Chapter 8. Project 4: Making School Play (and Other Live Event) Movies

Making a movie of a live eventsuch as a school play, recital or concert, or a theater or dance performancepreserves the performance long after the stage has gone dark. If you are planning to videotape a wedding, this chapter will help you, too, because covering weddings is similar to shooting other live events.

This chapter provides inspirational examples of many different types of creative approaches to making live event movies, along with detailed shot lists to help you explore the many opportunities you have for shooting a complete story about a live event, if you want to capture all the emotion and action behind-the-scenes as well as onstage.

Remember, the "magic" of creating a great performance movie depends on how well you capture the event when you're shooting so that you have great footage to edit. The best event movies capture not only the action onstage but scenes before and after, too. Adding a lot of "color" makes the difference between a hohum movie of a darkly lit stage and a fun, lively movie that brings back all the emotion of the original event.

This chapter includes a review of the editing process to help you turn your good footage into a dynamic, action-packed live event movie.

When you've finished shooting and editing your movie, you can share the finished movie with the "stars" on videotape, DVD, or the Web. For the performer, having a movie of the event is often the only way to see how the performance looked to the audience.