Arts organizations large and small, as well as artists and their companies are increasingly facing the need to film performances.
At BAM, I am responsible for archiving hundreds of "events" every year. Each one is unique and requires some planning and consideration. Our performances range in genre to include dance, opera, music, theater, cirque nouveau, and installation or performance art.
Our archival mission serves our institution, but also is a wonderful service that I am proud to provide for our artists. Many of our artists might never have the resources at their disposal to film their work in high definition and this might be the one and only time to document the specific work. I will often ask an artist if they have any specific direction for the archive shoot.
Our standard setup is a single camera archive. In some of our venues this is a video camera on a tripod operated by a professional operator. In other venues, we have recently installed a robotic controlled pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) system. This system is also operated by hand, but is different from the classic camera-on-tripod-at-back-of-house setup. I'll break down the gear a little later. First, I'd like to describe a little bit about our approach to producing the archive.
Production
The hair-pulling conundrum is the first obvious question facing you in any single-camera shoot: how much should I zoom and pan?
Over the past few years, I have come to the conclusion that an archive is best filmed as a wide shot of the entire stage. With perfect focus, exposure and framing, I find that I am much more comfortable watching this aesthetic than when the operator over-works the zoom and pan. It also is the purest "document" of a performance as it guarantees that all entrances and exits are on camera, and the show is captured in whole.
There are certainly exceptions to this rule. Music performances allow for the most freedom (perhaps because the movement is not choreographed). Dance can be beautifully captured with thoughtful camera movement, especially when a solo is tracked perfectly across the stage. When filming theater, I will often direct an operator to zoom into a scene or a character when blocking and lighting focus attention to a segment of the stage. Remember, I'm talking about as single camera shoot here (I'll gladly cover my approach to multi-camera shooting in another post).
These archives hold value for a number of interests: students and researchers may want to study the work and often times the artists use it to seek future presenters, or create a trailer of the work for marketing and promotion. Of course, each of these uses may dictate a different approach to filming. If a show has been filmed before, I will often try to find a new or different way to film it so that the BAM archive holds a unique document.
Editing
All our video is born digital (no tapes) and once we've finished filming a show it is time to make a titled master. The titled master includes adding a scrolling credit to the front of the footage, some minimal color correction if needed, and some balancing of the audio. For the large majority of archives, the audio comes in two mono tracks (a mono feed from the sound board and second mono recording of the on-camera microphone).
Delivery
The final archive delivery include the following:
- Untitled Master (a disc image of the original media from the camera)
- Titled Master (output as an uncompressed video file or Apple ProRes)
- A screener DVD (this will soon go away, fingers crossed, as we build a digital database with proxy files for easy viewing and access).
BAM shares our archival videos with the New York Public Library for Performing Arts and copies are kept in the collection at the BAM Hamm Archives (Update: Read about BAM Hamm Archives).
Equipment
Operator-controlled system:
- Panasonic AG-160a
- Sachtler FSB4
- Marshall External Monitor
- Rode NTG2 Shotgun Microphone
Remote-controlled system:
- Panasonic HE-120k
- Ki-Pro Deck
- Panasonic AWRP-50 Remote Control
- Marshall External Monitor
I could go into a lot more detail about many parts of this workflow but just wanted to give a rundown in case any of this is interesting to this community. Please feel free to ask questions and I'll gladly explain more. Open to advice on any and everything—I am always open to ways to improve our archival methods.
I'll end with a burning (and slightly post-apocalyptic) question: will we ever be replaced by machines?
When we installed that remote-controlled system it immediately opened the door to a possibility that an archive could be filmed from a distant office, rather than putting the operator in the house. The efficiency is seductive. I could record 5 venues from a single computer. However, I'm fairly certain the human-quality of camera operation would significantly reduce the quality of our archives. Being present in the house allows for the best real-time response to lighting changes, for example. What do you think? Should the human hand ever be taken out of the archive?
Thanks for reading,
Ben
This is something we are grappling with at the Getty right now and you have a lot of insight. Some questions: How does publishing work into your equation? Is it important to BAM for all (any?) of these videos to be seen online? Do you consider sharing through the library to be a form of publishing? Have you ever webcast an event? How does BAM define it's audiences? Finally, what hilarious genius named the BAM Hamm Archive?
ReplyDeleteFirst of all (most importantly): the name BAM Hamm Archives is the happy product of major support provided by Charles J. & Irene F. Hamm, and the Leon Levy Foundation. I'm told Mr. Hamm has a good sense of humor about the name. I've added to my post a link to an interesting blog entry by Sharon Lehner, our BAM Archivist, about the history of our archives.
DeleteAs far as publishing work (and distribution, etc.): we do often have the ability to publish excerpts from the archives online (as you may have seen on my introduction post). This can make for some pretty excellent exposure for the art, a great educational tool, and also taps into the desire for exclusive content online. Aside from just the editing time needed, ensuring that all necessary rights are cleared (music, writers, performers, everyone involved) is a huge undertaking so we have basically taken this on at a "do what we can" pace until we really develop an online audience and perhaps garner more resources to distribute. Current and future contracts with performers are starting to open the door to more possibilities, though: including webcasts or live streams. I plan on doing an "Anatomy of..." post on this specific topic at a later date.
As far as viewing these videos online: we do see it as a very important and worthy avenue and are quickly moving in this direction. Archive collections existing in the digital age is a fascinating topic, and in the coming year I'll have a lot more to say about this as we are developing some new tools here - not just for video, but also for audio, images, etc.
I haven't considered the NYPL delivery specifically as a form of publishing, though it is an interesting way to look at it. And with changing technologies at the library, I'm sure that line will only become more blurred. For now, it is not a lending library - you can go there and screen the videos on site and under some pretty heavy restrictions: students, researchers, etc.
As far as defining our audiences: that's a big one! We have both the luxury and curse of a huge breadth and depth of work that we will often segment our marketing by genre (see the navigation bar on BAM.org). We are working hard constantly to "convert" (in marketing terms) an Opera lover into a dance lover, etc. We might talk to members differently than we would talk to single-ticket buyers, as I'm sure you do, too. This isn't my main focus, so I don't want to misrepresent the strategy of my colleagues... but I do know that when it comes to our online audiences—social media, email, etc. is evolving so rapidly that I think we are regularly forced to re-evaluate this.