Can you give us an overview of the Aspen Music Festival and its history?
Founded in 1949, the Aspen Music Festival and School is regarded as one of the top classical music festivals in the United States, noted both for its concert programming and its musical training of mostly young-adult music students. Aspen’s eight-week summer season includes hundreds of classical music events: concerts by four orchestras, recitals, chamber music, operas, classes, lectures, and family programs. In the winter, the AMFS presents recitals and robust music education programs for local youth and families.
In 2024, the Aspen Music Festival and School celebrates 75 years of presenting grand, intimate, experimental, and deeply personal performances, as well as 74 years of close mentorship of young artists. The level of both artistry and camaraderie is unmatched in the classical music world, and this special alchemy will be celebrated across all 53 nights of the 2024 season.
What are some unique challenges you have faced when producing live or recorded musical events?
Harris Concert Hall has a beautiful, warm, natural wood aesthetic and is designed as a perfect home for classical music performances. This is a wonderful thing but also a challenge when adding video production to that environment. Cameras shouldn’t be noticeable, cables must be nearly invisible, and the operation must be silent to avoid disrupting the experience of these intimate performances.
Our new camera solution will also be used in the Klein Music Tent, which is a larger, 2,000-seat, semi-outdoor venue. The two biggest challenges of shooting in Klein are: orchestral programming, which requires an enormous amount of camera coverage and coordination (with upwards of 100 performers onstage at times), and the roof of the tent, which is a semi-translucent, nylon fabric material much like that of the Denver airport.
The lighting of this space is a variable mixture of installed theatrical lighting and natural light. Prior to investing in the new camera package, Aspen Music Festival utilized a variety of cameras and tried to match color in this environment. I now expect to have a much easier time, working entirely within the Canon ecosystem.
Why did you choose the Canon CR-N700 PTZ and C300 Mark III cameras for your application?
Harris is an intimate 500 seat concert hall. When building out a camera package for recording concerts there, the first challenge was the lack of space for camera operators, as well as the ethos of being low profile, discreet, and silent. This narrowed our focus to mostly PTZs, of which I’ve had some good experiences with Canon’s product line.
We selected a set of four CR-N700s to get the bulk of the coverage we would need for most events in this venue. The C300s were initially added to address our marketing department’s needs (e.g., shooting interviews or b-roll), but will also be added to our livestream inventory, either as fully operated or locked off cameras, depending on the situation. Keeping everything in the Canon family made us confident we would be able to match color well between those two sensors.
How do these Canon cameras compare to other cameras you have used for these events?
The Aspen Music Festival began livestreaming of concerts, as many venues did, as a response to the Covid pandemic, and started out with an inventory of prosumer-style cameras or DSLRs. It was scrappy and got the job done. Now we have a dedicated online audience and these productions have become an established part of the festival’s programming. This new Canon solution gets us working with truly professional grade equipment and that’s a big step from where we were.
How do you approach setting up cameras for live musical events?
The music festival puts on hundreds of events over the 8-week season. With camera setups, speed plus repeatability is the name of the game. PTZs that can remain mounted in pre-determined locations are extremely helpful for this.
Are there any other applications that you anticipate being a good fit for the Canon cameras?
We may use PTZs for our larger orchestral programming, onstage where operators can’t be. This is a great use case for them.
What optics are you most likely to pair with the C300 Mk III? Is this influenced by the type of performance at your venue?
For now, we will likely use the standard photography lens package most people have (EF 16-35, 24-70, 70-200). If increased budget were to become available, the Cine-Servo lenses would be helpful for our livestreams.
Does the CR-N700 PTZ provide any advantages regarding post-production applications during the shoot?
We won’t use them in post-production scenarios very often, but I do appreciate that they shoot 4K and CLog.
What advice would you give to anyone interested in shooting live events?
Understanding the programming in fine detail is where I would start, when building out a gear package. In our case, it’s classical music and operatic productions. We must understand what kinds of images our audience will want to see from that live production and work backwards from there in deciding which gear accomplishes that vision. The better you understand a particular live event, the more precise and economical your decisions become when selecting equipment.
Editor’s Note: Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.
