Shooting a concert - Need some help

M

mikcheck

Active member
Hello guys.


Friday and Saturday i'll be shooting some fulls songs, not the whole concert but some songs that will be aired in a TV program related to what will happen in those two days. So it's just not concert but also other activities to shoot but it's with the concert that i need some help.


There will be some bands and the thing is, there is the possibiliy to use two cameras but i'm alone and i would have a lot more material to carry on with me in this trip and i would have extra work.


But i guess that the safest way to shoot it would be with 2 cameras? What if it was just one, how could it be done? I could shoot one theme from one band with soft movements (zooms and pans) between the singer and the band and the next song that the same band plays, i would do focus on close shots in the instruments and crowd to cut between during montage. But i guess this would be a bit riskier? What do you guys think would be the best option?


Thank you.
 
If you are using two cameras, set one up by the mixing board. It will provide the wide shot and be relatively safe unattended next to the board. Then you can operate the other camera for close ups.

One camera - uggh. Rent a camera from the local camera shop.
 
Thanks a lot for your replies guys.

I'll use two cameras then, one static and i'll be in stage doing close shots, crowd, etc...

Paul F if there is that possibility, and as you said, i'll try to set up the static camera next to the mixing board and connect XLR cable to have the sound. If not, it will have to be recorded from the camera.
 
I shoot a lot of one man, two cam performances. When editing, I always wish I had at least one more camera, preferably something from a totally different perspective than the audience (Side view across stage, even from behind the performers facing into audience, whatever).

In other words, don't bother with one cam if this is going to be used for anything other than archive.

Also, keep in mind that the set up for locked down cams can be VERY light since you don't need fluid pans, etc. So, rent another camera or two, put them on simple tripods, and go crazy with your main fluid head cam for tight shots.
 
I would not use only one camera.

Even throwing a couple action cams into the mix is better than just one camera.

How are you going to record the audio? Line feed from the board into a camera or an audio recorder?
 
ozmorphasis thanks. Well i'll put the static one wide and i'll go handheld to the stage with the other one. I think using a tripod for this situations it's a little restrictive

firehawk thanks. Audio will be recorded from the board.
 
I've shot concerts with just one camera, always because that's all I had at hand and always because it was a favour for a friend. They get to showcase what they do, but the result is a boring video, always.

The static by the mixing board is the usual thing to do. If there's not enough room or the mixing board is in an odd position, a gorillapod just in front of the stage can work too, but you'll have to watch it and you'll need a very wide-angle lens.
 
I' 've done a single cam concert and it was hard to edit since I wanted to have a two cam result, but did it in the end. Not the best but better than a static one.

So, as said above, use one cam on a tripod close to the mixing board and another one operated by you. But here' s my advice. Forget about the static camera. I mean, do your best with the camera you will shoot with handheld, get great compositions, feeling of the crowd, emotion from the band itself, close ups, everything. You want to use the static camera's footage the least you can cause it's just boring. Not always though.

As far as audio is concerned, again, as said above, get audio from the board (mandatory) but into an audio recorder like a Zoon H4n or a tascam via xlr. Also, record sound from both cameras so you can mix the three audios together to punch in the crowd cheering. If you only keep the audio from the board, your video will not have the same vibe.
 
I wouldn't necessarily put the static camera at the sound board. I understand it might be more secure there, but that may or may not be the best camera position for getting a great shot. Always go for the best shot, in my opinion.

But yeah, no way would you do this with just one camera. Remember that if you're shooting an entire song, then you need to be able to cut away when there's a bad move or zoom or whatever on your main camera. You've got to have continuous coverage.

Sound is also a big issue. Don't just gloss over it. Connecting a camera to the sound board may give you good sound -- or it may not. On-camera mics almost certainly won't give you good sound. Great images are ruined by poor sound.
 
Be careful what you mount your static camera to. I've had band shots ruined because of the vibration of the bass or drums going through the mount and distorting the image. This has happened with both indoor and outdoor shoots, including with cameras mounted on the stage.
 
Really appreciate your input guys!

David, yes that's another thing i have to be careful. I dont know if sound boards usually are near to the stage but it's not a very good idea to leave the camera near, i think i'll put it far from the stage and confusion to avoid that things
 
mikcheck said:
Really appreciate your input guys!

David, yes that's another thing i have to be careful. I dont know if sound boards usually are near to the stage but it's not a very good idea to leave the camera near, i think i'll put it far from the stage and confusion to avoid that things
Click to expand...

I tend to put mine farther back, zoomed in. But it needs to be up high enough to shoot over people's heads.

