January Camp Update

Saturday was Jon's first day experiencing drum corps. I've shown him clips and recordings in the past, but never introduced him to it in person. Having Jon dedicated to capturing sound and taking that responsibility off of my shoulders made the shoot so much easier. The last time we shot, I had the Zoom H4N mounted on my 7d, and sometimes I'd forget to push record to capture audio because I was so distracted with filming (on a side note, Jon bought a Zoom for himself, so now we have 2). I'm slightly uncomfortable with having the responsibility of capturing BOTH quality audio and video at the same time, and I think that most filmmakers would say the same. So it's become apparent that we can't beat the corps downstairs to the field IF we record any of the staff talking to full corps in the amphitheater outside of the band room. They're just too fast, haha. So, either we set up one of our Zoom recorders on a small tripod, set it up near the spot the staff stands in when they make announcements to the corps, let Jon make his way down to the field to get ready to capture audio, and try to gather all of our gear as fast as we can to meet the corps down stairs, or we set up to capture one thing and not the other. The latter will be less stressful since we have a ton of gear, but that means we might be missing an inspirational or crucial link in our story. I vote for the run and gun.

I spent most of the morning block on my XHA1 on the glidecam. I'm still getting used to it since most of my projects don't call for it, but I captured the best footage I've ever recorded on the glidecam this weekend. The quality is definitely not as smooth as it needs to be, but I'm getting the hang of it. I'd definitely love a vest rig, but a forearm brace would be nice if anything. The morning was dedicated to filming the corps learning their new marching technique. Recording a lot of these "early steps" might be a crucial piece of the puzzle later on in the editing room, you never know. Filming these moments are pretty difficult I must admit. Well, this is coming from the guy who wants to make a very cinematic documentary. The morning block is hours of monotony, so coming up with shots or a mix of shots that no one has thought of or captured before is a struggle. There's only so many ways you can shoot a warmup block, haha. Once we finished up downstairs with the hornline/battery, we headed up to the band room to record a few minutes of pit stuff. The quality of the percussion sound that the Zoom recorder produces is impressive. I think we might just leave a Zoom running in the band room during a whole pit rehearsal just to grab some extra sound. After recording for 10 or 15 minutes, we headed home and planned to meet back up at 2pm.

The evening block was our chance to finally test out our Zooms multi-track capabilities. Stuart and Matt mentioned that they needed a recording of the brass rehearsal, so we decided to kill two birds by doing our tests while we recorded the entire rehearsal. We placed our Zooms in an X/Y pattern in front of the hornline, and had a separate mic running into one of them, leveled at a higher sensitivity to pick up the staff comments. Once Manny comes back to join us in February, we'll be able to test out a couple lavalier mics on staff members, which I'm sure will give us a better sound quality than what we're getting now. Haven't mixed any of the multi-track stuff yet, but I'm sure we'll post some stuff once we do. Jon had to head out early, so he left his recorder with me to continue our test of our mic set up. During the evening block, I scored one of the most interesting shots. I locked down my 7d on a tripod, pulled the lens all the way back to get a wider shot, and pointed the camera at the contra section rehearsing in the middle of the field. I took a 6 second clip of the section in perfect exposure, but at that exposure the sky is completely blown out, so I took another 6 second shot at an exposure where the detail in the sky is visible. I mixed the two shots in after effects that night and my crazy concoction actually worked! It's also one of the clips I posted in the vlog. I'm definitely proud of that shot. Expect more of that in the future. At around 530, the sunset was to beautiful to pass up. Timelapse time! I set the XHA1 up on a tripod and let it run for about 25 minutes. The clip is posted up in the new vlog. Oh, and carrying ALL of the gear we had with us from the field back up to the parking lot was almost impossible. I honestly thought I wouldn't be able to carry it all in one trip. Hell, I was the last one down on the field except for the sound system crew.

