Re: live speaker event engineering/producing 101 - newbie in need of help

I just have to reply to these posts.

I also do quite a bit of recording of live events - mainly seminars. And what you are asking is to tell you in a few paragraphs what I've learned in 20 years of experience. Andy has done a really good job of giving you some important pointers.

Here's my take:

First of all what you are trying to do is technicially complex and takes quite of bit of technical skill and artistic creation. Purchasing equipment is just one small detail, getting it set up and working (and yes it does fail and it does do weird things) is a major thing. So it takes someone who can trouble shoot all kinds of strange problems.

You have no experience. So what if you get great equipment and your production looks like crap. There is no value there. How do you frame the shots, what the rules of thirds, etc, etc. Basically you need to make it look good and just not have a camera on a wide shoot and a little person talking in front.

So I would recommend to volunteer for several of someone else's events to start to get trained. For starters don't go buy a bunch of equipment. You don't know what you are doing or if you are capable of it. Then if you have to because of your deadlines, hire someone else to do it and assist them.

If you look on ebay you always find guys who buy all these expensive equipment, use it for 1 or 2 gigs and figure out it's not for them. Then their equipments sits in the garage.

So, in a nutshell, get experience, hire someone else and then maybe rent some equipment.

Sorry to be so hard, but I think you need a reality check. Be well, James

James Redmond
Dynamic Videos, Inc.
Rogers, AR USA