Hello all,

I’ve shot several musicals for a local theatre company as a one man band. I’ve encountered ghastly looking faces and wardrobe from certain theater lights. I was wondering if there is a way to compensate for the effects while I shoot.

Blue lights give me the most problems. In the past, the overhead blue lights ruin the colors. For the latest performance of Alice in Wonderland Jr. the front stage lights were blue. If an actor was close enough to be illuminated by them, it produced blue faces and clothes. Color correction (at least at my current skill level doesn’t totally fix the issue).

I use a Sony A7s ii as my wide frame camera and use a Sony PXW-X180 for medium and close up shots. On brightly lit shots, both cameras look about the same. The X180 seems to not like the blue more than the A7s ii.

The theater and lights are old. (How old you ask? A few minutes after the opening curtain was drawn, a large portion of the ceiling fell in a hallway to the side of the main lobby. No one was hurt as everyone was in the theater.) I’ve spoken to the stage director about the blue lights but I believe he has more important things to worry about.

I’ve included several uncorrected screen shots to illustrate what I’m talking about.

Thanks for any and all replies.

I’ve shot several musicals for a local theatre company as a one man band. I’ve encountered ghastly looking faces and wardrobe from certain theater lights. I was wondering if there is a way to compensate for the effects while I shoot.

The short answer is no.

The longer answer is that the camera is doing exactly what it's supposed to be doing, which is recording what's in front of it. The fact that the lighting is weird is a feature of the staging. It's not a mistake. This is what the people in charge of the production want it to look like, and the camera does a faithful job of capturing that look. I'm not sure what the problem is here.

If you want it to look like a Hollywood movie you have to do what Hollywood does. Which is light it for the camera instead of lighting it for the audience.

OTOH, you're up against the human eye/brain visual system, which can correct color casts on the fly, especially skin tones. So the audience doesn't see the random blue casts nearly as much as the camera does. I'm just saying that I feel your pain. But I don't know what you can do about it if you can't change the lighting.

It could be worse -- at least it's not LED lighting.

Often this is the case for the amateur productions I've committed to video and agree blue is the worst and red not far behind.
White balance set to indoor helps vs auto.
The human eye/brain interaction shows the lighting to those live in the theater what it's supposed to look like whereas the camera is not so sophisticated.
I usually have a casual chit chat with the lighting guy and tell him how the camera likes to see nice even uncolored tungsten light on people's faces and that the funky colors are good when pointed to set pieces, not faces. This usually has no effect as it's just hit and miss for these amateur production lighting people. (remember in school the kid who couldn't act or sing got to do the lighting lol)
We notice the lighting but they don't. About all we can do is nail the focus and exposure and record nice clean sound
peace

Thank you Bruce and Bruce.

This is exactly what I thought. But I know when people see the DVD they are going to say "what's wrong with that video guy?".

I'll prepare the Director and Stage director of what to expect when they see the DVD.

At least after six plays, the sound guy finally gave me good audio.

Thanks again.

John

That is LED lighting. Even worse it might be a mix of old tungsten Lecos above but the color issue is coming from the LED pars lining the front of the stage. This is more about the blue LED lights reacting to the cameras sensors than is the human brains ability to compensate for bad color shifts. When LEDS are set to their pure blue it can be worse than just a bad color look, it can record to like a smeared texture. Look at the face of the two girls in photo 5.

Those light heads are programmable. If the lighting director will work with you there is a fix. Ask him if he will add some green to the blue to get them off of the pure blue setting. It does not have to be a lot of green, they can still look blue. It needs to be just enough to get them away from that crazy LED pure blue. You can have a camera set up when he adjusts it to see the difference when it is enough and if your lucky you might both be happy. Do not trust a small viewfinder screen for this adjustment. Have a playback LCD monitor to see what is happening.

I hope this helps. I can't explain it further but I have seen this trick work. It was taught to me by a LD I know that is cool enough to work with his video guys. LED lighting from DJs plays hell with the wedding guys too. It will absolutely ruin your shots.

Kind Regards,

Steve

PS The only way you are going to avoid those blow outs in your wide shots is to expose for the brightest highlights and let the rest fall where it may. Some guys use exposure compensation in auto, others stay manual. it all depends on the stage lights and what your comfortable with. I shoot only manual. The brightest thing on stage is almost always the main subject (at least should be).

Another possible fix for part of this set IF they will work with you. Stage actors have marks to hit. This stage is clearly marked. Look at photo 5. About a two or three foot difference in placement is destroying the girl to the rear because she is taking the full beam of the uplight in the face. The girl to the front is close enough to the light that her face is above beam width.

