Broadcast Cameras for Church

Andrew Smith · August 12th, 2018, 07:48 AM

This is more what I was thinking about. Granted, given that he moves about a bit, I otherwise totally agree with your choice.

Andrew

Pete Cofrancesco · August 13th, 2018, 06:37 PM

As far as LED lights go the professional spotlights or fresnels are very expensive ($800+), you could also get general purposes led lights for a fraction of the price at your local home improvement store. They’re selling now the long florescent led replacement that could be good for general flat lighting that is best for video. The problem you’ll find is how to safely install them especially if it’s a high ceiling.

David Peterson · August 14th, 2018, 09:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Smith

This is more what I was thinking about. Granted, given that he moves about a bit, I otherwise totally agree with your choice.

If he is moving around a lot then it is tough indeed to go any tighter at all, especially if all the cameras are unmanned as the OP indicates.

But if you have a skilled operator then it should be easy enough to go even tighter.

Owen Dawe · August 14th, 2018, 11:36 PM

Hello Brock,

Thank you. I had been thinking I was a bit tough in my remarks. Thank you for taking it in the manner I hoped you would.

As far as lighting goes LED is the way the industry is on track. It's much cooler than tungsten The cheaper LED as suggested by Pete. They all need to be the same so the colour temperature matches.

Can you put the word out among your congregation that you are looking for camera operators. Some cameras locked off on a tripod, but to lift your production to a new level you can't beat having camera operators.

As you have four cameras I suggest you have two camera in a central position. One locked off wide, the entire stage and peoples heads in the front row. The other central camera on a close follow, say from the elbows up which needs a operator. One camera each on left and right stage from a front angle. Covering the pastor on a full figure frame. Preferably manned. So when the pastor is centre stage catch him on a close follow. Then when he moves to either left or right cut to the camera he is walking towards. Hopefully the close follow can keep up, as soon as you have a stable close shot cut to it. You always have your rear wide shot as a fallback shot you can cut to any time to get out of any trouble. Always have a shot of the pastor walking towards a camera, not away from it. This is always where your wide locked off shot comes in. If you stick to an easy formula soon both you and your camera crew will fall into an easy rhythm. You'll end up with a pretty polished show.

A good example of a large area and a pastors that move about is on SBN. Jimmy Swaggart's set up. Putting theology aside for a moment you will see a very polished professional production that is easy to watch. Answers with Bayless Conley is another. These pastors have huge budgets and professional crew but you will be amazed with what you can do.

With audio always get a direct feed off the pastors radio mike. Not one that comes through the house audio system.

Now for the hard bit. Broadcast tv/video has different requirements for both audio and lighting. You are going to walk a tight rope as I have seen quite a bit of friction in my time between the TV crew and the house crew. You can handle it. TV seems to bring out the worst in people!

All the best with your venture. You are amazing. I'm sure you and your pastor are doing a great job. Be encouraged.

Brock Burwell · January 3rd, 2019, 03:16 PM

Sorry I'm just now getting back and responding on this

We've been working the last few months to make things better and while it doesn't seem like much, it's been better.

We added new shotgun mics at the front pointing to the crowd. We used to get almost no crowd noise so if the crowd was clapping and the pastor stopped to let them finish, it would simply look like he stopped speaking and nothing was happening. That has been addressed.

I guess I could ask this question - the old media director had the cameras shooting 60fps and then streaming at 30fps. This had me confused and wondering if that was standard in live streaming. I'm used to shooting my own footage and delivering so I simply changed all the cameras to 30fps so I can brighten everything up a bit. I wouldn't imagine anything would change that much, but perhaps I'm missing something

Our lighting hasn't changed much, but I'm moving in the right direction. I finally got around to messing with the cameras and apertures were all over the place - so I fixed that and brightened everything up.

We still have an issue where the light on the singers is great, but the moment one of them steps forward to the podium, they become really over exposed. I'm trying to get that issue fixed this week. I'd love to move all the lights back so they didn't hit our singers and speakers at such a sharp angle, but we will see if that happens.

Thanks everyone for the encouragement! I'll keep on keeping on

Andrew Smith · January 3rd, 2019, 10:29 PM

Wowza. Going from 60fps to 30fps would have to be the simplest and cheapest upgrade ever, allowing a slower shutter speed and therefore more light capture for each frame of video. Yup, that's an excellent improvement.

As far as I am aware, streaming at 60fps (if your encoder etc allows it) would be fairly niche and next to nobody at the receiving end would ever notice or even appreciate it. For your operation 30fps is the way to go.

Would be interested to see an updated example of footage you are recording.

Andrew

Ron Evans · January 4th, 2019, 07:13 AM

If you follow the 180 rule then 30fps would need 1/60 shutter and necessary for the slow frame rate. Shutter at 1/60 would also be fine for 60P but you would get twice as many frames for movement when you went to 30P the motion blur would be the same as shooting at 30P. I shoot 60P all the time with 1/60 shutter in the theatre.

