7 Cities Ballroom – Dance Showcase // Event Demo (pre-production)

The latest project I’m working on is for a group called 7 Cities Ballroom. It was their annual dance showcase. They like to take a video of the event for the students, for which they usually just stick a camera on a tripod. This time around they decided to go professional on the video. I, too, stuck a camera on a tripod, but I also went handheld/low tripod to get some great cut shots. It really made the video interesting.

I had an HV30 with a wide-angle lens on a tripod (thanks Jacobi!), on a table to try to shoot over the table that was right up to the dance floor. This was no good because you could see people’s heads in a lot of the shots. Also, the distance to the floor was short so the closest corners of the dance floor were cut off. When the dancers went to those corners I tried to cut to the other camera when I could. I tell you though, they were fast on their feet and I couldn’t always keep up.

The second camera was my HV40 with 35mm adaptor & Canon 50mm f1.8. I varied the shots between steadicam and low tripod. I tried to keep it a bit artistic so I could really make it interesting in post.

What you see below are stills from the HV40 (click them to see the full size). These are final production stills (Final Cut is crunching a hour of HD footage as I type… for the past 8 hours). I may post a few of the dances later on, or maybe make a montage of the night for your viewing pleasure.

Most of the dancers were instructor or students. However, there was a couple from Kansas City, Lila & Michael Shultz (the first image), that blew the night away! They are pro-level dancers and it was really cool to watch them perform, though difficult to keep up with the camera.

Enjoy.