Help with equipment for filming a show.

[the kid]

This is a school Tom, with the best will in the world you are likely to get 5% of what you mention and that is white balance.

We Just filmed our xmas show, 1 safety cam(locked off because we had no op), 2 close ups, Filmed "live" with 0 rehearsal by any media crew, there were some dodgy cuts and crash zooms but we had tape in all cams so captured the other cams and cut it in.

It would have worked a touch better if I had been able to give some calls to cam crew of what shot was coming up but I had to baby sit my side.

 

It was about 2-3 days on and off editing a 90 min show INCLUDING putting in canned laughter, hard to explain but the show is funny ,it was a comedy but the audience we had in was dead.

 

When we film out music show its very much the same, we however work on the principle that it is a experience for those good students, the students who have worked hard and do good work, and get experience of the real world (I work the stage side and a colleague who has worked a lot in media and video handles the filming).

[sleepytom]

I know its a school

I know that traditionally things in school are done badly / wrong because nobody knows any better or has the time to improve things.

 

I didn't much like school..

 

I like the internet. Via forums such as this one people who have real commercial experience can tell people who are working in schools how it is done properly. I suffer no illusions that all my advice will be followed, some of it probably won't even really be understood, yet I still hope that it is useful to the OP.

 

I read his post as "I'm a student who is interested in making a film of my school's production of west side story, what can I do to make a better job of filming this show?" I've tried to offer advice that can be followed and doesn't require huge amounts of expensive equipment, but can be done by a few dedicated students who are really keen and willing to put extra time into it. I hope that he has a few mates who are keen on getting some camera experience and that together they can have fun making a film of the school play, whilst gaining a huge amount of experience and learning a whole load of new skills. Who knows they may even be lucky enough to attend a school where there is an enthusiastic media teacher or technician who can help them out with their project? I know for sure that simply being enthusiastic and willing to put the time in will get them a better end product than the standard video of a school play filmed by one or two teachers and edited in a couple of lunchtimes and coffee breaks.

 

If they can sort out the correct copyright permissions then this project would make an excellent showreel for applying to university or even for junior commercial positions. Why limit the advice to the bear essentials? If we offer the best explanation we can and give the most comprehensive idea of how this might be handled within a commercial environment then who knows these students might produce something that is above average, and the experience of doing so might well spur them on to work in the industry. Isn't this what the kind of vocational courses offered at arts / media colleges are supposed to do??

 

More importantly isn't this what the Blue Room is supposed to do?

[jab46]

I know its a school

I know that traditionally things in school are done badly / wrong because nobody knows any better or has the time to improve things.

 

I didn't much like school..

 

I like the internet. Via forums such as this one people who have real commercial experience can tell people who are working in schools how it is done properly. I suffer no illusions that all my advice will be followed, some of it probably won't even really be understood, yet I still hope that it is useful to the OP.

 

I read his post as "I'm a student who is interested in making a film of my school's production of west side story, what can I do to make a better job of filming this show?" I've tried to offer advice that can be followed and doesn't require huge amounts of expensive equipment, but can be done by a few dedicated students who are really keen and willing to put extra time into it. I hope that he has a few mates who are keen on getting some camera experience and that together they can have fun making a film of the school play, whilst gaining a huge amount of experience and learning a whole load of new skills. Who knows they may even be lucky enough to attend a school where there is an enthusiastic media teacher or technician who can help them out with their project? I know for sure that simply being enthusiastic and willing to put the time in will get them a better end product than the standard video of a school play filmed by one or two teachers and edited in a couple of lunchtimes and coffee breaks.

 

More importantly isn't this what the Blue Room is supposed to do?

 

I really appreciate your support and the time you have taken to explain to me, I'm really great full of that and I will certainly take your advice back to my schools Performing Arts Technicians and discuss the issue of copyright and equipment with them. I have certainly learn't a lot from this forum post as far as copyright is concerned and the best way to do it. The reason why I am wanting to do this is because when I go to college I am hoping to do a BTEC in Media Production and I am wanting to have some experience before I start the course so I have a basic understanding of what to do. Video is a whole new thing to me so thank you for taking your time to help me out with this. B-)

[cho_drummer]

just a little point on comms...