Paul R Johnson · January 5th, 2019, 12:41 PM

I re-read this and decided that the actual religious element was actually irrelevant. You want excellent, broadcast quality images from subjects that are not trained, In a building poorly suited in terms of acoustics and lighting, plus you have perfectly good cameras that are abandoned and suffer from under or over exposure, and worst of all, in the hands of non-camera people. This ALWAYS means they zoom out to have too work less at focus and movement. You want the equipment to run itself. No proper director or engineers, camera people or sound facilities. You cannot throw money at a project and forget the humans. A place near me has hundreds of thousands investigated in a superb installation. Yet no camera operators, just fixed position, or joystick controlled cams, and one on a cheap pan head within grips of the person mixing. They have wonderful lighting in bucketloads, and a reactive engineer, not a pro-active camereman. People who move mean cameras that move, with focus that changes smoothly and apertures that can react correctly to over exposure or deliberate wrong exposure for effect.

Mics on the audience? Fine if somebody can ride the faders, but if they're left up, then it messes up the clarity. Shotguns are also risky. What happens if the worst singers sit in the 'beam' and the better singers don't?

Good video requires people, and skilled trained people at that. A good director can talk a novice crew through a show. Amateurs doing best guess camerawork can result in every shot available being rubbish.

Who cares if it's SD, HD, SDI or IP delivered? All that matters is quality. That is what gives the game away. Remember that with our wonderful TV sets at home, much of the output we enjoy so much are re-runs of SD material. The BBC here still get excellent viewing figures for 4:3 SD from the 70s/80s. They still look like broadcast because they had sharp focus, steady cameras and decent audio. 4K wobblycam with awful but high quality sound just don't cut it in the professionalism stakes.

Pete Cofrancesco · January 6th, 2019, 09:48 AM

I agree with what you said. I think people want an easy solution aka buy a newer camera instead of all the things you mentioned. In a scenario like this all you can do is identify the weakest parts and try to improve them. It will yield a better result but not professional one you see on tv. Add some lights...

It’s hard to get around the problems of unmanned video and audio and unskilled operators.

August 12th, 2018, 07:48 AM	#31
Andrew Smith Equal Opportunity Offender Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Brisbane, Australia Posts: 3,066	Re: Broadcast Cameras for Church This is more what I was thinking about. Granted, given that he moves about a bit, I otherwise totally agree with your choice. Andrew Attached Thumbnails

August 13th, 2018, 06:37 PM	#32
Pete Cofrancesco Inner Circle Join Date: May 2004 Location: USA Posts: 3,005	Re: Broadcast Cameras for Church As far as LED lights go the professional spotlights or fresnels are very expensive ($800+), you could also get general purposes led lights for a fraction of the price at your local home improvement store. They’re selling now the long florescent led replacement that could be good for general flat lighting that is best for video. The problem you’ll find is how to safely install them especially if it’s a high ceiling.

August 14th, 2018, 11:36 PM	#34
Owen Dawe Major Player Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Lake Tarawera, Rotorua, New Zealand Posts: 244	Re: Broadcast Cameras for Church Hello Brock, Thank you. I had been thinking I was a bit tough in my remarks. Thank you for taking it in the manner I hoped you would. As far as lighting goes LED is the way the industry is on track. It's much cooler than tungsten The cheaper LED as suggested by Pete. They all need to be the same so the colour temperature matches. Can you put the word out among your congregation that you are looking for camera operators. Some cameras locked off on a tripod, but to lift your production to a new level you can't beat having camera operators. As you have four cameras I suggest you have two camera in a central position. One locked off wide, the entire stage and peoples heads in the front row. The other central camera on a close follow, say from the elbows up which needs a operator. One camera each on left and right stage from a front angle. Covering the pastor on a full figure frame. Preferably manned. So when the pastor is centre stage catch him on a close follow. Then when he moves to either left or right cut to the camera he is walking towards. Hopefully the close follow can keep up, as soon as you have a stable close shot cut to it. You always have your rear wide shot as a fallback shot you can cut to any time to get out of any trouble. Always have a shot of the pastor walking towards a camera, not away from it. This is always where your wide locked off shot comes in. If you stick to an easy formula soon both you and your camera crew will fall into an easy rhythm. You'll end up with a pretty polished show. A good example of a large area and a pastors that move about is on SBN. Jimmy Swaggart's set up. Putting theology aside for a moment you will see a very polished professional production that is easy to watch. Answers with Bayless Conley is another. These pastors have huge budgets and professional crew but you will be amazed with what you can do. With audio always get a direct feed off the pastors radio mike. Not one that comes through the house audio system. Now for the hard bit. Broadcast tv/video has different requirements for both audio and lighting. You are going to walk a tight rope as I have seen quite a bit of friction in my time between the TV crew and the house crew. You can handle it. TV seems to bring out the worst in people! All the best with your venture. You are amazing. I'm sure you and your pastor are doing a great job. Be encouraged. __________________ Owen

