It has been quiet on here recently, but there is a good reason. The last few weeks I have been busy working with the local amateur theatre group, taking photographs of their latest pantomime, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, whilst also helping out with the video work. I don't own a HD camcorder so I got a friend to video it from the back to get the full run through, which is what they've had every other time they have had a DVD produced.
I am aiming to go one better and had another camcorder operating from the prompters box - a bit cosy for two but just manageable - to get close ups so that the video comes alive instead of looking flat and boring from a creative point of view!
So far the editing is going well, act 1 is pretty much done, act 2 is next.
To produce the video, I chose Sony Vegas Studio 10 over Adobe Premiere Elements due to poor reports on the latter. Vegas has been great, a little bit of a learning curve but I have video transitioning smoothly using just one audio source with no lip sync issues.
The photography presented its own issues. The stage lighting is bright but that is within relation to total darkness! I only managed to get a few shots at ISO 400 with the camera tripod mounted. The problem was freezing the movement. Trip the shutter at or below 1/60 and the lips and eyes look blurry as the actor moves on stage recanting their lines. So most shots were taken at 800 or 1600 with a 1 stop underexposure to boost the shutter speed. This of course introduced noise, which meant an extra step in post processing - noise reduction. Even using Neat Image, I was pushing the boundaries of the software as I was pushing the boundaries of what the EOS400D is capable of. Noise really shows from EOS400D images above ISO400, so Neat Image had it's work cut out and struggled in a few cases.
You can view the final set of images at photoboxgallery.com/spacetheatre
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