How to shoot rock music performance ?

I am very interested in rock music, and I’ve been to lots of live music events in China, like Mr. Big on Midi music festival in 2013 in Beijing, Lacrimosa in 2014, Suede in 2015. I’d like to watch recordings of music performances. Therefore, I am wondering how to shoot music live events such as a rock band in a club, on the stage of a music festival or in a film.

The early 1930s, the first electric amp for single instruments was born. In 1952, the first Gibson Les Paul (electric guitar) was born. After 1950, the rock concert spread around the world and becomes a popular entertainment. My study is about how to capture this impression music live and give us a chance to review it. I think It will be useful, and I want to record my friend’s band live in the future.

Safety: During the production process, There are some issues that we have to face during shooting a live, such as dealing with night time shooting, a mass of people, crowd stage, and limited space. Also, we need varying gears both sound and camera. As a safety measure, we should have a safety person to keep an eye on the cameras, and also protect yourself when filming a music performance.

Camera Setting:

We need a camera on a crane for shooting a crowd of fans, camera on tracks, and hand hold camera person on the stage for CU shot. Positioning the camera at eye-level or belly level and making sure you cannot say any cameras in your frame. Usually, two people would be operating cameras on the stage and the stage has limited space so we need to plan it carefully about camera setting and movement. If the small pub has no stage light, We need at least two lighting trees on each side.

Audio: We need to record music on location. The recording style of rock music and classical music are different, I will talk about rock music recording here. We have two choices here. A portable stereo recorder is a simple option, but it may not have a high-quality recording. A stereo recorder uses two mics or a stereo mic. It will record background noise and room reverberation. It is a budget choice for a small gig or a club live. If it is a massive music festival, the best choice is a multitrack hard drive recorder which uses several mics, and each mic can record different instrument and lead vocalist. It will record a clear and clean sound because each mic is placed close to the instrument, and it picks very little background noise. For example, for a drum kit recording we can put mics for kick drum and hi-hat separately, and electric guitar recording, we can put a microphone in front of the guitar amp.

Audio set up:

I asked Camille Robinson who is the audio editing workshop tutor about this setup, and he said that we don’t need stage box in this case.

Career: I find out a company which record live bands and musicians on their performance, and they provide a different budget for different qualities, the customers can choose the package depending on their sets. and this services is designed for the band who want to film their gig, and the video can be a marketing method to promote your band’s music and getting more people to your gig. This career has not fully developed in China, it gives me a good idea if I can start my own business.

Reference:

1 Joe Marine. 2012. How to Shoot a Musical Performance Cinematically: Duran Duran Live with Den Lennie. [ONLINE] Available at: http://nofilmschool.com/2012/07/cinematically-shoot-musical-performance-duran-duran-live-with-den-lennie. [Accessed 4 May 2016].

2 WITNESS Video Advocacy Training Guide. 2015. Tips on Filming a Live Event. [ONLINE] Available at: https://witnesstraining.wordpress.com/3-film/tips-for-filming/tips-on-filming-a-live-event/. [Accessed 4 April 2016].

3 Kevin Breuner. 2010. DIY Performance Video Part 1. [ONLINE] Available at: http://diymusician.cdbaby.com/musician-tips/diy-performance-video-part-1-pre-production-and-the-shoot/. [Accessed 28 April 2016].

4 Vas Panagiotopoulos. 2015. The History (and Future) of Live Music. [ONLINE] Available at: https://howwegettonext.com/the-history-and-future-of-live-music-147ecde437b7#.r9nexbkso. [Accessed 28 April 2016].