Stand-up comedy specials info

[Ben Kahn]

Hello,

I'm looking for information on shooting a stand-up comedy special. This is something the stand-up and their producers would be funding independently, hoping to sell to a network or streaming service.  No budget restraints. Would be shooting in a fairly large theater.

Mostly I'm curious what cameras are being used and how many. I'm in the narrative and commercial world and usual use Arri's and Venices. Are those being used for comedy specials or are they using broadcast cameras? The producers want this to feel more cinematic so that's a consideration.

If anyone has any experience and can point me to resources (e.g. American Cinematographer articles...) I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks

[Adrian Sierkowski]

The last time I cam-opped one of these things for Showtime it was on the C-300MKii. I believe the time before that was one of the disk based Sony XDCams with an HD Zoom. Granted this was all a few years ago.  I also almost went onto one using the FS7, but that gig fell through.
It's not that you couldn't do it on Arri or Venice, but generally, you'd want something lighter and better on power consumption and that can be easily painted if you're going live to tape, which many are.
 

[David Mullen ASC]

I shot this comedy special a year ago exactly, it got released in April on Amazon Prime. I used the crew from "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel".  We had two nights of performance to shoot, to be edited into one performance. I think we had five cameras, all with zooms.

I really wanted to make sure everything wasn't shot on a long lens from the back of the house --  especially with haze in the air -- so basically on the first night the cameras were farther back and then all were moved closer the second night.

Night One: Camera #1 was center of house in the back on a 30' Technocrane to get the widest shots with camera moves. Camera #2  was also dead center, under Camera #1, on a longer lens. The reason I needed two dead-center cameras was because she was flanked equally by two musical performers so if the camera was even slightly off-center, she blocked one of the two people and it looked better as a frontal 3-shot. Camera #3 was in the corner of house left, near the back of her parents in the audience, who she talks to. Camera #4 was in the corner of house right but a bit more downstage to get near profile shots and be able to pan over to the parents in profile. Since the theater had a balcony section, Camera #5 was upstairs shooting high and wide over the heads of the audience in the balcony.  Now if we didn't have a two-level theater, I probably would have dropped that position though the high angle was nice.

Night Two: I wanted a frontal camera that was much closer physically -- close and wider-angle -- but since I didn't want to block the view of too many people, or have her view blocked too much, I put the camera on a remote head on a dolly riser so that it wasn't as "present". The camera was right at the end of the stage "tongue" or "thrust" that jutted out. Then I worked the other cameras around the perimeter; I think I brought the upstairs camera downstairs so I could put one camera each on her two musical performers who interact with her. And one camera was more dedicated to audience reactions.

After the performance was over, we asked the audience to stick around and she re-performed some sections again but with a Steadicam roving behind her back to see the whole house and spotlight. I think I put some of the other cameras on more audience reactions.

Camera #1 both nights had a shorter 5:1 zoom and the rest had 11:1 zooms. The Steadicam had a Primo prime lens. I used a #1/8 Black Frost on the lenses for minimal diffusion. ARRI Alexa Mini's shooting 3.2K ProRes 4444 Log-C 16x9, which is how most of "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" was shot.

[Ben Kahn]

On 6/26/2023 at 7:46 PM, David Mullen ASC said:

I shot this comedy special a year ago exactly, it got released in April on Amazon Prime. I used the crew from "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel".  We had two nights of performance to shoot, to be edited into one performance. I think we had five cameras, all with zooms.

I really wanted to make sure everything wasn't shot on a long lens from the back of the house --  especially with haze in the air -- so basically on the first night the cameras were farther back and then all were moved closer the second night.

Night One: Camera #1 was center of house in the back on a 30' Technocrane to get the widest shots with camera moves. Camera #2  was also dead center, under Camera #1, on a longer lens. The reason I needed two dead-center cameras was because she was flanked equally by two musical performers so if the camera was even slightly off-center, she blocked one of the two people and it looked better as a frontal 3-shot. Camera #3 was in the corner of house left, near the back of her parents in the audience, who she talks to. Camera #4 was in the corner of house right but a bit more downstage to get near profile shots and be able to pan over to the parents in profile. Since the theater had a balcony section, Camera #5 was upstairs shooting high and wide over the heads of the audience in the balcony.  Now if we didn't have a two-level theater, I probably would have dropped that position though the high angle was nice.

Night Two: I wanted a frontal camera that was much closer physically -- close and wider-angle -- but since I didn't want to block the view of too many people, or have her view blocked too much, I put the camera on a remote head on a dolly riser so that it wasn't as "present". The camera was right at the end of the stage "tongue" or "thrust" that jutted out. Then I worked the other cameras around the perimeter; I think I brought the upstairs camera downstairs so I could put one camera each on her two musical performers who interact with her. And one camera was more dedicated to audience reactions.

After the performance was over, we asked the audience to stick around and she re-performed some sections again but with a Steadicam roving behind her back to see the whole house and spotlight. I think I put some of the other cameras on more audience reactions.

Camera #1 both nights had a shorter 5:1 zoom and the rest had 11:1 zooms. The Steadicam had a Primo prime lens. I used a #1/8 Black Frost on the lenses for minimal diffusion. ARRI Alexa Mini's shooting 3.2K ProRes 4444 Log-C 16x9, which is how most of "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" was shot.

