This was a really fun shoot, just because of how many great musicians were on stage. The event was a Stevie Wonder concert for the 67th Anniversary of the United Nations, with multiple walk on artists and speakers. The venue is the General Assembly building, where full council meetings of the member nations usually take place. The concert was webcast live on UNTV and will be broadcast on BET in February. There were two days of set up and rehearsal before the concert on the evening of the second day.
A stage was built around the Secretary General’s Dais. The event would be shot with eight Sony HDC-2500L cameras, three of which were handheld. My position was camera 8, on stage, working both wings. The production was required to use four camera operators from UNTV. The director had no idea how they would do, so they hired four additional pro shooters to make sure the show was covered. Our cameras were feeding IMAG screens over the stage at times, as well as being switched live for the show, so keeping screens framed out was always a concern. The director put the UNTV shooters on long studio lenses in the back center, and wings up high. He placed the three handheld around the stage, front and back and the last one on a slash camera with a 33:1, up on a platform. I had a wide lens, and was able to walk behind the band from wing to wing. Stage right was horns, stage left was the choir and back up singers.
View of the main stage from my camera position
Rehearsals were very long and scattered, until Stevie arrives, then everyone gets serious. By the next day when we come in, we’re told to forget everything we rehearsed, because it’s all changed. No problem, we’re used to winging it. The show goes on a little late and begins with speakers. Then Stevie Wonder comes out and starts to play, and we go to work. Three and a half hours later, after Stevie, plus musical guests; Sting, Doug E Fresh, Wyclef Jean, Valerie Simpson and more, the director comes up and thanks us (the pro shooters) for saving his show, nice.
Security is often challenging at locations like this, but once we were inside with credentials, it really wasn’t an issue, as the area is closed to the public and not currently in use. Working within a large camera crew, for a director I’ve never worked with before, was a bigger challenge. I really had to sell my shots to get on the screen, but we were being recorded iso, so I always shot like I was live unless I was repositioning. Dragging a fiber optic cable behind me wasn’t always easy, but I had a decent cable puller. Still, being on stage for a show like that was the coolest place to be, without a doubt.