 

You do the best you can with what you can afford. The school I work at doesn't have a comms system, its the bottom of the pile of things we should spend money on to improve things, well not bottom, but there are more important things. My suggestions are workarounds. Not 'how to' guides, but tricks of doing something that looks half decent (i.e. better than the budget suggests).

 

I totally understand where you (tom) are coming from, but you have to understand where I am and others are coming from. Yes, we'd all love to do it propperly, but, I'm sure we'd all love to be able to do the best we can with what we have too, and hey, maybe one or two of the more crude suggestions/workarounds will be adopted to enable the purchase/rental of a decent comms system. Swings and roundabouts.

[sleepytom]

Yeah I know that.

 

I've done more shows without comms than I care to remember, but not being able to direct the cameras is the single biggest inhibitor of end product quality that I can think of.

 

Also within an education context I think that teaching people how to use comms is more important than many other skills which get taught. Its still one of the parts of my job that I find hardest, certainly on a split system where I might have the show caller in one ear, an engineer in the other and I'm trying to call camera shots myself whilst listening out for my own cues but ignoring other peoples cues.

 

Comms systems are relatively inexpensive and last a long time, they are generally missing from a school inventory because teachers and others who make purchase decisions tend to think they can make do without a comms system and would prefer to spend the money on something more exciting. I find it very sad that people who are studying courses which are designed to train them to work in our industry are not given any experience of one of the fundamental tools of our work.

 

One less interactive whiteboard would save enough money to buy a good AB comms system. A decent comms system will still be working in 30 years time, and would of given thousands of individuals vital experience in this period.

 

(edit to add that this is just my personal musings on the topic - not aimed at anyone, not saying that others opinions on the subject are wrong or right - it's just what I personally feel!)

[paulears]

I'll jump in as somebody with knowledge of both sides.

In reality, it doesn't matter if spending £100 or £5000 would fix the problem. Schools and colleges simply don't spend any money now unless it's planned and budgeted for a long time in advance, or is an immediate safety feature that has to be implemented straight away.

 

Cobbling together systems is what educational technicians spend their time doing - and although I'm sure everyone here can see how useful comms systems are, convincing been counters that dedicated professional kit is needed when the PE teacher spent £15 on a a set of walkie talkies and damn good they are too - just won't work.

 

I agree that comms is the most beneficial and simple add-on to improve video quality - and linking each camera via a bit of coax to monitors that the director can see is the next. Kind of like having control, and you can easily edit to match later once all the sources are providing the right images. It just doesn't happen.

 

I spend hours each year looking at simply dreadful videos made by staff, not students and basically in these places, that is as good as it ever is going to get.

 

The critical thing is that when they do want to do it properly, things are put in place to help. Schools doing English qualifications range from those with those horrible SD card point and shoot cameras to one I designed in Dubai who spent over £700,000. One can produce images almost able to identify the kids, the other with impressive standards that still seems to produce images just about good enough for identification. Without the right staff and students it still won't work.

[jab46]

Whats the problem with hiring in a com system for the event instead of buying? Our school has a com system, we just need to find all the components for it.

[sleepytom]

there isn't any problem with hiring other than getting the people in charge of the money to agree to it.

 

I was making a broader point really, and its something that I've always felt strongly about. Schools and FE colleges often fail to teach any kind of technical or backstage skills, if they have the equipment they lack the staff skills to teach its correct use. If they don't have the kit then they can't teach how to use it.

