C500: Live COVID-19 Concert shot on c500 mark II

B

Barry G

Well-known member
I called my friend Inga Swearingen last week and asked if she'd want to put together a Facebook live show. I've watched a lot of my musician friends broadcasting from their bedrooms over the last couple of weeks and thought it would be cool to do something in the "indie handheld single take music video" genre :-), in a nice setting with some pretty lighting. We shot it at another friend's thrift/gift store on Saturday evening, taking breaks between songs to change camera set-ups and lighting. Given the socially distanced nature of the production, there was no makeup/hair, no sound guy, no assistant, just me and her and Malik, who owns the store. We ran 4 audio channels into the C500 (Vocal, direct and mic'd Resophinic guitar, and Looper) so that we could hand-off to a sound engineer in post.

I'd never call myself an experienced handheld operator (I have a bum knee that makes it impossible to move laterally without the swaying you'll see in part of the first song), so go easy on me. :-) For the most part the AF really did well given the low light levels, background highlights and mic's in the foreground (mostly perfect in the handheld stuff, had some problems with the second dolly set up, I should have re-lamped a light in the corner for that shot, but didn't really have time to mess with it). That said, this was all done without a rehearsal, and I think it captured her performance in a nice way. I'm hoping to do a few more of these and hopefully will learn a few things along the way.

Anyway...come for the gear, stay for the show. Inga is a remarkable singer (has sung solo at Carnegie Hall and was a regular on NPR's A Prairie Home Companion a few years back), I think the 3rd song is bad-ass.

 
Good job Barry. She's got a great voice. I'd much rather watch that than all of the webcam stuff hitting the internet at the moment. I love a wooden resonator too and a bit of loop pedal work. And yeah, 3rd song for the win.

AF worked well - what lenses?
 
Liam Hall said:
Good job Barry. She's got a great voice. I'd much rather watch that than all of the webcam stuff hitting the internet at the moment. I love a wooden resonator too and a bit of loop pedal work. And yeah, 3rd song for the win.

AF worked well - what lenses?
Click to expand...

Thanks..

Handheld shots were 35mm 1.4L II. Lateral dolly shot is 50mm 1.2L. Blanking on which I used for the last two songs.. maybe 50 for the close dolly, and 35 again for the last song.

That guitar was a gift to her from National Resophonic (they are here in SLO).. she while she was warming u, it was so loud, sounded amplified, and I thought we’d never get it out of her vocals.. but it worked out ok
 
Good job, but I was hoping it was going to be black & white like image above. You fooled me.

One of my favorite concert films was U2 in Chicago years ago. It was shot in HD, but they treated the whole thing in B&W.
 
Looks and sounds great Barry, thanks for sharing and glad you got to work on something cool during all of this. Flip that ole C500 into 23.98 and you'd have a great concert film vibe going on :beer:
 
chris f said:
Looks and sounds great Barry, thanks for sharing and glad you got to work on something cool during all of this. Flip that ole C500 into 23.98 and you'd have a great concert film vibe going on :beer:
Click to expand...

When will I learn. :-) Actually, I was going to go 24p on this project, but the streaming software I was using (and learning) called for 30 or 60, and I didn't want to take a chance that it would either mess up the stream, or that their conversion would suck. Later on I noticed there was a setting for true 24P (not 23.98), but we'd already shot by that point. I'm somewhat agnostic on frame rates compared to some (I get why folks love 24...but I don't believe that all the other ones are "wrong"...and while I did literally walk out of a 48p screening of the Hobbit, I gotta imagine Mr. Jackson saw something in it to make him go that direction.) I have a few things in 24 that I'll be posting as soon as I finish them. :-)

Run&Gun said:
Good job, but I was hoping it was going to be black & white like image above. You fooled me.

One of my favorite concert films was U2 in Chicago years ago. It was shot in HD, but they treated the whole thing in B&W.
Click to expand...

