Just Got Back from Another Major Symphony Orch Shoot

[basspig]

This time, two EXs, a V1U and an HV20 (for the ConductorCamTM :) )

One EX1 and one V1U in the balcony, opposite corners, one EX1 at stage right for the general orchestral Brahms piece, and moved to the auditorium for the Mozart and Paganini pieces when the soloist performed. One HV20 up on a little teeny indentation in the orchestra shell backdrop, poised on an 11" micro tripod.
Also had 7 large diaphragm condenser mics, 5 of which were flown in a custom basket we designed last year for this purpose, and two more mounted to the light pipes on the front balcony facia. The pair on the balcony fed the EX1 there. The other five fed a MotU 896, connected to a laptop DAW running reliable and proven Vegas 4, as a multitrack recorder.
The client was from Taiwan, a soloist on violin and piano--she played both instruments with a degree of perfection that few ever achieve on just one instrument--let alone two very different instruments.
We had a camera crew of three. The ConductorCamTM :) was 12' up and unmanned, pre-focused and framed for the shot of the conductor's face as he faced the orchestra.
The shoot went very smoothly. We had a theater rigging crew and electricians from Hartford, and they were proficient and managed to get the mic basket flown without any problems.
The performance went smoothly and the two 16GB SxS cards in each EX1 provided ample recording time for the entire concert, which ran 1 hour and 39 minutes.
When I returned to the studio after midnight, I downloaded all the XDCam footage in minutes. I had to let the HDV capture run overnight. By next morning I'd found that the capture had failed with a lost communication with device. Restarted Adobe Premiere CS3 and did the capture again. The controls froze at the end of the capture, but the file was there, so I killed the Premiere task and restarted it to continue working. That was capturing from the HV20. After those two tapes, I used the V1U to capture the remaining two tapes. This took all day to get these HDV tapes captured.
The 11GB or so of 24/96 audio from the laptop copied over to the editing wkstn in about 38 minutes over a 100Mb connection.
Once every asset was on the system, I stared a new Premiere project and imported the assets. Since Adobe has a bug with XDCam audio on footage that spans multiple 3.5GB files, I had to use Clib Browser to convert to MXF, import that, export a WAV file of that from Premiere and marry it to the XDCam video clips from the camera that recorded balcony audio. (The MXF video is no good in Premiere as the color resolution Premiere displays and renders is 1/4 what it is with native MP4 XDCam footage).
With all assets loaded, I worked on synching all the camera footage for first and second half of the concert. Then I synched the 24/96 audio tracks, now conformed to 16/48 in Premiere. (Interestingly, when you take mono 24/96 WAV files into CS3, it insists on creating STEREO tracks for the mono clips--it won't let you drag them onto mono tracks like you can with 16/48 WAV files--because of this, audio appears in the left channel and it is necessary to use the FILL LEFT filter for all tracks.)
I finished synching everything up an hour ago. I am now ready to edit multicam. This is a new record. Just one year ago, when my operation was HDV tape-based, there would be a ten hour day of capturing. Another 6-8 hours of fixing A/V synch loss for every HDV tape dropout. More hours to synch the separate audio recorders (two systems) to the video camera audio. It would normally be three working days before I get to sit down to a multicam cut edit session. This IS a new milestone. And next year, I hope to be 100% XDCam and not have to spend 4-5 hours capturing tapes like I did today.
Since the client is going back to Taiwan in a couple of weeks, I must move the project along at a prodigious pace. XDCam workflow has made the possibility of a window dub in 48 hours of the concert a realistic goal, rather than a silly folly.
And that footage looks great. Seeing the pianist in sharp focus, while the harp and the cellos/basses are in nice, creamy bokeh is such a pretty picture.
The balcony based EX1 did a great job recording audio from a pair of studio condensers clamped to the light pipes, saving me having to deal with Zoom H4 audio which runs at a slightly different clock speed than the rest of the equipment..
The EX1s ran at -3dB gain, and a picture profile I developed for the orchestra shoot. I white balanced all four cameras hours before the curtain call. With the cooperation of the theater electrician, we had the lighting brought up to the levels they will be at during performance, and I put a white card on a music stand and white balanced all cams. The EX1s reported 3200 and 3100ºK. I achieved good color balance out of the three Sonys, but I had to correct a greenish cast in the shadows on the Canon in post.
Playing in Multicam editor makes the cut editing a breeze.
It's been a long day. More on this as the editing progresses.........