 

My own experience of this was many moons ago when I elected to take GCSE Drama. I was interested in learning about stage lighting, set design, the various backstage jobs that go together to make a production. I wasn't really interested in acting. My school offered GCSE drama and assured me that the course included the option to learn about these technical roles that I found interesting. They even had an open day where they had on display some little models of sets that the current GCSE students had designed. I thought this would be great so I signed up, only to discover that the new drama teacher not only didn't know anything about any of the technical roles in theatre, she was so scared of the technology that the lighting rig we had in the Drama Studio was never switched on in the 2 years I was on the course. In actual fact the only thing we ever did in GCSE Drama was to do "circle improvisation" B-)

 

From the things I read here I fear that little has changed since I left school. It seems that the focus of teaching creative arts is still very biased toward the "turns" with the technical roles being filled by teachers or school technicians with possible assistance from someones dad who runs a disco company or something. I simply don't get this, as there clearly are kids who are interested in learning the technical side. The assumption seems to be that kids can't be taught how to work a lighting desk or how to work a video camera, and even in

schools which have the technology the kids are kept away from it.

 

Its a real shame given that the price point of this kind of technology has fallen so much.

[paulears]

It's a fact that technical is still often seen as the thing for those who don't like to perform, but all attempts to add it in are doomed to a degree. After all, the qualification, if it's GCSE or GCE often has Drama or Performance in the title, so any attempt to incorporate technical into it means the level will be rather shallow. There is no expectation that professional practice will be delivered, and in many cases, the technical 'option' is mainly to provide the service for the performance element. The people doing it still study drama as the major component. BTEC is split now into Performing Arts with no technical, or Production Arts with no performance. Crafty schools and colleges find ways to get a bit of technical into their performance by maybe opting for a couple of production units - often lighting and stage management - but to get these into the 'wrong' qualification takes a bit of manipulation which many teachers don't understand how to do.

 

The colleges run both. Schools don't have the flexibility and rarely have enough technical people to warrant specialist staff which are necessary if you want to deliver the technical units properly.

 

There's no reason with BTEC why you can't slip in multi-camera units from Media Studies if the teachers and technicians are up for it - BUT it creates severe assessment and timetable problems, let alone funding issues, so it's rare. If somewhere has a keen media technician, then you can bet they'll be doing forbidden planet or WWRU, but if their single teacher is a dancer doing a bit of drama, or a drama graduate who can dance a bit - then you won't find anything complex in there at all. Some schools have very limited staff for the arts, and it's very common to find dance taught by a PE specialist who had grade 3 tap when she was 8, and drama taught by somebody who did school/college/uni then straight into teaching with no real performance experience at all.

 

We really are talking about people who cannot use computers, are scared of electricity and can't even contemplate a full length show. Not good, but that is how it is in some places.

 

I'd estimate that based on what I've experienced, performance is more than 20 times more popular than production, so it's easy to see why it's not offered. Plus, of course, it's expensive. Drama isn't!

[Junior8]

From the things I read here I fear that little has changed since I left school. It seems that the focus of teaching creative arts is still very biased toward the "turns" with the technical roles being filled by teachers or school technicians with possible assistance from someones dad who runs a disco company or something. I simply don't get this, as there clearly are kids who are interested in learning the technical side. The assumption seems to be that kids can't be taught how to work a lighting desk or how to work a video camera, and even in

schools which have the technology the kids are kept away from it.

 

Its a real shame given that the price point of this kind of technology has fallen so much.

 

It needn't be like this - and pace what Paul says it needn't be expensive either providing you keep it basic. When I hear as I frequently do of school hiring in movers and goodness knows what else for shows I get very annoyed as you just know that back in Drama lessons its just more pointless and fruitless improvisation.

 

In another thread I described some small rigs I used when teaching and these were in regular use in my lessons. So much so that when a new studio was built I insisted on four off special feeds at floor level terminating in RCD protected 16A Industrial Types one in each corner to serve these so that groups could do their own lighting. I also had a set of those old poxy Pulsar Reflector floods which were marvelous in letting kids experiment with colours. We used to do Linnebach work as well - which was always interesting. If you start with three lanterns and three channels everybody can learn the basics and then, as I said elsewhere, I simply used to multiply as they got more experienced. Then its simply a matter of a well designed main rig (24 lanterns is enough) into six areas sensibly coloured and the 12/24 way 2 preset desk will not faze them at all.

 

The problem is that too many 'Drama' teachers are actors manque and too many have never touched an item of technical kit in their lives.

[jab46]

Ok