Live Concert Shoot - Need Help/Info ASAP
 

Bear with me, this is a little long winded, but I assure you it's important enough to justify.

I want to go ahead and apologize for the newbie questions I'll be asking. I love this site and I know it's the place to come for some answers.

A very good friend of mine is an excellent singer-songwriter who just signed to a small label. Not only is he a talented musician but he's also a hard working member of the United States Millitary. He's on a two week leave from his third tour of Iraq and he has a few shows scheduled. He spoke to the label on my behalf, showed them some of my music videos and they've offered me a chance to film the one and only show with the entire band and all who worked on the album in the studio. The only bad news is that the show is on SATURDAY and I just found out today.

Now here comes the questions.....(thanks in advance)

I have a DVX 100a...I would like to do a 3 camera shoot...with my DVX at the back of the venue for the wide shot. I would have to borrow/rent/or buy the remaining cameras.

1. What cameras should I aim for?
2. Would it have to be another DVX so the footage matches?
3. Would it be better to shoot in Squeeze?
4. If I shoot in 24pa, and I end up using a different camera...is that a prob in
matching?

Audio ?'s
1. Would it be okay just to run an XLR from the board straight to my DVX which will be setup right beside the house sound guy?

thanks so much if you read all of this. this could be very important for me to continue to do this type of thing more consistently..this is what I pray to do everyday and more importantly, helping a great friend as well.

Yes
If you want mono, you'll need to run an XLR from a mono feed from the board to your DVX (line level) plus 1 mic for ambience. A better result is to record a stereo out from the board to one of your cameras and then get stereo ambience from another.

thanks alot Chris !!!

I look forward to any other help

Hey Dwain,

Other DVX camera would be ideal, but I know from experience that beggers (or borrowers in this case) can't be choosers. Not sure how much money you're making out of this, but if you can, rent out 2 more DVX's and save yourself some potential headaches. Don't be afraid to borrow other cameras if you have to, you can still make a great product using miscellaneous cameras.

If you are planning on mixing different cameras here would be my priorities when shooting:

1. Shoot with the same frame size and frame rate. This might mean not shooting 24pa. If you can get them the same frame rate, you'll be able to mix footage better in your edit timeline. Frame rates are especially important when it comes to music. The last thing you want is a clip moving out of sync with the music due to problems mixing frame rates.
2. Try and shoot using the same codec. This really helps if you're doing a multi clip edit. It will save you transcoding to Prores/Cineform/DNxHD or whatever other codec your edit suite can handle. It also means you'll end up with similar quality from your different camera angles.
3. Similar sensor or sensor size. For example you might not want to mix a 1/3inch CCD with a APS-C CMOS sensor. You can do it, just be aware of how the sensor affects the image.
4. Cameras of the same brand generally mix better (ie. other Panasonic cameras).

Hope this helps. Good luck for Saturday, let us know how it goes.

Thanks alot, Aaron!!

I'll be using 3 cameras...2 DVX100A and a small 3 chip Panny. So at least the third camera is a Panny.

I appreciate all your insight...I'll be sure to let you know how it goes

You've gotten excellent advice on the video, I'll just add one more thing based on my experience with audio in live concert recordings. A sound board out is no guarantee that you'll get good audio. Record a backup feed from another spot in the room. Record a couple backup feeds if you can.

I've done a lot of bootleg concert taping over the years and I even bring that stuff with me, and a couple times it's saved my butt.

Good luck and let us know how it goes!

Hi all.

Since there is a topic on such subject, I'll not create a new one.

I'll be shooting a punk rock concert soon. Since it's a "almost no budget" project all money we have went for renting EX3 camera to match our EX1.

Besides that we have bunch of low budget equipment, and we plan to use it all.

So we have

1 EX1
1 EX3
2 Canon HV20
1 Canon 550D

and 3 persons punk rock band (lead guitar/vocalist, bass guitar/vocalist and drummer)

SInce it's a first time we are doing anything like that, I'm scratching my head. How to use this equipment wisely.

I'm sure one of the EXs will go for stage.

My question is, whether to use the other EX on stage, or it would be better to use it as a wide angle camera placed in the "sound and light booth" to cover the stage with a good quality camera. That would allow us also to capture the show and sound continously (the show will go for more than an hour, so no other camera besides EX is capable of that) and this is what I'm leaning towards.

So I'll probably will place EX and Canon 550D on stage, focused on the lead guitar and bass guitar, and deal with matching the footage (the idea of this video involves some color correction, so I can live with that).

