Reflection (Multicam ProductIon)

In this post i will be reflecting on a multi cam production i did on June 10th 2015 at 1:30 PM to 4:00 PM.

This production was for a musical performed by students the musical they were performing was the classic musical Hairspray.

When making this production we used four cameras,a talk back system,vision mixer hooked up to both five monitors which were all cabled to each camera which was a signed a letter corresponding to that number for example one being letter A and three being letter C.

The production was just over two hours long due to a fifth teen minute interlude half way through the show.

We first watched the earliest performance while were setting up just to get an initial of idea of where the four cameras should be placed also to know the pace of the musical and at what moments we were able get the right shots for the show. Once the show was finished and our set up was prepared we waited an hour before the next performance.

The next performance started with a the screen starting black and then as the music began to rise the audio of the vision mixer and the fade in synced together to allow the music and the visuals to fade in at the same time.

The cameras were set up so we had four different shots we had camera one on the far side the second in the centre the third further to the right and the fourth on the far right the first shot focused on the centre of the main character with the music playing we switched between the furthest cameras apart to go with the pace of the music. Then when the pace of the music became more up beat and more characters were shown we then had a wide shot of all the extra cast dancing and perfuming this first opening scene of the main character.

The next scene focused on the two main characters having a conversation running hone to watch a show with the cameras set up we focused mainly on the characters using the main centre cameras to focus on them while getting some of our performers in the background. The shots then changed and followed what was going on in the story it switched from the live TV show of the dancing performers and the cameras tracked the host giving both mid shots and close ups of the TV shows faced whilst cutting back to our main characters on the fair right in there small set of a family home it switched back and forth from cameras four and one to establish what was going on following the pace of the story and the dialogue that was being said and sang by our characters.

Shortly after this part with the TV show we go back to the characters dialogue in there home using the furtherest camera on the opposite side of the stage to get the best shot while camera four zooms in on the action while allowing the other cameras to set up for the next mid shot for the next bigger performance the closest camera to the action was also focused on the story just so we could switch angles mid way between the conversation.

Once this scene has finished we then go back to the open shot which the centre cameras would focus on all the cast while using the other cameras to zoom in on our main cast once again while background performers fill up the shot we used the middle cameras to track are main cast so were able to follow them along with what was going on in our story and dialogue of the mishap in this scene when are main character is turned down by the evil character. So with this progression in the story we then follow the character being thrown into school so with a quick set change we focused our cameras on the main part of the stage so we could establish the scene.

Next with there only being a small group of characters we were able to track the characters having a conversation and dancing using the multiple cameras to get different points of view of the scene to establish who was speaking to who we were cutting from shot to shot to follow the pace of the dialogue  of what was going on in our scene.

Again we our back to the wide shot of our performers on our TV show so we needed more depth in our shot to allow as much cast in the shot as possible while our centre cameras focused more on the main characters establishing conversation while cutting back and forth between them and our sub-cast in the background and with such a large group of cast it help add to the realism of the scene.

After this next part the scene starts to slow down and focuses more on the love story that goes on between the main characters of this story and with it being a slow song focusing more on just two of our characters the cameras can track the characters movements which the furthest cameras did and the centres cameras focused more on there facial expression which we can illustrate to them through these shots at the moment they kiss our middle camera zoomed in on them to close of this final scene.

We then later cut back to the set for our main characters in there homes using camera four as this is the furthest away from the scene as this gave chance to the centre cameras to set up for our next main dance part of this story.

With our next shot we have another wide shot of all the cast confronting one another but in this shot we have a continuos light flash of which allowed our cameras to get some great shots of our cast of characters and with a rivalry going on it is a heavy dialogue based scene so using centre camera two to zoom in on the confrontation that is going on between the main good character and the main bad character was more focused upon before and after the confrontation.

We are then left with the two lovers and best friends of these two lovers to using one set of cameras for the main characters and the sub characters we were able to use the cameras to switch between the conversation that the characters were having with each other and using cut shots from person to person it allowed our audience to follow on what was being said between our characters which helped push the plot.

Our next scene shows our characters meeting another cast of unique characters which then brook into this very inspirational moment so the cameras were mainly focused on our new character as they have a big performance so the other characters were mainly shadowed in the background of this performance and with our singer being stood dead centre of the stage this allowed us to get multiple angles of our singer using the furthest cameras one and four then switching back to three to get a centre shot of our main singer.

After this song we see them devise a plan to take on  the evil corporation so using the centre cameras to once again follow dialogue we then switch to a wide shot of all the cast confronting each other so in this scene we used our cameras to track the dialogue but following the pacing of characters dialogue using the cameras to get perspectives of each characters side and switching at the right times following along the conversation as its happening.

We then had a fifteen minute interlude.

Next we have all the main characters in a jail so this was a good chance to get shots of each of the characters as many of them were dead centred in the stage however using the camera to pan from left to right were able to follow along the jail bars of the set to show all the characters at once while switching to shots of the characters that were the main focus of the plot once this song had ended we were left with just the main character in cell by herself so with her being on her own this once a chance to use all our cameras to there full advantage using cameras four , one and two we were able to track the movements of our character and with the help of the lighting we were able get the shots that made the light hit her perfectly.

The next scene split between or main lovers and the sub lovers of the story to with the set being split in half to establish two scenes we thought this would be appropriate to do so with the cameras as well using cameras one and three and cameras two and four we were able to follow the pace of the love story which was going on between both sets of couples.

The second to last scene focused on the good side plotting once again against our evil corporation so this focused on our main characters conversing with one another so with much dialogue going on between multiple sets of characters it was hard to pin point where to put the cameras so a strategy was to place the cameras at sections of the stage but still having camera three in the centre of the stage so in doing this we were able to cut back between those who were talking and those who wasn't allowing our director to tell us where to point to next and who to follow this worked well as our team was able to follow the conversations going on in this one scene between multiple sets of characters.

Finally we are at our final scene this was a big one to do as every character,good,evil and sub generic perfumer was on screen at once so going back to our initial plot we used cameras one,four and two to track the dialogue happening between our evil character and good character while also following the convoluted plan that they had previously discussed last scene we used the cameras to follow the action and it progress from quite into absolute mayhem following the controversy between good and evil to follow the plot as it progress along with the story. After the dialogue was over they had there final happy ending big final number so we quickly zoomed out the shot to fit as many people in frame as we could so we could all cast in shot. While panning with cameras four and one to do a slow sweeping shot of all performers to get that idea of togetherness as they all took a final bow and the clapping slowly stop we then slowly faded the the audio and the visual into black which we did at the start and so we did at the end to give it that final end shot.