Video Shoot in Gym

1. Dave
   Member

   

    Hello all,

    

   I've been 'asked' to record a  student project. I wanted to ask all of you what you thought of my plan to shoot this project.

   The project consists of 190 kids (grade K-8th) singing one song in a gym.

    I asked the teacher(s) to break up the students into groups by grade rather than shooting then entire 190 kids at the same time.

   I'll have a HMC-150P to shoot on with a 32GB SD card. I will also have 2 shotgun mics to record the audio of the kids singing, one attached to the camera (channel 1)the other left on a mic stand in front of the kids (channel 2).

   I'll mainly use the master shot and use some panning and CU's.

   They want me to put this onto DVD so they can show it at a gala later in March.

   Any thoughts/comments? Thank you.

   Posted 3 weeks ago #

2. EarlC
   Moderator

   

   There's going to be a LOT of sound bouncing around those gymnasium walls. I suspect that your approach to acquiring audio is as good as any, baring the budget, time, money and equipment to close mic and mix the groups with an audio mixer and person onboard for that. You should be prepared to do something in post to try and alleviate some of the audio reflection and other anomalies you'll no doubt encounter due to the echo and hard surfaces and spaciousness of the gym.

   Posted 3 weeks ago #

3. Charles Schultz
   Member

   

   I would see if they have a band practice room they could use, they are usually sound proofed to help the echoing effect the gym will have.

   Posted 3 weeks ago #

4. Dave
   Member

   

    Thanks for the replies.

   @Eric: Since it's just me, I keep politely reminding them that the sound isn't going to be great. Were I work isnt a video/film/tv university, so they have no lighting kits or audio recorders (we have ones for meetings but not the recorders needed for this purpose).  

   I've worked on film/tv sets before and have done video work, so the school keeps bugging me to do projects like this.

   @Charles: I've asked and they've said this is the only room available.

   Posted 3 weeks ago #

5. plphoto
   Member

   

   Dear DBull,  I think you can use the shotgun mics in a better way.  Depending on the length, short or long, I would have them back far enough to treat them as a make shift stereo set up. One angled towards 1 half and the other angled at the other half.  You will have to test to see how far back from the group you would need to place them.  If you are in a cold climate here is another bit of gorilla production.  190 kids should fill help with the echo in the gym but if they have winter coats, have them all put them on the floor (out of the shot, and or draped over an open bleacher behind your camera. Any little bit of sound proofing you could do will help.  Also make sure that the AC and or heater fans are off, there are no office phones and or student phones that will ring, and have someone give them a silent visual cue to start and stop.  No chuckles or talking at the end of the song unless that is part of the novelty of the production.  If there are Merc or Sodium Vapor lamps in the gym, you should be able to white balance for those but put your camera on sticks, and maybe even a platform.  One final thing on the audio. Be sure to get room noise without any singing or dialogue so you can capture that part of the track and eq. it out with soundtrack, sound soap, or some other audio editing program. It should improve the quality albeit not perfect.  Hope that helps. Let us know if this works. If it doesn't then back to the drawing board. Paul

   Posted 3 weeks ago #

6. Rocky
   Member

   

   Think the others have covered the audio capture side of your proposed shoot. A problem with audio sync will arise if you are going to brake the students into groups by grade and have more than one shoot. Professional artists will with a live performance normally have a variance of + or -3 seconds with the same 3 minute song. With music videos lip sync, ear piece feed or a bouncing ball screen of the original sound recording will ensure each clip audio timeline matches 100%.  

   Posted 3 weeks ago #

7. Charles Schultz
   Member

   

   If you can, have an audio recording of them singing and have them link sip a few time so you can get different angles and perspectives which will make for a better video. 

   Posted 3 weeks ago #

8. Dave
   Member

   

    Thanks everyone for all of the feedback.

    

   Honestly whenever the school asked me to do projects like this, they think its just setting down a camera and magically it all comes together. Whenever I tell them about what is needed for this to look/soun good, I'm usually met with resistance.

   The shoot will happen on Feb 9th. I'll let you all know how it goes. Thanks.

   Posted 3 weeks ago #

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