Faces are of course most critical. You might be able to save the faces in some key scenes just by moving the "marks forward" when key actors are at stage front. I know that is a poor solution but it might look better than turning the faces of Alice in Wonderland into Alice and the Ghouls.

Steve

I experience these blue LED blowouts occasionally on my A7Sii and FS5. I believe the issue is that the color gamut of the selected camera profile sometimes isn't large enough to accurately capture the colors outside of a standard 709-based gamut. The solution for me is to shoot the show in S-Log2 and add a quick LUT-based color grade afterwards. In fact, I prefer this as it simply captures more of the dynamic range of the set. Here's something shot with the A7Sii as the CU camera in S-Log2: Das Rheingold Trailer | Minnesota Opera - YouTube

I'm not sure what the problem is here.

There definitely is a problem here, a problem of a camera not being able to display the colors accurately, I can assure you what you see on the frames that are posted is not what what you see with your own eyes at the live show.

I think Nate is right about the reason why most camera's can't deal with these kind of lights, I have Sony camera's (handycams) that can't deal with these lights at all and depending on how much blue light is used it can look horrendous with faces or clothes that look completely overexposed with no detail, even if exposure is spot on. My jvc gy ls300 however can deal with this because with a latest firmware JVC added a natural color matrix preset specifically designed to deal with blue lights and eventhough it's difficult to get accurate colors at least nothing is blown out so you have more control in post when it comes to grading.

Yes all very nasty. Once on a TV show we had to replace 2k blue gelled Tungstens with blue LEDs. We ended up using 200 watt LEDs. They drove the blue channels to the same level as blue gelled 2Ks. Unbelievable the drive out of blue LEDs. A lot of cheaper LEDs have a very high blue spike in their spectrum which tends to overdrive the blue circuits in many video cameras.

One trick some people use under the conditions is to shoot at 5600K or higher and then white balance correct in post to bring down the blue. This example was shot at 9900K on the A7S

A7S blue clipping issue fixed - YouTube

This one at 5500K

SONY A7s fix blue burn low light test - YouTube

The best I could come up with quickly trying to keep to just one correction plugin to make life easier was this. It was done using NewBlue's CF CororFast - Open FX plugin which is available for a number of NLE's. Once the blue channel is clipped this badly it's almost impossible to correct.

Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney

I noticed you will deliver on dvd. DON'T
dvd will make the lighting much worse and really negatively impact the way they view your work.
I drew the line last season. Simply saying that the video options are Blu-ray and downloaded Hidef file both 1080p and 720p versions
The dvd format which was introduced in 1994 is no longer available due to it's inability to properly display modern video on the screens people have in 2017.
dvd is like looking through a very dirty window where everything is fuzzy and colors are muted which generally looks smudged.
Many would watch the video on their phones and tablets which don't have any kind of disc capabilities. Thus downloading is the way for most people.
Sales have been unaffected and I feel much better not having my work brutalized by dvd's low resolution.

"... it might look better than turning the faces of Alice in Wonderland into Alice and the Ghouls."

Steve,

I read your last line and cracked up laughing for that is what the video looks like at times.

Thanks for the laugh and the advice. I think I'm going to copy your advice about trying to add green and send it to the stage director. I just looked at some still photos taken during the performance. While most like good, I can see the blue light effect in some of the posted photographs.

I experience these blue LED blowouts occasionally on my A7Sii and FS5. I believe the issue is that the color gamut of the selected camera profile sometimes isn't large enough to accurately capture the colors outside of a standard 709-based gamut...

Nate,

After watching your very impressive video, I sit here embarrassed by what I shot. That said, I know I'm just starting out and have learned so much just from shooting the few performances I have. I've also learned so much at DVInfo from so many who are willing to share like you do.

I will shoot in S-Log2 next time and see how that works out.

Thanks, John

The best I could come up with quickly trying to keep to just one correction plugin to make life easier was this. It was done using NewBlue's CF CororFast - Open FX plugin which is available for a number of NLE's. Once the blue channel is clipped this badly it's almost impossible to correct.

Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney

Chris,

Thank you for the suggestion to shoot at 5500k. I know I had set my cameras much lower that that. Thanks even more for the example video. It was very, very informative and helpful.

John

There definitely is a problem here...

Yes there is! However, after reading the replies, I now know there are things I can do on my end to improve the end product.

John

I noticed you will deliver on dvd... DON'T


Bruce,

I definitely agree that the DVDs are too fuzzy.

I shoot the videos for a community theater company and sell the DVDs to interested actors/parents/grandparents. That is the only way I make a little money (very little) for all the time and effort I put in. Of greater value to me is the skills I've learned doing these shoots and making the DVDs.

