chris512 Posted October 13, 2003 Share Posted October 13, 2003 hi all, was just hoping to view out your views about this. Basically I design a lot of stage lighting for shows with our many macs and conventional kit, but not only do we have a live audience we also tape many of the performances on to DV and then to VHS for anyone interested in a copy. Someone has suggested today that I should change my designs to suit video and thus reducing the effect for a live audience so that the cameras can cope (with mist, uv, fast moving effects, no dark reds/blues etc...) Personally I feel that I shud always design for my live paying audience and give them the best show I can. Does anyone have any views? Or has any one been in a similar situation? And what do people prefer - a great live show, or a less well designed live show but a good VHS? Thanks in advance!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Dave Posted October 13, 2003 Share Posted October 13, 2003 It depends whats more important but from what you've said the video is the secondary requirement. It is perfectly possible to design something that looks good on both stage and video - its done all the time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris512 Posted October 13, 2003 Author Share Posted October 13, 2003 Yeah our primary audience is the live audience in our space, we only have the videos as a copy for any performers/technicians interested. As you say you can obviously design for both, but how would you get around issues like light reflecting off mist, uv etc.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stu Posted October 13, 2003 Share Posted October 13, 2003 Chris, Have you thought about having a one performance in the run where the lighting is geared for video - the audience could be pre-warned off this, and charged half price (say) for the inconvience of not seeing the proper show. Then the rest of the run could be done with the true Lighting Design, therefore minimising the disruption to just one show? Just an idea S Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Posted October 13, 2003 Share Posted October 13, 2003 or a less well designed live show but a good VHS? Chris, Isn't good VHS a bit of an oxymoron? :blink: Seriously, what cameras are you using, - do you have a decent VS/VE to rack/colour them? as big dave says It is perfectly possible to design something that looks good on both stage and video - its done all the time. that's true but it does require compramises from both camps, and a fair bit of planning. As Stu said - would it make sence to just make a realy good tape once in a while, get everyone involved for that and plan your compramises acordingly? James Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris512 Posted October 13, 2003 Author Share Posted October 13, 2003 as dave, stu and james say I think I mite suggest having a shot just for video and adjusting the levels for that! give a little comprimse to the situation! we use 3+ x Sony PD150s with a Panasonic 8 input mixer and audio straight from our desk if that helps! p.s - cheers james for noticing the oxymoron Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
owen_mcauley Posted October 13, 2003 Share Posted October 13, 2003 What lenses/filters are you using on the camera's??? Just some fair better than others with movement and colour contrasts! Owen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Posted October 13, 2003 Share Posted October 13, 2003 we have some dv camera's that we use to record productions, a mixture of panasonic and jvc camera's, and it is true.. they do not fair well with deep reds or blues, nor with high brightness greens or yellow, it just distorts the picture, we have tried altering this with filters on adobe premeire, but would new/better lenses for the camera's be a more viable option? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stu Posted October 13, 2003 Share Posted October 13, 2003 Doesn't the white balance have something to do with it? S Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Posted October 14, 2003 Share Posted October 14, 2003 Doesn't the white balance have something to do with it?Something but it's also due to the Gamut of the camera and composite video in general. Basically put you can physically generate more colours than the human eye can resolve which is more colours than you can make with gels which is more colours than a composite video signal can carry which is more colours than a CRT can display which is more colours than a CCD camera can pick-up. So you can see that changing lenses will not help. The only thing you can do is to use a TV style lighting set-up. Watch something like 'Later' and see what they do. Saturated colours in the back but lighter colours onto the front. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul J Need Posted October 14, 2003 Share Posted October 14, 2003 yet another fab reply from Brian. Basically, if the cameras are up to the job you will not need to make any major changes to the lighting, balance correctly, probably to the fleshtones from open white FOH, and the stronger backlight will look after itself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dcsuk Posted November 6, 2003 Share Posted November 6, 2003 To be honest I'd probably recommend having 2 different shows as people have already said I for the recording and then the live shows. Lighting for TV or video is usually set up differently to theatre (using key lights, back lights and fill lights So to get the best possible recording you will need to change you lighting design to reflect this or a least change it a little to improve its chances of looking better on video - (or so I was taught). With theatre you can be a lot more dramatic with colour and use very deep colour and really bring out any emotion needed and it looks great, Try doing that for the video and you'll probably find it looks pants with bleeding colours and all sorts of other problems. On the other hand I'm not saying that lighting for the video has to be boring. You can still achieve dramatic colour and emotion but you have to balance that with the main key and fill lights so that your performers don't look pants and it doesn't look a horrible mess. What with that and try to use DV cameras that are 3CCD rather than the cheaper ones with a single CCD as the 3CCD can process the information better. Just my view anyway. Used to do quite a bit of theatre lighting but then went to study broadcasting and learn about TV lighting and have had a break from it all for a while. Now slowly coming back into the industry and trying to get the old brain back in gear. James H Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Techno_Monkey Posted November 6, 2003 Share Posted November 6, 2003 they do not fair well with deep reds or blues, nor with high brightness greens or yellow, it just distorts the picture, we have tried altering this with filters on adobe premeireThe flaring and distorting in the picture is unfortunatley recorded therefore no ammount of editing will be able to make the footage look crystal clear. I believe the answer is for the LD to test the lighting states regularly so the camera settings are the best comprimise for all the states in the show....however find me a vision producer at my school willing to put that much time in and I will be a very happy Bunny!! :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Posted November 7, 2003 Share Posted November 7, 2003 I believe the answer is for the LD to test the lighting states regularly so the camera settings are the best comprimise for all the states in the show Well if you want to do this properly... The LD realy need to be sitting behind the lighting desk with a grade 1 monitor in front of them - forget about looking at the stage directly - a handful of nice B&W preview monitors in a room with all lighting at 6500K. With a decent waveform monitor/vectorscope. Oh and you can do a lot with damaged / bad video - that's just one of the things we do.. . Sort of like matching 405 line Hi8 NTSC footage with 35mm film and making it look good* - So once you've made your video and you want the number of some decent colourists then give me a PM James * well as good as... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timperrett Posted November 30, 2003 Share Posted November 30, 2003 Coming from a view point of myself being an LD and working much in video (some of us have to!!!) Your lighting is very important from your artistic point of view and I would encourage you to stick to it. Thus my comment revolves around changing the video elements as opposed to changing your lighting! It sounds like these videos are for a record of the event - put on them that they are a record of the event and no more than this. Great that you are using decent cameras - PD150s are top notch, if people want really amazing videos, you are going to have to hire in Sony D35s at somewhere around £175 a day. Not cheap. But even these top quality live event cameras with their camera control units and a white balance worked on for an hour sometimes do not give the perfect colour and light reproduction that our eyes have. Another thing is to keep the quality of the recordings up by using a component vision mixer, obviously having component out from your cameras or by recording all the feeds seperatly onto DV tape and then editing them on a computer via a firewire connection to keep it digital. One of the other things is to up the quality of your camera operators. Get people who know what they are doing, who can change their filters and open and close their iris as and when is needed. VHS is crap quality, try putting it onto DVD for people. There are many other things that you could do but these all cost money. In short - stuff the vid, its for your live audience, try hard not to comprimise! Tim ----------"I can wow you once cheaply" - CP Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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