Dance event with dark lighting. Camera & Video settings ?

[Ron Chau]

I have not shot video in ages.

I will be shooting a dance event as a photographer. Main purpose is to photograph guests during the reception. But there will be a short performance and they asked I shoot photo & video of the performance. It will be dark with limited lighting.

Video footage will be for online viewing/sharing to event attendees. I don't want to do much editing other than splitting the footage into smaller segments.

Plan to have a camera on a tripod for video with a 35 1.4 or 24 1.4 lens. Leaving it to record video unattended, while I take photos. I can use a Sony a7sii or Sony A7rV.

What settings should I use ? Aperture, shutter, focus mode, focus area, frame rate, video settings, file format, proxy, etc. ? Which camera will be better ?

[Paul R Johnson]

When you say limited lighting, will it be not also too dark for an audience? Seems odd now that high brightness LED colour lighting is no longer expensive? Can't they just hire in a bit of kit? If its too dark for you, and the audience, what is the point?

[Ron Chau]

Originally Posted by Paul R Johnson

When you say limited lighting, will it be not also too dark for an audience? Seems odd now that high brightness LED colour lighting is no longer expensive? Can't they just hire in a bit of kit? If its too dark for you, and the audience, what is the point?

They informed me the lighting will be dark. I assume they let me know as a courtesy so I can be prepared. Obviously it will be dark for the audience as well. The performance is not the focus of the event, so they probably decided to spend their $ in more important areas.

I included the information in my post to help determine what settings I should use.

[Pete Cofrancesco]

I've recorded things like this. I would shoot as wide a shot as you can this will give you the deepest dof. Focus in the middle of the area leave it as manual. Set highest base iso and then see what aperture is necessary. Best to get there early enough to do these tests. Camera should also be positioned very high to avoid people blocking it.

[Don Palomaki]

Any chance you can get there a day or two before the event to check the lighting and try your settings?

Don't forget audio. Most cameras do better with an external mic. Maybe spot a cell phone high on a light stand to get a second angle video.

[Doug Jensen]

Originally Posted by Ron Chau

They informed me the lighting will be dark. .

I would never take a client's advice at face valiue unless I know they have experience with video production. How do they know what constituted "dark" lighiting? I can tell you that if the lighting is too dark for cameras then it is too dark for the live audience too. Is the audience going to squint to see the performance? Who can say what their definition of dark is?

For example, If you have a performer on a dark stage who is lit with a spot light, inexperienced people might call that dark lighting. But if the performer is being lit with a spot light the performer is NOT dark. Therefore the lighting is not dark -- even though the room may appear dark to the inexperienced naked eye.

My point is that you have to take the word of civilians with a grain of salt until you see what the actual setup is going to be. And then you expose for the performer and let the rest of the scene fall where it may.

[Paul R Johnson]

Doug's comment is exactly what I mean. Artistically, 'dark' lighting might mean contrast, shadows and deliberate blurring of the performer's body and background.Ballet, especially the off the wall stuff that is popular often features strong cross light at a very low angle - so face light will be absent, but the shin or thigh level beams reveal the form, but obscure facial features. Dancers then create shadows on the others.

Often lighting designers (if they have one) instruct the organisers to tell the video folk it will be dark, but that doesn't really help. It might even be a friendly was to tell you NOT to ask for it to be made brighter for the camera. That is the lighting designers nightmare - careful balancing of the lights to create effect and mood, that would be wrecked by turning the brightness up?

They warned you. Take it at face value and just be prepared. Using mega fast lenses on a sensitive camera and pushing gain may well give detail, but be totally wrong.

I'm prepping a show that will feature in one scene, six black guys wearing black clothes and the background will be probably dark blue, and very klittle front light - just top, side and back. The choreographer has deliberately planned this. I'm managing it, but two days ago also got asked if I can do a video recording of it. I can picture what it will look like. Not good.

[Pete Cofrancesco]

While it’s true you can’t take a client word, in this setting I would. This sounds like a non staged event where it might be at best a couple of fresnels. I’d also assume it’s modern dance.

[Ron Evans]

As Doug has said, the stage may be dark but the performers will be in some light or no one will see anything. The issue you will have is not blowing out the performers faces. If you get that correct and shoot Log or RAW you may then be able to recover some detail in the shadows to make it look as it was live.