My first performance DVD (one camera) created last year took me about 40 hours to film, edit, and create the DVDs. For my latest one, I shot two performances with two cameras in one day, edited and exported the video in under a day and then created and packaged up the DVDs in under two hours. I'm impressed with myself only because I now know more and I'm more efficient.

I will definitely look into doing online delivery (although I have the equipment to do Blu-ray). That would allow the customer to pay less overall which could also give me more sales.

John

I noticed you will deliver on dvd. DON'T
dvd will make the lighting much worse and really negatively impact the way they view your work.
I drew the line last season. Simply saying that the video options are Blu-ray and downloaded Hidef file both 1080p and 720p versions
The dvd format which was introduced in 1994 is no longer available due to it's inability to properly display modern video on the screens people have in 2017.
dvd is like looking through a very dirty window where everything is fuzzy and colors are muted which generally looks smudged.
Many would watch the video on their phones and tablets which don't have any kind of disc capabilities. Thus downloading is the way for most people.
Sales have been unaffected and I feel much better not having my work brutalized by dvd's low resolution.

Wow "noticed you will deliver on dvd. DON'T" I'm not sure if this is an artists advice or coming from someone who does not understand consumer usage and good business practices but I can tell you DVDs are not dead. Blu-Ray never caught on the way it should have. Ironically, some of the same consumers who skipped Blu-Ray when they went HD are now hooking that same DVD player up to their new 4K TV.

In my business I deliver products my clients want. I do not dictate to the client.


"Sales have been unaffected and I feel much better not having my work brutalized by dvd's low resolution" I can deliver in any format or tech my clients need. The last time I authored DVDs (last year) I made over $20,000.00 on that gig. Finished DVDs were the only format delivered. I would be more than happy to be brutalized like that again tomorrow.

New tech comes on quickly, old consumer hardware dies slowly.

Kind Regards,

Steve

My business is set almost exclusively in theatre where we do the production. I always sig reading these topics, because my responsibility is for the production, and tempering the individual components is my role.

First thing - the lighting for that show, as detailed in the images is very good. It is categorically NOT terrible, and if I was the lighting designer, who probably spent many weeks designing sourcing, focussing and programming the show - having the work categorised as terrible is an insult, and clearly not an appropriate word.

In the theatre world, there is no rule, guideline or insistence that faces must be white. Indeed, since the 1920s, it has been common practice to use colour to set mood - it is drama, after all. The American Lighting Designer who's techniques have been studied and developed over many years, Stanley McCandless set into place the concept of the perfect lighting angle being 45 degrees either side of the centre line, ideally looking down at 45 degrees, and having a cooler colour on ones side (blue) and warmer on the other (pink). The wardrobe department consult with lighting at a very early stage, because the lighting impacts on the costume, and some costume choices won't work with the wrong lighting. This is all planned before the show arrives at the theatre.

There is one vital question that needs to be put to the director. Is the show being lit for the audience, or the video. Doing both compromises both!

If you contact an professional LD, or have a good amateur one for an amateur show, it is not something you can then change when a video person turns up on the day. It's common for the lighting programming to be done through the night when the place is empty, because it takes time. If the video people are present during the programming and supply the LD with a monitor, then it can be used to check the cameras, which are terrible at dealing with colour, can at least cope. If you had spent time preparing for a shoot, selecting the correct camera, organising the position it will be in, making sure audio and power were made available, and practicing those tricky shots with the cast late at night, you would be furious if on the day, somebody moved a piece of large scenery right in front of your camera position, or cut the scene you practiced and inserted a new one you'd not seen before - yet, time and time again, video people swan in and demand, rarely even ask for, changes to be made. I've even had them turn up after the audience are coming in, and ask for these changes that late.

If a director tells me the camera is more important EARLY in production, then we set everything to be camera friendly, even if to the audience it looks odd. On the day is just not on. However - this happens so much nowadays because LED lighting is sweeping through theatre at a speedy rate.

For the first time, lighting designers can light the stage with solid bright monochromatic blue. In the past, the only deep blue (Congo 181) stopped 99% of the light, so a blue stage would be almost impossible. Now it's easy and looks stunning. The cameras, especially Sony's, cannot deal with this at all. All shades of pink - as in Blue added to Red are just pink to the camera, but not the eye. Solid blue looks out of focus, and red can be very sparkly. These are deficiencies in the camera and very little can be done to fix it, because LED lighting is not continuous - red light contains NO blue or green - doing to with tungsten and gels produces gentler curves, LED just vanishes at a specific frequency.

