Adam Lambert – VEVO Concert

Director: Doug Spangenberg
Producer: Roy LaManna
Director of Photography: Jonathan Bregel
Production Company: Space Monkey Studios

I just got back from Indianapolis where I DP’ed a concert for American Idol star Adam Lambert. This was my second time shooting for director Doug Spangenberg of Space Monkey Studios. The first shoot I did with Doug was in late-August for Kelis and I can say that both of these concerts have had some of the most interesting crowds I have ever seen…I didn’t get a chance to blog about that one but it went very smoothly.

On this shoot, the crew was very solid with a total of 11 cameras, and 9 operators. Doug likes to mix formats when he shoots concerts for various effects so we shot with 6x Canon 7D’s, 1x Panasonic HPX-170, 2x Panasonic HVX-200’s, and 2x GoPro HD-Hero cameras.

Overall everything went very well, however we did almost have a couple sketchy run-in’s with the lasers used in his show. At points, the lasers were literally 2 feet above my lens…not a good feeling, but the LD knew what he was doing and was aware where each of our operators were.

Fortunately we were able to speak to Adam’s Lighting Designer and make sure that the lasers wouldn’t cross the paths of our DSLR’s. This basically resulted in us having to place the DSLR’s on the floor level which worked fine because we just placed the HPX/HVX’s on the higher levels which could be hit by the lasers. If you weren’t aware, those specific lasers can destroy the DSLR’s sensor in milliseconds. If you don’t believe me, check this out:

UPDATE: How to break your 5D in a second from Agua on Vimeo.

Overall, it was a great whirlwind of a shoot and it was good to shoot with Doug and Space Monkey Studios again. Looking forward to seeing how it comes out!

-Jon