Filming a concert need tips
- Thread starter mackfilm
- Start date
CaptainMench
Carbonite Member
What you want to do is still keep the iris closed. See if you can get the lighting director to set the stage when you are setting up the cameras have someone stand on stage too. Turn on the zebras and stop down until they go away.
Then, turn OFF the auto iris and adjust manually as you go. BUT NOT TOO MUCH! Let the darks be dark.
Worst thing you can do is set the camera pre-lighting and then hope for the best. It WILL be blown out. Those lights are bright.
Also, see if you can get a copy of the music directly from the board. CD will work fine, but if you can line it into a nearby camera even better.
CaptM
Then, turn OFF the auto iris and adjust manually as you go. BUT NOT TOO MUCH! Let the darks be dark.
Worst thing you can do is set the camera pre-lighting and then hope for the best. It WILL be blown out. Those lights are bright.
Also, see if you can get a copy of the music directly from the board. CD will work fine, but if you can line it into a nearby camera even better.
CaptM
creative guys
Member
Be sure to get a good white balance - make sure you can record good flesh tones in camera. This often means asking the LD (lighting Director) to remove all the red gells he's used on the lead singer's key light and replacing ith with a bastard amber if white scares him.
If you record orange hominids in a dark blue pit (what high school lighting plots look like on camera) you will wind up with a very poor quality video after spending days trying to figure out the color correction.
On DV a little color goes a long way (less color info means less headroom to abuse the colors) and it's easier to warm up flesh tones in post with a little CC than it is to drag them back from blown out reds (I belive the cheapest red gell you will always find in a bar stage is "Shades of Hell")
As for music - an audio feed from the board is a good choice, but if you can manage it, a good stereo mic in the middle of the room gives you the 'being there' feel and is my preference. You can rent a Crown SASS-P (stupid proof and great sounding) or an Avant CK-40 for cheap. You can buy a reasonable pair of mics to do stereo recording for $100 and up. Google up some fun , or start at www.taperssection.com and ask around how to get a mix of the mixing desk and a mic or two.
For angle - well the last concert I shot (2 days ago) I chose to be at the side of the venue -about 45 degrees of the lead singer. If you are dead on, I garantee the mic and stand will block his/her face the entire night. Just off to the side gets you a face with expression, no matter how much they eat the mic. That angle also makes it possbile to include the audience in a wide shot and see more than the backs of heads.:happy:
If you record orange hominids in a dark blue pit (what high school lighting plots look like on camera) you will wind up with a very poor quality video after spending days trying to figure out the color correction.
On DV a little color goes a long way (less color info means less headroom to abuse the colors) and it's easier to warm up flesh tones in post with a little CC than it is to drag them back from blown out reds (I belive the cheapest red gell you will always find in a bar stage is "Shades of Hell")
As for music - an audio feed from the board is a good choice, but if you can manage it, a good stereo mic in the middle of the room gives you the 'being there' feel and is my preference. You can rent a Crown SASS-P (stupid proof and great sounding) or an Avant CK-40 for cheap. You can buy a reasonable pair of mics to do stereo recording for $100 and up. Google up some fun , or start at www.taperssection.com and ask around how to get a mix of the mixing desk and a mic or two.
For angle - well the last concert I shot (2 days ago) I chose to be at the side of the venue -about 45 degrees of the lead singer. If you are dead on, I garantee the mic and stand will block his/her face the entire night. Just off to the side gets you a face with expression, no matter how much they eat the mic. That angle also makes it possbile to include the audience in a wide shot and see more than the backs of heads.:happy:
CaptainMench
Carbonite Member
EXACTLY!!!
I usually do one of two things... I insist on my audio guys (I'm usually recording my own concerts) to set some hall mics into the mix me... FOH (front of house) runs a mono mix for the house, but each channel is sent with effects to Monitor man on the side of the stage. Once he has monitors set he has nothing left to do for the night (HAHAHAHA) so he builds me a stereo mix of the show from the feeds he gets from FOH. Plus, adds a room mic to sweeten it. THAT then goes to camera or CD depending on how many OUTS are left on the board.
