dbuckley Posted February 13, 2007 Share Posted February 13, 2007 Attached a camera to a followspot, with just zoom on remote control? If so, how did it work out? I'm thinking in particular of short throw here... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisD Posted February 13, 2007 Share Posted February 13, 2007 Well, this one's easy. A definite no for me I'm afraid. Hope someone else can come up with something better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbuckley Posted February 13, 2007 Author Share Posted February 13, 2007 Hmmm, perhaps I could have phrased the question a bit better, this could end up being a very long thread :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulears Posted February 13, 2007 Share Posted February 13, 2007 I had this idea a couple of years ago. The basic idea worked quite well - video wise (I used a simple bungy cord on a Sony 150) - it needed a touch of extra weight on the rear end to balance. It annoyed the op no end. He said it made hime overshoot all the time (I suspect he would have overshot anywa), and he did have to move around a bit to see past it. Down side was framing and stability. The centre of the follow spot was rarely where I wanted it, and it wobbled all over the place. I must admit I didn't notice how wobbly spots tend to be when on subject - hysteresis? Main problem was, I suspect, that the operators are not cameramen. Cameramen might make excellent followspot ops? Wider angles are also a problem as normally as you go wider, you don't pan so much, as it isn't needed - the subjects having the movement within the frame - so wide on the camera makes you giddy as the spot still keeps the subject centre vrame, which is very odd to look at. So if you can live with the framing, and have good ops, you might get away with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
broadcast_techie Posted February 13, 2007 Share Posted February 13, 2007 I've never thought of or done this, although I can see where you're coming from. The only reason I can see for having a camera on a follow spot is for a very lazy and expensive pickup (infared...), I can't see you'd get anything useful from it. One main reason I can't see it working is that the person being spotted will look flat, the general idea of theatre (and tv) lighting is to create depth, (look up three point tv lighting).As Paulears says about the ops and stability, you'll have problems with both - if you want great shots employ a cameraman, if you want stable follow spotting employ a follow spot operator, the two are quite different skills. sorry to be so negative, but I really can't see that it would work for getting 'usable' images - will be happily proved wring tho. Kris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMC Posted February 13, 2007 Share Posted February 13, 2007 I must admit I didn't notice how wobbly spots tend to be when on subject - hysteresis THAT, I would have to say, is down to extremely poor quality ops.. one of my pet hates.. Really makes me cringe :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jayselway Posted February 14, 2007 Share Posted February 14, 2007 I've played around a bit with this idea, as an experiment with a client. They wanted to be able to see where the followspots were just before cues, and how well the ops were able to spot without the lamp being visible to the audience. Result: Experiment was somewhat sucessful, and client purchased two fairly budget cameras to mount on the spots, with 4" LCD's on the units. I think he thought the ops needed some extra blackout-vision! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beware Posted February 14, 2007 Share Posted February 14, 2007 I've never found anything wrong with wire sights, often made from old coat hangers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PoppaDom Posted February 14, 2007 Share Posted February 14, 2007 In Sydney I seem to remember the Precilla Queen of the Desert drag show has a camcorder mounted on the followspot which is then projected onto screens around the building. Poppadom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbuckley Posted February 14, 2007 Author Share Posted February 14, 2007 Thanks for input folks; it just struck me as a way to get a couple of extra shot angles at no little extra effort, bit like the fixed cameras, rather than as a prime source, thus my wonderment if I'd come up with a unique idea, or just one that everyone uses that I hadn't heard of... I appreciate it wont be a great shot, for all the reasons already mentioned... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Tovey Posted February 15, 2007 Share Posted February 15, 2007 Have mounted a digital stills camera on the end of a Foxie before now, with a remote control for zoom and shutter taped to the blackout iris handle. Bit of fine adjustment to the balance and it worked fine - got some great shots (although as pointed out somewhat flat) while spotting. Didn't make any noticeable diffference to the quality of the spotting. In terms of size and weight would be similar to a small colour CCD (in fact, had I thought about it I could have captured video from the stills camera). And although it wasn't the reason for having the camera, and wasn't used for this, I was able to set it up so that the LCD screen on the camera provided a perfectly centred sight... Have vaguely considered making something more permanent with some miniature CCTV cameras with motorized zoom, connected to the iris control and with a display masked to be circular, which would make blind pick-ups a doddle. Pete Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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