Sunday, October 14, 2007
Week 5
This final week of preparing for the kids show has beee, like all the other weeks, a good leaning experience and probaly the most busy one ive had. i managed to film two inserts this week, my one for the junee licorice and chocolate factory and one on swimming for the olympic show. First of all, my shoot went very well. The manager at the factory was very nice and said there wasnt really anywhere we couldnt go to shoot. So we got to get right in close to the action like when the started making the licorice on the conveyor belt and when they were chocolate coating nut in the big copper barrells. I liked directing but i think i could have been a bit moreactive in the process. I chose a lot of shots for my cameraman to get but left it up to him how he got it. An example is i said get a shot of the licorice room and left it to him to get any shot. I wasnt very specific a lot of the time but then again sometimes i was. The only thing i think didnt go so well was the interview. I decided not to have voiceover in my insert so most of the information about the factory would come from an interview with a tour guide because its their job to know alot about the place. The answers were fairly good but the camera work wasnt too good. I wanted the same shot for the whole interview but while the interview was going on i went away to close a door where alot of noise was coming out and when i came back the shot had been changed. The shot i wanted was a constant mid shot. You could see the mic at the bottom of the screen but i dont think that mattered too much. Then it changed to a bit wider than a close up then to a shot of the interviewer and the interviewee. I think he was trying to give me different options or the interview and also get the mic out of the shot. I may also be talking to soon because it may turn out to look good once i get the footage into the edit suite so ill see what happens. Right after i shot my insert i went to the oasis to shoot some overlay for the swimming insert. This turned ou to be a bit difficult because we were filming minors at least under 8 year old. Im not sure how shooting minors works but the director spent most of the time talking to parents and getting them to sign releases. I thought there was an easier way but then again there may not have been. So i just got as much overlay as i could because i was a bit restricted with the whole minor thing because 80% of the people there were minors. After i did that i went home and looked over the footage and wrote down all the clips but i didnt do time codes. The next day of shooting started with an interview with a nutritionist. For some reason the sound guy didnt show up so i had to do that too. The interview turned outpretty good but i didnt get much direction from the director. I think she knowed what she wanted but she wasnt really telling me but in the end i got it. After the interview we had to wait a few hours before the other interview. When we got back to the oasis we did the stand up and some other bits with the actor. The sound guy wasnt there again so i had to do that again. Then there was problems with the interviewee who left the oasis and went home so we had to go to her house and do the interview there. unfortuneatly it was now dark and the lights in the interviewees house werent too good and the director didnt book any lights, only reflectors so the interview went alright but the lightingwasnt as good as it couldve been. Class was good, hearing about all the roles and thing i needed to know how to do on the vision mixer before the show and also the hierarchy in the studio. The studio session was pretty good too. I was camera 3 for the first run which was interestig because me being short, i had to have the ped at almost full height to get shots of bowls in hands and other thing which really hurt my neck but i guess thats part of the business. I was then cook 2 which was annoying because i dont like being in front of the camera but i liked that marcus was practicing doing a quiz and having an audience which is going to be in my show. That night was the first rehersal for the picnic show which i was vision mixing for. It was a bit challenging but after a while i got used to what was going on and anticipating some of the directors calls. I also finished the final script, in hello riverina format, for my show ready for a production meeting on monday.
