PLEASE HELP - Last minute video request, I am panicking

[ultrasp99]

Hi - First off I would like to thank you in advance for anyone who will take the time to review my questions and try to help.

My daughter is in a Musical on March 23, 24 and the 25th. The Director called me last week to ask if I would record the show and put together a video for sale. I will have to produce over 300. The firm he had contracted out overbooked. To say the least I am panicking.

I am a very amateur photographer. I typically use my Canon 70D or Canon Vixia HD camcorder.

The Beauty and The Beast show is roughly two hours long with one intermission.

I was able to borrow 3 Panasonic DSX100B recorders.

Here are my questions: Please keep in mind most of the musical is moderate level of LED lighting and two of the three cameras will be in the back of the auditorium on tripods. The third will be roaming. It seems like the LED lighting really plays havoc. I did just a few tests the other night and the video just was not clear. Very grainy. Understand that moderate level lights are a challenge but the picture was not good. By the time I run through Premiere Elements it will look horrible.

What are the best camera settings to get the best picture results - Again, please keep in mind I will be creating a video using Adobe Premiere Elements and the output will be a DVD.
Frame rate
Iris
White Balance
Video Gain
Mic gain
Manual or Auto focus
Shutter speed off or should I set a shutter speed
Scene file settings - Detail level, Chroma level, etc....
Syncro scan
Aspect conversion
Etc... Etc....

Also please feel free to share any tips you feel might help!

If anyone has some time to chat I will be more than willing to provide my phone number some how.

ANY HELP will be MUCH MUCH APPRECIATED. Many people are counting on this video.

Thanks in advance - Steve

[SameSelf]

Filming performances in a dark hall is one the most challenging tasks there is for any videographer. These days, the best way around something like that is a Sony A7s. But I digress. Here is what I would do IIWY.

Set the camcorders to record at 24 fps and 1/48 sec shutter speed. Alternatively, you could record at 30 fps and set the shutter speed even slower at 1/30 sec. You are going to want long exposure times to reduce noise as much as possible. Since you are filming actors, blurring motion will not be a problem. Also, if you have aperture control, open it all the way. The footage will probably be soft, but a low f-stop will cut down on the noise as well. It is much easier to sharpen in post than apply NR. And absolutely DO NOT boost the EV comp on the cameras. That causes more noise on consumer camcorders than anything else. Lastly, as you are doing all this, you have to be careful that you don't over-expose the actors faces, white clothing, etc. Hopefully, your cameras have zebras to tell you how well your scene/actors are exposed. WB is a challenge because you have different cameras and getting them to match color is next to impossible. Do the best you can, but if you are really picky, it will have to be fixed in post. And to the extent you can lock in all these settings, the better. You don't want the camera adjusting things on the fly once you have carefully set your exposure.

At this point, the footage might be good enough. But more than likely it will need some gamma adjustment in post to brighten the image, some sharpening, and a boosting of the color saturation. These are all things that suffer in low light. A last ditch step would be to apply some NR on the dark areas. I am not sure Premiere Elements is the best tool for that, but there might be a NR effect in there. Most editors use NeatVideo which can literally perform miracles with your footage. However, with a two hour production, you are looking at loooooong computing times. But given that you are selling this video, as a paying customer I wouldn't expect anything less. I have bought many a "professional" DVD of my kids' productions, recorded by local video companies, and the video was pure crap, pure crap. I am a strong believer that a parent is likely to do a better job, simply because they care.

As for things like audio, I seriously hope you have proper mics and aren't relying on the camcorder audio. That is a whole other topic, so that is all I will say about that.

Bottomline, you need to make sure you get the best video and audio possible. Everything else can be (shudder) "fixed in post". But if you get noisy, poorly exposed video, nothing in post can fix that.

[aedipuss]

what the heck is a Panasonic DSX100B? not even google has a clue on that one.

[JVRaines]

Show the director your tests and tell him that's what he's getting unless he brings in more light. Miracles may happen on stage, but they don't happen in postproduction.

[smrpix]

Your audience will be watching the actors and doesn't give a damn about some video noise. Make sure the actors are not blown out.
Unless there are huge differences between the lightest and darkest scenes in the show, use the camera's automatic settings as a baseline and lock them in manually.

