March 6, 2007

Interview with Article19's Neil Nisbet about Producing Dance Videos

This past Sunday I conducted a telephone interview with Neil Nisbet the editor of Article19, a UK-based online publication that covers contemporary dance. Neil is a former professional dancer and is now a video production specialist and arts journalist focusing on dance performances, dance company promotional media and publishing.

This interview was the first of many I will be conducting for my upcoming publication on dance, video and the Internet. During the interview Neil provided an introductory overview of the process of producing dance videos with an emphasis on the approach used by Article19. You can view dance videos on Article19's site that I've always thought were among the best I've seen on the Internet.

The recap below is based upon an audio recording I made of my interview with Neil. I did make some editorial changes. (I'll upload the audio file if I can improve the sound quality. There was a lot of background noise and I've had trouble getting rid of it while maintaining decent audio quality. I'll give it another shot and see what I can come up with.)

INTERVIEW WITH NEIL NISBET

Part I: Planning Stage

Live Studio Audience or Empty Theater?

An initial question is whether you will videotape a dance performance with or without a live theater audience. Article19 often works in contemporary dance venues that are small to mid-sized theaters - there is not a lot of room to maneuver. So it is often ideal if the performance can be filmed without a live audience, which provides more opportunities to be creative with camera angles and there is more flexibility in terms of positioning the camera. Plus, you won't have audience heads at the bottom of your video.

The Challenges Posed by Theatrical Lighting

Another challenge with filming with live audiences is that stage lighting is often optimal for the human eye but not for the camera. If the production is bright and well lit, then there's no problem in terms of the camera. But some lighting is very creative - it might be mostly dark and only small sections of the stage are highlighted. This type of lighting can pose challenges for videotaping. When filming in these darker environments, the camera's lighting settings have to be adjusted to take in more light, which, in turn, can slightly degrade image quality.

So if you can shoot video during a special session specifically for making the video, then you can adjust the lighting so that it is optimal for the camera and the quality of the final video will usually be improved.

Video Camcorders

Article19 uses a professional level Cannon XL2 video camera. Some video experts may debate whether this camera is professional. But the images are beautiful. The camera has sophisticated electronics and image capture. And, most importantly, it has a very good lens.

Cannon XL2 uses mini DV tapes - a very robust, popular format. Mini DVs are good enough for broadcast and DVDs and definitely for Internet video.

Multiple Cameras and Multiple Performances

Whether one or more video cameras is used to shoot a performance comes down to a question of money. If a dance company can afford multiple cameras, that does help make the post production process easier. Whether or not you use more than one camera is also determined by the size and layout of the venue.

It is better if you can shoot the same performance more than one time. This is especially helpful during the editing process when you want to find the best take of a specific section of the performance. And from a financial standpoint, it can be cheaper to use one camera at multiple performances then have multiple camera operators at one performance.

Capturing Sound

- If there is no voice or special sound effects during a performance, Article19 tends to dub over the live audio with a pre-recorded audio track since pre-recorded music is usually used. In the case where live music is used or there are other reasons to record the audio in the live setting, the appropriate microphones are set-up as needed.

Part II: Shooting Video

Camera Angeles

One of the most important decisions is where you decide to place your video camera to shoot a performance. This is a creative choice, but Article19 always shoots dance from as flat an angle as possible. Shooting from an elevated position from the back of the theater, for instance, is not recommended. The higher the angle you shoot from, the more that you compress elements of the dance performance such as jumps - a jump does not look like a jump when shot from a high angel.

No Close-Ups

We don't do a lot of close ups. From our perspective, there's nothing more frustrating for an audience or someone viewing your work on screen, if you zoom in on the upper body of the dancers and only get part of the movement. The choreography was created for multiple dancers and for their entire bodies. The only time close-ups would be taken is when choreography has been created for a specific part of the dancer's body.

Article19 shoots in what they call "full frame" mode so that the entire dancer is in the frame. Whether the dancer has their arms up in the air or not is taken into consideration. It is a cardinal sin to cut body parts.

How Well Does Choreography Have to Be Known by Camera Operators?

If we're doing a commercial shoot, we will have seen the choreography before or at least have seen an overview of the piece so that we know what's going to happen.

