Billy Watson live at the Pannikin in Del Mar

1 :

OK You have great access and a great band and the potential for a great piece of video, but the execution here is messy. A few changes in the way you are approaching this will make a world of difference. First, when you are shooting, you should shoot one song as a kind of master track. Your main objective here is to record the audio of the song clean with as many usable shots as you can mange. A usable shot is one where you DON'T MOVE THE CAMERA. Find an interesting shot, lock off and HOLD THE SHOT. Now find your next one and do the same. Make as much of this performers singing or playing as possible. These are going to be your match shots. When you are done with this you will have a base line of 100% good audio and maybe 50-60% good video. Now, during the next song, busy yourself in getting as many perfect cover shots as you can. Close ups of faces, instruments, fingers on frets, audience reaction, etc. You can do this for the rest of the night if you want. When you go to edit, you now use all your synch shots and cover with the rest. Tapping feet, behind the head, and so on. When you are done you should have a perfect performance piece. If you want to start to bleed in the shots of surfing or the airplane landing you can do so if you like, but frankly, this takes us into the realm of music video, which is a different conversation. As for the open, I like to get right to the performance if I can. That's obviously what people are 'paying for' or have come to see, so I would lose all the exterior shots of the place (unless you own it, in which case I might bleed it into the performance or do a tease and go to the exterior and then start the performance for real) If you want to see one of the best music docs ever made, check out Gimme Shelter by the Maysle Brothers