Recording, capturing, archiving, taping–whatever you want to call it, has been around since technology made it possible to do so. During the COVID-19 pandemic (which is important to note is still ongoing), a resurgence in the importance of recording theatre came to light during a time in which theatre as we knew it wasn't possible. For whatever reasoning you may need to record theatre, it remains something that continues to happen when a large amount of the theatre world disagrees.

The word master comes from a nearly unrelated definition: when videos used to be recorded to VHS, the original tape– called the master copy–contained the recording was the version that other VHS copied from. The newly created copy would be called first-generation. The original tape remains the master. The higher the number, the lower quality the video. You might ask: 'Why should I care about generation loss when we don't use VHS anymore?' This is because the higher generation videos were eventually the versions that were shared the most. As a result, the lower generation and subsequently higher quality videos quickly disappeared from the community. Though VHS has long fallen out of practice in the community, the term master has been reused to describe the person that recorded the original file as opposed to the file itself. Call it a pride thing: I like typing out mynewfavoriteday's master.

During one of my many journeys into the now-defunct Yahoo! trading group, one of the first video masters that I could associate with a name was Pigsty. For the most part, a vast majority of the community can agree that no one remembers this name or uses it, simply because for the majority of the trading community's history no one really attached names to their recordings, possibly due to an attempt to remain anonymous and enforce privacy. It was the early 2000's, so the videos I read in their releases were plentiful and often the same general idea: filmed on VHS, one video per show every once in a while.

Then, as I progressed through more years of posts, a few more names I recognized: sunsetblvd79, jstarz, sjbernly, and broadwayspunk (who I late was lucky enough to shared many educational conversations with). These video masters brought on what I like to call the DVD era. Post-VHS, videos were no longer being shared in the mail via copies of VHS in various degrees of generation loss. Traders and masters began to mail DVD's and CD's to share their recordings, which preserved the quality in a digital form that was burned and copied without data loss. That's not to say VHS dropped out of popularity immediately; to this day, you can still find DVD's that went through the unfortunate scenario of being recorded to VHS, degraded through generation loss, and then burned to DVD. And then there's the sad examples of VHS to DVD to VHS to DVD videos.

Throughout the 2010's, the number of video masters only increased even as older ones disappeared. Video masters like lanellej, elekanahmen, kradder32, NYCG8R, whichiswitch, musicalwasmyfirstlove, and Rumpel helped bring about the HD era. In contrast to the 3:4 DVD quality videos of the previous decade, newer and better video cameras allowed shows to be captured in a quality that surpassed what the standardized VOB + smalls could handle. Many elected to continue releasing in DVD format, MP4 and Blu-Ray formats began to increase in popularity for the ability to capture details and colors that had not been seen before. Previous video masters too made the upgrade: in 2012, sunsetblvd79 upgraded to HD but released in DVD; between 2013 and 2014, sjbernly did the same but began to offer both DVD and Blu-Ray releases. The DVD videos definitely made the rounds, but many of the Blu-Rays never saw the light of day. To my knowledge, only about a dozen of her videos are circulating in Blu-Ray today.

With a new year came with new troubles and the Spring of 2018 brought about everlasting changes to the community. SJBernly had disappeared the Winter before (previously known citing privacy concerns as well as frustration towards NFT disregard) combined with SunsetBlvd79's sudden disappearance left the new Broadway season virtually video-less. Only one major video master in the United States remained actively releasing videos: NYCG8R. The immense popularity of Tina Fey's Mean Girls merited the capturing of the show, naturally. However, upon the video's leak and public posting on a variety of streaming sites, NYC ceased public releases and went completely private and thus left the community without any public video releases until later that summer. HitMeWithYourBethShot began to film West End and UK based theatre starting the same summer. Then-trader StarCuffedJeans entered the arena and released two videos (one Mean Girls from the Tony Awards matinee and Stephanie Torns in Waitress) and brought about a new feat in mastering: 4K Quality.

This period of time was immediately met with another devastating video leak (from the same show as NYC's leak, Mean Girls, no less). SCJ would not be seen releasing another video until January 2019. In the meantime, HitMeWithYourBethShot and Rumpel operated as the only publicly releasing video masters until SunsetBlvd79 made his dramatic return to the community in September, releasing a half dozen videos through the Winter. At the same time, up and coming video masters such as myroadofgoodintentions, mynewfavoriteday (formerly known as broadwayenthusiast) and FetchHappened (formerly known as WaitingForPie) tried their hands in the National Tour circuit. NYCG8R returned to regular filming that same Fall, still operating from a private email list.

