Shooting an indoor Band Performance

G

gandalfrodo

Member
Hey guys, I'm going to be shooting my friend's band this weekend with the Panasonic DVX100B. It's probably going to be in a bar or something like that... not sure what the stage lights are going to be like. But has anyone shot under these conditions before? Could you give me some tips, or at least some tips for shooting in low light conditions with this camera?

Also I'm wondering what I should do about audio. Other than adjusting the levels is there any other settings in the camera that will allow me to filter the sound to make it crisper without losing quailty. They're a metal band, so I'm expecting quite a bit of peaking, so I'm going to bring my headphones and bring the levels down accordingly.

All right guys, there it is, any advice you can give me will be greatly appreciated.

Rock On,

Gandalfodo
 
i wouldnt use the onboard mic if possible. try to get a tap from the board or even a recording from the board. myabe be lucky and someone will be audio taping the show. here is an example i shot this with straight dvx on board mic small bar right in front of band. as you can hear the mic itself clips even though i was pretty good with the levels in cam. i just shot this for fun so its not the greatest but i had to get this band on vid :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yit6xsWVyeI

heres another example of why to not use the onaboard mic haha but then again im right up on the band and it was EXTREMELY loud also a good example of shooting in hardly any light :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_c0NkXSwI48
 
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I am NOT a pro at this.

I did a show for my son a few years ago and hired 3 cameras, two in crowd and one on tripod plugged in to the board for master audio and locked video. I also used the main camera to project the image onto the back wall, which was a 25 ft movie screen. that was my first DVX experience (main camera). They were mostly students and I paid them 50 bucks each.

I know that you probably wont have this much control over the room and lighting can be hit or miss. hopefully they have some kind off concert lights that somewhat match the performance. It would be cool if someone controlled a spot light that you could talk with beforehand, to get the lead singer, guitar solos, etc.

Do you have an on camera light that you could use?

Brian
 
You might not get good audio results from pulling a feed off the house board, even though it seems like you would. Quite often the house board is balanced for the room -- so the band will sound good when the sound comes through the speakers and enters the acoustics of that particular room. But that balance might be WAY off when pulled straight into the camera and played back later. (Had this happen to me once already, and read about it happening to others.)

What I have done, with a fair amount of success, is to get two sources. I bought a Zoom H4 digital recorder and set it up at the house board, pulling a feed from the board to the H4. I also used mics attached to the DVX100a, capturing the sound from the house speakers, and also getting some room ambience, audience noise, etc. Then in post I played around with mixing ALL of this until I got the best sound. The sound from the house board tended to give me good, crisp vocals, which enhanced the audio I got via the mics.

Now, a word about headphones...

Get noise-isolation headphones if you possibly can. Regular headphones aren't designed to cut out the LOUD external sound you'll get from the band, which will make it very hard for you to hear the audio your camera is actually getting from the mics.

Put the headphones on BEFORE the band starts to play, and keep them on. I made that mistake. I was asked to videotape the second set a band was playing in a club. I didn't put my isolation headphones on until they began the second set. By that time my hearing had been blown out, and I couldn't hear a thing in the headphones. So either put them on before the music cranks up, or get you some good sound-blocking earplugs and wear them until time to put on the headphones.

Hope that helps. Good luck!
 
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