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New to reality

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diamondwind

I have recently been hired to shoot a reality pilot for a duck hunting / party show and I come from a narrative film background. Any advice will help.

I have a red one mx, blackmagic 2.5k, a 1080p sony handheld (consumer), and a gopro.
 
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You tell us nothing about your situation at all... are you the director or cinematographer?

Cool you have cameras.... any lenses or other equipment? There are tons of Sony handhelds that can do 1080p and there are also tons of GoPros.... so yea...

Do you have a crew? Budget?
 
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It's just me. Five days, mostly indoors in the lodges but also in the scatters where the hunt is taking place. No budget really, but I have a lot of equipment like a steadicam, shoulder rigs, sticks, and a full set of red pro primes and the sony is a HDRPJ275. I also have a cheapo set of studio lights (3) and rigs and follow focuses and all that. Audio I have a mkh 416 and a ntg 3 that I'm guessing I should just keep running.

My plan, unless advised otherwise, is to shoulder rig the BM, stick the hero 3 on the wall or other wide surface and then use the red for talking heads and a few special shots. I will also use the sony for some more handheld stuff when I need the auto focus. Also the cast will be shooting their own little things on iphones that will probably be used selectively.

My real concern is being the only operator. I'm used to small crew and shooting my own stuff but I'm imagining this to be a little crazier. Another thought is to rely primarily on the handheld sony to maintain focus all the time.

Any help would be appreciated. Sorry my first post was a little bare. Also, it's really more of an extended sizzle. under 12 min

thanks a bunch
 
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I would suggest looking at some of the ways that (don't judge me) Party Down South or Jersey Shore were shot. Of course, they had a large budget with a lot of cameras in places everywhere. I actually filmed most of my spring break with just my Samsung Galaxy S3 camera. I was able to edit it out to a point to where it looked extremely similar to those shows.

I've noticed in some shows, they would have a camera that captured everything in a room. Certain things would happen and they would just zoom in on it when editing that single shot. Lighting, I've seen LED lights lining doorframes, crowning on walls, almost every light on in every room, LEDs lining the doors of the vehicles, camera mounted lights.

Just some suggestions.
 
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I'd say watch Party Down South if your show involves partying with people who would be associated with redneck things.
Probably would be a good idea to invest in to clip on mics to get audio from each cast member the entire time.
If you can only operate one thing at a time, make sure it is with the most interesting thing going on. Hopefully you can get some reactions with another camera.
Some shows have a "confessional room". The room where cast members talk about whatever to just the camera in front of them, or to a person interviewing. Usually involve some spoken thought as to what a person did, how they reacted, what are they're thoughts. Cast members for reality tv are almost always told to talk about anything and everything, never keep thoughts bottled up for the entire experience - hence the confessional.
 
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diamondwind said:
IAudio I have a mkh 416 and a ntg 3 that I'm guessing I should just keep running.
Click to expand...

Despite your obvious focus on cameras and photography, that's not your only difficulty or even your main difficulty!

While the mics you've listed are pretty decent quality, what defines the quality of what you record is how they are used (positioned, their gain structure, etc.). Much the same as with a camera, give a complete novice an Alexa with great lenses and you won't get a decent picture because they won't know how to frame, focus, light, etc.

The reason why reality shows are so common is because they are quite popular and quick and cheap to produce. However, the one area where they don't scrimp and save is production sound. All the reality shows I know of have elaborate, complex production sound setups and employ a sizeable production sound team of top personnel. This is because with no script (or experienced actors), there are no interchangeable alt takes and no possibility of decent ADR. This results in very limited options in audio post and the necessity to capture high quality production sound to start with. Getting something even vaguely usable is going to be virtually impossible if you're on your own (and you're operating the camera anyway)! Using a number of individual lavs would certainly help but then every participant in your duck hunting party will need their own lav, so you'll need a multi-channel recorder to record them all and of course someone to operate that recorder.

Also of course, any audio captured while filming on an iPhone is going to sound like the average home video unless you use an external mic/recorder.

G
 
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To add to Audiopost's response, it's not unusual for reality shoots to wrangle 8, 10, or even more channels of wireless lavs. Unless the talent's movement has been blocked before the shot, and/or you've got several boom ops with wireless rigs, sound for reality shoots are a killer. I know a few mixers who specialize in reality shoots and their rigs are elaborate. Also, due to the unscripted nature of this format, equipment and liability insurance is highly recommended.
Duck hunting? Expect cold, wet, and dirty.
 
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Id ditch some one of the high end cams and rent 5 or 6 go pros.
A gopro in the duck blind,
a gorpo in the pickup truck
a gopro in each room (security cam style)
you get the idea..

data is your next problem. A day of reality TV is nothing like a day of narrative film. How are you gonna wrangle all that high end data!

Then comes the joy of multicam editing!
 
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Just got back from my first weekend. Got a lot of great footage but really understood I need a bigger crew. Three at a minimum. It's not in the budget for lapels and I am concerned the booms are not gonna cut it. My talking heads came out a little underexposed even though I felt it looked good and read right on the histo. Any advice on lighting interviews? I have a 3 light set up. Pretty low key.
Also are green screens good for these interviews?
 
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green screen not worth it for interviews.. a nice backdrop maybe.. best though if you can be in a nice room or even outside.

for lighting interviews. High soft key (sunlight through the window) good fill and a rim light.
If outside golden hour, back lit subject, expose for background best look, then bring up the light level on the subject to really bring them out.

For sound, your sorta stuck. If you don't have budget the booms your only option.
 
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I got some experience shooting interviews and confessional type setups. Lighting can really really be a pain. I wouldn't green screen. been there and without "the right stuff" to do it, it always turned out really crappy. I find you need a pretty large room, all green, to get a decent effect.

I'd go backdrop or planned background. But lighting, all you can really do, man, is setup and start testing till you find it. But, as wheatgrinder said, sunlight would be best.
 
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