Outdoor concert (Horribly lit interview) :) with the AWESOME - Phil X

S

Subtext_MEG

Member
Hello All,

This past August I shot an outdoor concert and interview with an amazing guitar player named Phil X (Dude is awesome) - Now the concert footage turned out the way I wanted, I did have trouble exposing for the sky at some points, but overall with some (obvious) adjustments in post to contrast - It looks how I saw it in my head :)

As for the interview - Be gentle. This was my first crack at journalism, I had planned for the interview to be done around 6pm, thus I did not bring any lights. Also, using the XLR Adapter (pretty good) There were times where the audio was quiet as I wasn't holding the mic close enough to him. And finally, I was shooting solo and with limited time, hence the back focusing, and complete lack of framing (as you can see at the end of Part 2).

I learned A LOT by making these mistakes - so in the end, I'll take my licks lol. Hope you enjoy the live shots - and if you're a guitar player like myself, enjoy the gear talk :)

Cheers,
Josh


http://www.youtube.com/user/SubTextMngmt?feature=mhee#p/a/u/0/Vr7bWfMq_h4 (part 1)
http://www.youtube.com/user/SubTextMngmt?feature=mhee#p/a/u/1/5sVac_Iuqd4 (part 2)
 
Hi, Josh-

I think the fact that you post your videos for comments is great. There are Vimeo sites that you can post to for comments as well. Just getting out there and using it is the best thing you can do.

Here’s my comments (but I’m not pro – so you get what you pay for!)-
  • Your knowledge of the subject really helped create a rapport with the interviewee. Your comments and questions were not banal, as I’m sure he’s used to hearing.
  • Camera angle: for the live shots, you seemed to be getting mostly the back of the guitar. I’m not a guitar player, but I would think you’d want to be able to zoom to his hands, since he talked about it so much. It seems if you rotated around the stage 45 or 90 degrees or so you’d have a better position.
  • The background in the interview was distracting. Better to see if you could rotate around and find something more neutral. The fact that it had a name in it also means that you may run up against copyright violations for use of the footage, even with the guitarists permission (or use the blur/pixelate software out there).
OK, now for the HMC40 comments:
  • You paid the price for not enough light, but you know that. Could you have moved to use the pharmacy and/or street lights as sources?
  • You paid the price for using auto on the interview: since both of you were off center, the camera seems to have adjusted itself mostly to the lighting and focus of the pharmacy behind you. Better to have picked someone to stand there first, and manually focus on them, and also adjust the iris.
  • The audio in the interview has very different volumes for you and the interviewee, based on the microphone position. You can still mostly fix that with your NLE. Or maybe set-up two mics ahead: a lavalier on yourself, and hold his mic, or lavs on both, etc.
Good for you to get out and shoot this!

Steve
 
Agree with everything SteveD said.

It looked strange to me to see B-roll shots during the interview of Phil X rocking his heart out on stage, but in utter silence. If you still have the sound from those shots, you could mix some of it in at a low level behind the interview. Fade in and out as the shots come and go.

How did you record the audio of the stage performance? Mics on stage, on the camera, feed from the mixing board? It sounds OK, just wondering.

- Greg
 
You guys are great! :)

I love the feedback, and thank you for pointing out a couple things that I in all honesty hadn't considered (copyright issue with No Frills). My two biggest regrets were not having someone else there and not paying closer attention to sound. The circumstances of the interview weren't well planned on my part in terms of location and lighting - that said, in regards to asking about angles during the shoot; the location was odd, I will explain.

The outdoor show took place in a parking lot of a stripmall. If I had shot the stage head on all you would have seen behind him would have been a Wendys, on the other side was the No Frills...any wide shots (to me) made it seem less...epic for lack of a better term. The other issue was the crowd, in front of the stage there were people sitting on the ground, and behind them were people in lawn chairs - not wanting to risk upsetting the people watching I opted to stay side stage.

I do regret this because as you pointed out, you can't see his hands head on - which sucks, and the Wendy's excuse doesn't work on tight shots lol...I dropped the ball.
Oh - And if I had the option, I would (and still may) go back and blur the background for the interview as you suggested.

I feel bad I'm not addressing the comments in order, you mentioned Vimeo - I've looked into it in the past, but it never seemed worth the money to me vs. Youtube - do you guys feel its a better platform? I'd love to hear what you think.

Now: Audio - Lesson learned; Pay better attention or invest in lavs :) Steve you're absolutely right, and to Gregs point - The reason there was no audio on the B-Roll was due to 2 reasons. 1) The audio from the interview was so low, I didn't want to risk further dampening it with the very clear/loud live audio. 2) Because of where I was, any part where he was playing rhythm guitar it was so powerful and full (albeit awesome) it would drown everything out, including bass and vocals. And to answer Gregs question, the mic I use is the Rode Videomicpro, It's hit and miss (mostly my fault lol) - otherwise it has been a great addition to the camera.

Again, Thank you guys for the feedback, I really appreciate it.

Josh
 
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