Advice on shooting live theatre with bright lights!

R

retiredrockstar

New member
Sorry if this seems like a very basic question, but I've been given the job of shooting a stage school show this week with a Panasonic DVX100a - the guy who normally shoots is off on honeymoon. I did a trial run last night and although during the not so bright scenes the footage was pristine, any time a little bit of brightness or particularly red light appeared on the stage the footage just became a washout and blurred with everything - even the black hair on the cast turning a shade of red. I'm fairly up on using the camera and am sure its something basic that I didn't do, or am unaware of. If anybody has any advice at all, please can you share it? I don't want to leave these kids down by botching up their end of term show! Again sorry if its a basic question, but this seemed like the ideal place to ask for advice!
 
For starters, red is going to trip you up. That's part of working with DV.

The rest is about white balance and exposure. Shooting stage performances, try keeping your white balance set to 3200 (household/incandescent). Unless the stage is lit with something weird like LED (not likely).

If the show has a pretty wide dynamic range in lighting, either expose for the brightest scenes or keep your finger on the iris wheel.
 
Thanks a mill for the advice, I'll try that of course - wow didn't know that red was such an issue with DV! Somebody else suggested using the spotlight mode... is that a good option?
 
I recommend using the zebras to help you expose properly. You will need to adjust exposure quite a bit.
The red and blue blurryness can be fixed somewhat in post by using a chroma resampling filter, and the effect is much less when it's displayed on a regular crt TV.
 
I kind of asked about this in the tech section... For me i have done a few live concerts with our 2 dvx100a's and reds were not an issue just the blues. As for white balance, our last test shoot had, leds, regular par cans, and flourescent black lights, wow what a hassle. So how can i use zebra to correct exposure.
 
bfsound said:
So how can i use zebra to correct exposure.
Click to expand...

Turn them on, and watch them. When stripes show up in your whites, you're getting close to overexposure.

I actually keep mine set at 80% and try to set my exposure to the point where the whites just start to stripe.
 
thanks C2V, actually while waiting i pulled 1 out and messed around to grasp the idea of using zebra.
 
That decision is based on your editing and distribution choices. If it will ever be on TV the best bet is DF. In fact with today's editing systems either is fine, so why not choose the one that will easier if lots of people ever want to watch it.

BTW all of this is video 101 but it does not really drop a frame it drops the counting of the frames happen one right after another for the frame rate chosen. DF just counts different do after, I think, 6 minutes a DF video will be 1 frame behind a NDF in the timecode.

If I remember right this was originally for TV because NDF 30fps timecode would drift compared to real time and after a couple days or weeks shows would start seconds late and they would have to lose time on purpose to synch will real clock time.
 
kgimedia said:
That decision is based on your editing and distribution choices. If it will ever be on TV the best bet is DF. In fact with today's editing systems either is fine, so why not choose the one that will easier if lots of people ever want to watch it.

BTW all of this is video 101 but it does not really drop a frame it drops the counting of the frames happen one right after another for the frame rate chosen. DF just counts different do after, I think, 6 minutes a DF video will be 1 frame behind a NDF in the timecode.

If I remember right this was originally for TV because NDF 30fps timecode would drift compared to real time and after a couple days or weeks shows would start seconds late and they would have to lose time on purpose to synch will real clock time.
Click to expand...

Sort of.

First, DF vs. NDF is really a two-part question:

1) How long is your production?

2) Are you going to a broadcast facility, and if so what do they require?

(Okay, that was actually three questions...)

Regarding #1, anything over :60 in non-drop will start to drift. Non-drop is usually fine for short-form things like commercials.

Regarding #2, a broadcast facility will usually have specs. For :30 spots that I take to our local stations, they ask for non-drop. But if we're doing a half-hour or hour-long show, or even a 2:00 interstitial, it has to be drop.

Drop-frame eliminates frames :00 and :01 at the head of every minute except the 10s. Before color TV, video ran at 30fps, but 30fps drifts from chronological time. So every hour of non-drop actually runs 3.6 seconds longer than an hour on a stopwatch. With color TV, NTSC decided that the color sync information would be embedded in the video signal, occupying the extra 0.03 frame, which is why we now run at 29.97. But it still drifts without dropping frames.

If your end-product is going straight to DVD or the Internet, NDF is probably not going to matter, but remember that DF is accurate to a clock. So the rule really, aside from broadcast facility requirements, is that anything over 1 minute should be in DF.
 
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Cool almost everything we shoot will end up on DVD or internet/ computer for viewing.

Also most stuff will be around 30 minute or more, some stuff may only be a single song around 3 min though. But either way i get the idea DF is the way to go for our application.

Thanks again
 
RetiredRockStar, I'm not sure if your original question was completely answered. When confronted with shooting stage lighting (the bigger the stage and cast the bigger the problem) you're confronted with the worst condition for video . . . Extreme Contrast.
Another deficit (other than color mentioned) is the ability to reproduce the difference between dark and light. I have found the DVX to be much better than older cameras but the issue still exists. The very nature of stage lighting is to highlight the talent while leaving the surrounding area in darkness. The lights are tight spots in order to accomplish this. Cameras try to average the lighting, but when the the lighting ratio is outside the capability to reproduce, the camera literally freaks out. If allowed to average the lighting, the blacks will be grey and the whites will be totally blown out with little or no detail.
This kind of environment really pushes the envelope of the both the camera and the shooter.
Add to that the cast is constantly moving around under different lighting angles, intensity, colors . . . and well you get it. Nightmare.
Other than never shooting in that environment again you can help get the best that you can by:
1 Go to a rehearsal and try to map out what's going on.
2 Use your camera to try and "see" what it sees.
3. Use the techniques described with Zebras, white balancing etc.
4 Shoot close (fill the frame) to attempt to keep the lighting ratio more bright with as little dark as possible. With the cast moving all over the place, see number 1.
5. Refuse the next time someone asks . . . only kidding.
Gary
 
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