[ultrasp99]

So sorry - it is a Panasonic DVX100B

THANK YOU SOOOO much for the responses so far!

Steve

[ultrasp99]

Thanks for the reply Sameself... regarding the audio the sound engineer said he will provide me with an output from the sound board. Do you feel that will work.

I have two more dress rehearsals to test everything.

THANK YOU again. I can't tell you how much I appreciate you guys taking the time out of your busy days!

Steve

[johnmeyer]

I've been filming performances since I got my first video camera and VHS recorder in 1981 (the camera and recorder were separate, back then).

I have to disagree with the recommendation to film in 24p. Yes, the lower frame rate will help a little to offset any low-light issues, but not enough to give up the fluidity of regular video.

Here are the things that will give you the best results when filming a stage production.

1. Use manual settings. This is most important for focus. If you use auto-focus, your camera will be "hunting" for focus, especially since the stage is a long way away. The constant "popping" in and out of focus will drive your viewers nuts. You should use the indoor pre-set for your color balance because otherwise your camera will attempt to continuously change the color balance as the stage lighting colors change. That will produce a fine mess. If the stage manager wants the set lit in blue, that is what your video should look like. You may also want to manually set the gain control, if your camera has one. The gain control is what will produce grain in low light.

The one partial exception to manual settings is exposure. Lighting changes faster than you can react. However, I call it a "partial exception" because you should still use an AE gain override, if your camera has it. This is a feature that starts with whatever automatic exposure you have, but then adds or subtracts from that. To use this override, turn on the zebra settings if your camera has it. This essential feature will show you on your display what part of the frame is overexposed. When you see the zebras appear, you crank down the exposure. It is always better to be a little under-exposed than over-exposed. A slight under-exposure can be fixed; over-exposed video is unfixable and the details are gone forever. When lighting changes, you can change the AE compensation back to zero and then re-adjust, as necessary, to eliminate any zebras.

2. Figure out how to plug into the venue's soundboard. Audio is as important as video, even in a stage production. There is nothing worse than the audio you get at the back of an auditorium. It is full of echo; people's cough's always happen at the worst possible moment; someone will bring their baby who will begin to cry; the seats make an amazing amount of noise, etc. If you can get a direct feed from the soundboard, you can mix the ambient (to get applause) with the pure sound. This is even more important if anyone is speaking from the stage. These days they are often using a wireless mic, and the sound from that can be superb. Ideally you want to use manual audio settings when taping from the soundboard, but through experience I have found so many soundboard operators who massively change the volume (the DJs at weddings always crank up the volume towards the end of the evenings) that I now just put my sound recorder (I use a Zoom recorder) to auto and live with the minor issues created by the audio AGC. Make sure to bring 1/4" and XLR adapters because very few soundboards have "normal" consumer RCA or sub-miniature audio connections. Some do have RCA jacks, but most of them use 1/4" or XLR. Also, make sure to do a sound check before after you have plugged in. About half the sound board operators I've dealt with are not familiar with the line output on their board.

3. Use a fluid head on your tripod. This is a necessity. Without a fluid head, your camera will jerk side-to-side and up/down. Also, since your cameras will be on a tripod, turn off the camera's motion stabilization. If it is electronic stabilization, that degrades the picture, and if it is optical stabilization, it adds a lag to the video that will make your camera movements less precise.

4. Use the "spotlight" feature on your camcorder, if it has one. Many camcorders have a feature that will change the exposure so that it exposes for the highlights. This is extremely important in stage productions because even without a follow spot, you will still have hot spots in the lighting and, from a distance, you will find that some people on stage are so over-exposed as to be unrecognizable.

5. Have at least two cameras filming at all times. For simple productions I simply mount a second camera next to me and set it up so that it films the entire stage. That way, no matter what mistakes I make with the main camera, I know that I will never miss anything.

6. Back in the 1980s, with my original Vidicon-based camera, I had lots of problems with noise in low light. With modern cameras and normal stage lighting this should not be a problem. If you are getting noise with lighting that seems like a normal amount of light, you need to go through each and every setting on your camera and make sure you haven't turned the gain way up. Your gain setting should be on auto. If your camera has a "reset" button that sets every setting to default, I'd use that, and then start changing focus and white balance to manual.

