Location Video Production

My friend Dave Morgan and I have built a multi-camera live event video production unit. We use it mostly for church-related and musical event videography. We do it mostly for our own amusement and do not charge for videography. (Of course, we also don't pay the crew except for meals!) We are always looking for more people who are interested in volunteering and learning live video production.

Dave and I took these pix with my Sony Mavica digital camera at an outdoor production at the Beaverton Christian Church ampitheatre in August, 1998.

Click on the thumbnail image to see the full-size one.

Some of the dozens of boxes of equpment and supplies that seem to always go along with a full scale video production. Hundreds of feet of big camera cable and thousands of feet of microphone cable are used with wild abandon!
We spool the microphone and power cables on those orange reels you see in the foreground. This makes for much easier setup and strike, and keeps the cables from tangling.

All the monitors and equipment rack set up in the back of Dave's Wells Cargo trailer. We also use the trailer to haul all the equipment to the venue.
Sometimes we set up the control room inside the building where we are shooting, but sometimes (as here), we use the trailer because we don't have enough camera cable to reach more than a couple hundred feet for each camera.

Ben Wenzel and Matthew McNeil setting up one of the cameras.
All the crew members are volunteers and enjoy doing live video production. They all have the oportunity to move around and try out different crew positions as they desire.

Dave Morgan plugging cables into the equipment rack during setup. You can see part of the Echolab video switcher at the left on the table.
Because we acquired most of the equipment used (we're not made of money!), we have do do the occasional repair or adjustment before we start a production.

There is lots of cabling to run to interconnect all the head-end equipment and the cameras and audio equipment.
We are always working on making the interconnections more modular and easy to do (so we can delegate it to other crew members!)

The small (Mackie 1402) audio mixer, one of my S-VHS recorders, and a 9" color confidence monitor. We also have Mackie 1604 mixer(s) available for larger productions where were are mixing all the audio ourselves.
For the "good stuff" we record on high quality Sony DVcam or Panasonic DVCpro digital videotape.

The control room with (left to right) Anderew Cockerham at the video switcher, Dave Morgan studying the script (and directing), and Matthew McNiel at the shader rack. All crew members wear headsets for the intercom system (which we built ourselves) to communciate during the production.
Andrew is the son of another pastor in the Portland area and is in high school. He enjoys the video switcher and camera shader positions.

Matthew and his father Jim are both from my church (Sunset Christian Fellowship, SDA) and are frequent crew volunteers.

Another shot of the head end setup in the Wells Cargo trailer. The two color monitors at the left are Preview and Program.
The four smaller black and white monitors in the center are the individual camera monitors (so the director can see who has what shot), and the large color monitor at the right is used to shade (adjust) the camera lens and color balance settings (in real time).

Below the shader monitor is a waveform/vectorscope to monitor the video signal. Dave shouldn't have his big drink cup so close to the switcher!

Andrew Wyman running one of Dave's cameras. Andrew is the son of my pastor (Ralph Wyman). The whole Wyman family has worked with us during the Oregon SDA Campmeeting in various crew positions including: assistant director, camera operator, shader, switcher, and cable grip.

Ben Wenzel running one of my cameras in portable mode. Ben works on most of our productions. He was just in 8th grade when we did this production, but he is a pretty good cameraman and a promising director! In the first picture, he looks a little confused, though. :-)
Many of the crew volunteers are high school students. They are eager to learn and are good crew members when properly directed.

Larry Betz running my other big camera. Larry and his son are both regular crew volunteers. Dave recruited them from his church (Beaverton Christian).
Andrew on camera 1 is in the background. We got to use the spikes on the tripods here for the first time! They dug into the turf and held the cameras nice and steady.

Me running Dave's other camera. I was way in the back but could still get good close shots by using the 2x tele-extender on the lens. You need good lighting to use the extender and still produce good pictures.
Some of the time we were in direct sunlight. The excellent lighting produced great pictures, but the sunlight made it more difficult to see the viewfinders. We'll bring cardboard and duct tape next time to make monitor hood extentions!

