I've been shooting and editing for about ten years so I'm fairly comfortable with a camera but have not had a whole lot of experience with multi-cam shoots. I do more promo and documentary style shooting.

Thanks,

Marc

I've not done something so complex . . but . .

"The client is asking for a round or square table type situation and they want it to come across very personal. "

I'd remove the TABLE - far too formal - and have them sit on sofas with coffee table in middle. Creating a circle or ARCS

Have a couple of dolly/tracks around the back of each "arch". Have another one or two cameras being tasked with closeups of speaker and listener. I guess the most important thing is that the cameras AREN'T obtrusive; that the lighting is smooth and relevant and that the floor is flat and without impediments. I also like a short jib for those simple, slight lower- and zoom-ins.

Yeah, AND the sound too! Gotta design the sound enviro! That's going to be a real challenge. How many participants? in this project the audio IS going to be the project. No (little) Clarity - No Show!

If you HAVE done this before, ignore what follows. I think the real issue is going to be how you are going to direct and thence apply some "sane" choreography to your shooters. It is quickly starting to become a truly complex studio piece; having a director sitting at some dsitance infront of a range of monitors. I've been a shooter on such an event - it isn't for the feint hearted. You will need some where to practice and ensure your cameramen know how and what to do with instructions. I was setup with talk-back cans and took "Go Camera1 - tight on speaker2" type of instructions - yeah?

However . .. there just HAS to be a simpler approach? Yeah? . .

Great project! Wants some help??

- g

>>>dolly/tracks around <<<

Grazie's trying to put the frighteners on you! Of course he's given you a desirable approach , but my impression is that this is a lower key project, but for all that the main points have been mentioned:
set, control, videography, audio and lighting.
I think you need to tell us more of your brief and the limits of available resources.

Watch the coffee shop scenes in Reservoir Dogs or Grindhouse.

Thanks Grazie and Serena,

Lots of good info there. Grazie you live in or near Oregon by any chance?

Here's some more info on the project:

The client has written a conversational script that will take place between 6 experts on the subject of parenting. The moderator (person # 7) will guide the conversation and they plan to follow the script very closely while allowing some wiggle room for saying things in their own way in order to keep it as natural as possible.

There will be about 5 hours of panel material which will be seperated into (6) DVDs with (3) 20 minute segments per DVD. Each 20 minute segment will contain a small story (or mini documentary ) to help break up the monotany of the panel and keep things interesting. I may also use cutaway footage to make points during the panel discussion and keep things moving.

I will have a director to guide and help the experts deliver their parts and retake as nessesary. I plan on filming in an old church hall (the acoustics are decent because it's mostly wood) and creating a background set or setting it up as a Charlie Rose type look. They really seem to want a table and chairs so they can have their notes handy and not get too comfortable.

I'll have 3-4 HDV cameras and operators and it sounds like I'll need an additional person to call out the shots to the camera operators since I want the main director watching the performances. I plan on lighting with multiple softboxes and lowel pro lights for backlighting. For audio I plan on using Tram lavalier microphones and recording each microphone onto it's own channel into a computer as well as a final mix onto each camera.

That's all I can think of for now. This is a pretty challanging project and I'm sure I'll learn alot or have a nervous breakdown.

Thanks for any more advice you can give.

Marc

Lighting with a china ball over the table would give the soft light you need on faces, with your other lights providing modeling. Several things to watch, but I expect you're aware of that. Certainly you don't want the speakers shoulder to shoulder. You can't surround the speakers with cameras because they're likely to be seen in the background. Since the discussion is driven by a script then shooting by script is an option. Then you can pre-determine action lines and appropriate setups to minimise problems in cutting. Basically, perhaps a camera shooting a master shot, with the other two shooting 2-shots on the relevant speakers. But it will look boring if you don't vary that. A lot is going to depend on the abilities of the speakers to deal with retakes (to cover their fluffs) and to be natural speaking to a script.

If you have the talent sitting around a table one or two boundary mics on the table can work quite well. Keeps things simple.

Don't know about Grazie's idea of having them on couches, the one time I've been in front of the cameras it was like that and it's very relaxing, just too relaxing for a serious discussion that lasts a long time.

Bob.

To make a round table work you need careful lighting, angles or screening to minimise distraction from cameras in background.