Good luck!
 
If you're absolutely stuck with only one camera there are a couple things you can do.
-Shoot the sound check, especially if you can get the band to wear the same outfits they're going to wear for the show.
-Shoot the songs you know you won't be using, but shoot them in a way to get B-roll out of it, like a tight shot of the drummer's face or a shot from behind the band. Anything that won't have to be an exact synch of the song will be incredibly useful when it comes time to edit.
 
If you're willing to hustle, and you're willing to put in a little extra work in the edit, you can get great results with one camera. Just shoot the singer for the entirety of the song that you're going to edit (get a variety of shots, 70-200 is a safe bet with maybe a quick change or two to something super wide at the foot of the stage), and then shoot broll of the band for the next song (again making sure to jump around and give yourself tons of 3-6 second shots). If you have the luxury of a 3rd song, shoot audience broll, wide from the back of the house, etc.

Then in the edit, just cut carefully around the band broll to make it look like it matches the song you shot the singer for. If you are focused, tenacious, and know what you need, you can get an outstanding one-song concert edit, with one camera, by shooting 3 songs. Just be sure to get:

*Plenty of normal MCU footage of the singer
*Some tight-profile shots of the singer, preferably with some sort of light or light-truss in the background if possible
*Wide of the singer from the foot of the stage
*Moving med-close shots of the singer (rock back and forth, particularly if you have a 70-200 IS)
*Tight inserts of band members playing their instruments. Get as close as possible
*Wide of the whole stage, bonus if its on a long lens from the back of the house
*Med shots of each band member
*Don't forget the drummer
*Shots of the stage through audience hands/heads/etc
*Broll of people enjoying the music
*Misc Broll

If you make a mental checklist, you can bang that out in 3 songs and edit it all together to look like one performance. Just keep cutting back to the singer.
 
Here is a two camera shoot... But because of the requirements of the lounge I could only shoot from one location ( I know... Breaking some RULE there...).

http://youtu.be/pFOeHIwssjA

So I have the B cam about 3 feet right of the A cam. I use the A cam to focus on the players and cut to the B cams wide shot when I'm repositioning the A Cam. Also there is alittle post zoom/recrop of the B cam. The audio is a mix of room and a board feed. If you are going to only use the cam audio I suspect it will not be very good. In the above clip I used a Zoom H6 at the board and recorded board and room sound with that. If you could put one cam on one side of the sound booth, set wide, and you and other camera on the other side would get some good shots, I found that handheld on/near stage never really worked for me.
 
Here is a two camera set up. Wide shot is from a control booth up 2nd floor back of the hall (fixed), and the closeups are with an 85mm that I manned up front with a tripod. I could not move, and I had no zoom. Talk about limitations! However, this particular artist really likes layered stuff where lines are blurred (literally and figuratively) and dissolves happen very gradually. This allowed me to go crazy with some effects. Obviously, this is not appropriate for every situation and definitely not for everyone's taste, but I'm only posting to add one more example of how you can get creative to maximize the interest with limited means. Stefancoison's post above is yet another method. It helps A LOT to have a sense of your approach before you start shooting so that you don't miss opportunities.

This is a first draft that will evolve. There are some minor tweaks to be made (audio/video sync is off by a few frames, etc).
Password: Denson
http://vimeo.com/101806916
 
Thanks a lot guys. I really appreciate your help and the videos some of you have posted.

I've done it with 2 cam. One was near the sound booth because it had a higher level of view (the sound booth was located in a little stage so at least i was sure that there would be no heads in front of the cam). The other cam was handhelded from the big stage.

The big problem was the sound, i couldn't get it in my camera and i dont know why. Don't know if it was from the cable, from the camera or from the mixer and that really p***** me off. I had to record the sound with the shotgun mic attached to the camera.

Overall i'm not very happy, i could do better but it was my first time shooting something like this and the next time things will be a little better.

Also, thanks a lot for those tips on how to shoot with only one camera, that will be really useful in the future.

Thank you all.
 
From the musicians perspective, it's so easy to slip a few frames between sound and vision and have the viewers instantly aware that it's wrong. The idea of a nice looking image and composition is great, but music videos are often watched by other musicians and using shots that involve hands feet and mouth give away random cutaways so easily. To non-muso's it doesn't even get noticed, but to anyone who plays - non-sync video is a red rag to a bull situation. I always use the drummer's down beat as my sync reference, so seeing a snare hot and hearing a crash makes for the double take! If you want to shoot some rehearsal and add it in, don't use a different song, use one that will be used.
 
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