HELP! School Performance Recording Advice

[Liam]

Hi

 

I have been asked to record the school performance, not only to distribute to our students but to send to the exam board too.

 

I am looking at the possibility of getting a company in to do it for us, but i wouldnt know where to start.

 

The alternative to this would be to by a dencent camera and DIY it.

 

has anyone any recommendations?

[Boredguy]

Our Drama department normally uses a normal camcorder positioned just off to one side of the seating in our drama studio.

[Andrew_C]

The exam board won't expect Pro quality. Which is a good thing, as it is much harder than most people think to get good quality results.

 

Many takes, editing, re-recording the sound, etc... Think how many people are involved in filming a simple film or TV show.

 

A camera locked off with a good a view of the stage, and maybe some additional microphones* will suffice for the board. For selling to parents? Maybe more thought and expense, some of which may be persuading the rights-holders to let you do it.

 

 

 

*And that is often easier said than done.

[VeryPC_Anthony_L]

Hi @Liam,

 

When I was working at a school we would hire in a firm one such firm was Wizard Video Productions Wizard Video. They will generally film the show for free depending on how many potential DVD orders there will be.

I believe Wizard cover the UK. Might be worth seeing if there is any local firms who will do the same.

 

Anthony

[mowgli82]

I have found that entry level DSLR's (if you have one) seem to offer better quality recordings than a camcorder that's a few hundred quid. Only problem with DSLR's is that they can only record 20 mins continuous footage. also you may want to consider a hot shoe microphone as sometimes you can hear the focus motor in the recording.

[VeryPC_Anthony_L]

I have found that entry level DSLR's (if you have one) seem to offer better quality recordings than a camcorder that's a few hundred quid. Only problem with DSLR's is that they can only record 20 mins continuous footage. also you may want to consider a hot shoe microphone as sometimes you can hear the focus motor in the recording.

 

 

I would avoid using a DSLR. Although the video is great they would require someone to keep adjusting the focus manually all the time. If you were doing an interview with then they are brilliant as you get that nice depth of field but for standard video recording they are hopeless.

[dhicks]

I have been asked to record the school performance, not only to distribute to our students but to send to the exam board too. I am looking at the possibility of getting a company in to do it for us, but i wouldnt know where to start.

 

We've used Wizard Video in the past, too - they do good quality work, and school drama / dance performances is what they specialise in. For performances, they do a service where they video for free and charge the parents for DVDs. You have to be able to garuntee a minimum order of DVDs, and they seem a bit pricy at first, but when you consider they take care of all the videoing and the editing and production / shipping of DVDs to invidiaul parents it's not bad at all.

 

The alternative to this would be to by a dencent camera and DIY it.

 

You could get a DSLR, if your school can jusify the expense for taking still photos and so forth as well. For video, as pointed out above most DSLRs are limited to around 20 minutes recording time. You can get external recorders that record straight on to SSD drives, though, to solve that problem. If you want to just set the camera up and leave it, get a decent prime lense, probably quite wide-angle, with no depth-of-field to avoid having any issues with focus. That kind of equipment will cost you around £2,000 upwards - it's equipment that's worth having if you're going to use it, for both video and still images, but it might be beyond your budget.

 

If you have a smaller budget, we've found the just-above-entry-level Panasonic camcorders to be good value for money:

 

Panasonic HC-V270EB-K Full HD Camcorder: Amazon.co.uk: Camera & Photo

 

For capturing performances, in particular, we did also consider the Canon Legria Mini X:

 

Canon LEGRIA mini X - Digital Creative Camcorder - Canon UK

 

A bit odd-looking, with a wide-angle lense, and not great video quality but good sound, should be good for capturing a performance for exams. I'm still waiting for the new Kodak SP360 4k to come out - all-round video capture, so you don't have to worry about where the camera is pointing.

[VeryPC_Anthony_L]

DSLRs are limited to around 20 minutes recording time.

 

The reason they only can do 20 minutes is for two reasons,

 

1) the sensor would overheat

2) they would be classed as camcorder and need to be sold differently and at a more expensive price - read this somewhere before.

[dhicks]

the sensor would overheat

 

I'd be interested to find out how true that is these days. A DSLR capable of outputting an uncompressed HDMI signal with an external video recorder (and, generally, a hot-shoe mounted mic and a shoulder-mount rig) seems to be the device of choice for "budget" film makers these days ("budget" meaning "under £5,000" here). Do DSLR sensors still overheat? It could well be that most filmmakers aren't doing longer than 20 minute takes, hence they simply aren't coming accross the problem.

 

they would be classed as camcorder and need to be sold differently and at a more expensive price - read this somewhere before.

 

I've read that somewhere, too - I'm unsure as to whether this is a Japanese export tax, a UK/EU import tax, whether US cameras don't have this limitation, or whether this is something simply made up by manufacturers to sell more devices. For a £2,000+ DSLR you'd think the difference in import tax would be a fairly small proportion of the total cost.