never paid the costs and pains. But it wasn't really about the money.

The advice I would give is, keep it simple and focus on exposure and sound quality. No fancy moves or roving. Most auditoriums have a center video camera setup area. Put both cameras on tripods there. One camera wide with no movement, concentrate on exposure, manual focus and monitor the audio capture. The second camera to pan and get tight shots from one location. Run both cameras continuous to make the post edit easy.

You really need to focus on creating good sound. A good sound track totally makes an otherwise run-of-the-mill recital video very nice. Spend just as much time equalizing the sound and working on the dynamic range in post as you do the video.

Have fun and keep it simple.

The advice I would give is, keep it simple and focus on exposure and sound quality. No fancy moves or roving. Most auditoriums have a center video camera setup area. Put both cameras on tripods there. One camera wide with no movement, concentrate on exposure, manual focus and monitor the audio capture. The second camera to pan and get tight shots from one location.

Excellent advice and thank you for your post. In this case, the auditorium is a restored building originally built in 1886. Restored in the late 1970's and updated again last fall. Unless they added a video area in the update last fall, this facility doesn't have one. We have to set tripods over theatre seating to make it work. They do close the last 2 rows of seating for us but it is less than ideal for video. This location is over 75ft from the stage front/ orchestra pit so it is not an ideal with stage depth taken into account we are shooting from 75 to 100 ft. I am concerned that we won't be able to get the nice close shots from that distance which is why we were thinking CU cam to the aisle far right of left approx 20 ft back from stage. If we place it at the back do you think we could get the CU shots? When you did this, how far back were you?

Run both cameras continuous to make the post edit easy.

I agree, it seems to me from other live shoots I have done to be a lot easier to edit with continuous streams and burn a little extra tape, also you never know when you might have an issue with one cam or the other if they are both running then you have a back-up. Right?
You really need to focus on creating good sound....Have fun and keep it simple.
I agree this is one of the big issues with the former vendor. They actually convinced the studio owner that modern microphones are incapable of recording tap sounds, she told me as much until i showed her the tap sample I recorded at dress last year. What do you think of the proposed audio plan in my earlier post?

K.I.S.- i have seen this advice on many of the live performance threads. Would this apply to Comm systems? They seem like they would really complicate the setup and production. Do you use them in a 2 op environment?

Thanks for your advice!

With a two camera shoot you don't really need radio communication unless you run into technical problems that you don't think you're second camera operator will be able to work out. If it is the wide shot camera that goes you'll want to zoom out with your other camera to capture the group until you can fix the problem.

I did a concert in November that was a 5 camera shoot and no radios. All the cameras were on tripods. The director meet with all of us ahead of time and gave us very clear instructions on what he'd like each of us to shoot and gave us other things he'd like us to look out for. He had previewed demo footage from each of the operators so even though non of us had worked together before he knew what each of us could do. I haven't seen the final edit yet but from what I understand it should be pretty good.

As for audio, if you can swing it, I'd opt not to use the audio recorded onto your cams as they will be pretty compressed since you'll be shooting HDV. The other issue would be sound monitoring and for that you should have a third person checking to make sure levels are ok. I pull area mics (either from the house or my own I set up), center stage pickup, board feed of mains being sent to the house (if available), and the soundtrack all onto separate tracks (left and right channels). Then I remix in post. That gives me the flexibility to either highlight or mask what I want (i.e. enhance taps or attenuate a baby crying).

Also, I wish I could get $1400 as a second cameraman for a show. Even if it's a 4 day show and the operator is there for 6 hours a day it's almost $60 an hour. That's pretty darn good money if he's not providing any equipment.

Garrett, thank you for your post. Interesting thoughts on the audio. I shot my "demo" with on camera mic in HDV and one of the comments the client made was how much better my audio was than the former videographer's even though they shoot on JVC GY- DV5000 with board feeds only. Perhaps it was the raw live feel of my audio. I will give some thought to this, with all the investing in vid equip and delivery costs, I don't have much room for recorders or an audio engineer, perhaps next yr i can upgrade.

...I wish I could get $1400 as a second cameraman for a show. Even if it's a 4 day show and the operator is there for 6 hours a day it's almost $60 an hour. That's pretty darn good money if he's not providing any equipment.

