10 camera angles for sporting event...

before I start hiring people I'd like to check the possiblity of doing it myself

Click to expand...

I have no idea how you could operate 10 widely seperated cameras by yourself.

Bumping in case someone else does, though. Sounds challenging!

I dont see what the problem is. Record each to Mini DV, have 10 video tracks in vegas or premiere, choose which track you want to show in the final. In Vegas I know you could even do 9 PIP if you wanted to (but that would take forever to render!)

It's not the editing that's the problem.

It's the logistics of operating 10 GL2s, each seperated by distance, without having the 9 unattended ones nicked. Racetracks have a lot of people there... both spectators and employees, wandering all over the place.

Additionally, before the original post was edited, it was also asking about advice on wireless/remote control of the cameras from a single station. That's some fun stuff, right there.

Having a hired crew to deal with the other cameras is one thing... but doing that solo?

OK then thats where I misunderstood.

"I need to shoot a racing event from 10 different camera angles similar to the way a TV crew would. (would obviously hire cameramen)"

For a few hundred bucks I'd put real people on it. otherwise I seriously doubt you by yourself can cover 10 cameras at the same time with a remote. In NASCAR they usually have 2 or 3 cameras in the turns that are automated but even still someone is full time working each one of those... they just dont put a cameraman out there.

I'd say to get started at least (sounds like you may be doing this more than once), just hire the camera ops and let them do it. Obviously as the director since you are not live switching it would be best to at least be the one on a radio headset alerting the cameramen of which action to follow.

Yea this kind of took a left turn when Steve thought I meant operating them all myself. My appologies Steve, I didn't mean that at all.

Here's what I need to do:

I need to shoot a racing event from about 8 different camera angles similar to the way a TV crew would. But because of my budget (roughly 100k) I can't afford to run cables and do live switching. I need a way to do "fake" live switching after the fact. Read on...

The event is a national motocross race. I want to shoot the race via DV and then offer my footage on a website for download (not live webcast).

I figured I'd need at least 8 cameras (and operators) at the event to capture the race in detail. And the tracks aren't huge, per se, but they are very "hilly" so the riders are going out of view quite often. Hence the need for many different angles.

The reason I don't think live switching would work is because the cameras will be just too far away to run cable. Plus there are bulldozers and huge water trucks traversing the infield throughout the day that would make mense meat out of any cable lying on the ground. Also the production truck would have to be in the parking lot practically.

I'd like to try and find a solution for editing my footage down to a single "show", (after) the race but still doing this in a sort of live way?

Like if I could sync all of the tapes somehow and then have them play at once so that I could "live" switch them down to one master. Does this make any sense?

I don't even know if this kind of thing is available.

So the main problem is not getting the event shot, rather the task of trying to manage all that footage aftwards.

Side Note: The day's race is broken up into four - thirty minute races. I was thinking that I would just supply each operator with 4 tapes. I was also thinking of using headsets to audibly sync everyone. Meaning 3,2,1 record.

Sorry for the long post here guys but its hard for me to describe this due to my extreme noobness.

Thanks for the input!!

OK so it is an editing question moreso than how do I do all of this?

As I said, right now in Vegas I can tell you how to do it easily (Because thats all I use).

your idea of 321 record is good. Having all camera men started by looking at a central point, like the start would give you more visual reference too.

Then drop all 8 videos on a timeline each with their seperate tracks. You can then use one of many methods to cut between the clips.

But here's how I do it (Just last year I did a 15 minute production where I took 15 years of historical minidv footage and worked them all together into a highlights reel basically with a central narration/storyline).

- Put all clips on seperate tracks. Add a video envelope to each track (a nifty deal that allows you to use basically a bar graph type system where you make points along the video track and if the point is at the top of the track, its visible to 100%, at the bottom its 0%). This allows you to do like this:

Before you add your points:

Video 1 -----------------------------------------------------


Video 2 -----------------------------------------------------


Video 3 -----------------------------------------------------

After:

Video 1 ˉˉˉˉˉˉˉ____________ˉˉˉˉˉˉˉ________


Video 2 _______ˉˉˉˉˉˉˉˉˉˉˉˉ_______________


Video 3 __________________________ˉˉˉˉˉˉˉˉ

In other words where its ˉˉˉ its 100% visible, where its ________ its 0%

This allows you to get creative in that you can make it go from 100% one frame, to 0% the next, or do a fade by just making the 0% point farther down the timeline like this ˉˉˉ--_____ .

Theres all kind of variations you can do on this of course. Finally, so you know, the video order goes by the Track number, so lets say you have tracks 2-8 at 100%, and track 1 at 0%. Only track 2 will be visible in the output.

Dang that sounds pretty cool Wideshot. And more importantly, pretty easy!

Question: To get each of the videos into vegas and onto their own tracks would I have to do an individual capture for each one?

Reason I'm asking is because the race is held on Sunday and I have to provide finished product to the masses by Wednesday morning.

I'm thinking I'll be using 4 tapes per operator. Each tape will capture 30 minutes of racing. I'm terrible with math but that sounds like:

30 minutes x 4 tapes x 8 cameras = 960 minutes (16 hrs) of capture time. Just capture time.

I was hoping to have the whole day's project wrapped in like 12-16 hrs. Which would include all of the editing. I guess I might have been dreaming.