3 Blind Mice @ The Battersea Barge

[Gert Kracht]

In July 2007 the band 3 Blind Mice from London played at the Battersea Barge(.com). A friend and I traveled from Hoek van Holland to Harwich by boat and from there by train to London.
The band played to nights at the Barge and we made videorecordings on both nights with a Canon XM2 and my XH-A1.
We both recorded from two fixed positions. One on the right of the podium on a tri-pod. The other was on the left of the podiom from the hand without a tri-pod. That second position was pretty hard to make recordings from, but still, I tried to make a clip from one of their songs.

I put it online here:

http://www.parallels.nl/content/Piccadilly.wmv

This was a great learning moment for us because we want to repeat the recordings in the future. Hopefully we can find a nice place for the band to play there in a private room together with a small audience and with multiple camera's, better lighting and a multitrack recorder for the sound.

If you have any tips for making recordings like this, please leave a message.

P.S. If you're wondering why the light is different in the second position: that's because the man behind the buttons pushed on 'RED' during the second night......

[Trish Kerr]

Not sure if it's an issue at my end - but the video will only load the first few seconds - then stops - and rejigs back to the beginning.

Trish

[Gert Kracht]

Hi Trish,

I don't know why that is happening at your end of the line. I just asked a guy from Belgium to check the video and he replied with: WOW and OK. (He never had seen HD video before....)

[Jim Miller]

Video loads fine for me to. No problem viewing.

[Sean Paterson]

Same here, loads fine no problems.

[Gert Kracht]

Any hints or tips for the next time? Sound ? Angle? Lighting? Camera usage? More or less zoom? Anything?
I'm curious about your opinion if you have done the same thing or have tips for the next time when we make recordings of a band.

[Trish Kerr]

Hi Gert

Got to see it all this time around. Being a musician myself and knowing what I'd want to see in a video promoting me I have a few suggestions.

You have a few things working against you on this song - one it's slow, and steady and not much variation going on and a tad too long. The other is your main singer continues to review his (I'm assuming) lyrics - and this is distracting to the viewer and showcases the fact that he hasn't memorized the song. These are things if you're promoing the musician, you need to downplay. Or choose a song he's not doing this in.

But assuming you can't choose the song, then don't show him looking down as much and ideally avoid at all costs. And with the song being so long and relaxed you need to vary the shots much more.

This is where shots of the audience could really be useful, them swaying to the groove, a sweep of the crowd. And much more close up shots of the other musicians, get right in with hands on the instruments. Also shots of the musicians interacting, etc.

And on the handheld, you have to be careful not to hang in one spot too much as you can see the slight movement and that's more distracting than if you were moving bigger with it. (in a fast song this would not be nearly as noticable) A good monopod would come in handy here. The one with the little feet. You can then move to various spots and even sit back with it and get some suprisingly steady shots.

Since your second camera was not on a tripod you might as well use it to your advantage and move around more in the space (assuming you were allowed of course) to get more dynamic movement in the shots. You captured some nice closer shots of the main acoustic guitar player and he was the most dynamic of the group. The drummer close up would have been good as well.

And needless to say this tune could have shined with cutting in actual piccadilli (sp?) street shots, people, cars, seasonal shots, tunnel shots etc (I'm thinking big picture here if you were going to actually showcase the tune as a video) This type of song is perfect for the visual narrative.

For just shooting the band in a video, the best songs are the high energy ones that will carry the tune by themselves. And the musicians can then be used dynamically to drive the beat. And of course tunes where the musician is performing an exceptionally spectacular feat with either his(her) voice or instrument. Then this becomes the visual focus.

But I think if you actually took only bits of the performance and used the other footage mentioned above this could be a great little piece.

my ten cents
Trish

[Gert Kracht]

Hi Trish,

I can see you had a good close look at the video and gave your comments according to the results.

At the Battersea Barge our space was limitid. If we did try to move we would stand in front of the fans or stumble on other things. Moving around with the camera was almost impossible. But, I'm sure we will find a good place where the band can play their music without those problems.

You can see that the artists in the back were way to far out of the light and out of range of the camera. The guitarist was behind the microphone stand, the drummer behind almost everyone and so on.

That's why we need to make a plan where we can make a nice picture of the band and their songs. The band plays various songs: quick and slow tempo. They have some beautifull songs where they all give their best performances.

This song was pretty new and indeed he peeked a lot on his papers. Those have to be gone in the future clips.

I hope to get more people with multiple camera's in the future and before we make new recordings we have to make plans. Lots of them. And yes: external shots would be nice too.

Thank you VERY much for the comments Trish!

[Gert Kracht]

The content moved to my new server @Siteground.

http://www.pas54.com/content/Piccadilly.wmv

If there are problems watching it, please let me know.