Because I'm a former professional dancer, I understand choreography and know how dancers will move. So a lot of it is anticipating what's going to happen next. A lot of it is also using common sense. So if you have five dancers on the stage, and they're all spread out, you simply pull back to frame the entire shot. If it's a nice duet between two dancers and the rest of the stage is empty, you focus on them and track them around the stage. That's where the skill comes in. That's the difference between planting a camera and letting it film the entire stage and being able to focus on a solo, a duet or a trio and tracking their movement around the stage. But it is preferable if you know the work upfront.

Coordinating Multiple Cameras

If you have two cameras, camera one will stay wide or as wide as possible to get all of the dancers on stage. And camera two will be used to focus on specifics or to capture another angle. Again, it very much depends on the type of choreography being shot. Large ensemble pieces require a different approach than a duet. So it's hard to give a single answer to how multiple cameras should be used. But as a general rule, one camera angle is wide and the other camera shoots in full frame mode.

Video Camera Settings

For theatrical video, you always want to shoot with manual focus and with manual exposure. (Manual exposure refers to setting the iris, which determine how much light enters the lens.) You'll have moments that are very light and moments that are very dark and the exposure has to be adjusted accordingly.

A video camera needs to know if you're shooting inside or outside so that the color temperature can be properly calibrated. This calibration is done with the camera's white balance setting. Most cameras have either an automatic white balance setting or a switch that is used to indicate if you're shooting inside or outside. You can tell if the setting for white balance is wrong. If you're indoors and the video material all looks blue in color, you'll know that your camera thinks it is outside.

Tripods

Always use a very good tripod. Inexpensive tripods with cheap mechanical heads don't move very well, which makes it difficult to follow dancers on stage. So it is worthwhile to spend a little money to buy a good tripod or, alternatively, you can rent a good quality tripod. Good tripods can sometimes make-up for less sophisticated video cameras.

Shooting with Multiple Cameras

When using multiple cameras, we make sure that the white balance setting is the same for each camera. We usually use the automatic indoor setting because light temperature can changes so much in professional dance performances from blue light to white light, for example. But if there is a problem, we can correct this in post-production.

Also you want to use the same cameras and make sure that all of the technical settings are the same. In addition, on higher-end cameras you can lock the time code so that the cameras are in synch. This way when you go into post production, you know that you're looking at the same moment on each video clip of the performance.

Part III: Post Production

Acquiring Video Material

The first stage is acquisition - transferring the video material from the mini DV tapes on to your computer's hard drive. Since the data stored on the tapes is already in digital format, the quality of the video is not degraded when transferred to your computer.

Video Editing software

Article19 uses Apple's Final Cut Pro 5 on Macs.

Creating Promotional Videos

If we're shooting for the purpose of creating promo videos and we've shot a performance multiple times, we bring all of the video in their entirety into Final Cut Pro. And generally we sit down with the choreographer or director of the company so that we can make decisions about which are the best parts to take from each performance. Then we combine these segments into a final promotional video.

Full Performance Videos

When editing a full show from multiple cameras and from multiple performances, there's a fairly complex process of going through the videos one stage at a time. In such instances, one of the performance videos is used as the base for tracking the timing. And then the selected shots from the different performances and cameras are combined together so that it looks like a single show.

As you study the videos, your goal is to show a company's work in its best light. That's why filming multiple performances instead of filming one performance with multiple cameras can come to the rescue. By having the video from different performances, you can mix and match the best sequences for your final video.

If we're creating a video of a full-length performance, we tend to do a rough cut before sitting down with a choreographer. The process of creating a rough cut takes about a day for an hour long show. Then we meet with the choreographer and determine which cuts are the best - this process usually takes two to three days.

Cuts and Dissolves

You must always use cuts. And don't use cross dissolves or any of those fancy transitions that come with video editors such as page peels. If you watch a film or TV show, you'll notice that all of the editing is done with simple cuts. Very rarely are cross dissolves or some type of wipe effect used. Keep it really simple - this is the best way to edit and will produce the best videos.

On rare occasions you can use some special tricks depending on the work that you are doing. On promo videos we have used cross dissolves - just gradually fading from one shot to another.

Output to DVDs and the Internet

All dance companies want a DVD with their full-length performance video or a promo video. Article19 no longer outputs to videotape. DVDs can be used for a number of purposes including archival and promotional. And occasionally these videos will be put on the Internet.

Posted by Doug Fox on March 6, 2007 8:30 AM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://greatdance.com/mtadmin/mt-tb.cgi/642

1 Comments