AC160 Would appreciate comments on 75th anniversary recording of an operatic society

kwkeirstead

kwkeirstead

Well-known member
Hi,

I was asked to record a presentation of Gilbert & Sullivan's "Patience" put on by a local amateur operatic society.

It's their 75th anniversary and they worked so hard to get ready for this, so I need to get it right.

Depending on the feedback, if my recording is off, I can travel 100 miles next week to do a repeat (at my cost) for their last performance of this event.

Here are four test clips0- they are all short

http://youtu.be/HDVGnGWuaaE
http://youtu.be/0RZW82AbPO8
http://youtu.be/IgThhIwblGM
http://youtu.be/NiJfQiYaCWs

Do they look OK? Too dark?

What do you think about including the silhouette of the conductor?

The conductor offered to sit down but I figure the music side usually gets ignored so I told him to position himself as he did for the opening and subsequent nights.

I had no sound board at this venue so I had to rely on my Rode Videomic 65 feet away from the stage (with backup on a Tascam DR100MKIV which I have yet to listen to).

I used myAG-AC160A, 1080p24 with iris going from open to about 4.5 max.

I find I adjusting my Manfrotto 501HD is tricky wrt getting the pan/tilt frictions right.

I put a second telescopic handle on it and that helps somewhat but there still is a big difference between starting friction and dynamic friction. Any ideas re a true liquid head that will not break the bank?
 
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Sorry, we had to take them down, one member of the cast who had signed a release, in now having second thoughts re distribution.
 
Hi

I have no comments about the clips. But as you asked about a tripod head I might answer to that question.
I have a Sachtler FSB6. It's expensive, I know. I have also a Manfrotto 503 head. That head wasn't as expensive as the Sachtler
but I will remeber it wasn't cheap either.

Why did I buy the Sachtler? Because I first bought the Manfrotto. Would I buy a Manfrotto if I had bought the Sachtler head first? No way!
Buying cheap can be expensive in the long run.

The Sachtler FSB6 has 10 counter balance settings. Three vertical and horisontal settings for drag plus a zero setting. It has a iluminated level bubble.
It's absolutley fantastic to use. Every time I use it I'm so impressed how smooth it is. There is absolutely no sensible start friction.
It's also possible to stop panning without or almost without visible kickback.

The head balances well on setting 2 (of 10) on the counter balance.Much room left for options to mount on the camcorder, mic, monitor etc.

My Manfrotto 503 (not the HD version) has a counter balance spring but it's not adjustable. The head clicks when using it, probably the grease inside it.
Stops is always followed by a kickback, not so much but far more than the Sachtler. The drag setting is not in steps and hard to adjust.
It's either to soft or to stiff.

I've put up a short demo of the FSB6 on YouTube where the camcorder is on full tele, 616mm 35mm equiv. I've done some tilting and panning to try to demonstrate the smotheness and the next to none kickback. One should keep in mind that, at 616mm, a small kickback is fractions of a milimeter on the head.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnppVgiuhA0

I guess a FSB4 head also can do the job, but that head is up to 4kg which might be limiting on the AG-AC160.
An ACE system is probably OK. I've tested the ACE M system. Head OK but legs are unstable and suffers from twisting.
To bad the ACE head cant be bought separately, you need to buy it with legs.

The FSB4 and FSB6 is around 2kg which can be a little heavy in the long run if, as I, do a lot of filming outside.

Regards,

/Bo
 
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Thanks Bo,

FSB6 it will have to be. My experience with the less expensive heads has been the same as yours - difficult to adjust.

I seem to get the impression the more you play with the friction during a session, the more difficult it becomes to make changes. No clue why that might be.
 
kwkeirstead said:
My main interest in getting comments back on these was whether the silhouette of the conductor adds to or takes away from the recording.
Click to expand...