Sorry to suck you in. :-) I'd originally considered this as either a BW, or a very desaturated, tinted contrasty grade, and the first go looked quite a bit different from this. In the end, I decided that it was best to play to her fans. She's a super warm person, and connects with people on that level, and I decided not to make it about me, for once. I've reached out to another musician in my circle that is younger and edgier...she'd make a better subject in BW..I think.

Rattle and Hum was a great film, I loved the contrast and grain, it fit so well with early U2's youthful romantic and earnest vibe...although I still put "Stop Making Sense" at the top of my list.
 
Makes the camera really shine. I have to get used to Barry using a Canon and not a Panasonic : )

Maybe I missed it, did you share settings, Barry? Log, custom settings? ISO, etc?
Thanks.
 
bill totolo said:
Makes the camera really shine. I have to get used to Barry using a Canon and not a Panasonic : )

Maybe I missed it, did you share settings, Barry? Log, custom settings? ISO, etc?
Thanks.
Click to expand...

Second time in two days I've been mistaken for that other Barry G. :-) (owned a DVX100 a long time ago, but it was stolen and it's been canon ever since.)

Was shot in 5.9k Cinema Raw Light. ISO 800. (intro was shot in XF-AVC 4k). Standard Log2/cinema Gamut Preset. I adjusted white balance in Canon Raw Development, and downconverter to 4k ProRes, and then edited and colored in Final Cut Pro. Lighting was mostly practicals, a mix of LED and Edison bulbs, plus a little daylight on the first song.

There is a lighting change between each song...the first was a mix of daylight, plus an aputure 300d daylight bounced off the ceiling, and two area 48 Tungstens off to left. After that we removed the daylight, and went to a stronger mix with the area 48s, then began dimming those down and adding candles. Last song is just the practicals and candles lighting the scene. To me, the C500 handles mixed tungsten LED a lot better than any of my previous canon cameras. (Interestingly, Geoff Boyle recently made some comments during his Camera/fixture test that the C500 was the best of the cameras they tested in terms of how consistently it rendered the various lights they tested, and I've seen this on multiple occasion so far. I had one LED behind her that went a little green, but the others look pretty consistent.
 
Last edited:
Barry G said:
Sorry to suck you in. :-) I'd originally considered this as either a BW, or a very desaturated, tinted contrasty grade, and the first go looked quite a bit different from this. In the end, I decided that it was best to play to her fans. She's a super warm person, and connects with people on that level, and I decided not to make it about me, for once. I've reached out to another musician in my circle that is younger and edgier...she'd make a better subject in BW..I think.

Rattle and Hum was a great film, I loved the contrast and grain, it fit so well with early U2's youthful romantic and earnest vibe...although I still put "Stop Making Sense" at the top of my list.
Click to expand...

Don't get me wrong, what's there looks good. But I saw the B&W still and my mind automatically went to B&W with a little crunch & grain.
 
great job, Barry! See what I said about being and expert? You nailed it!

Did you shoot that all handheld? Hopefully with a Easyrig or sth else. I made also good experience with the Steadicam Air Monopod
 
Clermond said:
great job, Barry! See what I said about being and expert? You nailed it!

Did you shoot that all handheld? Hopefully with a Easyrig or sth else. I made also good experience with the Steadicam Air Monopod
Click to expand...

Opening and first song are on my shoulder. Middle songs are on a Dana dolly. Last song is back on my shoulder.

puredrifting said:
This is really great Barry, thank you for sharing it. Can you talk about how it was lit?
Click to expand...

There’s a little bit about the lighting a few posts up.. but here’s a bit about what I was after.. the plan was to have a transition from daylight/twilight to a warm room studio look, with her brighter than the background, and then eventually let the practicals and candles take over, and let her be a little darker than the background.. given the lack of makeup and hair, I wish we’d just gone with the last look, as I think it’s softer on her. The first song never really worked as a daylight shot, although it’s a little cleaner color wise than the warmer looks later (I actually brought them together in post, so the difference in what you see is negligible). This is the first “practical” driven shoot I’ve done in awhile, and I liked what the camera gave me given the mix of light sources.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top