There is NO white balance possible in theatres because even if they put a state up that is tungsten white (3000K) that is not what is used in the scenes. Personally, we tend to set 3000, or 3200 on all cameras and that's close enough. We rarely use a blue CT, as in 5000K or above because it tends to emphasise the predominance of the blue - it's bright enough before, so why emphasise it. Theatre is not TV, faces might well be meant to be pink, or blue, or if the show is Wicked, green!

Lighting Designers will usually be happy with making compromises to their work if it's done when they are at that stage - but expect extreme resistance at the last minute. It is NOT possible, despite what you hear, to change hundreds of cues without doing them individually and then updating them. On my lighting desks, it is possible to go into the patch and make global reduction is brightness, but it is NOT possible with colour mixing.

The idea to add green just doesn't fly. adding green in RGB, RGBW, RGBWA fixtures is unpredictable, and if there are many hundreds of cues, it's not possible. Going behind the LDs back and asking the director is also going to produce dug in heels. This should have been done during the planning phases, nowhere near the theatre.

It really is like asking your cameraman to underexpose every shot by 2 stops. It's crude, ineffective and mechanical. If your non technical director came to you, the cameraman and asked you to do this as a blanket instruction how would you feel.

Remember that in the theatre AND video world, you stand by your visible work. If it says Lighting design - John Smith, and the lighting is horrible because you, the cameraman who isn't even in the programme demanded the lovingly created states are changed for perhaps just one show - is that really on.

I work with big name lighting designers a lot - and many are close friends, and there is no way I'd pass on a last minute request from a cameraman annoyed at the colour choices. Indeed, the professional designers have a very strong union and wouldn't stand for it - you pay them to do their job.

TV lighting designers are absolutely different. This is such a common question, and the lighting people always get the blame.

I'll say it again - those photos are not remotely terrible!

I agree Paul. All my hobby is theatre shoots and I do not mention the lighting as that is my job to record what is presented. There are big differences in camera performance and that is why I normally use 4 cameras to not only have different framing of the stage but different technology for the lighting and exposure. Older 3 chip Sony , newer 1/3 and 1" Sony and the GH5 Panasonic as they all have different responses. For most of my Sony's I set WB at indoor preset as with LED lights it is pointless to white balance for any scene as it changes by scene with LED lights deliberately to match the mood. In a scene a purple dress can be anywhere from blue to red on the cameras !!! My wife and I try to remember the colour and that is how I have got far more interested in Resolve !!!

As to delivery DVD is what is needed by most a few Bluray. I will move to HDR of the full stage as an archive though.

Most of my clients specify that they want full HD recording quality, then they specify delivery on a DVD. I bought a DVD burner years ago, and to date, not one client has asked for one! I deliver on USB sticks whenever I can, but so strange nobody actually seems to want real HD? One client recently asked if I could shoot in 4K. I said, well I could, but what would he be playing it on ...... No guesses?

Lighting is what I started doing in the seventies, video and audio came later. It still annoys me that people seem to genuinely believe lighting is applied almost randomly, when it's in my experience, well planned no matter the budget. Video, sadly, is unplanned in theatres, with many in my experience arriving totally green with no idea what is going on, or without even knowing the theatre's layout.

Most of my clients specify that they want full HD recording quality, then they specify delivery on a DVD. I bought a DVD burner years ago, and to date, not one client has asked for one! I deliver on USB sticks whenever I can, but so strange nobody actually seems to want real HD? One client recently asked if I could shoot in 4K. I said, well I could, but what would he be playing it on ...... No guesses?

Lighting is what I started doing in the seventies, video and audio came later. It still annoys me that people seem to genuinely believe lighting is applied almost randomly, when it's in my experience, well planned no matter the budget. Video, sadly, is unplanned in theatres, with many in my experience arriving totally green with no idea what is going on, or without even knowing the theatre's layout.

I am laughing because I figured a post like that was coming from Paul. He is correct and I agree with him. He always knows what he is talking about. Over the years I have placed several posts in the audio section that sounded almost the same except they were about video guys showing up 30 minutes before one of my shows kicks off and demands an audio feed from my A1. It is probably NOT going to happen! If you need cooperation from all of the specialists it takes to pull off a show then be there when you should be there.

With that said it is a big world out there and the size and scope of a "show" varies. I would not ask a LD to change his color mix after extensive programing either. But I stand behind my suggestion that LEDs can be mixed away from their extreme blue with some green to avoid the extreme effect of the blue. I think it is a valid statement even if it may apply mostly to smaller events where changes can be made (with proper planning) and not effect hundreds of cues. It does work. Not everyone on this forum works on shows where, unfortunately, we sometimes are up for 24 hours straight before the kick off.

