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Mastering Dance Videography

December 09, 2019
  • 2,683
  • 7 min

Let’s face it: if it hadn’t been for YouTube, a whole generation of talented people would have remained unknown to the world. Many amateur singers and dancers have made their names by sharing their videos on social media, raising the bar for quality content in this arena. Audiences want to watch cool videos, and the artists want their videos to be seen. 

If you are passionate about dance and filmmaking, this may be your niche to fill. However, bear in mind that there are tons of dance clips out there, very few of which seem to be worth watching, never mind sharing. We’ve compiled a list of basic things you need to know before you set out into the world of dance videography. 

Filming

Working with a Team

Do you have a team to work on your project? Great – take advantage of every pair of hands and use multiple cameras. Ensure you have one camera constantly filming the whole scene – use it to capture one clean shot of the dance from A to Z. This will be your basic shot on which to build your clip, and you can use it to ensure your editing hasn’t messed with the choreography. 

Use other cameras to capture the dancers from closer in. For example, you can have your second camera operator moving around with a stabilizer to get dynamic shots from different angles. Or get more static shots, details and close-ups by changing the position of another camera. A tripod is optional but valuable. 

This strategy is ideal for capturing live performances when you only have one chance to get everything you need. With pre-rehearsed music videos, this way of filming will also make things faster – you only need your subjects to dance a couple of times to capture them from all angles. 

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Nailing It Alone

No teammates? No problem – you can still produce stunning dance videos on your own, and there are several ways to do it.

Option one is to film the whole sequence in a single shot. A decent action or DSLR camera with a built-in stabilizer or a gimbal will work just fine. This kind of filming doesn’t leave much room for creativity, but you can still improvise with angles and choose your highlights by moving in closer. There is also some room for experimenting with color grading and special effects at the editing stage.

Option two is to set up one camera to get that clean basic shot we mentioned above and use another camera to move around. The only potential pitfall of this strategy is that you can’t control the still camera and you can’t always see if you’ve accidentally stepped into the shot at the wrong time. Other than that, apply the same principles we outlined for teamwork filming. 

Option three is the most challenging, but it’s also the cheapest, as you wouldn’t need to rent an extra camera. The idea is to do everything with one camera. First, you record the basic shot of the whole thing. You might want to do it from a couple different angles, perhaps coming closer or moving sideways. Then, you can shoot the whole scene again by moving around and grabbing close-ups. Obviously, you will have to ask the dancers to repeat their performance a few times, giving them the chance to correct mistakes and giving you additional material with which to cover these mistakes during editing. 

For live events, the second option would work best. If you only have one camera in your possession, film the whole performance in one shot and then grab some cutaways of the audience and the overall atmosphere. For designated music clips, all three options would work. 

General Filming Tips

Look for unusual angles and positions. Try filming some close-ups of the dancers’ feet by placing the camera right on the floor. Climb on chairs, windowsills, nearby terraces – any horizontal surfaces that will help you rise above the scene and get a better perspective. Capture emotional close-ups: faces, eyes, hand gestures. You might have to hunt for these while the dancers are moving around: sometimes just setting up your camera and standing still is enough – just wait until your subjects pass by. 

Editing

Music Video

The easy part of editing music videos is that you know exactly which soundtrack to use and how to overlay it with the video. All you need to do is apply the audio carefully and precisely so that every beat in the track matches the background audio you’ve recorded. 

The hard part is fitting in the cutaways. That’s when you might have to watch and rewatch your footage multiple times to decide which cutaway fits at a particular point. If the dancers perform different movements, try to arrange your footage logically: say, if the person in the shot begins turning, try to find a close-up with the same person finishing the turn, and put them together. This way, you will create the effect of continuous movement in spite of the fact that the clips come from different choreographic elements. Sometimes you can create a whole new dance choreography by putting together clips that seem to be connected.

Whenever you insert details and close-ups, don’t forget what you need to focus on in the first place. If it’s the emotions and the atmosphere, pile up all sorts of cutaways and really go for close-ups. If it’s choreography, make sure your cutaways don’t interrupt the flow and you can still see the structure of the dance clearly. 

Event Highlights

Working on summaries from dance events (e.g. parties, concerts and festivals) is a whole different story. Usually these are short 1–3-minute highlights with a single soundtrack for everything at once. Quite often you’ll find yourself wondering how to put together all these disparate elements with people dancing to different music, and that’s when the real challenge begins. You will need to choose one soundtrack. Next, you have to carefully select the clips that work best for the highlights in your soundtrack. Play around the music, not the other way around.

Whenever you find people are dancing too fast or too slow, you can make minor tweaks in the speed. In most cases, speeding up or slowing down the video by 10–20% will be invisible to the human eye, but it can help you fit the clips together into one coherent soundtrack. 

Try utilizing the same effect of continuous movement. Say, if the couple in the shot steps to the left, let another couple in the next shot finish the movement in the same direction. 

General Editing Tips

Remember to check if the choreographic elements in your video match the beat, otherwise the whole thing will look out of sync. Sometimes you will have to watch quite a few videos of this particular style of dance to understand the relation between certain movements and the beat. Yes, it is extra work, but the result will be worth it. 

Additional Elements

Mixing in a storyline, abstract cutaways, special effects – everything is there for you to experiment. However, remember that dance videography is about showing the art of the dance itself. So whatever you choose to apply to your clips, remember that it should serve this purpose and not distract the viewer. 

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