PRODUCTION: TECH RUN - TOM THUMB THEATRE

As we're planning on having Tanya's first performance as a Drag Queen at the Tom Thumb Theatre and I've planned for it to be a 2 camera set up to film the performance (see camera plan below) as well as lighting for the performance which is supplied by the theatre.

Floor Plan:

Camera Plan:

What I wanted from the Tech run was to plan out exactly how we would shoot this event as I knew this day would be stressful enough so being able to plan well in advance would take away some of that stress on the day. This also allowed me to see if the camera set up I had in mind would actually get all the coverage that we would need for the edit. 

When arriving at the theatre, I checked over the sound equipment with the owner and found it straight forward, simple aux cable into either a smart phone or laptop and we can play the music for the event. 

In terms of lighting, Jemma had told me about some research she had done on 'Bisexual lighting' (research required) and we worked through some colours which could work with this, blue, purple and pink were the preferred colours with this type of lighting so I used gels on the lights available at the theatre for this. 

Setting up the cameras, (Panasonic DVX200's x2) I found that they held up nicely with the lighting, I chose to go with the Panasonics over the Canon C100 for this shoot as we only have the option of one Canon C100 but we can get 2 Panasonic's from University, they match up nicely with the Canon footage and also we have the option to film 4K with these which I can bring down to 1080p in the edit to bring up the resolution, since we don't need to change lenses for this shoot either it was the more sensible option. 

Jemma and I worked together on finding the right lighting for the stage where Tanya (our drag queen) would be performing, we noted that the stage isn't very big and we also aren't sure how she is going to perform or even what she will be performing as we're still waiting on Tanya to tell us. The lighting we got from the stage worked lighting though, we tried to get it so that the stage wasn't fully lit and the colours really came out. Photo below shows:

As well as testing the lighting on the stage, I brought along my Sony A7S as an option for a camera to get audience reactions during the performance. As my camera plan is to have one of the cameras on a wide shot and the other on a mid shot following Tanya, I would be able to either have a camera assistant with the Sony A7S getting audience reactions or worst case scenario I could have the other operator leave the wide shot stationary and go and get audience shots then come back to the wide. 

Below is the footage from each of the tests:

This tech run ended up being more of a lighting test than a camera test as I could see when we arrived by the size of the theatre that 2 cameras on the stage was more than enough to get the coverage that we need. The lighting was difficult to get and I don't feel we got it by the end. Moving forward I'm going to research into the lighting that Jemma mentioned (Bisexual lighting). When I researched into being a DOP, George Burt explained to me that"Documentary crews could be as big as 20, with a Director, DOP, Lighting Director, Sound Operator, 1st AD and Producer all on set. But it can also be as small as one person being the Director, Producer, DOP, Sound and Lighting all in one. This is where you need to consider what's possible with the size of the crew and of course the budget" (George Burt). As Jemma wants the bisexual lighting I think I need to find a way to get this better than what we've done today.