My second op is someone that has helped me on many other projects but he is a subcontractor. When I first started out, he joined me on several jobs for much less than the local average rate and part of this is paying him back for that. But he is also going to be joining me for 2 days of dress rehearsals (long days) and 2-3 planning sessions with the owner of the studio. All told it will be more like 60-80 hrs between the 4 days of shooting, 2 days of dress, planning sessions with studio owner and meetings he and I will have to plan strategy. So the end result will be more like $17-$23 per hr... and he may be bringing some of his equip to the project like his Miller tripod (for his station), mic booms and c-stands and a few other misc items.

Thanks again for your input!

...As for audio, if you can swing it, I'd opt not to use the audio recorded onto your cams as they will be pretty compressed since you'll be shooting HDV. The other issue would be sound monitoring and for that you should have a third person checking to make sure levels are ok. I pull area mics (either from the house or my own I set up), center stage pickup, board feed of mains being sent to the house (if available), and the soundtrack all onto separate tracks (left and right channels). Then I remix in post. That gives me the flexibility to either highlight or mask what I want (i.e. enhance taps or attenuate a baby crying)...

I forgot something else I wanted to check with you. You mentioned recording audio to your laptop via an A/D converter and capturing multitracks for multisource material. What A/D convertor and software are you using? How much HDD space is this multitrack recording using per hr? Have you ever had this setup fail, if so what precautions need to be in place to make it safer? Thanks for your thoughts!

I use two different A/D units. One is an Alesis 8 channel Firewire mixer. Takes 4 Balanced XLR or 1/4" mic/line level inputs and two stereo line level inputs. All of the gain and equalizer settings are pre-firewire output and the digital effects are post so you won't get them in the Firewire feed. But all 8 channels come out separately so it does what I need. It can output 24bit/48kHz so that's good enough for most of what I record. You'd never mistake it for a Mackie but it is definately good enough for most recordings and it was a lot cheaper.

I also have an Edirol FA-101 that is just an A/D box that takes two Balanced XLR inputs, 6 balanced 1/4" and has a TOS link in and out. It can outputs 24bit up to 192kHz sample rates so the ability to record in a much higher rate is possible. That unit can be powered by a 6 pin Firewire carrying power so it's possible to us it without being near an ac plug.

I usually capture to either Cakewalk or more often just into Vegas 8 (Vegas started off as an audio program so it actually does a great job).

As far as problems I've encountered they have all been due to either inadequate set up time or faulty wires. The biggest issue I faced was when I first started capturing separate audio, I relied on the sound techs at a local school who said they had all the wires. Theirs were less than adequate and I got some extreme noise since the runs were so long. After that I went out and purchased my own good road quality wires. That was a pretty good expense (50' or 100' balanced cost a lot!) but one that gives me piece of mind so it's one less thing to worry about. I also makes sure I make it clear with the client that I'll need at least one hour to set up audio and do sound checks. I make sure they have the sound tech for the show there and ready with the soundtrack and any mics they will be using on and warmed up. That way they know to tell the sound guys that they'll have to spend about an hour extra working with me to get the connections and levels set.

The audio takes about 600MB per track per hour. The last show I did I had L & R Board feeds, L & R Area Mic feeds, and L & R stage mics. There were two performances of two hour shows so about 8 hours total and I used up 10GB on m y laptop. I've got a 500GB drive in my laptop so I have plenty of room. Make sure you have at least 5400 rpm drive or you could risk problems as the drive won't be fast enough to keep up with several channels of audio at once.

I'm a redundancy nut so I always have good mics also going into my cameras in case something fails but I haven't had that happen yet (knock on wood).

Considering that your second camera operator will be putting in 60-80 hours makes the rate seem more in line with what I'm use to. I was wondering if I was way low when I did freelance work.

Garett- that is a very interesting piece of tech and a very reasonable price if I am understanding you correctly. I have a Behringer board i have used for some live mixing before so i follow you to the point of connecting mics and line feeds, but I get a little fuzzy after that. i take it once you hook up the firewire and install any necessary drivers, the computer reads it as an audio input device. If i am understanding you correctly, you are recording individual streams not a mix. I have used Vegas to record one stereo track for VO before so i understand the basic concept of arming a track to record but how do you record multiple tracks simultaneously and designate multiple sources within the same feed? Is this a function that the Alesis opens up by its design or is there something I am missing in setting up Vegas. In other words how do you isolate the inputs during recording?

Thanks for your help!

I downloaded the manual from Alesis MultiMix 8 FireWire (http://www.alesis.com/multimix8firewire) so i see how this sends multi stream audio to the computer so i am mainly confused about the setup in Vegas to isolate the tracks... Can you help me wrap my head around this? thanks!