Hi David,

I replied to this yesterday but for some reason it didn't post so sorry for the delay.

Thank you for this valuable insight! This is super helpful. We will also have the benefit of two performances so can utilize your strategy to shoot wide the first night and move in tighter the 2nd.

Along those lines of tighter framing. The performer has more serious, emotional aspects to the show and the director is envisioning capturing those moments with a camera up close (wide lens/tight framing). Much like your steadicam shot but in front of the performer which would block the audience. My initial thought was to try and film those moments in a dress rehearsal but logistically that might not work, plus the performer might object to not having an audience to feed off of. Hopefully we can also do the re-performances after the show like she did.

I like the remote head/dolly shot you have for the second performance. That never felt intrusive to the audience though? 

Thanks again for your help!

[David Mullen ASC]

I didn't ask the audience what they thought -- it was a free show for them but the camera was much higher than their eye level so only the dolly riser would have possibly blocked one person's sightline and they could have shifted to see around it. Even closer on the second night, it still was generally 10' away often but that was better than shooting her closer shots from 40' away on the first night.

Your director is going to have to convince the performer to do a pass with a camera hovering right in front of her face. It's going to be intrusive for everyone involved so he or she is going to have to have a good reason. It may work as a second pass on the second night in pick up of sections.

[David Mullen ASC]

Sometimes it's subtle but you can see the difference between the camera distances here:

Night 1 further on a longer lens:

 

Night 2 closer on a wide-angle lens:

 

Night 1:

 

Night 2:

[Ben Kahn]

On 6/29/2023 at 11:12 AM, David Mullen ASC said:

I didn't ask the audience what they thought -- it was a free show for them but the camera was much higher than their eye level so only the dolly riser would have possibly blocked one person's sightline and they could have shifted to see around it. Even closer on the second night, it still was generally 10' away often but that was better than shooting her closer shots from 40' away on the first night.

Your director is going to have to convince the performer to do a pass with a camera hovering right in front of her face. It's going to be intrusive for everyone involved so he or she is going to have to have a good reason. It may work as a second pass on the second night in pick up of sections.

Had a conversation with the director. She had the same thought about getting on-stage coverage on the second night, pick up sections.

You can definitely feel the camera closer on the talent with the dolly setup. It definitely adds variety to the piece. I hope we can get something like that!

Nice work David! Thanks again

 

[Abdul Rahman Jamous]

On 6/26/2023 at 7:55 PM, Adrian Sierkowski said:

The last time I cam-opped one of these things for Showtime it was on the C-300MKii.
 

This is the first camera that came to my mind. 

well... for me (my personal opinion), I think when it comes to stand up comedies you don't have to use fancy cameras. I mean using mirrorless (photography) cameras would do the job. and if the talent is good looking so perhaps you should consider using sharp lenses. also for me (and once again this is my personal opinion) I prefer stand up comedies to be shot in 60 fps because that would add a layer of excitement to the performance. 
 

and to achieve "the cinematic look" for a stand up comedy, I think you should focus more about what type of lens you use and what type of color contrast you would have.  

please kindly update us with your decisions and hope you share with us some footage of this shooting... I'm super curious!

[Phil Connolly]

For multi-camera type work my current goto camera is the Sony Fx6.

In the UK (at least) they are affordable to hire with good availability if you need multiples. 

Image quality is good and the file sizes are manageable (something to consider on long form multi-camera). Sony's skin tones are now decent and the 13 stop latitude is plenty for appropriate lighting. The internal vari-ND is excellent - makes it quick and easy to match exposure across cameras. 

The auto focus is also excellent, so good I actually use it on more static shots. So you could save money on focus remotes for some of the positions. 

Only downside is the full frame sensor reduces your lens options, but you could mix it with a few Sony Fx9's on S35 mode for longer lens shots. I've done a few shoots with Fx6 in FF 4K and Fx9 cropped to s35 4K and they have matched really well.  The autofocus on the Fx6 is better then the Fx9 if you plan to use it. 

 

9 hours ago, Abdul Rahman Jamous said:

well... for me (my personal opinion), I think when it comes to stand up comedies you don't have to use fancy cameras. I mean using mirrorless (photography) cameras would do the job. and if the talent is good looking so perhaps you should consider using sharp lenses. also for me (and once again this is my personal opinion) I prefer stand up comedies to be shot in 60 fps because that would add a layer of excitement to the performance. 

You can totally get great result from mirrorless cameras. But they are less then ideal in practice. They often only have HDMI video outs. For long cable runs in a theatre needed to send the signal back to the gallery/control room/directors area - you typically would want to use HD-SDI. You may need 100ft+ cable runs and I don't think HDMI would be up for it. Its possible to convert HDMI to SDI using converter boxes, but by the time you've rented those - you may as well have gone for a professional camera that has SDI.

Mirrorless/prosumer cameras typically lack advanced timecode controls and external timecode inputs. Yes, you can edit multi-camera without matching timecode. But its vastly easier if all the cameras are locked to the same timecode reference.