Kind Regards,

Steve

Wow "noticed you will deliver on dvd. DON'T" I'm not sure if this is an artists advice or coming from someone who does not understand consumer usage and good business practices but I can tell you DVDs are not dead. Blu-Ray never caught on the way it should have. Ironically, some of the same consumers who skipped Blu-Ray when they went HD are now hooking that same DVD player up to their new 4K TV.

In my business I deliver products my clients want. I do not dictate to the client.


"Sales have been unaffected and I feel much better not having my work brutalized by dvd's low resolution" I can deliver in any format or tech my clients need. The last time I authored DVDs (last year) I made over $20,000.00 on that gig. Finished DVDs were the only format delivered. I would be more than happy to be brutalized like that again tomorrow.

New tech comes on quickly, old consumer hardware dies slowly.

Kind Regards,

Steve
Well the op is starting a business thus must put his best foot forward and dvd delivery is not going to garner a reputation for quality work no matter how good everything else is.
btw I'm not appreciative of the rudeness of your tone re my post. but I suppose given that I don't understand consumer usage and good business practices I may also have misunderstood .

Well the op is starting a business thus must put his best foot forward and dvd delivery is not going to garner a reputation for quality work no matter how good everything else is.
btw I'm not appreciative of the rudeness of your tone re my post. but I suppose given that I don't understand consumer usage and good business practices I may also have misunderstood .

Is it possible to make menus with links, similar to a DVD, if you deliver files for download or on memory sticks?

Bruce,

Yes my reply was a little salty. I won't apologise for it but I will explain. I read your own strongly worded reply to the OP as saying "DON"T", you also said you "draw lines with clients". To me, that is bad advice and bad business. You stated you are happier "not seeing your work brutalised by DVD". To me that implied artist in the arrogant sense of the term.

I joined this forum in 2002. In that time I have seen more guys than I can possibly remember come around here when starting out in this business. Most of them are gone and did not make it. In my OPINION, because of my experience watching other men/women I personally know, that failed, they failed because of the business side of their operation. It was not the quality of the shooting that failed them. Content is NOT king if you do not know how to run a customer service centered business. Anyone who places unreasonable demands on clients will eventually fail.

When a client calls me and says "can you do this" my answer is always yes. Therefor my clients are loyal. I have heard many horror stories from some of them about what it was like to try and do business with other so called video professionals. It blows my mind. But it is OK. Guys like me pick up the pieces at our higher rates.

So when I hear someone telling a new guy to not serve his clients needs I sometimes get on my snarky box with a bullhorn. The quality of a professional video someone charged money to make needs to meet a professional standard. The professionalism with which they operated in the process will determine their own future in this business.

Steve

I too go way back on the forum and add that to a previous 40yr career in broadcasting.

Sorry but the dvd format of 480p is dead whether you want to agree or not.

The clients depend on us to tell them what they need and continuing to foist that ridiculously crappy dvd on them is irresponsible. Just explain to them how they can get nice beautiful clear video of their productions. They have the gear to play it and expect the video we provide to be at least as good as what they watch on tv. So imagine how disappointed they are when they watch a dvd of their performance.. "What's wrong with that video" they ask out loud. They just don't know what to ask for so they say dvd

I see you point but a good DVD, played back through an upscaling player to a HD TV is very good and close to Bluray. I can tell the difference between my DVD and Bluray played back through the same system but at least my wife needs to have the differences pointed out. Detail in large areas of colour etc. Until file based delivery has good menus like DVD or Bluray then it is like giving someone a high quality VHS tape. They then have to fast forward realtime to find the spot they like or note the time on their player where they want to watch or show a visitor. For those bothered about copying, a file is easy to copy and edit too. Also there are users who find it difficult to deal with files. Those that find email a challenge. It is easy to put a disc in a player. To use a file one needs a modern TV with USB or card slot or a PC of some sort. The file of course has to be delivered some how. Download ( good internet access ) or hardware like SD card or USB drive. No nice archive package with sleeve etc that I know is valued by the users. I feel the package and menu structure are important and will keep me with DVD and Bluray until something equivalent appears.

I have been filming and editing since 1983 and 90% of our current work over the last few years has been filming weddings and school productions in the UK.

I would never give our few commercial clients their end product on dvd, but when it comes to weddings and schools, that is a totally different market. BluRay has never been big in the UK and by far the most accessible and universally available replay format is still DVD. There is nothing that approaches it for convenience and the fact that just about everyone has a dvd player somewhere.

