Being Prepared for Doc

[They Live]

I'm currently working on a documentary about a well known jazz musician and his songwriting process. He's been commissioned to write a song for a New Year's Event and its going to incorporate a jazz ensemble, a sting orchestra, a Greek chorus, and some other crazy stuff.

This guy has had a month to put this together, and we've been scrambling like mad to keep up with him and with all the rehearsals, etc.

I've read a lot of threads on here that talk about making sure you have lights, proper mics, etc. But what I've discovered is, at least with this project, it's a lot more run and gun then you might think. Half of the time we haven't been able to get the guy lav'd up b/c he rushes in late usually. Some of the spaces we've shot in have been too large to properly accomodate a boom (wide shots, nature of the rehearsals, etc.) I've done a lot of it with a camera mounted Oktava (worst case scenarios, sounds not too bad though.)

I'm banking a lot on the forgiving nature of documentary audiences, since the best image quality and sound is not always expected of a doc. But still, I'm wondering how prepared you can actually be for shooting a documentary. Keep in mind, this has all been fly on the wall, reality TV observational style footage so far.

 

[moe_snodgrass]

Sounds like you're doing the best you can without more advance cooperation from the musician. I've had enough unusable rushed doc stuff that in the future I'll be insisting on advance preproduction MY WAY. No pre -- no video. For live music, I'd want to be recording the audio in stereo through a mixer into the DVX every time but you've got to make the best of spilled milk in the edit room. Make sure you've got solid releases so he (or anybody else) can't say they don't like it after the fact and hamstring you.

 

[They Live]

Yeah, there definately hasn't been a lot of advanced cooperation from the musician. He's a great guy, but I don't think the commitment to the doc was there as much as some of the producers led me to believe. We're chugging along though. We got the wireless on him yesterday and got some of our best stuff. It's going to be interesting to edit. Needless to say, this first documentary has been a HUGE learning experience, and regardless of the outcome, has been very worthwhile.

p.s. Luckily, I've had one or two producers with me everytime we've shot, so we're solid on releases.