January 3rd, 2019, 03:16 PM	#35
Brock Burwell Major Player Join Date: Jan 2014 Location: Charleston, WV Posts: 385	Re: Broadcast Cameras for Church Sorry I'm just now getting back and responding on this We've been working the last few months to make things better and while it doesn't seem like much, it's been better. We added new shotgun mics at the front pointing to the crowd. We used to get almost no crowd noise so if the crowd was clapping and the pastor stopped to let them finish, it would simply look like he stopped speaking and nothing was happening. That has been addressed. I guess I could ask this question - the old media director had the cameras shooting 60fps and then streaming at 30fps. This had me confused and wondering if that was standard in live streaming. I'm used to shooting my own footage and delivering so I simply changed all the cameras to 30fps so I can brighten everything up a bit. I wouldn't imagine anything would change that much, but perhaps I'm missing something Our lighting hasn't changed much, but I'm moving in the right direction. I finally got around to messing with the cameras and apertures were all over the place - so I fixed that and brightened everything up. We still have an issue where the light on the singers is great, but the moment one of them steps forward to the podium, they become really over exposed. I'm trying to get that issue fixed this week. I'd love to move all the lights back so they didn't hit our singers and speakers at such a sharp angle, but we will see if that happens. Thanks everyone for the encouragement! I'll keep on keeping on

January 3rd, 2019, 10:29 PM	#36
Andrew Smith Equal Opportunity Offender Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Brisbane, Australia Posts: 3,066	Re: Broadcast Cameras for Church Wowza. Going from 60fps to 30fps would have to be the simplest and cheapest upgrade ever, allowing a slower shutter speed and therefore more light capture for each frame of video. Yup, that's an excellent improvement. As far as I am aware, streaming at 60fps (if your encoder etc allows it) would be fairly niche and next to nobody at the receiving end would ever notice or even appreciate it. For your operation 30fps is the way to go. Would be interested to see an updated example of footage you are recording. Andrew

January 4th, 2019, 07:13 AM	#37
Ron Evans Inner Circle Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Posts: 4,222	Re: Broadcast Cameras for Church If you follow the 180 rule then 30fps would need 1/60 shutter and necessary for the slow frame rate. Shutter at 1/60 would also be fine for 60P but you would get twice as many frames for movement when you went to 30P the motion blur would be the same as shooting at 30P. I shoot 60P all the time with 1/60 shutter in the theatre.

January 5th, 2019, 12:41 PM	#38
Paul R Johnson Inner Circle Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Lowestoft - UK Posts: 4,045	Re: Broadcast Cameras for Church I re-read this and decided that the actual religious element was actually irrelevant. You want excellent, broadcast quality images from subjects that are not trained, In a building poorly suited in terms of acoustics and lighting, plus you have perfectly good cameras that are abandoned and suffer from under or over exposure, and worst of all, in the hands of non-camera people. This ALWAYS means they zoom out to have too work less at focus and movement. You want the equipment to run itself. No proper director or engineers, camera people or sound facilities. You cannot throw money at a project and forget the humans. A place near me has hundreds of thousands investigated in a superb installation. Yet no camera operators, just fixed position, or joystick controlled cams, and one on a cheap pan head within grips of the person mixing. They have wonderful lighting in bucketloads, and a reactive engineer, not a pro-active camereman. People who move mean cameras that move, with focus that changes smoothly and apertures that can react correctly to over exposure or deliberate wrong exposure for effect. Mics on the audience? Fine if somebody can ride the faders, but if they're left up, then it messes up the clarity. Shotguns are also risky. What happens if the worst singers sit in the 'beam' and the better singers don't? Good video requires people, and skilled trained people at that. A good director can talk a novice crew through a show. Amateurs doing best guess camerawork can result in every shot available being rubbish. Who cares if it's SD, HD, SDI or IP delivered? All that matters is quality. That is what gives the game away. Remember that with our wonderful TV sets at home, much of the output we enjoy so much are re-runs of SD material. The BBC here still get excellent viewing figures for 4:3 SD from the 70s/80s. They still look like broadcast because they had sharp focus, steady cameras and decent audio. 4K wobblycam with awful but high quality sound just don't cut it in the professionalism stakes.

January 6th, 2019, 09:48 AM	#39
Pete Cofrancesco Inner Circle Join Date: May 2004 Location: USA Posts: 3,005	Re: Broadcast Cameras for Church I agree with what you said. I think people want an easy solution aka buy a newer camera instead of all the things you mentioned. In a scenario like this all you can do is identify the weakest parts and try to improve them. It will yield a better result but not professional one you see on tv. Add some lights... It’s hard to get around the problems of unmanned video and audio and unskilled operators.