A semi-circular set up is much easier to arrange camera coverage. Headphones from director very desirable for calling shots, but I've done this without, with camera ops each given limited discretion to listen and decide to go to 1 shot, two shot etc. Always have a save-your-bottom (sorry - I'm British and can't say ass) wide shot to cover any eventuality.
Peter

China ball over the center is a good start to create a base light on the faces. You want to skirt around it with duvatyne to keep it off the background. This is not the only light but it allows a frontal fill that is harder to get from satellites around the table. Ideally, you'd have a grid so that you don't have to shoot around stands in the shot. I'd ask for a prelight day. I'd also use a meter to light it-each face should get the same stop. A half stop difference shows.

The Charlie Rose show is a good model but he doesn't have a lot of guests. Washington week is a little better as an example: http://www.pbs.org/weta/washingtonweek/video/. They have more participants.

Usually you take a feed from each camera to a control center and you call shots as you go. All operators are on headset so you just refer to cameras by number "Camera two give me a two shot. ready two, take two" You're talking to the camera operator and also to an engineer pressing buttons to switch shots. Each camera is recorded as well as the switched feed.

You probably won't be able to do this as I'll bet you don't have that sort of budget, so you step through things as best you can. It'd still be good to have a monitor for each camera so you can watch them all at once from one spot, and it'd be good to have clearcom to each operator so you can direct them.

Anyone here have suggestions for timecode? Head and tail slates? Audio mix?

Rob Mack

How many cameras will you have available?

I really like Serena's suggestion of working through the script to identify which shots you want.
Also, if you have a script, any chance you could get the participants to go through it twice? If so, you could do one take in long-shot and the other in close-up. That would give you a good mix of material to intercut. Even if this isn't possible, it might be a good idea to stage some reaction shots (nodding, hmm...., etc.) and maybe some cutaways (hands gesturing, an audience, writing, etc.) to give you something else you can cut to, just for insurance. Staging this after the main discussion would allow you to get some good angles without worrying about the camera showing up in another shot.

As far as jam-synching timecode, etc. that's great if you have the equipment and the operators to do that. Some prosumer cameras (like the PD-170) have "free run" timecode that keeps running in real time whether or not the camera is running. This can be helpful to sync them in post. Otherwise, just tell your camera operators to shoot continuously, or just use the audio track to sync in post.

There's a bunch of very useful multicam scripts for Vegas available (Ultimate S and Excalibur come to mind -- there may be some freebies on the VASST site, too). They have somewhat different workflows, though, so try the free trials and use whichever one makes the most sense to you.

For lighting tips, take a look at http://www.efplighting.com/?Two_Camera_Interviews.

How are you going to mike this? Best would probably be wired lavaliers to a separate multi-track recorder, with the on-camera mikes on the camera as a sync track.

Now I've heard a bit more, the couches is a bit senseless.

Use the potential "view" of the cameras as being "onlookers" - ie people "observing" what is being said - could add to the overall relaxed format AND add much style. Keep cameras and equip in deep shadow. Only appearing now and again. I feel this will lend a sense of intensity and drama. The type of drama that would concentrate the minds of the viewer. My thoughts are the cameras are going to be seen, don;t bother to hide them - and at the same time this will get you off the hook of various shots being "unfortunate"!

Yes, plenty of B-roll. And, no, I ain't anywhere near you! Now that HAS to be a bonus!

. .and yes, as I said, have your crew practice the choreography and potential shot sequences.

I like this project . .I like this project very much indeed.

Grazie's plan is ideal. If you can split them into two groups on each side of a longish table things get simple. If you have a grid then the long Kinos with crates would be ideal, add some lower powered ones from behind for hair lights.
Four cameras, one each side locked off on wide, another one each side for the tight shots. You should have enough control over the lighting with the crated Kinos to keep the cameras in almost total darkness. Only need two camera ops although having 4 so there's two shooting and two taking a break might be good. This is going to get very tedious for the camera ops.

But here's a question, why shoot vision at all?

Seems to me for the subject matter unless there's ppts or something other than hour after hour of the same people an audio only release makes more sense. One CD can hold 6 hours of mp3, that's a huge saving in distribution cost and it's way easier for people to assimilate. Nice liner with shots of the participants and a bio. Cost per unit around $1. A six DVD set is going to cost around $10 to repo.
Even if there is ppts, there'd be enough room on the mp3 CD to put copies of them on the CD for the viewer to study at their leasure.

Bob.