Posted by Richard Crowley on 01/04/08 01:00

"peter" wrote ...
>A week ago there was a show at kennedy center honoring director Martin
>Scorsese, actor Steve Martin, diana ross, etc. It was shot in a theater
>with audience, implying there is only one take.
>
> I noticed many prediction cuts -- i.e. right before some lead musical
> instrument starts playing or someone starts singing, the scene is switch
> to that musician. I'm guessing the music director gave an event list to
> the video director, who then gives the order to the camera operators and
> do the switching?
>
> Even with this list, how does the video director know at which second to
> switch?
>
> Suppose on the list it says "after the first movement, the harpsicord
> would play solo ..." Unless the video director knows the music and knows
> when the end of the first movement is, he may switch to the harpsicord too
> soon and show the musician doing nothing for a few seconds.
>
> Any idea how it is actually done?

For big-budget PBS classical music shows I've seen, they have
somebody reading bar numbers into the intercom sytem and the
opeator for camera 2 has a cue-sheet that says "bar 34: 2-shot
of soprano and alto soloists" and "bar 173: closeup of tympani-
player's hands" etc. etc.

The rev-0 cue-sheets were likely created by a music intern, and
then revised during rehearsals. There are many revisions of the
camera-ops cue-sheets. The director has the master sheet with
the cues of all the cameras.

And at big awards shows where they have shots of all five of
the nominees, they know in advance where people are seated,
and they have a dozen cameras so they can dedicate one for
each nominee, etc. etc.

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