Friday was opening night at Rochester Civic Theatre for Miss Nelson is Missing. It’s a family-friendly show based on a children’s book. Most of the actors are teenagers, and I think they have all been involved in the theatre and its various theatre education classes for a while.
They bring a ton of energy to the stage. That, along with the relatively short length, should make it play well to younger audiences. Melissa, who plays the teachers, Miss Nelson and Miss Swamp, has been on the RCT stage several times now, and she plays a teacher in real life. Should be interesting to find out what her students think of the show!
I shot this during the final dress rehearsal before preview, last Wednesday. I settled into the first half which used pretty good general lighting with a few spots where the light drops off. You sort of learn how to deal with that.
But then as the hunt for Miss Nelson commences, we go all low-light! I have my preferred settings – in fact, they’re dialed into one of the custom settings positions on the mode wheel – but a few times I had to bump the ISO even beyond where I like.
And, shooting live, there’s lots of movement. And, with this cast, there’s lots and lots of movement. So, it’s sort of a balancing act between shutter speed and ISO and keeping enough depth of field. Timing can be important. You also just expect you’ll have a little blur here and there, and there will be a few shots that are a background with a haze where a person was.
Sometimes I walk away from a shoot wondering did I get some reasonable shots? Then I scroll through them on the computer and realize, yes, it’s okay. I can relax!
I’ve done my first culling pass, but I have a lot more work to do. I did scan for a handful that I thought highlight the show to pass along to RCT for posting and promotion. And, I grabbed them to put here as well.
The show has only one more weekend to run, so don’t procrastinate!