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Week 4
The fourth week back preparing for wicked after the holidays has been very informative. Firstly, ill go through some of the things i did during the holidays. Proabably the biggest change during the holidays was that the idea for my insert was changed. Instead of doing it about the waterbombing helicopters at heliair i decided to do my insert on the junee licorice and chocolate factory. There were quite a few reasons i had to change my insert but probably the main reason was organising everything to shoot because the lady who i was goong to interview was never in the same place for a long time. Most of the holidays i spent trying to contact her and when i did get on to her and found out her schedule i realised that it was almost impossible to organise. The idea was good it was just a bit too hard to follow through. I wish that i had realised this earlier then i could have spent more time working on my new insert. The junee licorice and chocolate factory was a great idea for an insert because kids love licorice and chocolate and all the food they have out there is organic which goes good with the green theme of the show that its on. so most of my holidays was spent working on my insert which probably wasnt the best time management. Anyway, the first week back was informative because we had a producers meeting where we handed our scripts to camilla and also got a chance to look at other people scripts. Another thing we did was look at some of the past kids shows from 2004 i think which was good to see what we should strive to achieve. Class was also good because we got to see more past kids shows. Probablt the one thing i thought was really good was one of the commercials done which was the stop motion blutack man. i thought it was really good. One unfortunate thing was that i was sick on thursday and still a bit sick friday morning and i had to address the class about my show. I think i did fairly well. I told everyone a breif overview of my show and managed not to collapse or fall asleep in the process so that was good. The studio session was good because i got to get some more practice in on the vision mixer and also to some staging. I think im getting a lot better at vision mixing but the one very important thing i learned that you may have noticed is to check that firstly, that if you want to fade to black, the mix button is on and if it isnt on and the wipe button is on and you dont notice just hope that person before you didnt leave it on star wipe. One thing i know is that ill never make that mistake again. Staging was easy because the camera i was watching didnt move much but i was still looking for things to do but couldnt find find anything. Also, over the weekend i organised a shoot for my insert and got an extension on the due date because my editor is going away for a while which is good because it would have been rushed and probably not to good otherwise.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Week 3
The third week of preparing wicked had been pretty much the same as the other weeks. Im still working on a rough draft of the kids show and a rough draft and interview questions for the helicopter insert. Also this week i decided to do some research on the roles im doing now or will be doing. First is the producer role for show 5 and for insert 1 in show 1a. The first place i went was ofcourse wikipedia which had a good definition of a television producer which is- The primary role of a television producer is to coordinate and control all aspects of production, ranging from show idea development and cast hiring to shoot supervision and fact-checking. It is often the producer who is responsible for the show's overall quality and survivability, though the roles depend on the particular show or organization. This tells me that what ive been doing so far is on the right track. Ive been working on the show idea development, the cast was given to me by the series producer but i did request people who are energetic and could work well with kids and we havent shot it yet but i will be there when it is. I also looked at the duties of a television director, also on wikipedia, and this is what it said- the director is responsible for supervising the placement of cameras (camera blocking), lighting elements, microphones, and props. In a dramatic production, the television director's role can be similar to that of a film director, giving cues to actors and telling the operator of the videotape recorder when to start and stop recording. In a television series composed of individual episodes, the television director's role may differ from that of a film director in that he or she may work only on some episodes as opposed to being the auteur of the entire production. In an episodic television production the major creative control will likely reside with the producer(s) of the show. I think this is a good thing to keep in mind for when i write the script and shoot my insert, knowing that i need to think of all these aspects before and during the filming. Fridays class was also very interesting. Even though im not doing any lighting or sound for the kids show it was good to see the basics of how each one works. One thing i found interesting in sound is that you can preset mics you want to use so all you have to do is press one button to turn mics on and to certain levels and some mics off. One thing i found interesting in lighting is that you plan and set all your lights before the set is built or put in which makes sense when you think about it. It means youre not trying to move lights once the set is in which means youll probably have to move the set which is a lot of time to waste.
