Multi-Camera Live Switching

Cheesycam has a good overview of a live streaming setup based around BlackMagic Design 4K ATEM.  Nice step up from the minimalist setup I described earlier.
Check it out!

TheaterGames Production of НЕИЗВЕСТНЫЙ С ХВОСТОМ

TheaterGames retained me to shoot this season productions with НЕИЗВЕСТНЫЙ С ХВОСТОМ being the first one.  The enthusiasm of young actors is infectious.  Professionalism of adults involved is humbling for me. Masha and Marianna can keep tabs on this chaos and manage to get fantastic results.   Ilya Dimov's original music and performance are totally awesome.  As my kids would say.  My son is singing his pieces months after hearing those for the first time.

Here are some technicalities. What worked:

• Planning the shoot and setting exposure in advance.  I was shooting at ISO400, f4.5-f5.  As usual 24fps, 1/48sec.
• TheaterYou location is intimate and three cameras give a good coverage.  Canter one above the bleachers 12mm. I operated camera on the right.  Used 14-140mm zoom for the first time, mostly at around 35mm.  The camera on the left was fixed at its whidest zoom which is 28mm I think.
• I used two audio recorders but ended up using only one audio track, from Zoom H1 positioned just three feet from the center of the stage.
• In post: Audio: three (3!) layered compressors - first at 1:2 at -18dB, second at 10:1 at -9dB, third hard limiter at -6dB.

Still problematic.

• Not happy with my operation of focus on a new 14-140mm zoom.
• As always in the theater, setting white balance is a pain.

Thank you to TheaterGames!  Both myself and my son enjoyed it!

ACM event at eBay

It all went smoothly.  I used G3 lav for speaker audio and Sony PCM-M10 to record ambient sound and questions.  HF G20 used to shoot slides, G7 with 12-35 f2.8 lens to film audience, GH4 with 35-100 f2.8 lens to film the speaker.
Here is my post workflow:

• Copy all the footage into editing workstation.
• Import the footage into Sony Vegas Pro.  Work around Sony bug of importing Panasonic footage.
• Sync all the tracks.  I do it by waveform.  HF G20 requires adding extra frame of silence between MTS files.  Sony PCM M10 is typically skewed tward faster clock so requries added silence (fraction of a sec) as well.
• Do multi-track editing.
• For all video tracks: add these filters: white balance, brightness and contrast, levels.  Set those using reference card footage I captured during production and color correction GUI.  Sometimes this does not work - e.g. G20 footage can look so different I use color match filter instead for just G20 track.
• For all audio tracks: add compression.
• Add credits, lower thirds, etc
• Render for YouTube

Now the footage is ready to be passed to customer!

Theater Production of Чиполлино

This was my first time work with this theater studio.  And the first time at this venue - Mountain View Center for The Performing Arts.  Both are fantastic!  Loved, loved, loved stage in the middle and the way lights are set up - no problems with shadows under the eyes.
I was shooting with 4 cameras.  I was positioned in the middle of the top row with G7 shooting wide (12-35 f2.8 lens used at f4.5, iso400) and GH4 shooting tele (35-100 f2.8 lens used at f2.8, iso400).  On the left I had G20 for a wide side view.  For the first time I use GoPro Hero trained at the band - piano payer to be exact.  Audio was recorded on a Sony PCM-M10 recorder suspended about 10ft above the stage.

ACM SFBAY Event at HP

I still can't avoid surprises! This time it was audio.  I use the same brand/model as the venue's PA system, so I did not need to provide my lav.  My receiver was "automagically" getting the signal.  Only in post I realized the quality was sub-par.  See, the venue provided two hand-helds and two lavs and all of them were on.  The good thing is you can easily hear the audience.  The bad thing is - you can easily hear the audience.  

Theater You Production of Две Дамочки

I am pleased to have an opportunity to work on another production of this theater.  Taking notes during the previous shoots paid off - I was totally ready and as a result color matching between GH4 and G7 is satisfactory.  Canon G20 camcorder looked way too different for its footage to be incorporated though.
This time the least polished is audio - unfortunately I am not in control of AC which is noticeable during the entire performance.  I should dig deeper to find a way to diminish the impact in post.  Simple high pass filter does not help - that I did try.

TheaterYou production of «Трудные Люди»

Happy to work on another production of this wonderful theater.

This is an intimate hall with spectators sitting on the bleachers very close to the stage. The last row of bleachers is only 19 feet away from the stage.   The bleachers are a bit shaky though and I decided to not attach camera to those.

I used three cameras.

Event: Vit Gutkin Concert @Samovar

Let me make sure I get it right.  A fantastic musician who grew up in Moscow, Russia, and now lives in Jerusalem, Israel, signs samba in Portuguese to a mostly Russian audience in the heart of Silicon Valley, California.  God, I love this country!  The developed clips after jump....

Event: Happy Birthday ACM

ACMSFBAY: future of connected car

Panel of experts talking about this fast moving subject!

And here is a published clip:

ACM SFBAY Event!