[Doug Jensen]

I don't shoot stage performances very often but for the last few years I have been "volunteered" to shoot/edit a community stage production with three cameras.

My advice is to go pop in and watch a dress rehearsal -- that way no guessing is needed about the lighting. I stop by the theater to watch the dress rehearsal so I know what I'm in for. Then I shoot the first night's performance, leaving the 2nd night as a backup in case of disaster the first night. That way I don't have to rely on anyone's opinion about lighting. It also gives me the chance to request some simple lighting changes that help make the video better.

Everyone does rehearsals before the actual perforaance, right? So go have a look.

[Paul R Johnson]

Sadly, it's very common for the video folk in the UK to turn up at the dance show a couple of hours before the first public show. For years now, my role has been overseeing the various departments, and very often the question that needs to be asked of the people paying for the production, is a simple one - who is the show for? The paying audience or the video? The winner sets the rules. SO many times, you get presented with a scene from the lion king, or wicked, or beauty and the beast. The Lighting Designer goes for orange - with graduations from daytime to sunset, or in wicked, loads of green and for Beauty and the beast lots of blue light, almost violet as many current movers do a really great violet, with star cloths.

A scene in hell will be red, and so on. enter the video folk - who seem to have certain brands that simpoly don't do saturated colour at all well. A few makes cannot do the range of blues to reds - so pink, magenta, violet, all look, pink!

I have two Pentax and one Canon DSLRs - that don't get used for video, just stills. One Pentax is amazing on the range of pinks, the other just makes them look the same.

In the theatres, the crews come in watch one scene, and get their positions sorted. The latest trend is to put three cameras at the back on the centre line. One on wide, one on closeups with a long lens, and one that hovers between the two. I hate this because it's just like having one UHD image and zooming and cropping in the edit. Boring. We offer them a space in a follow spot box, no - their not allowed to climb ladders.Or maybe we give them a close to stage position where there are unsold seats to one side. No - they don't want that either. They look at one scene then wander up and ask for an audio feed. We're usually ahead of them and hand it over - two XLRs. Then, second scene they appear in the lighting biox and demand the levels go up on the audio, or down - then the dark scene appears and they're back demanding more light or less blue or less red. The lighting op is into the show, following his crafeully prepared cues, being called from on stage. He ignores the video people.

The upshot is that unless the producer or person in charge tells the production team to light for video in the rehearsals and planning stage, it's done for what it looks like to the audience.

The good video people talk to us in advance, the terrible ones don't even talk, just turn up and demand.

Last year, one high budget production, overseas that I usually do the video for was hit with a blanket one firm will do 30 productions all over the place rule. I didn't mind, less for me to do. They phoned me so many times. Have you got any tripods with decent heads - yes. Can we borrow them as flying with them is tricky. Yes - no problem. Then I don't suppose you have any v-mount batteries, flying with them is tricky. Yes - no problem. The requests continued.

This year, I'm doing it again.

Dance events are always problems when the word video gets mentioned close to the time. I have never had them ever attend a rehearsal. Probably a UK thing.

[Pete Cofrancesco]

Do you think we ever hear from the OP? lol

Myself I rarely if every will attend the rehearsal because the job doesn't pay enough to justify it.

[Ron Chau]

Shot the event. It went well.

To reiterate, the dance performance was not the purpose of the event and I was hired as a photographer. My main purpose was to photograph the reception, guests, speakers and the short dance performance. They asked me to shoot basic video of the performance if possible. They intend to share photos and video with all the attendees.

They had problems setting up their lights for the performance. Lighting ended up just being the regular room lights.

I ended up using the Sony A7rV for video. 24mm lens, 24fps, 1/50 shutter, 1080p, aperture 4.0, iso set for exposure. Auto focus with subject tracking worked well during testing so I went with it. Worked fine.

All in all they were very happy.

[Andrew Smith]

Originally Posted by Pete Cofrancesco

Do you think we ever hear from the OP? lol

And so the curse of DVinfo has been broken. :-)

Andrew

[Paul R Johnson]

Glad it went well - sounds like they were a bit er, un-prepared!