In about a week I will be doing a shoot for a live band performance. The band is a grateful dead cover band and there will be the full smoke machine, lights show to go along with it. We will be useing an xl2 and 2 dvx100a. My question is, would you all shoot on 24p or avoid it to get better footage in low light.

I have not done this type of recording before and will not be able to get before hand to much to do test shots.

Also, if anyone has done this type of shoot before, how do you deal with sinking the cameras? The audio will all be recorded seperatly from the board.

At this point any suggestions from seasoned band recorders would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Marcus

You must do a sound and light check. Period. Otherwise there are too many variables. If the band will not allow it, simply make them aware of the possible outcome.

Great for recording to a deck from the house board. Just remember that any non mic'd source will sound flat if everything is not mic'd. Or at least 2 field mics to get the entire response of non mic'd amps like bass etc.

Smoke machine is terrific on a well lit background, but less lit than foreground. Less is more!!

24p would be my choice, but you will quickly know once you peek at your field monitor.

As for sync, since you have on camera mics doing nothing, this will be your guide in the timeline. No big deal if they drift as each tune will become it's own edit sequence. Just don't turn the cams off once you "go".
3 sets x 3 tapes = 9 tapes. Do it that way. Tape is cheap.

Hi Mark,

I am actually editing a project right now that is very similar. Shot a local band in a local club with the XL-2. I used 24p to get 'better' low light due to the slower frame rate using the standard 1/48 shutter and 6db gain. It's also done in 16:9 mode. I am trying to get a good workflow with these settings in FCP. Just be prepared for difficult focusing with the low light conditions if you are using the standard color vf.

Good luck and let us know what you end up with and how you did it.


-gb-