Fantastic topic!
Shoot notes: manual focus works well - I use it with grey-scale viewfinder and focus peaking.  G3 lavalier works well.  I should be more upfront with speakers about the need to face audience and not the screen.
Post production notes: audio requires de-essing.   Free VST plugin which works in Sony Vegas is SpitFish.  And it works!
Here is the finished clip:

YouTube Live Streaming Proposal - Minimalistic Scenario

Here is a proposal on how a non-profit can start putting their events on YouTube with no recurring costs.  I start with a simple talking slide show, which can be rolled out by a single volunteer producer.  When and if the production team grows, production values can be improved upon dramatically.  Consult this post for introduction and terminology.

Choosing a Live Video Streaming Service

I was asked to recommend a live video streaming service.  Here is my attempt to answer that question.  It was at least a year since I reviewed live video streaming offerings.  I have direct experience with  Ustream and YouTube Live and grew to like Telestream Wirecast (OEM version of which is) used in both.  I was intrigued with what I learned...

ACM event @ eBay!

Having a blast shooting another ACM event!
Finished clip:

TheaterYou production of Pamela

Fantastic performance!  Huge challenge from technical perspective - light color and amount change constantly and unpredictably.  I was lucky enough to work with a director who cares a lot about video production of his play - Val Konovich was directly involved in multi-track edit of the entire recording.  Theater crew was extremely helpful and patient with me, for which I am deeply grateful.  Overall I think this was the best performance I have seen in this theater.

What worked:

• I set in advance white balance and exposure using a calibration target.
• Central camera (GH4) was attached to a column using superclamp and was shooting in 4K which allowed for a clean zoom-in in post.
• I tested new workflow.  Instead of MainConcept MP4 codec I used x264 via DNxHD.  These instructions helped. Almost forgot to correct levels.  x264 seems to be superior for low bitrates (under 10MBps).  I looked into YouTube recommendations and decided on a 2-pass encoding.
• Sony PCM-M10 did the job.  I considered use of Tascam 60DmarkII but found no extra microphones.

What did not work

• GH4 ran out of juice!  This was somewhat unexpected because GH3 runs on a single battery for hours.  I should have turned of LCD, but the camera was positioned so that I could not see the controls.  Note to self: change GH4 battery during the intermission!
• I was shooting GH3 on a tripod set at the top of the bleachers.  Those proved to be noticeably shaky.
• Color matching cameras is still a challenge for me.  Vegas Color Match plugin helps but I am still looking for a better way to accomplish this.  Surely with color-checker and I could expect some magic, the way Davinci does things.  Not Sony Vegas though.
• Canon HF G10 was left unattended.  It was hard for me to guess the direction and as a result majority of the footage was of little use.  Extra operator would help!

Event: ACM SFBAY Data Science Camp

Having a blast shooting the whole day event: Data Science Camp.  Session Schedule.

TheaterYou production of Aktrisa

An amazing production by a local amateur theater.  Duo of actors in a 3-part play.  Performed without a hitch.  I feel privileged to have an opportunity to capture it.
Technically it was a challenge.  Low light, multiple cameras (Nikon D600 and Canon HF S200) which required matching color and sensitivity.

What worked:

• Limiting video AGC on Canon HFS200 to 10db, sometimes even to 6 or 3db.  Zebra pattern helps a lot! I wish Nikon D600 had it.
• Nikkor 24-85 proved to be a good video lens! AF was almost silent.  Used it at 35mm, F5.6 for wide shots.
• Sonya did a good job operating D600 - I used a lot of her slow pans instead of my close shots - I do have a tendency to rush - need to slow it down.
• Sony Vegas 12 Pro multi-track editing proved to be very efficient.  Loved it!
• Sony Vegas 12 Pro color-matching plugin is awesome!

Made no difference or worse:

• Connecting recorder to video camera offered no tangible benefits.  I set the camera audio level manually.  That of the recorder was on auto.  I still used sound file from the recorder.  Video camera track was adequate.
• Setting DSLR and camcorder sensitivity to the same level was tough.  I had D600 ISO on 1600 to avoid high noise.  It proved to be too much although histogram of a shot I took seemed to be adequate.  I wish zebra was there on Nikon.
• DSLR was set on constant AF with face recognition.  Worked OK although on few occasions focus was on a wrong person.  Call it operator error.
• My efforts to set custom white balance on both HF S200 and D600 failed.  the Scene light had so many colors the balance on D600 and HFS200 never matched.  Next time I will just set it to one Kelvin value.
• Overall I am not happy with D600 footage.  To prepare I read these reviews and was concerned about noise and moire.  Yet the resulting footage lacks...dynamic range.  I see blobs of colors with not enough details (when compared to HF S200!) in either highlights or shadows.  This makes no sense.  At all.  Oh and I forgot to reset picture style to totally neutral - I think I had it on Standard, but the effect could not be that bad!

Videoshoots for ACM

I was fortunate enough to shoot San Francisco Bay Area ACM events.  Here are some of them.

Event: Hanukkah Celebration

Hanukkah concert photos are published here.  If downloading photos is too much hassle for you - ask around - I passed along a couple of CDs.

Event: Концерт Детского Клуба "Светлячок"

Праздник 8го Марта детский клуб "Светлячок" отметил концертом.  Посмотреть и загрузить фотографии можно здесь.  Напомню как загрузить фотографию.
Если загружать фотки ломает - обращайтесь в клуб, если повезет вам может достаться DVD со всеми фотографиями.