Sunday was a little nerve-racking. I called Jon at 830 in the morning (keep in mind, we usually get there around 8 or 830 to start setting up our gear) and he is still at home, throwing up like crazy. I was pretty frustrated because Manny was also out because he was sick, and I can't cover every job by myself. It was already a stressful week, so the last thing I needed was to find out that my only other available crew member wasn't going to show up AFTER I already got there. Fortunately, Jon drove down to DBHS despite his illness, so the day was much easier than originally thought. We started off by picking up some audio of Stuarts opening talk that we weren't able to record the day before. The colorguard only showed up for the Sunday rehearsal, so he repeated much of what he said the previous day. We then headed down to pick up shots of the bassline sectional. We set up a Zoom on a tripod about 15 feet away from the section, leveled to capture the drum sound, and we placed the other Zoom a couple feet away from Dan Wahl and leveled it to capture his comments. We have way more noise in the comment recording than the drum recording since the sensitivity was up so much higher, but I don't think Jon will have a problem mixing any of it together.

Once we heard that the hornline was finished with their morning run, we set up an interview with Mark Kveton. We set up the interview above the stadium at the top of the bleachers to get a wide shot of the morning rehearsal block in the background behind Mark, and the depth between him and the corps on the field turned it into a great shot. He had a lot of great things to say in his interview, but it felt a little too scripted, for lack of a better word. I really think it's just me. I need to work at making the interview feel more like a comfortable conversation. I know this is just the first interview, so maybe I'm just paranoid. During the interview, Mark accidentally cursed, but kept on going as if nothing happened (I actually don't think he noticed). At first, I was kind of hesitant to let it slide, but then I realized that this documentary is a raw look into the lives of a drum corps member, if letting out a curse word every once in a while means that they will be more comfortable in front of the camera, so be it. The more it feels like a real conversation, the better. Besides, it's real. I don't want them to restrict themselves from telling the world how they feel. After the interview, we headed down stairs to record the corps for a few minutes. Then headed home a little early.

Our plan for the evening block was for the full corps to perform the opener, so we decided to focus strictly on audio. We decided to meet at 430 and set up our audio gear, but I showed up an hour early to grab shots for the staff. They needed some clips of staff/member communication to make sure they are saying the right things, and that the members are rehearsing the way the need them to. Within the first hour after I showed up, it began to rain. Nothing major, but enough to get the corps to migrate to some covered areas. They decided to head to the downstairs area of the school near the cafeteria, and I decided to split my time between filming the hornline playing the opener and reading Asphalt Cocktail for the first time, and the pit, who was set up just above us on the next level. I used my 7d mostly for this shoot since I know it handles the weather better than the A1. However, once I found out that the battery was going to join the pit, I grabbed my XHA1, tossed it on the glidcam and went to work. I love shooting the drumline at a high shutter speeds. I honestly don't like shooting them any other way. I know some people might think the effect is overused and annoying, but I think it adds the cinematic quality and velocity that I'm looking for. The glidecam gave me the exact look I was going for. With the smoothness of the camera movements, and the jittery look that the high shutter speed produces, it makes you feel like you're there. Just wait until the great sound gets mixed in. I think I found the combination that I'm going to use from now on.

At around 5, we headed into the auditorium where the full corps was going to perform the opener. Jon and I still weren't set up yet, so it was pretty hectic trying to set up an exact microphone spot while the corps was still getting organized. We were running our two Zooms, with one additional mic running into each. 6 channels of sound total. Once the corps started playing, I honestly didn't think that we were going to get quality sound. I forgot how blazingly loud the corps is when they're packed into that tiny space. I set up my 7d and framed it on the pit, then I grabbed my glidecam and walked up and down the handicapped ramp off to the side. I was so worried that the space was just too small to get any variety and depth out of the shots, but with the long dolly shots I grabbed with the glidecam, plus the changing elevation of the ramp I was walking on, the depth was there. After the shoot, Jon let me listen to the audio. I was pleased with the quality. I'll admit, it was a little drumline heavy thanks to our confined mic placement, but it was a million times better than I thought it'd be.

Just need to have a little more faith.


Adam Adorno