As a producer, I film in 4k and HD and it is always frustrating to supply a dvd knowing that the quality is so much less than I could supply. Our weddings are always delivered on both DVD and in HD on a usb stick, but I am still surprised at the number of clients whose tvs will not recognise a usb stick. When we visit our clients to show them our work, we take a portable drive with about 50 weddings on, a usb stick with a couple more and a number of dvds just in case. Frequently, the only way they can view is from dvd. This week I visited a potential client who had a non usb tv and they commented on how sharp the image was whilst watching from dvd. As has been said, upscaling to a modern tv can look very good and it is also worth bearing in mind that a very large number of tv channels are broadcasting programmes in a quality that is nowhere near what I see from upscaled dvd, but people are used to seeing lower quality.

Most domestic users are viewing high quality by downloading or Netflix etc, but downloading a 2 hour wedding video or school production on most UK broadband is not really practical, so dvd stays as a viable, cheap and popular alternative. There is no viable universal alternative for small businesses like ours working with domestic consumers. As the months and years move on, tv viewing has changed enormously with less and less people buying dvd players as they can now watch their favourite films and programmes through any number of streaming and catchup services. This has meant a gradual reduction in the dvd take up from our school productions without any easily saleable alternative. Our wedding clients though always opt for the option of dvds with their package to enable them to share it more easily with family and friends and we would consider it a failing of our service if we no longer offered it. The other positive side of supplying a dvd is that the client has something feely touchy in a nice package to show for their money.

If someone can let me know how I can supply up to 2 hours of 4K content to all my domestic clients that they can instantly share with everyone including Gran and Grandad, I'll be glad to hear it :-)

Roger

I think it's good stuff really - My current role in productions is either production manager, company manager or something similar, and I seem to spend my time trying to balance the needs of all the different participants, who all proclaim fairness and balance, and then try to nobble me to swing my decision to their specialism. Sound have what we term "quiet time" - it;s specific time built into the production when it's quiet so they can do their fine tuning, without people shouting or using power tools. Lights need darkness - and every time it's their time and it goes dark, the others yell "I can't see". The one I'm preparing now has 3D video. This means screens, alignment time each day, and worse still - a pressganged member of the crew to keep it going, and oddly, nobody wants to do video. I quite understand that somebody who specialises in shooting video naturally believes their discipline is higher up the importance tree, but people do need to realise that simple assumptions on how easy it is to change things on the spur of the moment might not actually be practical, and people aren't just being awkward. In theatres, the problem is really that video is always last minute as it's never incorporated into the planning - if it is, things go much better. Video people do turn up and request things. Last week, during the afternoon before the first show, lights and sound were talking about it. Are we doing a video for this one? No idea. If we are, whats the betting they stroll in just before we take our first break all day - our one hour where we can do food? Yep - they all said, and they were right. Sound had predicted the request for audio, and had the cables plugged in, just in case. Lighting had cleared away a space in the followspot box, on the centre line, with a perfect view of the stage. Cue the video people arriving - two of them. The crew were just about to go and do food, but I stayed behind and let them break. I showed them the ladder that had been left down for them. They looked up. They looked at the pile of boxes and bags, and said they wouldn't use the followspot box as "they weren't insured". They started to set up. I pointed out that it was quite likely members of the public would walk in front. It will be fine, they said. I waited for the request for sound, but didn't offer it after the slap down with the ladder. I went for food. We came back early after 45 mins - this would be about 6.30, our first break since starting work at 9am on rehearsal. We need a sound feed. (no please). Fine I said, here you are - 2 XLRs left and right output from the desk. We played a track, they set the level, and then they started letting the audience in. At the interval, they complained the level had gone up. It had - during the first half, the audience were joining in and whooping and clapping, so we pushed the levels to get the music over the noise - their level went up, and the sound op really had his hands full. 140 lighting cues, up to ten per track, sound calling out 30 secs, to run, 10 secs to run - or whatever was needed during the track so stage management could cue fly cues that needed standbys - he had 6 radio mics to balance too - so he was a busy man. Too busy to notice that the feed to the video was creeping up in level. At the end, he got grumpy comments about how HE'D ruined the sound by not monitoring it. He patiently told the video guy that he was being paid to provide sound for the audience and the cast. The audio feed he provided to the video people was a courtesy, and free. If they wished to have it monitored and balanced for them, then they should have brought a sound op of their own. Next time, they might find the desk doesn't have any spare outputs.

It's a team effort, and is planned properly - with the exception of the video. My email details and phone number are always available on request, yet I have only ever had one phone call from a video business asking in advance if they could do this, or have that - once since 1984!

If I do video work in other people's theatres I always contact them and ask if things are possible, and usually they are.