...I like it, but I would not want to see his silhouette in every shot. ( would be too distracting to constantly see the conductor in the bottom of every shot )
 
While the conductor is reminiscent of "MST 3000", he is part of the live event, just as if it were an orchestra. As long as he's not blocking the talent, I don't find it to be a problem. The conductor's presence could be minimized or eliminated through tighter framing on some shots no doubt. Image and sound quality seem fine to me, though I didn't turn it up much as I'm in the office with others.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers
 
My thoughts:

The conductor should be either framed in or out of the shot.
I didn't care for just a bit of an arm showing.

Al
 
I found the conductor distracting in clip one (bottom corner)...its the movement that draws the eye...one moment there, one movement gone....just can't cancel out thousands of year's of "movement is important" programming. But in clip 2 I found less distracting...with the wide shots...with the zoomed in shots and then the conductor's hands appearing and disappearing, again I would put in the "too distracting" category. I think Alchroma is correct "in" all the time is more tolerable...but "in and out" is distracting...
 
Walter, I agree with the others. Seeing a partial bit of the conductor was distracting. It would be nice to have some backlighting on the characters, they sometimes get lost against the black BG, but that would affect the audience views I'm sure.
 
Hi Walter,

As an event videographer, I would have to say that whether the conductor is in shot or not is mostly irrelevant if you are making the perfomers the purpose of the flming.

I was always taught to try and make the camera invisible in this situation; following performers by only moving when they move, (as could have been achieved in clip 1), and when shooting a bigger group, by only making moves during the changes in song, eg. from verse to chorus. This can then eliminate the small but constant corrections of the camera and zoom positioning that the viewer can find quite distracting during a stage performance.
For instance, in clip 2, I kept wondering what happened to the girl hiding behind the trees? Was she important to the plot? Several larger steady moves out to include her could have alleviated many smaller corrections.

I love doing stage shows: such a challenge to do well, perfection impossible to achieve. Always difficult to sit back and watch during editing, realising you could do it better if you had a second go at it!

Cheers,

Vaughan
 
I think your exposure's serviceable, considering what one is up against for these kind of gigs. Could be much worse!

I really feel the biggest difference in a video like this is multiple cameras though. If it's worth it to you to kill it, I'd consider doing one gig from the way-back, and travel to the 2nd and shoot shoulder mount or from the sides and get close & med. shots to intercut. If their tempo isn't the same it could be a problem but cutting could get around that.

I've done that before and ran from side to side between songs... I've setup a DSLR with a tele and found someone to be in charge of closeups, stuff like that.

Optimal is someone in back who can zoom, a guy on each side and have them alternate between medium and tele shots. Much more editing work but those tend to be best.
 
Great advice, thanks Vaughn/Michael

No sure anyone was able to figure out what the purpose of the girl hiding behind the trees was. It might be hiding was important to the plot but I got no indication of this. I like the idea of panning only when the performers move OR when we he script goes from a group scene to say two people.

This particular event (Gilbert & Sullivan - "Patience" has a 5 minute piano overture - we are moving that to the back and will let the credit roll go over it for about 1 minute of the five.

I like the idea of two cameras but as a one-trick pony, that is off the horizon.

I have stopped trusting sound boards (you never know what you are going to get at a new venue) - I did a recording of a concert last Monday where the test signal was Ok but once the event started, it was ten times that volume, I tried to put an attenuator in line, did not reduce the volume much).

The ideal for me where there usually a mix of instrument and voices would be to pick up all of the instruments on one channel and the voices on another, then post recording I would at least be able to raise/lower each.

The dynamic range of audio at the camera seems to be terrible - one click up and it's too loud, one click down and you hardly hear anything.

I do need a 7 in monitor - the enhanced focus helps a bit, but you get a different focus coming from open to the object than from infinity back to the object.

Right now I am testing Plural Eyes to synch Tascam recordings with what I can pick up via my on-camera Rode VideoMic. Seems to save a lot of time

I am also testing Sony Vegas 13. No clue why I upgraded from 12 to 13 (I guess if you don't, you feel you may be missing something). For the price, any even minor improvements are likely to pay for themselves quickly.
 
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