American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 96
who started his
went on to
career as an
work
as
a
editor and
cameraman
on
commercials, features and music vid¬
eos. "We used 1000' rolls, but some
cameras reloaded at 600, others at
900, so we could stagger the down¬
time and maximize the number of shots
I had to choose from."
In spite of the preparation,
this remained a live performance situa¬
tion, subject to the spontaneity that
makes a live show fun
and difficult to
direct. "We storyboarded the opening
-
sequence, because it was fairly elabo¬
rate and structured," said Lewis. "The
rest of the night we just made sure we
Robert Lumbard, Ken
Gladden, David
Lewis and Loren
Smith (I to r) during
the post-production
phase after the film
footage was
transferred to tape.
ated with
videotape production. "Essen¬
tially, we shot a film concert in a way
which would normally be considered a
videotape shoot," said Randy Gladden
of RandKen Postproduction Services,
who supervised a newly designed sys¬
tem for multiple camera film and audio
transfers to videotape. "We had proper
communications between all
seven cam¬
and the director, so he could see
and select his shots, and we developed
eras
film-to-tape trans¬
facilitate the editing. We
planned everything just like a tape
shoot, except we were shooting film."
a
rapid, high
accuracy
fer system to
The director,
David Lewis,
and production supervisor Loren Smith
attended Ronstadt concerts in San Fran¬
with a blueprint for
"Ideally, each camera
had eight minutes of film, so we made
cisco, and
the
Eric Leehandelaar
a
at
came up
camera
work.
checker-board breakdown of the
con¬
decide who would shoot what,
the communications
cert, to
system during the
plan out the reloading and make sure
we didn't miss anything," said Lewis,
production.
had coverage.
"Originally, I wanted 11
cam¬
which would have been more
relaxed, but we only had seven. And
eramen,
since this wasn't
a
series of concerts,
they couldn't study one before shooting.
They were kind of flying blind, which
was why I made sure all our camera¬
men were film D.Ps. It paid off. The
footage looked great and everything
went according to plan. In fact, we had
only one camera miss one time code
during a sound check on the second
day."
To guide those 'flying blind,'
Loren Smith developed a master book
that provided each camera team with an
individualized shooting script. "It was
something new for the camera teams to
deal with, but it provided all of us with
a common ground for communication,"
said Smith, whose credits include nu¬
merous commercials and documen¬
taries,
as
well
as more
than five years
writing, producing and directing at
KC0P-TV in Los Angeles.
After weeks of work, Smith
and Lewis created a highly detailed road
which contained the foundations of
map
the show. Said Smith, who also func¬
tioned as booth A.D.: "The master book
contained everything we needed to
know about the
ment
concert:
lyric and instru¬
breakdown, staging, and camera
schedules. This not only aided the direc¬
in the actual shooting of the show,
but also helped me organize the incredi¬
tor
ble amount of footage for post-produc¬
tion transfers and editing."
ule
era
first
A lot of this reloading
the window when
went out
sched¬
a cam¬
blew
a fuse three songs into the
night's show, lamented Lewis, who
has done music videos for Van Halen,
94
American
Cinematographer
December 1984
Sheena Easton, as well as earlier
Ronstadt material. "It was repaired
within ten minutes, but it threw our
board off. The
planning saved
our
necks, though, because we were so
organized, we were able to come up
with an improvised system that immedi¬
ately put us back to work."
When working on a concert
film, you learn to think on your feet and
make the most of a given situation, said
the director philosophically. "With a
music video, you've got more control. If
you don't like a take, you do it again.
One of the problems with filming a live
concert is that you're dealing with many
circumstances beyond your control.
"I'm not being judgmental,"
Lewis emphasized, "but things do go
wrong. If someone in the cellos doesn't
play the right note, you can't use that
shot. One
camera out.
You've got cam¬
reloading, they're out. At one
point, I had a lovely shot until the
drapes got stuck, so I had to go for
something else. Your options can disap¬
pear very quickly." Consequently, said
Lewis, "you're not only directing to cut.
You are also making sure that at the
end of the night, you've got a complete
eras
show."
Although much of the shoot
concert productions of the
past, what was unique was how
was
like
RandKen addressed its editorial. "All of
these pieces of equipment had been
working in the field, but this was the
first time anyone had used this configu¬
ration for this purpose before," said
Randy Gladden.
RandKen's assignment was
to outline a procedure to transfer both
film and audio to videotape; more im¬
portantly, it had to end up properly orga¬
nized according to SMPTE time coding.
In preparation, RandKen used an eight
week preproduction schedule putting the
pieces together, said RandKen partner
Ken Gladden. "This up-front time was
necessary because, rather than utilizing
existing systems, we opted to devise
customized ways to
solve production
problems."
According to Roger Reid of
Home Box Office, those systemic solu¬
tions worked very well indeed. "The
syncing process went remarkably well
in telecine," said Reid. "There
a
was not
single syncing problem out of 110,000
feet of film."
American Cinematographer - December 1984
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - December 1984
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 1
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 2
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 3
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 4
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 5
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 6
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 7
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American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 61
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 62
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American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 69
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 70
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 71
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 72
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 73
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 74
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 75
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 76
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 77
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 78
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 79
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 80
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 81
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 82
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 83
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 84
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 85
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 86
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 87
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 88
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 89
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 90
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 91
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 92
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 93
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 94
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 95
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 96
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 97
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 98
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 99
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 100
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 101
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 102
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 103
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 104
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 105
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 106
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 107
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 108
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 109
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 110
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 111
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 112
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 113
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 114
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 115
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 116
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 117
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 118
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 119
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 120
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 121
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 122
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 123
American Cinematographer - December 1984 - 124
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