I've done "The Nutcracker" every year since 1981, sometimes as many as three performances in a year. Here are the highlights from this year's performance (edit: I changed this to the highlights from several years ago because I just realized that YouTube no longer give HD playback to videos with fewer than 500 views. The highlights are virtually identical to what I first posted, and they will play back in much higher quality):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQaX3CZEV3o

[aedipuss]

personally i would shoot using your 70d and another HD camera and shoot everything in 1080p30. miniDV is 720x480 and never going to come anywhere close to what a 70d can produce, as long as you have the lenses to make it work. those 480p panasonics were good when tv was 480p but you can't make 480p look acceptable on a 1080p tv of today. for high school productions i use a 60d a 70d and 2 hdv camcorders. the camcorders run and record the entire production and the dslrs are used for closeups and angle shots. audio should be recorded off the mixer board or use pro mics on the cameras that run full time. set the cameras all to manual exposure, focus, audio level and white balance. adjust them to all the same approximate settings. minor differences in color can be corrected in post.

[johnmeyer]

I didn't look up the camcorder models. If they really are 720x480 cameras, you most definitely do NOT want to use those. Get a camera that can shoot some form of HD, and preferably one that has some of the manual overrides that I described.

[_Al_]

Just remember using manual focus as a main thing, remember that, practice that, do not forget that you are on manual focus , all the time, if you move your camera re-adjust focus if necessary, do not forget to re-adjust focus every time. This is the biggest think to notice, focus "hunting" by camera if set to auto-focus. At the same time though, if you forget to re-adjust manual focus and move a camera or object changes distance, you might get footage blurry all the time!, not even noticing it.

I find to practice shooting with manual focus most important because it is necessary and not forgiving as oppose other things while shooting stage performances. You are forgiven little noise, camera shake here or there (not sure why here you would use tripod) even getting not the same white balance (sure it better be consistent) but focus hunting is noticed by everyone while watching, it kind of strikes you right out of decent league. Do not forget that you are on manual focus and check if you are really recording, do not laugh here, , under stress you might think you are recording, but you might not be, not pressing record button properly.

So basically make sure you are recording and make sure that manual focus is all right. Exposure, well, if they do not change lighting you might be ok, if they do, it is the third thing to remember if going manual.
Sure if having a camera on the side and slowly panning thru ensemble, you perhaps not use manual etc.

[SameSelf]

Thanks for the reply Sameself... regarding the audio the sound engineer said he will provide me with an output from the sound board. Do you feel that will work.

I have two more dress rehearsals to test everything.

THANK YOU again. I can't tell you how much I appreciate you guys taking the time out of your busy days!

Steve

Sorry for the late response, but yes, if the soundman is nice enough to give you his recording, absolutely use that. This saves you the time-consuming headache of worrying about audio which in my opinion is just as challenging. There is nothing worse than not being able to hear anything.

You will need to sync it up in post and perhaps transcode from 44.1 to 48 kHz (maybe even rip a CD), but those are usually trivial exercises. And hopefully they are WAV files and not MP3s. Be sure to check with the soundman. If you have access to a DAW or audio effects in your NLE, I would definitely apply compression. You don't want your viewers to have to turn their volume way up over where they normally set it for other programs. And there will be lots of quiet parts that will need compression, otherwise people will be constantly straining to hear.

If you haven't lined up some camera assistants yet, I would seriously look at doing so. Also, I would work closely with the director on camera placement. You really want to be able to get up close to the actors without having to zoom. If you watch any professional stage productions, they always have close up shots. Nothing more amateur looking than a bunch of shots of the entire stage plus the audience.

Lastly, watch some well done stage productions to get some ideas. I don't know about johnmeyer's The Nutcracker videos, but a 5-star one posted on Youtube is the Mariinsky Theater's production on the EuroArtsChannel. Simply stunning and a must see. It will give you an clear idea of how a stage production should look in terms of the exposure, actors' faces, etc. And if you can achieve a similar look, you will know you have done well.