Tips for Taping a Stage Performance

I've got a close friend who has been developing a one-woman show for the last several years. She's put blood, sweat and tears into the production, and it's all beginning to pay off. Now she is facing the need to market her show, which requires her to submit a nice video package to various venues. That requires a fair amount of planning, money, and volunteers willing to tape her show and edit the results. It's been a daunting task.

My roommate is doing the video editing, so I've had the luxury of "looking over his shoulder" at the footage. Much of it is good and usable, and much of it is not. I've actually avoided getting roped into the filming and editing process because I know what it takes to create a quality result, and I'm not confident I'm that proficient yet. If I had been taping the show a year ago, I would likely have made the same mistakes that I'm observing here. Well, hindsight is 20/20 as they say, but maybe I can do something useful with these lessons learned (or observed) by writing a quick article.

So here it is: draft #1. Let's see if it can evolve into something worth publishing.

(I'm going to jump into the middle here, while I've got a newly-composed e-mail to my friend I can salvage. I'll come back and hit the foundation later.)

Just Say No to Auto-Exposure

Of the things that will ruin a video-taping, bad exposure sure is up there. For the amateur camera person who loves the camera's "idiot mode", indoor "stage" taping is going to fail badly. That works outdoors, but not in a controlled-light situation like a theater. If you look at your stage through the viewfinder, much of the frame is completely black (unlit portions of the stage). The camera's auto-exposure settings are going to try and compensate for all that black by boosting the light intake and hence dramatically overexposing the lit portions of the stage.

Most decent-quality video cameras offer what's called "zebra mode". While you are previewing what you're taping the built-in view screen on the camera displays a shimmering zebra pattern over any portions that are so overexposed that they will just come out "solid bright white". This is great for testing exposure levels 10 minutes before you start letting your audience in the house. (Ie. during setup) Here's what zebra-mode looks like.

Every place where you see diagonal lines, the object is so over-exposed that the camera can only record it as "100% bright white". As you can see, all detail is lost. It's okay if you're wearing a white shirt and some of it sets off zebra stripes at times, but if they occur anywhere on your skin tone it's a sure you face is going to be completely washed out.

Your camera person should turn off the auto-exposure mode and set the exposure settings manually. The stage lighting should be turned up full, you should walk around the stage (especially standing in any lighting "hotspots" where you may be closer to some lights than others), and the camera person should manually set the overall exposure level, checking that you are decently visible wherever you are on the stage.

The camera person should then WRITE DOWN the exposure settings (some cameras reset them when you turn them off and on again... very annoying) and verify that they are set properly right before the show starts.

So, to recap...

Turn off auto-exposure. Set things to manual.
Use zebra striping if the camera has it available.
Test yourself at different parts of the stage. Know any "hotspots" or shadows.
Write down exposure settings and confirm the are set before you start taping.

Advanced Lighting Techniques

If you are really going for broke and this is a mega-important taping, you may want to invest the time and money to work with the lighting designer to make sure the set is properly lit. Film cameras are very sensitive to uneven lighting, and video cameras are twice as sensitive. Our eyeballs are remarkable at handling vast discrepancies in exposure (we see details in bright and dark conditions) and it lulls the beginning photographer into a false sense of security. A really good stage lighting technician should know what has to be done differently to light for camera. (And the results may look disappointingly "flat" for the live audience.) A SUPER INCREDIBLE stage lighting designer will be able to set light levels so that you have a perfect combination of elements on stage that go from "bright" (exposure + 3 f-stops) to "dark" (exposure - 3 f-stops) and will keep your face always exposed +/- 3/4 f-stops at most.

Page last modified 09/24/2003 12:22