Interactive Narrative - Video Shoot

Sunday 29.4.07 - I recorded the footage for my interactive music video. I shot it in the video studio at Sion Hill using 5 JVC DV cameras and the lighting rig with coloured gels. For the interactive video to work I needed to have one camera on each member of the band, allowing ample space for them to move around in shot. I also needed a wide angle showing all four members. I had to make sure none of the cameras were visible in any of the shots. Apart from this positioning the cameras was fairly simple. The main problem was the wide angle camera, I couldn't place it where I wanted to (directly in the middle) because the room isn't deep enough. So I placed it on top of the sound booth in the corner, switching the camera to wide mode. This shot was high above the 4 members but looked across them. Although this wasn't what I originally planned. I did like the shot and each member was clearly visible.

Here is a diagram of the room set up.My idea for the video is to have two states, which the user can choose between as well as the camera angles.
State 1 - Good rock video, played well, energetic rock poses etc.
State 2 - Bad documentary type video, tired and bored band, mistakes, technical difficulties etc.
So I needed a good take of each. I decided that it would be much easier to mime to the pre recorded track, rather than record both audio and video on the same day. So I 'bounced down' a mix of the track with a metronome click so the band could stay in time. After a few practices we went for a take. I switched all the cameras to record, announced the take number out loud and clapped my hands. This would make it easier for editing and syncing. We did two takes of the good state and one of the bad state.

Here are screen shots of each angle.As you can see the angles vary in colour quite dramatically. This should be fixable with colour correction in Final Cut Pro, seeing as I am not editing any other aspect of the video it won't be a problem. So all that is left to do is......Export the footage making it as small as possible without loosing too much quality. Seperate each audio track. Then, put all the media in to Director with the interface graphics I have made in flash. Hopefully it will work. Although I originally planned for this piece to be able to be viewed on the web, due to the amount of rich media I don't think this will be possible. I am hoping it will work from a CD rom and so can still be used as promotion for the band.