Hi - for those who've seen too much of me, sorry! Asking a lot of questions.

I'll be taping a stage show for our local SAM club being held at an old Air force Base theater. The tapes are generally reproduced for members and performers for feedback. We'll be taping with two cameras on digital and doing post processing. Show is in a little over a week.

Does anyone have any experience with this sort of event and have any good lessons learned or tips?

Thanks!

Lighting is critical. I can assure you from personal experience that you must get to the theater early with the videographers and do test runs with the lighting. Otherwise, you may find that you look like you are working in a coal mine. Hope this helps.

If you are using this for critique/coaching I would suggest that one camera be 'locked down' in a spectator point of view--no zooms, pans, tilts, etc.

The second camera can be a little more creative and be used for some close up which you can edit into the finished program later.

From a coaching/critique standpoint the performance is the thing and this will best be chronicled on the locked down camera.

Just my opinion

Thanks! We'll be handling lighting, so we can be sure to set up as necessary. Also, we'd thought it might be a good idea to have two cameras - one to maintain a constant perspective and one for more creative shots. Glad to know we're not out in left field on that and what we can expect to use the different viewpoints for. Thanks for all the help!

Jon

Sound must also be an important factor will you use radio mics riffle mics these guys clearly won't be able to hold microphones in their hands.
The onboard camera mics can be dodgy I have experineces these problems myself. The problem being that they have a sort of zoom mechenism in the polar pattern therefore this can lead to uncontrollable sound levels at times.
All the best for the show!!!!!