Shooting in low light / stage performance

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Diego2SA

New member
I am shooting my first real gig this saturday. It's a school dance recital/ performance. One camera shoot.

I will of course be shooting on a HVX.

My recording options are mini dv or a firestore hardrive.

So my questions are this.

1. what setting / frame rate should should i shoot the performance in?

2. will the hvx be able to handle low light as i imagine the lighting will constantly change.

3. what should i record my audio with? rent a shotgun? use the internal mic? buy a cheap shotgun?

4. should i record on the hard drive or mini dv's?


**I recently shot this video in 30p on mini dv and i felt like it wasnt up to the full potential of the hvx. i dont know what im doing wrong.

http://vimeo.com/1754259


Thanks a million for your help guys. I look forward to being a member of this community.
 
Hey Diego,

Generally speaking, I'd always record at the highest quality possible provided you have storage space.

720/24p at the very least IMHO, that way you can always output to BluRay, or downscale to DVD if you have to.

Don't you have any P2 Cards? 2 x 32Gb cards would get you through a stage show at 720p...

A shotgun mic would be fine, but could i suggest you don't really want to record with the built in mic or shotgun as your main audio. Instead, organise to take a stereo split from the Front of House desk into a laptop or iPod or other audio recording device. At the very least, record with the built in stereo mic, then you can get a direct constant audio feed from the desk and blend in the ambience from the audio in your camera.

Ideally with this sort of stuff you'd set up some stationary ambient mics in the room ( PZMs or equivalent, either at the back of the room up high or either side of the stage facing back int othe audience ). Record those onto a laptop or whatever. Also take a split from the FOH desk. Use the audio from your camera to sync and then blend the ambient and desk signals together for your final output. You'll get a much better result. Just ask the audio guys for a master stereo split. Another way with the HVX if you have long enough leads is to take L & R out of the desk, run them into your two XLR inputs on your HVX and use the built in mic for Ch 1 & 2 and the desk signal on Channel 3 & 4.

As far as low light, there's some great posts on this forum about ideal low light settings, but stock Cine-V Scene seems to work best according to most of the feedback, the less Gain the better and open up the iris... look at screen grab/ footage posts - some people have put their settings along with the footage to give you a good guide!

Hope this helps!

Himy
 
Hello,
just a few points that came into my mind.
Nothing exhaustive and only my personal opinion:


If there is not much light I shoot in 50i (I'm in PAL land).
If you can, put a mic backstage facing the stage to get some ambient noise of the performers.
Get the ambient and if you can a return from the sound console (or the CD to get a clean sound in post)
I always shoot with 1/25. It makes movements look the most "organic" for my taste.
I'd record onto hard-disk and cassette.
Set the color temperature to Sunlight. Normally stage light is in that range.

Hope that helps.
 
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