Dance Video Production for a Studio Performance Series

C&I Studios handled dance video production on the first episode of Dancing For Life, a performance series produced by Lifestyle Network Production. The episode was shot across a single day on our Fort Lauderdale stage with seven dancers, two RED camera bodies, a full lighting and grip package and a production sound mixer recording on set. Every frame on this page came off our own cameras that day.

Building a Stage That Reads as Open Darkness

The concept asked for performers arriving out of darkness rather than dancing on a built set, and that is a lighting problem long before it is a camera problem. Haze was run through the room so every beam had something to sit in, the floor was kept unlit except where a chapter called for it, and hard sources were used to carve single figures out of the black. Three Arri SkyPanel S60 units, an Aputure 600D and a 300D, Kino Flo Celebs, Astera tubes and Quasar tubes gave the gaffer enough separately addressable control to change the entire mood of the space between setups without walking a stand back onto the floor. Dance video production depends on that kind of control, because choreography cannot pause while a crew rebuilds a lighting plot around it.

Covering Choreography With Two Cameras

Choreography is written for an audience seated in one place. A camera has to decide, shot by shot, whether the moment belongs to the whole body, the shape of the group or a single face. We ran two RED bodies on cine primes, one holding a wider view of the full floor and one working closer for isolation, with a first assistant pulling focus on a wireless system and the client watching both feeds on monitors at the cart. Running both cameras on every pass meant each routine produced usable wide and tight material from the same take, which matters when a dancer has a limited number of full energy runs before fatigue starts to show on camera.

Recording Sound on a Performance Set

A performance series carries a spoken poem, a music bed and the sound of the room itself, so a production sound mixer worked the day with a Schoeps and a Sennheiser MKH416 into a Zoom F8, with timecode boxes keeping both cameras and the recorder locked together. Locked timecode is unglamorous work that saves hours in the edit, because eleven separate videos cut from one day of multiple camera material is a synchronisation job before it is a creative one.

Two Chapters, One Shooting Day

Two chapters were shot that day, each with its own choreography and its own look. One was staged warm and open. The other moved into deep red and hard shadow. Same stage, same afternoon, two states that read as separate worlds once they are on screen. Working a series this way keeps the budget in one place. The company travels once, the stage is dressed once, and the lighting package earns its keep across every setup rather than being struck and rebuilt at a second location.

Cutting One Shooting Day Into Eleven Videos

The day was commissioned as a six minute film plus ten shorter performance edits, one for each routine. That deliverable list shapes how you shoot. Every routine needs a clean full length pass so it can stand on its own, and the film needs coverage that will cut against a poem and a music bed rather than simply documenting the choreography end to end. Our post production team works from footage that is copied and checked on location before anyone packs up, so the edit begins from material we know is complete.

Performance and Music Work at C&I Studios

We take on dance video production for artists, producers, networks and brands, and the same crew that shoots our commercial and documentary work handles it. Our Fort Lauderdale building has its own stage, lighting and grip inventory and edit suites under one roof, which is why a series like this can be planned, shot and finished without a vendor list. Our South Florida video production teams work out of that building, our event videography crews cover live performance across the country, and our wider video production roster runs from single day studio work up to multiple location campaigns.

Filming movement well is a specific discipline. The dance film has been its own form for as long as cameras have been pointed at dancers, and the questions have not changed much. Where does the camera stand, how much of the body do you hold, and does the cut respect the count the choreographer built. Good dance video production answers those three before the first take. See more of our music work or tell us about the performance you want filmed.