Live Concert Multicam (sorta)

andythefilmer

andythefilmer

Veteran
Today I was at the annual concerts in the park in my town to shoot some highlights for our local ABC news network. The manager of the band saw me up front by the stage shooting a few quick things and he wanted me to shoot the remainder of the show and then burn it for him. I was alone, so there was no other camera operators. It would look very bad and amateurish if I stuck to 1 shot the whole time, so my plan is to lay down each song by itself in FCP, then take other clips from that song and lay it over different parts to make it look like a multicam shoot. Is there a certain method of doing this? Any input would be appreciated...
 
There is nothing like having to put together something like this wiht a one man crew. I have done exactly what you are on track to do. Get one good track of the song, then mix in "live" shots with footage from other shots.


Here is an example from a test I did, there are some transitions I threw in to cover my position changes. There was no video planned, but the band wanted to see the footage, so it was posted. One camera shot, handheld


http://www.vimeo.com/5618580
 
andythefilmer said:
Today I was at the annual concerts in the park in my town to shoot some highlights for our local ABC news network. The manager of the band saw me up front by the stage shooting a few quick things and he wanted me to shoot the remainder of the show and then burn it for him. I was alone, so there was no other camera operators. It would look very bad and amateurish if I stuck to 1 shot the whole time, so my plan is to lay down each song by itself in FCP, then take other clips from that song and lay it over different parts to make it look like a multicam shoot. Is there a certain method of doing this? Any input would be appreciated...
Click to expand...

The trick is to move your Cam1 a lot (panning, zooming, etc), and have quick pans to other musicians. During the few seconds where you were panning/zooming, you can cut in a wide shot that you shot later/earlier (wide shots are best because you don't see facial expressions of the musicians, their hands, etc, that would reveal that the shot is not in sync.)

An example would look like this:

Cam1 shows the guitar player ... then you pan as quickly as you can to the drummer ... during the movement of the cam, you cut in a wide shot. This will look like you had three camcorders.
 
Luckily, I did a lot of panning and zooming. Some of them look good panning to another musician but unfortunately I didn't get too many wide shots. I got enough cutaways though.
 
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