How To Help The Professionals Film Your School Christmas Play

1) Make it Easier to Film

Have a run through of your script and make sure when there are quick lines between different children, that you get them to say it in order on stage. It is impossible to film one child saying a line on the left, then another who is the other side of the stage. The only way to record kids popping up out of order is to remain wide on the camera angle.

2) Narrators

If you have narrators in the show, have these static on a microphone to the side of the stage. This will enable the a camera setup in a static position to film these parts. This enables the main camera operator to remain focused on the action happening in the middle of the stage.

3) Multi Stage

Are you using multiple stages in your Christmas play? Many schools do and this can work well as it enables different scenes and less movement of kids especially with a large cast. The important thing to do is to inform the person filming your show of this before they arrive on the day. They may decide to bring an extra camera or even camera operator if this is the case.

4) Lighting your show

Are you using stage lights, room lights only or a combination of the two? For camera operator to film your show professionally the more light the better and the more even that light is distributed over the entire stage. This will often mean that if your stage lighting is uneven it is better to use room lights for the show being recorded. If your lighting is bad, you may want to inform the videographer so they can bring some lights of their own that they can safely put up on stands in a safe marked off area.

Many school shave invested in colour changing led lights. Whilst these can be great fun and can change the look of a scene in an instant. They are often problematic for cameras. If your videographer is using static cameras they are often on auto white balance settings which do not work well with the cheaper led lighting systems. To be safe avoid using the blue and red settings on the lights, as these are often the colours that cause the most issues.

Sound

Ok so the last thing to consider to help the school show videographers is sound. Videographers will have a range of options for professionally recording the sound. However if you do have your own system in place it is a good idea to ask them if they would like an output from your sound desk or a recording of your audio.

Conclusion

To make your show be the best it can on the final school play video consider the steps above. The most important thing is that the kids are having fun and do their best as this will show the most on film. Modern event videographers have access to great kit to record sound, provide light and to capture the show in high quality digitally.