tommorrow morning im filming my friends band play at a big outside festival. ive never really filmed a band and was just wondering some tips and how i should do this. i think we will have 2 cameras, but i dont think either of us have a tripod. so when you film bands do you usually stay on the singer? keep the whole band in the shot? what tips can you leave me? and they dont really care about sound, ill just use what pics up on my cameras mic.
filming a band
- Thread starter adamthegreat
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hi
they are just are friends and asked us to film this concert b/c there will be a couple thousand people there and its in the middle of the day. the drummer in the band is gonna edit it and i dont know if they are just gonna put clips on their website or put it on a dvd with each song to sell or give out or what. I have a panasonic pv dv953 3ccd camera and a sony handycam
they are just are friends and asked us to film this concert b/c there will be a couple thousand people there and its in the middle of the day. the drummer in the band is gonna edit it and i dont know if they are just gonna put clips on their website or put it on a dvd with each song to sell or give out or what. I have a panasonic pv dv953 3ccd camera and a sony handycam
Spend $30 to get two cheap tripods. (You can find the cheapos for about $15 apiece)
Mount one camera for wider shots... stage, and maybe wider of stage and audience every now & then. Maybe change position from time to time. (Not too often)
Use the second one to film everything else. Closeups of singer, closeups during guitar solos, drum solos, whatever interesting is happening on stage. Also use this to get audience from the front. Lots more leeway to move around.
Just make sure that when the first camera is having its position changed, that the moving camera is actually shooting useable footage to cover the gap.
Mount one camera for wider shots... stage, and maybe wider of stage and audience every now & then. Maybe change position from time to time. (Not too often)
Use the second one to film everything else. Closeups of singer, closeups during guitar solos, drum solos, whatever interesting is happening on stage. Also use this to get audience from the front. Lots more leeway to move around.
Just make sure that when the first camera is having its position changed, that the moving camera is actually shooting useable footage to cover the gap.
Not disagreeing with you Zensteve but I was wondering if you'd recommend one on a tripod and the other as a hand-held on stage for those close-ups and those wacky type shots under the drum kit?
I'm just assuming the band gets a recording of the event but if they don't you might want to make one or look into getting a copy to overlay with the video.
I'm just assuming the band gets a recording of the event but if they don't you might want to make one or look into getting a copy to overlay with the video.
Use the attached tripod legs as a counter-balance on the second camera. 
Closeups (shot from a distance) look really bad and can waggle all over the place if not rock-steady. Set tripod and do the various closeups and shots... or fold legs together (extended), carry camera by the tripod neck and move around. Much smoother.
I had not thought about a camera-person being actually onstage.
Closeups (shot from a distance) look really bad and can waggle all over the place if not rock-steady. Set tripod and do the various closeups and shots... or fold legs together (extended), carry camera by the tripod neck and move around. Much smoother.
I had not thought about a camera-person being actually onstage.
*woop* steve you gave the same advice i was gonna give 
probably too late, but I was going to suggest that you get a audio feed from the main mixer either to one of the cameras or a DAT or similar, so you have usable audio too.. but then (hopefully) that's obvious.