shooting a speaker, style question

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davetronic

Well-known member
i'm shooting a speaker in front of a small group of people in a well lit room. the footage will likely not be edited and used for reference, although there's a small chance of it being repurposed for training videos (and then there might be some minimal editing and dropping in of some presentation video display material).

what's the general rule about camera movements? locking down seems like it would put a person to sleep fast; quick jumps to reframe the speaker or a participant asking a question might seem sloppy if there's not going to be any cutaways or editing, and slow zooms or reframes seem a little less than ideal stylistically. or do they?

how would something like this generally be handled? is there a general rule or style to follow?

thanks.
 
For live event podium work with one camera to tape you'd stay in a MS or MCU for the most part. This should be striaight on, using the podium as the room centerline.

For audience reaction, Q&A and panel discussion within the same session, you should slowly pull out to an appropriate wide shot. If the panel is on either side of the podium, you'd zoom out equally on both sides, regardless of which side is talking. If that person speaks for a long period of time, it is acceptable to slowly begin to zoom into that person.

If the head table / panel is to one side of the podium only, you should anchor your zooms to the podium. Starting with a medium shot of the speaker, you would begin to execute your zoom out, leaving the podium anchored in the left or right part of your frame, depending which side of the podium the head table is located, stage left or stage right respectfully.

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I hate shooting single camera for that type of stuff. You feel like a security camera, but what can you do?. The best thing you can hope for is to shoot as described above, and if there are any introductory speakers that are not important, you can grab a couple of quick audience reaction shots for cut-aways in post. And most of all, try not to fall asleep....
 
thanks e. thanks j. i appreciate the posts.
luckily, i was able to come off the pod and go hand-held for a couple hours today, which broke up the day... otherwise, it could have been long.
 
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