Suggestions, please

Hola, Amigos...

A friend of mine (Lori Callahan) is a stand-up comic of some reputation. She's been on Showtime and Fox and does gigs at many of the major comedy shops. She's asked me to tape a show she can use to audition for Leno. I told her I would if she did a benefit for our local schools. She has agreed, so we're going to tape the show in two weeks.

The plan is to shoot it with one stationary XL-1s, an XL-1 handheld, and a GL-1 from backstage. Aside from making sure all three cameras are white balanced the same and using the same settings, do you videophiles have any other suggestions? We're going to do a technical rehersal the night before the performance. The show will be edited on FCP 3 and dubbed to VD and VHS. Anything I should look for you guys know of?

Any hints on lighting (it'll all be overhead), audio or whatever will be appreciated. This isn't my bag and I want to get it right since we'll only
get one shot at it.

Much grass.

[Frank Granovski]

Shooting with more than 1 cam is well over my head, however, you asked about lighting, so here's a couple of suggestions.

If you don't have control of the lighting, do not point the cam into the light, unless the light points to your friend's face/body.

Make sure the cam/shooter isn't in a line of shadow.

Use a couple of good angles.

Get the faces in the crowd when they explode with laughter.

Use a warming filter for some or all close-ups.

[Josh Bass]

Here's something to look out for:

I was on a three camera shoot recently, and though we all white balanced at the same time, under the same lighting conditions, the footage had to be corrected so all sources matched. I don't have any advice on how to avoid this, but maybe someone else can point you in the right direction.

[Robert Knecht Schmidt]

Yeah, I agree with Josh. Select a camera preset for white balance (e.g. Tungsten) on all cameras and hope the XL1s match the GL1.

[Paul Sedillo]

As both Josh and Robert mentioned, it is tough to keep all cameras balanced. The shoot that Josh was refering to was a gig we did 3 weeks ago. It was shot with (2) XL1s and a GL2. One XL1s was perfect, the second XL1s was a bit dark (but usable), and the GL2 was very hot (overexposed). The club that we shot in was very dark with poor lighting.

I would suggest that you shoot some test footage if possible. We were able to shoot some, but did not have a monitor on site to check it.

My work around was to turn the piece into B&W. You can take a look at it here if interested:

http://www.image-studio.com/movies/llsong2.html

Here is a link to the thread (on DVinfo.net) that talked about the shoot:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...&threadid=4602

Post some footage after your shoot.

[John Locke]

Charles,

I'm afraid I have nothing to offer concerning multi-camera setups...but wanted to say that doing the shoot in exchange for a benefit for the school was a GREAT idea.

Hats off to ya.

Thanks, all, for the tips and suggestions.

I went over to the auditorium last night to size things up and was delighted to find the overhead lights and footlights all worked, and the sound system will give me an line-in connection to the XLR on my XL-1s.

It was also thrilling to discover my homemade warm balance cards worked as good under artificial light as they did outside.

Thanks again.

[Josh Bass]

Warm balance cards: Do tell? I always get a cold look, to my eye, when I manually white balance, so I usually leave it on auto unless under flourescents. I bought an 18% grey card, having seen that someone on here said he used them for white balancing. Definitely either did it wrong or just don't care for the results.

[B. Moore]

Just a thought about Synching all three cameras. If you look in the manual, the remote and cameras can be set to 1 or 2. if you set all the cameras to the same choice they should all be synched pretty close. 1 drawback is that you can't turn off any camera at any time or it will go out of synch. this way with eciting you'll have much more ease in synching audio with video.

The 1 stationary and 1 moving camera souldn't be any problem starting with the remote, the trick may be to get the other staionary camera in line with the remote to start, but I'm very sure you'll overcome that minor glitch.

Bruce

Josh:

I haven't tried the 18% gray, so I can't comment on its effectiveness.

The only time I use the auto white balance is when I need to shoot in a hurry, like when I'm covering a news story. For everything else when I have a moment to do so, I either white balance or (now) use the warm balance cards.

The three warm cards give me varying degrees of nicer skin tones and background color, especially for closeups. I use warm 1, and (rarely) the most intense -- warm 2. I also use 1/2 warm when I don't want the "fooling" of the camera to be quite so intense.

I use minus green and 1/2 minus green to compensate for flourescent lighting.

To make the cards I used CorelDraw and printed in "best quality" on 8 1/2 X 11 card stock, but Photoshop should do the trick, too. The color saturation values (C-Cyan, M-Magenta, Y-Yellow, K-Black) in percentages I used were:

Warm 1 -- C/15 M/2 K/5
Warm 2 -- C/20 M10 K10
1/2 Warm: C/7 M/1 K/2
Minus Green: C/10 Y/10 K/2
1/2 Minus Green: C/5 Y/5 K/1

[Paul Sedillo]

Hey Charles,

What is that great hamburger place that is in Salida? I moved from Denver many years ago, but remeber going there every so often.

You must be talking about the Alaska mushroom burger at the Poncha Springs Truckstop on Hwy 50... which went out of business last summer.

But if you get back this way, give me a jingle and we'll see if we can't find another place to clog your arteries. I understand they get clogged faster at this altitude (8,000').

[Paul Sedillo]

<<<-- Originally posted by Charles Newcomb : You must be talking about the Alaska mushroom burger at the Poncha Springs Truckstop on Hwy 50... which went out of business last summer.

But if you get back this way, give me a jingle and we'll see if we can't find another place to clog your arteries. I understand they get clogged faster at this altitude (8,000'). -->>>

Man that is a heart breaker. I'll be in Denver for Christmas. Should be there over a week. It would be great to get together.

Come on up. And bring your fishing pole. My favorite fishing spot (in town, by the way) usually doesn't freeze over and there's some nice rainbows and cutthroats in it.

This little town goes crazy at Christmas... postcard purty. Bring the family, too.

(719) 539-1706
mtnscribe@amigo.net
http://www.centralcolorado.com/newcomb

[Paul Sedillo]

<<<-- Originally posted by Charles Newcomb : Come on up. And bring your fishing pole. My favorite fishing spot (in town, by the way) usually doesn't freeze over and there's some nice rainbows and cutthroats in it.

This little town goes crazy at Christmas... postcard purty. Bring the family, too.

(719) 539-1706
mtnscribe@amigo.net
http://www.centralcolorado.com/newcomb -->>>

Excellent! I have printed the page. I am sure that my wife and kids would enjoy heading over to Salida. Fishing - I miss it. Nothing like a fresh water trout. Grew up in New Mexico and Colorado. Spent many summers in the mountains.