Our clients came to us with a new idea: rap battles on mobile video. They wanted to shoot MCs battling each other, then give let mobile phone viewers the opportunity to vote for who advances on to the next round. The project was called “The Rap Game.”

We worked with them through preproduction and provided the shooting crew. We had five cameras, three on stick, one handheld and one Steadicam. Our crew lit the whole club. While the performances happened on the stage, we were also shooting the audience, wanting them to be as much a part of the

experience as the performers. Our audio crew had mics on the two battlings rappers, the host, the audience and a feed from the DJ. We also handled communications.

It was a fun experience for everybody and it went smoothly thanks to our awesome crew, which included DP Daniel McKeown, camera ops Matthew Kulvicki, Andreas Wagner, and Liz Rubin, steadicam op David George Ellis, audio supervisor Diana Milani, audio tech Gabriel

Cyr, utility Kara Haas and PAs Tory Clark and Mike Misslin.

The Rap Game was the first large shoot after I started working at dvDepot. It was great to go into the field and see our crew in action. It helped me to understand the ways they worked and in what situations they worked best. And nothing is more thrilling than taking on a challenge and succeeding.

You can see more pictures from the shoot at our flickr page

At dv Depot, we get a lot of requests for multi-camera shoots. Musical performances are the most common reason, but people also want to shoot boxing matches, corporate events and other things. We have an excellent HD/SD flypack we like to send on these shoots and decided to host a demo for our clients to get a better feeling for it.

The flypack can shoot with six cameras and is compatible with a variety of HD and standard definition cameras. It has a 16 channel mixer for audio.

While each camera records its shots separately, we can also do a live cut during taping. Some people want it recorded to a tape deck, but we can also record it to a Final Cut Pro file. The client can then open the project in FCP with a near finished product. This can speed up editing drastically.

The demo went over very well. We have an upcoming job with the system for six cameras shooting a Chinese language musical performance.

You can see more pictures from the demo at our flickr site.

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Today, dv Depot is shooting with Lola Montenegro, an opera star from Spain. Ms. Montenegro is the soloist of the Monastery of San Lorenzo. She has studied singing, composition, harpsichord and organ at St. Jeanne d’Arc in Paris and the Conservatory of Madrid. If that weren’t enough, she is also well versed in Gregorian Chants.

Ms. Montenegro is performing an exciting original piece that has thrilled audiences in Europe, and this is the first time she’s performing it in America. The recital was conceived to celebrate the centenary of the poet Miguel Hernández. She has set his poems, as well as some of her own, to traditional Spanish music. She is accompanied by pianist Adrián Viudes and flamenco guitarist Manolus Marín.

Today she’s performing at the Hispanic Society of America in their main court. The Society is housed in a beautiful Beaux-Arts building on Audubon Terrace, a small street off Broadway in uptown Manhattan that is a treasure trove of classic architecture. The Hispanic Society of America’s museum features a main court that is stunning. Ms. Montenegro will be performing on the balcony to an audience below. The lovely setting and the excellent acoustics make for a great experience.

dv Depot camera operator Alex Sierra is shooting her performance. We always love being involved in exciting cultural events like this.