help with 2 camera shoot for storyteller

Tom Knight

Tom Knight

Active member
Hi,

I'm doing a 2 camera shoot of a storyteller this Saturday, and I could use some help figuring out how to do it.

I plan to have 1 camera in back for a static wide shot, and have 1 camera in front for close-ups. The main issue I'm trying to figure out is how to do audience shots, since the storyteller requested that. I had an idea of having the operator of the wide shot camera set up on the side, so that, every 5 minutes or so, she pans across the audience, and then goes back to the wide shot again. Would this work?

By the way, this camera operator is my girlfriend doing me a favor, and has very little camera experience. (I'll be operating the camera in front.)

I can also shoot audience shots for a different storyteller and then edit that in, but I think that would be hard to make it look right. If someone smiles or giggles, or looks serious, it would be best if they were having a real reaction in real time.

Thanks!

- Tom
 
You could make use of the camera at the front to cover both the audience and the storyteller, floating between the two.
 
I didn't think of using the front camera on the audience, but that might work best. Thanks for the tip, wakayoda.
 
both cameras is better, different angles, etc. take it in turns. you have to always have it in mind to look for opportune moments to get audience shots. if you do, you realize they present themselves all the time. if you know one camera is carrying the edit at particular places, communicate with each other so the other camera can take the opportunity to get moments. list the types of audience shots you want (wides, applause, small groups with reactions, singles, etc) and start chipping away at the list early in the performance. from any given position you can usually quickly id who your likely candidates for singles and small group reactions will be. once you've got it you don't have to worry about it any more.

one difficult part, especially for an inexperienced operator, is the radical difference in exposure between audience and stage. it takes time to get between the two, and with only two cameras you don't have a lot of time to spare.
 
Thanks MPB for your thoughts about using both cameras in turns. I think I can get some good audience shots from the camera close to the stage, but I'm not sure about using the second camera. My plan for the second camera was to put it in back of the room for a wide shot, and to have it be a fairly straight angle. From there, the only audience shots will be the back of the audience's head. (Unless the audience curves around the stage, which it might.)

I did a two camera shoot where the wide angle camera in back was from the side, and it looked a little crooked in the final edit. So I want to keep the camera straight on for this shoot. Any thoughts about this?
 
sure. fwiw...

back of the house is the old faithful for performance, as safety. it's there when you need to cut to it, but it's generally not a very interesting shot, nor one that you want to look at for very long. i've frequently been surprised at how well a wide shot can work from a little closer and off axis. you're still wide (safe), but the shot feels more alive and more in the action. so when it comes time to cut, you're more likely to use it. and since you only have one other camera you want to get milage out of both.

but it really depends on the house, layout of the stage and seating, etc. you don't want to be too far off center or the wide shot feels remote again. or as you point out, the perspective can feel disjointed. but you probably want the two cameras on opposite sides of center so as to provide better coverage as well as the opportunity for cross-shooting/cutting.

it would be helpful to have frames that included audience heads along the bottom of frame, as that's part of the story. but you may not want to rest on that shot the whole time. obviously you don't want your b-cam to be constantly reframing as it's providing cover for you to follow the action in a tighter frame. however, if you make all your shot transitions "usable" (no snap-zooms or whip-pans, but smooth reframes) there will be more options in the edit. however, and i say this from watching the results of my own shooting of performances with too few cameras, don't give up a killer shot when you see it happening. try to get there smoothly, but get there. it sounds like you're only going to have one subject on stage (?) so that makes things a lot easier.

you're trying to achieve a lot with a little so that necessarily creates what can be conflicting objectives. there can be a tendency to make hard rules to simplify the situation, but if you think more of margins and guidelines you may be surprised at the wiggle room you can find to make the end result just that little bit more dynamic.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top