Apon arriving at the Electric Church Club we found that rehearsals for the event had taken place earlier in the day and that all the performers had started getting ready in the dressing room. However we still had plenty of time prior to the club opening and the event starting so Jemma and Victoria went to speak with Tanya and the other Queens while Simon and I set up the cameras and spoke to the manager about where we can set up our tripods. The bar in the club was to the side and worked nicely as an area where we could place the tripods so that they were in a good place to get the coverage of the performances but we didn't get in the way of the public or block any fire exits either.
While I was setting up the cameras and testing the lighting with the lighting operator, I asked Simon to assist Jemma in filming the cutaways around the club. I checked with the man in charge of operating the lighting to test the lighting on the camera as there was set to be strobing during the performance and I wanted to make sure it wouldn't effect the footage or make it unusable. Once doing this I white balanced the first Panasonic and set the audio so that the music could be recorded but not peak the microphones and set up the camera with focus assist and turned on the zebra to make the filming easier.
My own mistake was not setting up Simon's camera (he'd taken the Panasonic I hadn't set up) wasn't set to the same settings. This falls on my fault as the DOP as I didn't tell him the camera wasn't set before sending him to Jemma to help film. Although this wasn't an issue, the only difference between the settings was that his Panasonic was shooting in VLog, but once I got it I matched the settings and let him carry on.
Once the camera's were set I walked Simon through the set up of the Panasonics and explained what I would be going back and forth between back stage and the cameras to film interviews and actuality.
When it came to going to film the Queens, we found that they were all getting ready at the same time, so my plan for the filming which I'd done through the shot list now had to be improvised a little. But I started filming as they were getting ready and Jemma worked her way through the questions she had, we also interviewed the organiser Lucie and a very popular Drag Queen from London called Charity Case who was also the headline act for the event. The changing room which everyone was getting ready is was very compact which actually made filming everyone a lot easier as it wasn't as difficult to change to the next person who was talking or focus up if I had to move.
The entire time we were up here filming was with a shoulder rig which worked really well. Going back on what Sam Creamer and Lee Thomas told me during my research with choosing your kit well, I definitely made the right choice with having the Sony A7S as the camera for filming the interviews and the actuality as it's so light weight but excellent in low light which we had in this small room and with the shoulder rig I had much more control over the camera. As you can see from the second photo above I also managed to add on a small little light which I got the idea from while working on a shoot with Lee Thomas, he always has a small light in case of emergencies. This allowed me to add in an extra bit of light to help bring out the eye lines and facial details for the interviews.
Once I'd filmed the actuality and vox pops with Jemma I went back and double checked the camera's in preparation for the event. When it came to actually filming the event, I found it both stressful due to the amount of people that was around as it was a live event and they were drinking but as well this taught be how to work in live events. The choice of filming I did, with the 2 Panasonics and the Sony A7S on a shoulder rig worked really well and helped me get the coverage I needed to get for Jemma.
Jemma and I kept up excellent communication through this shoot and the footage we got worked really well. Once the performance with Tanya got towards the end me and Jemma quickly moved over and got the interview with her that we needed. Having Simon on our second camera really benefitted the shoot as it meant I could focus on set up and planning while he got bits of footage which I wasn't required for (location gv's).
This shoot has helped me see that this set up for filming live events works really well and could work for the Drag Queen pageant as well.
(All photos taken by Victoria Simmonds)
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