We have used up to six live cameras on a production, but ususally we run 4 cameras. We have industrial 3-chip industrial cameras (Sony) with full studio rigging including lens controls and viewfinders, good tripods and pan/tilt heads, hundreds of feet of camera cable, and remote Camera Control Units. We can also use three of the cameras in shoulder-mount field production with the small eyepiece viewfinders.

All of our equipment is mounted in road cases to protect the goods and to give it that professional look. Picture monitors include four 13" color monitors, five 9" color monitors, and eight 9" black and white monitors. We have a 4-bus 6-fader bar Echolabs video switcher and special effects generator

rcrowley.com Location Video Production

Feedback to:

	Some of the dozens of boxes of equpment and supplies that seem to always go along with a full scale video production. Hundreds of feet of big camera cable and thousands of feet of microphone cable are used with wild abandon! We spool the microphone and power cables on those orange reels you see in the foreground. This makes for much easier setup and strike, and keeps the cables from tangling.
	All the monitors and equipment rack set up in the back of Dave's Wells Cargo trailer. We also use the trailer to haul all the equipment to the venue. Sometimes we set up the control room inside the building where we are shooting, but sometimes (as here), we use the trailer because we don't have enough camera cable to reach more than a couple hundred feet for each camera.
	Ben Wenzel and Matthew McNeil setting up one of the cameras. All the crew members are volunteers and enjoy doing live video production. They all have the oportunity to move around and try out different crew positions as they desire.
	Dave Morgan plugging cables into the equipment rack during setup. You can see part of the Echolab video switcher at the left on the table. Because we acquired most of the equipment used (we're not made of money!), we have do do the occasional repair or adjustment before we start a production.
	There is lots of cabling to run to interconnect all the head-end equipment and the cameras and audio equipment. We are always working on making the interconnections more modular and easy to do (so we can delegate it to other crew members!)
	The small (Mackie 1402) audio mixer, one of my S-VHS recorders, and a 9" color confidence monitor. We also have Mackie 1604 mixer(s) available for larger productions where were are mixing all the audio ourselves. For the "good stuff" we record on high quality Sony DVcam or Panasonic DVCpro digital videotape.
	The control room with (left to right) Anderew Cockerham at the video switcher, Dave Morgan studying the script (and directing), and Matthew McNiel at the shader rack. All crew members wear headsets for the intercom system (which we built ourselves) to communciate during the production. Andrew is the son of another pastor in the Portland area and is in high school. He enjoys the video switcher and camera shader positions. Matthew and his father Jim are both from my church (Sunset Christian Fellowship, SDA) and are frequent crew volunteers.
	Another shot of the head end setup in the Wells Cargo trailer. The two color monitors at the left are Preview and Program. The four smaller black and white monitors in the center are the individual camera monitors (so the director can see who has what shot), and the large color monitor at the right is used to shade (adjust) the camera lens and color balance settings (in real time). Below the shader monitor is a waveform/vectorscope to monitor the video signal. Dave shouldn't have his big drink cup so close to the switcher!
	Andrew Wyman running one of Dave's cameras. Andrew is the son of my pastor (Ralph Wyman). The whole Wyman family has worked with us during the Oregon SDA Campmeeting in various crew positions including: assistant director, camera operator, shader, switcher, and cable grip.
	Ben Wenzel running one of my cameras in portable mode. Ben works on most of our productions. He was just in 8th grade when we did this production, but he is a pretty good cameraman and a promising director! In the first picture, he looks a little confused, though. :-) Many of the crew volunteers are high school students. They are eager to learn and are good crew members when properly directed.
	Larry Betz running my other big camera. Larry and his son are both regular crew volunteers. Dave recruited them from his church (Beaverton Christian). Andrew on camera 1 is in the background. We got to use the spikes on the tripods here for the first time! They dug into the turf and held the cameras nice and steady.
	Me running Dave's other camera. I was way in the back but could still get good close shots by using the 2x tele-extender on the lens. You need good lighting to use the extender and still produce good pictures. Some of the time we were in direct sunlight. The excellent lighting produced great pictures, but the sunlight made it more difficult to see the viewfinders. We'll bring cardboard and duct tape next time to make monitor hood extentions!