Equipment Planning

4 X PARcans & Controller

I have spoken to Matthew Bostock who owns 4 X PARcans & a controller along with tripods to request if we can borrow this equipment for our production. He is allowing us to use his lighting equipment which will be very useful to gain some great effects especially when filming the live performance shots of our band playing.

From my knowledge of lighting I am aware that PARcans give a very wide spread of light and will be used when the whole stage needs to be light, it is also possible I will use them close up as an up-lighting effect to certain features. 

Goal Post / T-Bar Lighting Truss

I own a heavy duty Goal Post / T-bar lighting truss that we will use for securing some of the lighting. This truss either can be used as a full lighting bar or as two T-bars which will allow us more flexibility when positioning the lights for our live performance shots to ensure that they are well light with an effective style.

Generator

As some of our possible locations such as 'The Barn' will possibly not contain a mains power supply we have looked into renting a generator. We will certainly require some form of power when filming mainly due to the lighting equipment we plan to use to create a professional looking music video; it is also possible we will need power for special effects such as smoke machines and possibly to power up some of the props to make the video look realistic. Below is the conversation between the contact who is able to rent us the generator and a picture of a similar model & size generator.

Smoke

I own two medium size smoke machines with dense fog fluid that should linger in the air for a reasonable amount of time. It is possible we will use these for our live performance shots to create a more 'gig' like atmosphere along with supporting the lighting in creating a conventional effect.

Profile's & Other Lighting

I have spoken to a few different people about possibly borrowing some profile lights and some extra PARcans / Fresnel's and a dimmer pack which will allow certain characters or instruments to be highlighted in the video with this type of lighting as it has a very narrow and changeable beam of light rather than the PARcan's standard wide wash. These would simply allow us to create better lighting effects within our video rather than a simple 'Lights on / lights off' scenario. The dimmer pack will be required to power and control these types of stage lighting.

Ipod Dock

I own a simple iPod dock at home which can be powered via mains or batteries which we will use to play the track back whilst recording all parts of our video that need either instrument or lip syncing so that we can ensure it is exactly on time with our actual track. This is the same iPod dock and technique as used in our preliminary and as the result was good we have decided to stick with the same method.

Camera/Tripods

A Canon 550D with a 50mm lens will be used as our main camera for the live performance shots. This camera is an 18 mega pixel digital SLR camera which will offer us recording in full HD 1080p movies. After using this camera in our preliminary task we are very comfortable with the quality of the recording and know its capabilities. The 50mm lens we have chosen to use for this camera is in order to create good point of view shots due to the fact a 50mm lens has a field of vision very close to the human eye. This will make viewers feel like they are stood in front of this live performance and make it more of a realistic POV shot.

We will use a Canon 500D with a 15-85mm lens for our secondary camera in the live performance. Reason for this being that it is similar to the 550D in the fact that it still offers full HD recording and will gain us shots that aren't noticeably different from the shots from the 550D. Having a second camera will also enable us to gain more shots when recording which will cut together better than having to record different shots on a different take. By using a different lens for our secondary camera it will allow us to gain a little more variation within our shots to keep them interesting.

The Canon 7D with a 10-11mm lens will be used to record our narrative. This camera also is able to record in full HD and is excellent for shots where the lighting will vary due to the fact it can cope with all lighting conditions. Another main reason behind the use of this camera is that it is weather and dust proof meaning that if the narrative requires certain shots outdoors in poor weather conditions for effect, these can be taken easily without risk of ruining equipment or having to shield it.

Whilst shooting both the narrative and the live performance we will use various tripods and mechanisms to get some interesting shots along with a Glidecam 2000HD which will allow us to do walking tracking shots on all terrain without camera shake in the shot.

Taken From Daniel Harris' blog

http://danharrisadvancedproduction.blogspot.co.uk