Edit: I finished reading the manual and I think I have a better grasp on this. Does it use the VST settings to interface with vegas? Since you have used this for recitals before, have you experienced any issues with continuous recording for over 90 minutes? This recital is 2 acts, each about 90 min long with a 15 minute intermission.

Hi Bryan,

No problem. If you've got the basics of arming each track all you have to do is click the record button (or Ctrl+R) at the bottom of the timeline window.

Once you've loaded the Alesis drivers you go to the Options/Preferences, then click on the Audio Devices. Under the Audio Device Type you should see the Alesis as an option. When you choose the Alesis you'll be able to right click on the audio track list then under "record inputs" you should see a choice of the various track inputs from the Alesis. You can choose to have each track be stereo or mono.

It actually all makes a lot more sense after you've walked through it once. Then you can adjust input levels via the mixer or the volume sliders on the Vegas Audio Track. Rename each track to some logical name such as "Board Feed Right - Date" and after you stop the recording each track will show up as a separate wav file. You need to remember to set the audio properties for the project to match the bit depth and sample rate of the input device (the Alesis in this case can be 24bit-44.1kHz or 24bit-48kHz) or you will get an error message.

That's about it.

Bryan (& Garrett):

In the keep it simple philosophy, I also have and use the Sony PCM-D50 recorder for this type of show if you can place it. It's easy to use and works great.

IMO, the D50 can often record extremely good audio when set up correctly. Sometimes you may need to use an external mic, but the built in mics are very good indoors. You can record in 24bit/48K mode at a low level and with the (excellent) limiter on. Then you have a file that can be tweaked with excellent results in post.

I have been able to bring up and take down levels for audio off the PCM-D50 that at first would seem unusable, but ended up extremely good (usually with a compressor & equalizer). In short, on-camera sound via any source can't touch a good 24 bit file of a good recorder with a good limiter. In this type of shoot, I think you will have to run a compressor on the audio, as there is going to be a wide range of audio levels.

Jeff

Hi Jeff,

I also use a D50. It either provides additional backup (I'm a big believer in redundancies) or I use it center stage to pick up sound from the dancers. The limiter works great but clipping still can occur. It does a great job and it's small footprint is really nice. I don't think I would choose it as my primary choice for final mixes since it can only take two channels. For small plays I have use it as my primary recording unit.

I have found that as long as I can get a good sound check I can usually set the levels so that I only have to check levels once or twice. during a show just to make sure there's nothing wrong.

Just like any other situation the key is in the prep work. Planning mic placement, working with the sound techs, and set up does take some extra time but it really helps to lower the stress level when you know you've done everything you can to avoid problems. After doing it once or twice it really becomes a routine and isn't that difficult.

Bad sound can make great video unbearable when you're doing a play or dance recital.

Garrett

Garrett, Jeff - Thank you for your insights.

I really like the idea of being able to record multiple streams, that way I can remix the audio in post. if i was just going to record a stereo live feed I would probably use my second op's Marantz PMD660, but we have had some issues in the past syncing the audio streams back to the video over extended timelines. That is another reason i think multistream record into vegas would be helpful. I am also thinking that with strategic mic placement, i can remix as a surround sound mix for the future bluray re-release. I see a lot of potential here. There are a few downsides such as the 48kHZ max but I can upsample in Audition if necessary. Since I will also be getting copies of the music separately, I can also remove the board feed completely with the mix by deleting that timeline and replace it with direct from source feed, that is if I can get the engineer to send my the talent feeds separately....

This is exciting. Thanks for bringing this piece of equipment to my attention.

I met with the owner of the studio last week and we are confirmed for the recital, so decision time is coming up soon. I appreciate all the sound advice (punny) and would love to hear more advice for this project. Anyone out there with more to say? I will post some clips online this summer after the shoot is done. I am planning to make purchases at least a few months out to test everything and learn the controls of the camera and any other equipment. Thanks!

Hi Bryan,
This is my experience from my first paying job this weekend.
I met with the owner of the studio last week and we are confirmed for the recital, so decision time is coming up soon.

Didn't notice if you said how everything was being done but get a contract anyway.
Got into musicals for the same reason, $30 for a crappy video (SuperVHS recorder) and/or
sound (Fx1 using onboard mic). I've video'ed about a dozen shows, usually only being
allowed to do the FinalDress. Learned a bit. Built some demo DVDs and submitted and
got a response. Months go by, the show is coming up. Week before the show get a
call, can you do the show. Watch 3 nights of TechWeek. After taping final Dress, 11pm
the director asks if I'll donate everything, ie she collected the money for the DVD (first
time it was $20/DVD), now wants me to work for free and donate. I guess the blank
look convinced her to offer to pay for materials. There are 90+ kids in the show, need
to tape 2 shows (A and B). Told her I thought we were both honest and I'd do the
shows but think about the pricing. Don't get Fire Trucked.

