Shooting Theatrical Productions part five: The Dance Recital

The event itself was to be on a Sunday afternoon, and audience attendance wasn't expected to fill the 126-seat theater, so I figured I would have a bit of room to maneuver. I decided to go with a two-camera setup, one in the back left corner to get a continuous wide shot, and one that I would man on a tripod in the middle center. I decided if I sat in the seat with the camera on tripod in front of me, I wouldn't get in the way of the audience and could still get a great vantage point. In discussions with the client, they agreed that they wanted a good product at the expense of taking up some valuable audience real estate, so before the show, I masked off the seats beside and in front of me.

The camera in the back-left was a Sony Digital8; after finding a good angle and position, I put it on a tripod and secured it to the wall with a hefty amount of rope and gaffer tape. By rotating the LCD screen I could verify that it was zoomed into the proper degree, focused and set to the proper exposure, and then just press record and walk away. Since the performance was only forty minutes long I didn't need to worry about changing tapes mid-way through the performance, and one thing I'll give Sony credit for is its InfoLithium batteries - fully charged, the camcorder can record for around eight hours, so power wasn't a problem.

The camera I would operate is my tried and true Canon Optura. The Optura is a real performer for low-light situations with manual exposure and shutter speed, so I set the focus and exposure to manual and set the shutter speed to 1/30. Having seen the rehearsal for the performance I knew that the lighting was a little dim at points, so setting the shutter speed a little lower than the standard 1/60 increased the amount of light accepted by the camcorder significantly. There were no power outlets nearby, so with the help of the stage manager we ran some extension cord to my seat and covered it with gaffer tape so no one would trip on it.

Audio wasn't a big concern for this production as my clients wanted to just use the music for the piece as the only accompaniment, but if necessary I had brought my shotgun mic anyway. Mounted on a tripod, the camera was ready and so was I.

Of course, everything doesn't always go as planned, but for my part, I think I had everything worked out as best I could. Fortunately, the problems were nicely beyond my control and I think I worked around them nicely.

Specifically, the big-headed man in the front row. My client specifically requested that I get shots of the dancer's feet during the production so the marvellous footwork could be showcased in the video. Half of the time she managed to place herself in front of the big-headed man, so her feet were obscured by him. I did manage to get some material, but not as much as I wanted.

The next problem was the tripod. I found that in a seated position, I couldn't maneuver the tripod as well as I had hoped; you really need to be standing to take advantage of it well. Fortunately my tripod has a quick-release, and only a momentary shake of the camera is evident. My whole strategy was to minimize zooms and shakes on the primary camera, and use the secondary camera to cover any garbage footage. With the optical image stabilization, and the fact that the dancers were always moving, you couldn't really tell it was hand-held.

Lastly was just the points where the dancers danced outside of the lighting, turning half of their body into shadow. Again, not my problem, and I found that I could turn it into an artistic effect in the editing by using slow-motion and increasing the brightness.

All in all, the clients have been very pleased with the results. With proper preparation and awareness of potential problems, shooting in the theater can give a spectacular product.