Thinking back, the funniest (from my perspective) was one show where a video crew arrived with no notice, and 20 minutes in, we had a UV scene - the one where the stage goes black, the UV lights make lions, tigers, fish and ghosts appear, controlled on sticks, ropes and held in the hands of black clad actors. Looks brilliant. Half way through the scene, the video camera guy turned on his camera floodlight - revealing all the actors, and spoiling the thing for 500 kids! In the interval, I gave him a real bollocking - and told him if he wrecked the one in the second half, he would be out, and I'd make sure his company never got another commision from us. The production company get a report from me about each show, and usually all is fine in them. This one contained something like "The video company ruined the UV scene by turning on a light and revealing the cast and the magic urn trick to the audience". I never saw that company used again.

Sadly, we have come to live with bad video attitudes - they're rarely members of the team, they never ask the right questions and hate taking advice.

I mentioned they didn't want to use the followspot box. In the second half, they had to move because about 20 people walked in late and stood at the back to watch - and refused to move out of the cameras way. We did tell them.......

There are of course decent and professional video people who do theatre shows. The sad thing is that we don't see them very often.

Gentleman,

It looks like I help create some spirited discussions from my original post. I thank you all for your input.

Paul, I need to apologize for my use of the word "terrible" in my title. I should have made it clear I was referring to the terrible video result from my camera. The local theater company I work with is composed of many talented and hard working people. The set designer does a fantastic job with the set, costumes and make-up. I believe this is very evident from the wide angle shots in my original post. I know lighting plays an important role as part of the performance. What I'm working on with my limited experience is to capture as much high quality video as possible.

I've learned so much by doing these plays during the past year and a half. My filming and editing skills are greatly improved. I'm much more efficient and faster. I'm definitely not making much money at it as I agreed with the director just to earn proceeds from DVD sales. I know they are not in it for the money either. They just hope to make enough money per show to finance the next one. (I know the company's director as she worked at my film school (as well as being a former Radio City Music Hall Rocket)). And I feel part of their theater family. I know my ability to earn good money will came later.

In the past I made at least one full rehearsal. I'll go to the next one and try different camera settings to see what may work best.

I've included below a highlight reel of "The Music Man" performance I filmed last year. This one didn't have as much blue light as the one I just did but it presented it own challenges which I learned from.

Thanks again for all your great feedback.

John

https://youtu.be/BdvWXIdmmC0

It's fine - just something that always sends me off on one! Here's a picture from about 3 years ago - taken from a gopro sitting centre stage, with everything lit in blue - blue LED washes, blue LED effects stuff and not a scrap of white or any other colour, and this scene had about ten lighting cues shifting the blue around the stage. The BBC's Sony's couldn't cope with this at all. Oddly, the Gopro camera wasn't too unhappy at all. The Lighting Designer would have not changed these cues for any reason I suspect because they took over an hour to do for just a few lines of dialogue with one person and a puppet!
http://www.limelight.org.uk/blue.png

Thank you Paul for your example.

Here are two screen shots of the same moment when the stage lights went primarily blue. One is even more extreme than the one you shared. This is what I was trying to avoid.

John

Ah - you discovered the other problem/benefit. The LED blue makes things fluoresce - the blue content extends into the UV area, so unexpected things happen with fabrics and paint. We have a scenic painter who comes at the last stages of rehearsal and touches up the scenery and large props that frequently suffer from the trucking process, and one lovely old fella is very old school, and amazingly talented - unfortunately, they paint in white light, and one of his colours in his touch up kit fluoresced - so as soon as the lights went blue, all his splodges and twists lit up like this!

That's not a camera issue at all, it's one of the hazards of the Blue - and they've even done it on purpose now they know, they've added an extra LED emitter that deliberately adds the UV-A end of the spectrum, making this 'feature' worse. I do lots of dance school shows and when parents source their own material because it's cheaper, their kids often stand out, as the selected fabric that might be expensive does or doesn't fluoresce, but the cheaper alternative is different, but often exactly the same colour in white light.

This has been a sometimes heated but interesting thread. Thank you to all the contributors, I have learned a lot.

I agree with all Paul R has said as I mainly do lighting and I have also just started doing video work as well.

I have come across what Paul has said as in people who do videoing coming up to me asking why do I use so much blue light as is mess up there video at the end of a show. They also say that they will be back tomorrow night to video again and can I use less blue on the blue scens. They get an answer of "Are you willing to pay me for 4 hours of work to change the ques which will cost you €400" or "Lean how to use their camera better" and the look on their face is great.