So... YES, creaativeguys is correct... I just assumed... well anyway -- good luck,
CaptM
I shot a concert about two weeks ago with a very similar setup to what you're describing. How many cameras are you using? We had five DVX's for the shoot:
1) I was on stage with the band, moving about getting all sorts of angles,
2) One at front left of stage,
3) One at front right of stage,
4) One at back left of room (about 10-15 metres from the front)
5) One at back right of room (again, 10-15 metres)
And this gave me plenty of coverage, you can see the first couple cuts here:
www.truerideproductions.com/STS/
Do yourself a favor, briefly look at cut 1 and notice how horribly red it was, then look at clip 2 and see how I've dragged the reds down a bit. The LAST thing you want on stage for your lighting is red, red is awful, and our show unfortunately was flooded in red the whole damn time. So yeah, talk to the lighting guy, get him to remove all those red gels because much like the colours inclination, red is the DEVIL.
We recorded four channels (two stereo channels) out of the soundboard straight into two cameras, and that turned out pretty well. When the band is doing their sound check early on, test out all the levels and make sure it's not peaking and that it's all working smoothly so that come time for the actual performance all you have to do is plug the cords back in and you're ready to rock. On the DVX's make sure the audio is switched from MIC to LINE input.
What you should also do is set all the cameras you're shooting with (that aren't recording soundboard stuff) to internal mic and put the levels way down so they don't blow out (cause assumingly it'll be extremely loud) and you can use that as your 'live' ambient sound (assuming you can't get that stereo mic for the room that 'creative guys' suggested). For my project we will be mixing together the soundboard audio and layering it with some of the internal camera audio to give it that 'live' feel.
Now, in terms of shooting tips, it really depends on what kind of music it is. If you checked out my clips above you'll notice a lot of the shots and cuts are quite fast and energetic to match the guys stage presence but most importantly their style of music. If it's softer, more mellow kind of music, you're not going to wanna have snap zooms and shaky cam going on constantly.
Talk to the band as well, see what they want out of it. Also, watch A LOT of music DVD's of a similar genre to get a feel for the style. As I was going to be shooting a metal DVD, in the weeks leading up to it I was watching all sorts of DVD's like Killswitch Engage/Metallica/Unearth/Underoath/Bullet For My Valentine/Linkin Park/Papa Roach to get me in the right frame of mind and to pick up some shot/style ideas too.
I find that to make a concert video interesting you need to have lots of angles, so get a hold of as many cameras as you can. Make sure you get there with plenty of time before the sound check/show begins (e.g. the band I shot the other week didn't have sound check until 6pm and they weren't playing until 10pm, but we were all there at 1pm to prepare and set up).
Sync all the camera settings the night before, make sure they all absolutely match, shutter speeds/iris/aspect ratio etc and WHITE BALANCE all of them when you're at the venue! I can't stress enough what 'creative guys' said about getting the skin tones right, it's very important. Direct your other camera operators well, explain to them exactly what you're after, guide them through anything if they're unsure, there can't be any room for error. Nothing worse than capturing the tapes from an uncertain camera man to realise he has done a terrible job and not got the shots you want.
I know this seems like a no brainer, but the first concert I shot a few years ago, I forgot to make this obvious point to my camera guys about making sure to not press pause during the performance and to let the tape run uninterrupted. I thought it was common sense, but turns out one of my camera guys hit pause/rec quite a number of times, which limits your footage and is an absolute ***** of a process to sync it back up in the edit.
I apologise for the length of my post, but all this stuff is so fresh in my mind that I thought I'd pass on whatever wisdom I can so that you cover all your bases! Best of luck for the shoot! Who's the band? They have a MySpace?
Oh, and I had all DVX's set to squeeze, F1 50i at 1/50 with manual open iris and auto focus on. Cheers!