I
I appreciate all the sound advice (punny) and would love to hear more advice for this project.

Ok, sound man (2000 seat theater, actually very nice) has 4 feeds available. We talk
it over he's going to give me wireless mic (16 main characters), floor mics, pit band
left and right. Should be great sound. Did the shows yesterday. Today I pulled the
sound (via an R09 and H2) into Vegas. First show there was a feedback. I've got great
sound for 3 songs, then nothing for 5 minutes, then so so band, no floor, useless
distorted vocals. Hard lesson, its great to get feeds you can mix, but your at the sound
boards mercy. Usually I'd put the H2 or R09 in the band but they'd mic'ed the 30 piece
band already.... Always take a house feed. It may not be mixed the way you want but
it'll be usable.

For this show we were forced back about 28 meters by the Fx1 focus readout. Because
I had 4 feeds I didn't hook up the Neumann shotgun on the borrowed Z1. Lesson, always
use the best mic available on the camcorder you can.

Best part was I used my HC3 with Wideangle, unmanned, top of tripod (maybe 6'6"),
about 10 from the stage, in front of a speaker stack. Just enough angle to get the
sweet spot on the stage. A previous show I'd put it at the stage lip but this made
for too extreme and up angle (my daughter said it was like looking up people's noses).
This may be the best footage. I told my assistant who was taking the wide shots to
start with the intro. When the curtain raised he was setup and running, I started the
standalone then went to my camera off center, for close ups from
28m. Pulling the 16 tapes in I got a glimpse on the HC3 display of a shot that will be
sweeet. Next time I'm going to try behind the speaker stack with a 20 ft ext to the LANC
controller.

Oh, did I say get a contract?

thanks and good luck
jim cowan

...This is my experience from my first paying job this weekend...get a contract...Oh, did I say get a contract?

Ah, yes the business side of things...I have been pitching this job for 2 yrs, the difference this yr was I could show her a sample piece. (Last year i tried selling her on a vision and couldn't get a meeting.) I submitted a written proposal detailing the pricing and commission (for her) structure. I have a witnessed verbal agreement and have submitted a "letter of understanding" already. I have to iron out a few details with my photography partner but I will then be submitting a contract for the job to her and to my partner and a work for hire agreement to my second op (I never thought being my own boss would require so much paperwork, ah naivety.)

...Always take a house feed. It may not be mixed the way you want but it'll be usable...we were forced back about 28 meters by the Fx1 focus readout...always use the best mic available on the camcorder you can.

thanks and good luck
jim cowan

Sounds like you had some real issues with the feed they gave you. I did some editing for a client that they shot in house and sent to me for editing. It was a 3 cam interview with sound on only 1 cam. Sync was a bear, so I always keep my on cam shotgun mics running for backup and editing even if i don't plan on using the track on the final piece.

28 meters...If my conversion is accurate that is ~91 ft so your scenario would be similar to my wide cam placement. What kind of shot were you getting at this distance (wide, CU, etc.) and how did it turn out?

As far as the board feeds, i am hoping to get the house feed (stereo) isolated and record via the Alesis stereo input and also get a redundant feed on the mic'ed talent (mono each) in case I need to reinforce the audio in post, then using the phantom powered inputs place 2 shotguns on booms to capture tap and ambient stage sounds and one cardoid center each tracked out to their own tracks. In other words the feed from the Alesis would record in Vegas as:

Track 1 - House feed Dual XLR/TRS (stereo)
Track 2 - Talent ISO board feed XLR/TRS (mono)
Track 3 - Boom Shotgun feed far rt of stage XLR phantom (mono)
Track 4 - Cardoid feed center of stage XLR Phantom (mono)
Track 5 - Boom Shotgun feed far lt of stage XLR phantom (mono)

Then cam 1 and 2 will have stereo shotgun ambient feeds. In post i would mix the tap sounds in from the shotguns/cardoid and use the ambient sound from cam mikes for crowd response. potentially even creating a 5.1 mix down the road when I take the HDV masters back off the shelf and offer remastered Bluray versions of the show.

Thanks for your feedback Jim, if you get a second can you share a short clip with us to see how it turned out?