Doing lighting or videoing shows there is one person who I hate is photographers and when its stated at the start of the night in the safety announcement "no camera flash to be used" We have also tryed putting it on the doors.

Thank you again Paul for your insight. I'm going to share what you wrote with the director and manager along with my last two example pictures. It is too much to ask for them to change their lighting just for the video. However, I do want them to know of the issues the blue light causes. More so if they get questions from parents as to why certain scenes from the video turned out the way they did.

Thanks again.

John

Here are two screen shots of the same moment when the stage lights went primarily blue. One is even more extreme than the one you shared. This is what I was trying to avoid.

But you can't avoid it. The camera can only record the light that's there. If there's no green or red light reflecting off the faces (or anything else), there's nothing for the green and red photoreceptors to record. You can tell the camera to show you more green and red, but twice nothing is still nothing.

That's just the laws of physics talking to ya.

Under less extreme lighting, the human eye/brain visual system can make things up, see what's not there, fill in some of the blanks. It knows that's a human face, it knows what skin tone looks like, and it can see skin tone when there's no skin tone present.

But a camera is not a human visual system. Not even close.

I have come across what Paul has said as in people who do videoing coming up to me asking why do I use so much blue light as is mess up there video at the end of a show. They also say that they will be back tomorrow night to video again and can I use less blue on the blue scens.

The problem is if you as a videographer have to ask a light technician to change the light to a more video friendly color just before a performance it's already too late because, like you said, everything has been dialed in per request of the client. The client only thinks about the mood the light creates and they are not aware about the problems it creates for film.

That's why as videographer you should be involved during the earlier stages of preparation and it's up to the client to determine if the film is important enough to make the necessary changes in the light set up.

Hi Noa,

I know where you are coming from. I find that a lot of videographers do not have respect for the Lighing technicians at all as we sometime have to spend more hour in school halls, local halls and theatres plotting the scenes and we generally in before any one else to make sure all is working and if not go up in to the rig and replace any thing thats not. I do my best to think ahead when doing the lighting for plays and take in to account that it may be videoed.

Alot of the time I am give the script at the first rehersal which is also the day that we setup on and do not have much time to go thought the script then and then. When this happens I tend to wash the stage with colour from over head onstage and keep white light from the front. I do use a lot of led lights now as RGB as they make it easy to get colours on stage than having to try and gel lights.

I also see it from the video side as I have a good friend who does a lot of the school plays I light and now that I do videoing as well I can see the problem with the camera sees light.

I do have sony cameras the main one is a Z5. If I am videoing a play and always there about an hour before the doors open and I have the camera setup and I would ask the Lighting tech to show me a scene that he uses alot of blue so I know what the camera is going to do. If its very blue, I would get him to light the stage before the play with the blue at 50% and the main white light at 30 to 50% as well and put a white A4 pice of paper on stage where is got both lights shining on it and then set a use defind white balance on that. which then is set to one of my assined buttons so I can go to it in that scene and switch back to my main wite balance.

That is LED lighting. Even worse it might be a mix of old tungsten Lecos above but the color issue is coming from the LED pars lining the front of the stage. This is more about the blue LED lights reacting to the cameras sensors than is the human brains ability to compensate for bad color shifts.

Those light heads are programmable. If the lighting director will work with you there is a fix. Ask him if he will add some green to the blue to get them off of the pure blue setting. It does not have to be a lot of green, they can still look blue.

In my experience that is indeed an issue primarily with the very popular LED lights everyone is using. I was just recording a major award show in NYC (no amateur lighting folks) and we have the same problem there every year. I looked on the vector scope on my camera, and you can see the saturation/chroma go way past the limit in the respective colors. Which is why it looks so awful afterwards.

With some experimentation you could probably modify the camera profiles / matrix to pull chroma back into legal range during recording, but it would require more time to dial in than we are typically afforded during setup in a fast paced environment.

The other option you have in post on an advanced video editor, is to pull in saturation. You could use a chroma clamp effect, or in Resolve use the Sat/Sat curve to tame the most saturated elements of the shot. I generally do the latter to make it usable.

But as Steven said, if they mixed in some other color channels ever so slightly it wouldn't change the look, but would eliminate the saturation and driving your camera past the limit. Saturation mathematically is the distance between the most dominant chroma signal and the next signal after that. By adding in the other channels, that distances gets reduced, without eliminating the overall look in perceptual ways for most folks.

I think the reason the LED lights are so bad, is because other than old stage lighting that started full spectrum and then filtered for a specific color, LEDs start out with pure RGB and thus make it too easy to drive a single color channel, vs. the subtractive filter which always left a range. Thus LED lights usually being maxed out on saturation compared to what we're used to.