[EIREHotspur]

Well you were well prepared anyway......4 cameras gives you a lot of great angles from which to create......any problems with the diferent looks of the other cameras to the EX 1s?.....it will be good to see some footage at a later date.

[JTP22]

Hello Filming a concert this Sat. using 2 EX1's 2 HC1's and and HV 20. Concerned about a "common" format for editing in Multicam. I use FCP and have converted to Prores 422 and then editing in multicam. Does Premiere allow one to use different formats to edit in MC? What settings did you use to shoot with the X1's 1080 or 720. Would love to get more detail before we shot Sat.

[basspig]

The Canon HV20 was somewhat biased toward green in the shadow range, which was the most prominent difference. The three Sonys matched up pretty well, but the HVR-V1U had a colder look and seemed less saturated.
By far, the biggest difference was the interlaced images from the two HDV cameras producing significant jaggies on the tops of music stands.
Finally, the last big problem was the autofocus on the V1U, which locked onto everything BEHIND the subject. I had my least-experienced operator run that camera because that's what he was comfortable with, and we left it in auto. But during zooms, it hunted wildly and focus went radically out for several seconds until it slowly settled into focus on something BEHIND the soloist--a chrome chair leg. That factor severely limited the use of footage from that cam.
The HV20 was generally soft all around, but since it's locked and fixed focus on a medium close shot of the conductor, against a featureless black abyss, it's not really a problem.

I much doubt I can put any footage on the web. The contract with the orchestra union is very explicit--the client (the soloist) cannot use the video for her portfolio or web site--only for immediate family showing. For that, they paid me thousands of dollars to do this world-class shoot. I can't even give copies to the stage manager and crew, who requested a copy. The politics and restrictions are maddeningly frustrating. It took us nearly 6 months to negotiate with the orchestra union to get this recording approved so the client could hire us--even though we've worked with this orchestra twice in the past year.


Editing formats.. Adobe CS3 lets you mix various on one timeline. I work in an XDCam 30p project and import XDCam 30p and HDV 30psF and 60i onto the same timeline. Synch all camera tracks and then synch in the 8-channel hi-def audio. Import that sequence into a new sequence and enable multicam function. Press F10 to open the multicam monitor and hit play. Now I'm watching four HD 1080 streams playing at once and can cut to any camera by clicking on the 'monitor' for that camera, or pressing the corresponding number key. Really simple, once the project's set up.

I've got the whole thing together and made the rough cut edit this evening. As usual, I am blown away by the images and the audio. The soloist was incredible. She played the violin and also the piano. I had the center channel mic on the 'basket' tilted downward a bit to bring the soloist out more prominently (I added this trick after doing a concert in March where cellist Allison Eldredge wanted more prominence in the recording). Now I've got the perfect mic setup that favors the soloist without unbalancing the overall sound.

My #3 camera operator had this to say about the performer:

Folks,
Last night I had the pleasure of hearing 17 year old virtuoso Anita Chen as part of the crew videotaping her concert with the Bridgeport Symphony:
http://www.connpost.com/entertainment/ci_10690000 (http://www.connpost.com/entertainment/ci_10690000)
First she played Mozart's Piano Concerto for Piano K. 467 and was simply fabulous. But then she played Kreisler's Violin Concerto Opus 6 and was equally fabulous! Then an encore on the violin, then another on the piano.
All of us in the audience were amazed, but none more than me. We're all jaded by amazing teenage virtuoso players whose numbers seem to grow every year. But I've never seen one equally capable on two very difficult instruments.
I only wish there were videos of her on the web I could send you a link to.
Hopefully there will be videos after she receives her DVD of last night's concert.
--Ethan

I feel confident that we have witnessed the next 'Mozart' who, in ten years, will be a household name in Classical music, just like Heifetz, Oistrahk, Menuhin, etc. I consider myself fortunate to have been the first to record this rising star. :)

[JTP22]

Thanks for the info. I don't know if you would but would love to know workflow for best quality using Premiere's Multicam function. Intended medium DVD.

[Carl Marxx]

:dankk2: Thanks again for the info. Mark, it's of great interest to me, since I had performed on stage for 17Years. I know how exciting it can be. Keep up the great work -- Carl Marxx