AC160 Singers 1080/24p, shutter 1/48, f2.7, gain 6, 45 feet away

kwkeirstead

kwkeirstead

Well-known member
Here is footage from a concert 2012-04-29, in a dimly lit church, 2 PM with 2 x 4 x 300 tungsten bulbs, 6 db gain, Cine-D, Rode on-camera VideoMic.

Comments, anyone?

I did a white balance on the giant projector screen at the start (we probably should have raised the screen before the shoot). I measured the distance with a tape measure. Clearly, I need to do something about the shadows (3rd light?). I forgot to look at WFM which might have resulted in a better choice of f-stop (looks a tad overexposed).

http://youtu.be/t0UD5rG6XUU
http://youtu.be/Dw2RMJRmFHw
http://youtu.be/xbUsPSOhenI
 
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Did you have control over where the tungsten lights were mounted? The close-up shot of the speaker with the light blatantly in the shot was one thing that bothered me. You would need 2 more lights on each side of the projector screen to cast an even fill to eliminate harsh shadows. Have you thought about purchasing a Zoom h1 or h4n so you can connect into the house microphones? That would yield very clean results!
 
To save the shot would have gone the lights at 45 degrees of height of the camera to avoid shadows as strong of people back on the white screen, the lights go up to 2.5 meters approx. from the camera lights are very low so the shadow is cast on the bottom.
Greetings.
 
To make a good shot should put the spotlight to 2.5 or 3 meters in height relative to the camera at an angle of 45 ° respectively to the choir music and avoid the shadows that are projected onto a white screen.
Greetings.

Not if I understand correctly, my translation makes google for me.
 
Agree.. We had very few options re the lighting and no options re placement of the camera. Getting two extra lights will not be a problem.

The sound system was not functional for this event. Interesting you should mention Zoom h4n. I will have access to one of these next weekend and will compare the sound from this to the sound from my Rode VideoMic.
 
Yes, you're audio is most in need of improvement, in this, and some of your other (e.g., coaching) videos. The zoom will likely help if you get it placed well. Will you use the internal mics, extra mics, or both?

Also, are you sure you need the lights? This is a stage event, and would (to me) look better with the natural stage lighting. This looks unnatural and kind of sterile. You may get a better while saving yourself effort, the audience intrusive lighting, and the singers blinding lights that might interfere with their seeing of the conductor. I would lose a lot of clients if I inflicted lights like that on them, especially in a competition.

What's WIC? Do they all dance like that?
 
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Thanks for the feedback. I have been told not to use the internal mic so I suppose the nice solution would be a direct XLR feed from a sound board when these are available.

Re lighting, I put "bounce" laundry softener sheets on the front of my construction lights (we all have to live within our budgets) - you can add one, two as needed to diffuse the light so it really does not add a lot of glare. The singers say they always have lights when they perform to the point that at night performances they never actually see the audience. Somehow they manage to see the conductor and I will have to ask how/why that is.

WIC is "West Island Chapter", part of the huge Sweet Adelines International group of A Cappella singers (thousands of members) - they all dance but the choreo varies according to each interpretation of each song.

http://www.sweetadelineintl.org/

They practice hundreds of hours to compete in annual regional competitions where 40 people travel hundreds of miles to appear for 5 minutes on stage. Some of the chapters have 100 singers.

I try to do good recordings but their main interest is not to hear how they sing but rather how they look as they prepare for contests and do concerts.

I suppose if you could bring yourself to do recordings for these groups for free, you might get corporate business from the connections you establish. I do about 20 recordings a year with WIC (lots of training recordings, a few concerts).

My wife has a quartet and I do recordings for them as well. A group of university communications students did a documentary that made it to national TV up here in Canada.
 
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