childrens play

Are you going to be providing/selling DVDs of this play to the proud parents?

I used to get a lot of this kind of work (school plays, dance recitals) outsourced to me by a friend who would shoot a dozen or so of them every May and then get overwhelmed by the editing.

Here's what we did on the DVDs:

The main feature was a straight multicam edit of the show with a title and a credit roll of all the kids' names at the end. My advice here: make sure you get each kid close up on camera at least once! People don't buy these things for the high drama, they buy them to have some footage of their kid on stage that they can send to Jaja and Busha.

Then we'd have a "Special Features" item on the DVD menu that would take you to a ten-minute or so montage of "behind-the-scenes" footage set to music. Again, try to get each kid on camera!

These types of things have to be literally all over YouTube, if you're looking for examples you can watch.

Hope this helps.

IMHO, if you're limited to just the footage of the play itself, as well as candid shots of people seating, etc, you're going to have a hard time making a professional looking video. Interviews will generally add a 'pro' quality to the program. we've done a few for a high school. I'll try to get a sample up for you, but in the meantime here's something like what I'm talking about.

http://vimeo.com/17849007

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