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designunlimited's blog

Video Camera movements

Video Camera movements

Posted on March 21st, 2011 Written on designunlimited's blog

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Hello All

My first post here.
I have done some freelance gigs on New jersey Cultural events, primarily music concert and dance performances. Every now and then in my mind comes a thought, is it that how you handle your video camera during recording a show becomes important, or the actual content or the subject matter is the prime focus.

What I feel when I am shooting a music concert, where 2 and more people are sitting and performing, I feel it is a dvisable to keep your camera fixed most of the time, apart from getting odd medium and closeup shots (I am talking about a single camera setup).

Since the main purpose of the whole event was cultural (thats primary Audio), I think one has to concentrate getting the best possible audio feed, and then in post, package the complete audio/video as a unique presentation.

The point I want to make in this post is to understand the basic purpose of the content being shot, and then go about our service rendering to the client. Any thoughts/critics are welcome.

Best
Subhash

Tags : video camera movements , cultural shows , documenting , content is god

Category : youtube , Video art , Music Video , technique

5 comment(s)

designunlimited
11:05 am Monday
Mar 21, 2011

Fair enough. Good insight. Thanks.

michael
11:01 am Monday
Mar 21, 2011

you take the cut aways after the first performance. For the most part you only need one really good song, but most performers do a bunch. Dedicate one to the lock off audio record use the rest of the time to gather cut aways. In a crunch you can always use someone else's peformance for audience reaction shots, but I prefer to stick as close to the truth as possible,

designunlimited
10:57 am Monday
Mar 21, 2011

Thanks Michael A quick question. How would you achieve Cut aways if you are shooting with just 1 camera. Moreover how would I get shots of audience if my 1 and only 1 camera is position on performers. Thanks.

michael
10:19 am Monday
Mar 21, 2011

part 2: Only 1 in a thousand viewers will look at your cut away of the fingers on the frets of the Sitar and say 'wait a minute! That's not an f sharp!'. When I look at your wide shot I see dozens of cut aways. Now, once you have shot both, the performance and the cut aways, you to marry them in the edit. first lay down all the audio, then start dropping in the cut aways. This can be really fun and creative and the final product is MUCH more watchable.

michael
10:17 am Monday
Mar 21, 2011

Dear Subhash There is no question that when you are shooting a musical performance, the music has to come first. This is one of the few cases where you don't pause the camera between shots. What you want to do first and foremost is record a clean audio track. However, this doesn't mean that your final product has to be a locked off shot. It's boring to watch. Here is what you need to do. First, record a complete performance without hitting pause at all. You can feel free to change up shots (ie, wide to ecu) but don't stop recording. Then, you need to spend some time recording cut aways. This can be during the next song. What you want to avoid is shots that are music-synched. That is, singing with a shot on the singer, for example. But you can get lots of shots that are not music driven- ie, audience reaction shots, or the face of the other musicians, or over the shoulder. Or than hands. Sometimes even when they are playing an instrument - like the sitar. -more-