How To Shoot a Multicam Live Performance(Pre to Post)
Let’s start with Pre-production.
My overall budget for this entire shoot was $15k, so out of this number I had to produce and direct, hire crew, rent out the space, rent gear, and edit all 10 videos as deliverables.
Here’s my budget breakdown: 40% went to my crew(6 camera operators, gaffer, and multicam specialist, 1st AD, BTS), 20% for camera gear rental, 20% for multicam gear rental(cables and switcher), food, hard drives, 20% for my directing, producing, and editing fee which isn’t that much at the end.
One of the first things I had to start planning for was the camera layout and the set design that was happening. I can’t encourage having an overhead diagram of some sort, whether you make it on canva or draw it on a piece of paper. This way you know what gear list you need to send over to the camera rental house and which camera operator will be holding what specific camera with what lens. This also helps your camera assistant to know ahead of time how to build the cameras so everything’s ready day of.
I had work alongside the set designer on where to place the greenery in relation to where the artist will be and where the rest of the bandmates will be standing. Of course the artist will at the front and center with her band behind her. The band consisted of a drummer, bassist, piano, electric, 3 back up singers and plus the artist. so 8 total.
The way I went about setting up the cameras was to have 3 cameras focused on the artist on 3 varying angles. just your basics: wide(cowboy shot), medium, and a close up. I had my wide and medium as moving shots so whenever I cut to them it didn’t feel stagnant in the frame. I had one operator on a ronin s2, and for the wide we used a dana dolly to keep the frame interesting which ended up being one of my favorite shots. I had another camera locked off for the close up just so there’s not too much shake with the tighter focal length. Had two other operators on easy rig, so handheld mainly focusing on getting close up shots of the drummer and the piano player just so I can use those moments as cut away clips if let’s say the artist accidentally make eye contact with the lens or had a bad hair moment or maybe just didn’t sing the right words.
This entire shoot was shot on Pocket 6K cameras along with the Sigma art and cinema lenses. I really like using the pocket 6Ks for shoots like this because it works with the budget I have, and they’re super reliable. I’ve never had issues using these cameras for shooting long performances. Since we had to shoot 5 songs at a time, I knew these cameras can carry their weight and not randomly turn off or stop recording midway.
Packing List:
7 BMPCC 6Ks with cages
2 V-mount batteries for each-12 batteries
C-fast cards and SSDs(make sure they were formatted)
On board monitors plus cable and accessories
Tripods, Easy rigs, dana dolly, RS2
PRODUCTION DAY
Once the crew arrives, cameras and multicam cables are set and fairly ready to go. With the Blackmagic multicam switcher, we’re able to cut live so the editing process is cut down by about half. If there are any mistakes, I can take the project files and replace the clips later.
We then have a powwow meeting discussing the expectations for the day, what the schedule is looking like and where everyone will be placed in the room. After that we get everyone on headsets so I can communicate with them live and give notes on the spot. Then we get in position with cameras and match all our settings, our T stops, WB, and ISO. Also make sure everyone’s cameras are set to manual focus because you don’t wanna rely on AF in case you’re shooting with a camera that’s got AF.
Luckily I didn’t have to worry about capturing audio, since they had a professional mixer on set taking care of that. I just dropped the final files on my timeline and matched my scratch audio recording.
One practical tip when you start rolling is to have everyone verbally confirm that they’re rolling because sometimes you get in the zone and you think you’re rolling but it’s good to check. Also be sure that your crew is checking that their cameras are rolling between each song. Sometimes your card gets full or the camera stops rolling, so make sure to remind everyone to check their cameras.
After the shoot is done, make sure to label every single person’s card to remember which camera shot what, and try to do at least 2 footage dumps throughout the day - one half way through and another at the end this way you can start to back up the first dump while you’re shooting the second half. Post shoot, you wanna have everyone return every piece of gear to the correct cases as they remember and check the gear list for each bag making sure everything’s in there. You don’t wanna be losing items that you need to return to the rental house.
POST PRODUCTION
I don’t really have much to add in this phase of the project because 50% of the work was done. All I had to do was go in and link the master audio to the videos, replace bad moments, add titles, color grade, and do a 1080p ProRes export of each song.
I hope you guys enjoyed watching this breakdown of how to do a multicam live performance shoot and found the tips to be super helpful. If I missed any major tips, comment down below. Like and subscribe. I’ll see y’all on the next one.