1) I was on stage with the band, moving about getting all sorts of angles,
2) One at front left of stage,
3) One at front right of stage,
4) One at back left of room (about 10-15 metres from the front)
5) One at back right of room (again, 10-15 metres)
And this gave me plenty of coverage, you can see the first couple cuts here:
www.truerideproductions.com/STS/
Do yourself a favor, briefly look at cut 1 and notice how horribly red it was, then look at clip 2 and see how I've dragged the reds down a bit. The LAST thing you want on stage for your lighting is red, red is awful, and our show unfortunately was flooded in red the whole damn time. So yeah, talk to the lighting guy, get him to remove all those red gels because much like the colours inclination, red is the DEVIL.
We recorded four channels (two stereo channels) out of the soundboard straight into two cameras, and that turned out pretty well. When the band is doing their sound check early on, test out all the levels and make sure it's not peaking and that it's all working smoothly so that come time for the actual performance all you have to do is plug the cords back in and you're ready to rock. On the DVX's make sure the audio is switched from MIC to LINE input.
What you should also do is set all the cameras you're shooting with (that aren't recording soundboard stuff) to internal mic and put the levels way down so they don't blow out (cause assumingly it'll be extremely loud) and you can use that as your 'live' ambient sound (assuming you can't get that stereo mic for the room that 'creative guys' suggested). For my project we will be mixing together the soundboard audio and layering it with some of the internal camera audio to give it that 'live' feel.
Now, in terms of shooting tips, it really depends on what kind of music it is. If you checked out my clips above you'll notice a lot of the shots and cuts are quite fast and energetic to match the guys stage presence but most importantly their style of music. If it's softer, more mellow kind of music, you're not going to wanna have snap zooms and shaky cam going on constantly.
Talk to the band as well, see what they want out of it. Also, watch A LOT of music DVD's of a similar genre to get a feel for the style. As I was going to be shooting a metal DVD, in the weeks leading up to it I was watching all sorts of DVD's like Killswitch Engage/Metallica/Unearth/Underoath/Bullet For My Valentine/Linkin Park/Papa Roach to get me in the right frame of mind and to pick up some shot/style ideas too.
I find that to make a concert video interesting you need to have lots of angles, so get a hold of as many cameras as you can. Make sure you get there with plenty of time before the sound check/show begins (e.g. the band I shot the other week didn't have sound check until 6pm and they weren't playing until 10pm, but we were all there at 1pm to prepare and set up).
Sync all the camera settings the night before, make sure they all absolutely match, shutter speeds/iris/aspect ratio etc and WHITE BALANCE all of them when you're at the venue! I can't stress enough what 'creative guys' said about getting the skin tones right, it's very important. Direct your other camera operators well, explain to them exactly what you're after, guide them through anything if they're unsure, there can't be any room for error. Nothing worse than capturing the tapes from an uncertain camera man to realise he has done a terrible job and not got the shots you want.
I know this seems like a no brainer, but the first concert I shot a few years ago, I forgot to make this obvious point to my camera guys about making sure to not press pause during the performance and to let the tape run uninterrupted. I thought it was common sense, but turns out one of my camera guys hit pause/rec quite a number of times, which limits your footage and is an absolute ***** of a process to sync it back up in the edit.
I apologise for the length of my post, but all this stuff is so fresh in my mind that I thought I'd pass on whatever wisdom I can so that you cover all your bases! Best of luck for the shoot! Who's the band? They have a MySpace?
Oh, and I had all DVX's set to squeeze, F1 50i at 1/50 with manual open iris and auto focus on. Cheers!
Last edited:
CaptainMench
Carbonite Member
Brilliant!
Do be careful with trying to sync mic audio with line audio... there will be a delay... ever so slight... but it will tick you off... just because it's loud doesn't mean it's moving faster to the back of the hall!!
Still -- a brilliant post!! Hope OP is still reading.
CaptM
Do be careful with trying to sync mic audio with line audio... there will be a delay... ever so slight... but it will tick you off... just because it's loud doesn't mean it's moving faster to the back of the hall!!
Still -- a brilliant post!! Hope OP is still reading.
CaptM