Unfortunately, the new year brought another seemingly final disappearance from Sunset at the same time StarCuffedJeans, NYCG8R, hitmewithyourbethshot, mynewfavoriteday, and fetchhappened began to collectively release regularly. 2019 brought the most changes tot he community yet: StarCuffedJean's March 2019 release brought a storm of NFT violations and drama amidst the end of NYCG8R's active release time. In June of 2019, hitmewithyourbethshot made the transition to HD and by the end of year masters such as queenofthedead and musicals-musicals had made their first appearances. By the shutdown in March 2020, a substantial number of video masters were now operating around the world's two major theatre destinations, New York and London, and revitalizing the art of video mastering.

When the shutdown first began, the community was expecting a return in April of 2020. Suffice to say, when theatre officially came back to the West End in May of 2021 and to North America in August of 2021, videos of cherished and dearly missed shows by the masses didn't take too long to make an appearance. A false start in London in December of 2020 had shown that theatre was in demand, and the return of Broadway theatre made an everlasting impact on the amount of videos coming out. Video masters came out in masses and got to the point where almost everybody and their mother wanted to get into recording. By the end of 2021, almost two dozen video masters had tried their hand at filming and releasing videos into the community, including pre-shutdown masters that were eager to return to the craft.

This quick increase in video masters is what I like to call the Renaissance Era.

A vast majority of the new masters populated the West End and UK Touring scene–however, that's not to say that they were the only ones. Formerly known as GreekyMuse, Juniper47 rejoined the video master scene and began to release combined new-4K-videos as well as older unreleased content and FunkiestCarrot made a return to the community by releasing older UK videos, filming for a short while in HD and then switching to 4K. In addition to adding to numbers, new masters meant that more tour stops could be captured. Within the U.S. alone, Milady de Summer brought theatre in Arizona to video, StillReprise and ascoopatalamode shared Chicago theatre (replacing Sunset), and QuoxWoodTrees captured a variety of Californian theatre (in a hole left behind by SJBernly). In other parts of the world, masters like forgotten-peggy and spacealienwithfourbutts are able to capture Australian and East Asian theatre.

FetchHappened and MyNewFavoriteDay joined the 4K club and began to release in the higher quality format. By mid 2022, the following masters had recorded using 4K camcorders and were actively releasing to the community: StarCuffedJeans, Juniper47, SandraBanana, FetchHappened (who later returned to HD), MyNewFavoriteDay, LasagnaTrades, FunkiestCarrot, and BikiniBottomDay.

This renaissance has definitely changed the way that most traders see video masters. Theatre is more accessible than ever: in fact, there's such a high change nowadays that there's a video of your favorite performer, understudy, swing, and/or ensemble member. Fancams are plentiful and popular, and there's probably a video of every single performer in Six possible. Theatre is back and while it remains to return as strong as it was before (covid related cancellations, alas, haven't stopped), the art of recording it is arguably better than it was before. Whether it was recorded on a brick of a camcorder, cropped video from a cellphone, or even a spy camera in a pen: mastering is here to stay.

I hope all of that information wasn't overwhelming. If it was, I promise to keep this part simple and I'll keep my process brief (at least on this page). You can definitely keep exploring the guide and go into depth about filming, recording audio, and filetypes on their respective pages. To make recording as accessible as possible, I'll just quickly note some of the most important information below as well as introduce mastering.

• I use a Panasonic WXF991K to record videos. It records in 4K as well as 1080p. I love the quality, hate the size of the camera's body.

• I highly recommend the Canon Vixia HF R800 for those looking for a high quality and medium priced camera. I also used a Canon Vixia HF R400 if you can find those for cheaper, as well.

• I record audio on my iPhone. I use the Voice Record Pro app by Dayana. When I don't have the app readily available (or I'm low on storage, I use the standard Voice Memos app as well.

These are the most important items I bring to each show...

• My camera (if you don't want to use a camera, head over to my phone recording page).

• 2+ camera batteries, one for each act. This will vary if your camera can't make it more than 90 minutes on one battery.

• 2+ 64 GB SD cards. As noted above, a 2.5 hour show can fit on one card if needed, but then you're in more danger of losing the entire show in an incident. I usually keep one stored inside of the camera at all times. The size of the card will depend on the quality you record in, but I'm guessing no one reading this is going to go straight to Best Buy and buy a 4K Ultra HD camcorder—if you are, then go with 64 GB cards.

• My iPhone, to record audio. I use the Voice Record Pro app by Dayana. It's free on the App Store!

• My jacket or any form of clothing to conceal the camera. It's not required, but it's highly recommended.

...and these are the stranger things I bring

• My binoculars, and its case.

  • During the show, these binoculars can serve several purposes that aid my filming ability.

    • I could give these to an audience member or my friend to distract them from my activities.

    • I place these on the ground to raise the height of my knee, which helps during lapshots.

    • If I'm caught, I can tell the usher that the object they saw me use was simply the binoculars.

• Permanent markers. Stagedooring after the show is a thrill, especially if I didn't get caught.

• My portable charger. My phone's battery is pretty bad so if the battery runs down before the show, I can charge while recording audio. If I need to film with my phone, it's even more important to have than ever.