Paul Dugdale: Shooting Cinematic Live Performances

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It’s not surprising to learn that successful filmmakers, and editors especially, have an ear for music. It all helps with the tempo and rhythm, and, of course, the audience’s appreciation for any video rests significantly on the audio. Working in music videos, a musical background is perhaps even more important.

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Jeff Lee, director of education and product specialization at AbelCine, talks with multi-award-winning director Paul Dugdale, who is known for creating outstanding music documentaries, concert films, and global live events with the likes of The Rolling Stones, Adele, Ariana Grande, Harry Styles, Coldplay, Taylor Swift, Paul McCartney, and Elton John.

Not only is Dugdale musical but so are his close circle of collaborators, including a TD who is also a drummer and his editor who is also “an amazing dancer.”

Clearly it helps everyone involved that they appreciate music. Obsessed by it, even.

Filming Elton John at Dodger Stadium the production team them little room for maneuvers since the music promo team had to plug into a juggernaut of a global tour.

With Coldplay, on the other hand, Dugdale was involved even while the band was recording its album. “They had a concept for the record, I would speak to them and their manager, and they would just sort of talk me through the ambition for the sort of visual aesthetic that they wanted the whole project to embody and we created that project literally from scratch.”

A lot of Dugdale’s process comes boils down to trying to find ways to capture the energy that an artist has live and transfer that to a short video.

“There’s no real staple way that it happens but the intention is kind of the same, which is to embody that stage production, and try to maximize, emphasize all of the best parts of it and try and translate that to screen,” he explains.

“And also to try to capture the relationship between artists and audience in the room. A lot of bands will say that the band sort of exists in front of an audience and without anyone listening to the music, the band doesn’t exist.

 “You have to have that bounce of energy. That’s where the where the magic happens… to just show what it feels like to be in front of that artist and listening to that music.”

Getting close to performers even virtually has become even more significant since COVID, when fans were shut off from attending live performances.

Dugdale used to work with English electronic dance music band The Prodigy, and every show he filmed with them was intense. “Super high energy, really loud music, everyone squished together, sweating. And, you know, it was incredible environment.

“I just got to try and create something that at least lifts your heartbeat and makes you want to go out dancing. That’s the most important thing to me. to try and just make you feel something [when you are watching] at home.”

If the job is to capture the live show, then Dugdale prefers to prepare by watching the show and deciding on a camera plan. He trusts his DP to translate this vision into camera type and lenses.

Again, the closer he can get to the performers the more the live experience will shine through.

Dugdale goes into some detail about how he achieved a certain top-down shot of Elton John and a tracking shot of the Griffith Park Observatory.

“It’s tough filming Elton because he’s not the guy running up and down the stage. He’s sat behind a six-foot plank of wood [aka a grand piano],” he said.

“We had a bunch of different close ups and mid shots on him but each of them had to be so super precise to work. When Elton’s playing if he’s glancing down at the piano keys, you see the piano keys reflected in the glasses. Or you see his face perfectly reflected in the piano. All of those things have kind of been done before, but they’ve got to be right.”

Part of his job is to imagine ways of filming artists — in this case Elton John — in a way that hadn’t been done before.

“One of them was that having a tracking camera that is really close to him as though you were doing a music video or you’re shooting something in the studio, where that there is no boundary of where you can go.

“So on this one night we shot with just only two cameras and it tracked along the nose of the piano and gave us these beautiful tracking shots of Elton with beautiful reflection in the piano as well.”