Hello All,

I know this has been covered in small chunks for a while now .. but it would be good to reopen the discussion.

I'm going to film a young indie/rock band to help them promote themselves. Nothing fancy - just them set up as if it was a live gig. I'll be using 3 Panasonic NV GS180 cameras. How would you go about it?

I guess they should mime to a backing tape so we can record multiple takes with no tempo synch problems.

Where would you position the cameras? Would you keep them static or use movement?

The local YMCA would be a good venue - they've got a performance space with a painted black wall behind. Do ytou think this would look ok.

Would it be worth me hiring a few lights or just using the available cheap budget stage lights?

Can anyone direct me to any good live videos you've seen?

Thanks very much

robin

Hi Robin.

If you've got the opportunity to film them in the way that you say, do it as many times as you can, from as many angles as you can.

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Thanks Mark and Turn Media,

Thieving shouldn't be a problem because it's not a gig - just a 'live' (mimed) peformance behind closed doors. Unless you think it would be worthwhile shipping in an audience?

Robin

Bringing in an audience would add to the sense of realism, but it comes with it's own set of problems. Who will look after them, who will tell them what to do, where to stand, how to react when a camera is on them. If you are going for the multiple takes where the band plays all or part of the song, you change positons, the audience will move and you will get jump cuts, what I'm trying to say is the more elements you add the harder your job as director becomes. In this setup, I would just let the band perform whathever number of songs they are doing and just you move around them. If you are using three cameras and it is a small venue, set one up at the back taking in a wide shot of the stage - keep this camera running continously, have another camera on the right side of the stage to get the band (still wide enough - but much nearer) and be able to pan around to show the audience members at the front of the stage and finally the last camera if it is possible - put it on stage at the side of the drummer - and again if the stage is big enough that camera can move to the left of the stage, the opposite side to the other camera placed at the right front side of the stage. What wattage are the stage lights? If they output anything from 750W upwards then they should be OK, if not then you may need to get more powerful lights, that black BG will cause exposure problems. If a camcorder sees a large dark area it will crank up the auto exposure and bright objects - faces, hands, clothes etc will be over exposed and burned out.

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