Canon will be equipped probably with the 18-135 EFS IS kit lens. I like the stabilization it gives. Maybe for 1 or 2 songs I'll swith to EF50 - however the 1.6x crop might render the usage impossible due to the stage size. The other lens I have for it is 10-22 Canon efs. However interesting distortion it gives, I think that it's a bit too much.

My main question is - how sensibly can one use HV20 in such situation?

I was thinking of putting one of them "in the crowd" to create a sort "I shot it live and uploaded to youtube" angle, and the other one to capture the drummer. I know they're pretty lousy cameras in low light conditions, but.. oh well. Since it's a punk rock band, some noise on screen won't harm it :)

And finally I was thinking of using the remaining HV20 to shoot the drummer from some interesting angle.

The audio will be captured from switching board to the disk recorder, and from microphone set somewhere in the booth in the direction of the stage - not only to synchronize, but to have the alternative sound, and, which is even more important - reactions of the public.

Do you have any tips or comments on what I wrote? Is my thinking right or I'm forgeting something fundamental?

Hey Adam,

Firstly, a lot of this probably depends on the location, ie. how large the stage, distance from the sound booth, access you have to different parts of the venue and numerous other things that may restrict you creative abilities.

You sound like you've got the master shots sorted out. I'd use the EX1 for your shot from the sound booth. This is probably a lot safer than having a master camera on the stage as performers (especially a punk rock band) generally move around a lot on stage and may cause problems. The lead guitar might always block the line of sight to the bass player or otherwise just cause bad composition with empty spaces. If you shoot from the back of the venue at least the camera sees what the audience sees (to some degree). Also having a HV20 on the drums would act as a good secondary master, just make sure you can get access to it during the show to change the tape.

If you're going to do roving work, the EX3 is perfect for that. The form factor of the EX3 makes it perfect to be shoulder mounted in the press pit (or just right in front of the stage) or a combo of handheld and shoulder on stage.

Now you've got 2 cameras left, the 550D and a HV20, one to focus on the lead guitar and one for the bass. The 550D I think gives a better picture, and I would use it on the lead singer as that shot is generally deemed to be the more important. Set the HV20 to the bassist and film away!

Also, I would leave the EF-S 10-22mm at home, unless of course all you want is a wide angle, but you've already got an EX1 doing that so why get the same footage twice? The 10-22mm might get you Mid-Shot if you're really lucky and close enough to (if not on) the stage. 18mm should be wide enough for what you need (even on a 1.6x crop sensor) and 135 should be long enough to give you some close-ups (if you're not too far from the stage). I did a similar gig and after every second song I pressed stop and start on the 550D to prevent the clip finishing halfway though a song due to the 4GB limit.

I would forget the "I shot it live and uploaded to youtube" angle, you want something to separate your work from the millions of live videos shot from someones iPhone. And not sure from your post about what you plan to do with about the audio, but remember it is half of the video and shouldn't be overlooked.

This is just my approach. Hope it helps, and good luck with your project.

Just to summarize this experience.

Shoot went pretty good except for one thing that I should have thought aboutm but I haven't, so I'll write it down here, for others to learn :)

The basic setup was pretty much what Aaron suggested, with the exception of one of the HV20 - it was directed towards bassist, with drummer in the background. It was setup on the pretty heavy tripod - normally used for EX1 and placed in the only place that was safe for it, and for the people on stage, near the main and monitoring speakers.

One thing that I didn't take into the account was that stage was not concrete, as it was an open air festival, and the vibrations from bass speakers were able to shake the stage and, following that, camera set on tripod, every second or so, rendering the footage, hmmm, well... it's not unusable, if you like the jello effect :)


Thanks for help
So my warning is - be careful not to setup an unattended camera near the bass speakers :)

One song from the concert is now available online here:


Funny thing about the HV20 footage. Since the shaking of camera is synchronised with drums, after all it gives a pretty interesting effect. Still, I would prefer if the bassist head wouldn't be cut off :/

One question - is it possible that vimeo desynchronizes audio? I have an impression that it is a frame or 2 off.

Would a software image stabilizer like proDAD Mercalli V2 take out the vibration from the speakers? I used it on some hand held SD and it looked nearly tripod when I was done. There is a zoom in effect (adjustable) but if the shot is framed loosely to begin with, not a show stopper.

I think any stabilization would look awkward - there is a lot of motion blur in there. Stabilized pictures would still get blurry at the moments.