Sunday, September 2, 2007
Week 2
The second week of getting ready for the kids show has been pretty busy for me. Ive been trying to come up with segments for the live show and also try to organise my insert for the green show. With coming up with segments for the live show, ive been trying to think of way to incorporate the kids with the segments so they're not just sitting and watching, they're actually involved. So ive thought of things like having a quiz with a few of the kids and getting a couple of kids involved with the midnight snack which is the cooking segment. Ive still got along way to go but i have a very rough outline of what will happen in the show. For my insert i wanted to do something fairly exciting so i came up with the idea at first to do an insert on planes out at rex. When i called up they were a bit reluctant and they didnt have planes that stayed on the ground for a long time which would make shooting difficult. I then started talking to someone whos husband is going for their helicopter licence and she told me about water bombing planes and helicopters. So i talked to her husband and made some phone calls and did some research and eventually set up an insert at heliair at the airport. They have water bombing helicopters most of the year unlike planes that go wherever the most danger of fire is and there isnt much danger of fire in wagga. So i ran my idea by the producer and now i just have to organise the crew the person to interview and the actor. Fridays class was also very helpful in preparing for the kids show. The thing that was most helpful was the camera movements during interviews and moving to different locations. Thats probably the hardest job for the director, setting up a camera plan and calling shots during interviews and ad libs. One thing i did notice that seemed really hard was operating the boom. It might have been the way we were set up but it seemed hard having such a short time to move the boom between locations fast enough so that when the director cut people werent talking without sound. That was just something i noticed while doing staging.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Week 1
This first week of for doing the journal for tvp107 has been pretty busy. Being a producer for one of the shows means alot of pre production work which i'm finding very interesting. Firstly, on monday there was a meeting for all of the producers which was good to see what other people had come up with and work on ideas for the show and help each other with problems we might be having. We were also given a table 3x10 which meant each box stood for each minute of the show which is really handy for planning out your show and where to put the inserts and commercials and other segments so the show flows smoothly. Through the week ive been slowly thinking of little ideas for the show so its coming together pretty well. Friday was alot of help because it gave me a chance to find out my crew for the insert im directing and to clear up the ideas for inserts for the show im producing. I also met up with the director for the insert im doing the camera work on so i now know some of the ideas she has. Probably the most helpful thing was seeing last years kids show and seeing the standard they previously set which was pretty good. Doing hello riverina was good for me because i got to be in tapes which i hadnt done before and i was good doing it on something ive done many time because i had a general idea of what i was doing. A hard part of tapes was listening to th DA calling roll tapes because the first few runs he wasnt telling me so i had to quickly run the tapes before the director said cut to VTR. In the end it was a fairly easy job. I also learned a few things about the actual tapes and saw a bit more thing the router can do for when you're patching to record.
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Camera 1
For the final week of assessment i was on camera one. It is probably the most difficult camera to be on because there is the opening and closing moves, the constant changes of shots like MS, MCU and CU and in this last week there was also the breaking news introduced at any time during the show. The hardest part was being able to move the camera to the right spot and getting the right shot in the short amount of time in the tape inserts. I also found it hard not talking to the director. I know i could but i'm supposed to go through the floor manager which makes it easier for the director so he doesnt have multiple voices talking at him at once but it would be easier for me. One thing i could have done better is anticipating shots. On the first record session i saw the director come out with the breaking news but i wasnt sure if i was supposed to break away and when i did get told there was a few seconds pause while i got the shot. In the interview it was hard getting close ups on things when they were moving and also anticipating when they were going to talk about something that i should get a shot of. After a while i got the hang of where i had to be to get the shot without showing camera shadows or the boom mic and the MS's and MCU's. The problem was remembering when to use which but i had the sheet to tell me.
Monday, June 11, 2007
Stage Hand
The third week of assessment i was a stage hand. This job consisted mainly of cable bashing for the camera and flipping cards for the news and music sequence. One thing that you need to do as a stage hand is always have a job to do. If you didnt have a job to do you should look for a job to do. If someone took the job you were about to do then find another job. The stage hands mainly interact with the cameras like moving their cables so they dont trip or get caught and flipping cards for them with enough time for them to zoom in or out, focus and/or find a starting spot. stage hands need to help the cameras so all they have to worry about is the shot they need. I was pretty good as a stage hand but i did make one big mistake in the taping session. During the music sequence i looked away for a while then looked back at the screen and thought i had to flip my card because i thought it was on the other camera but i was wrong. So i flipped the card on air. it didnt look to bad but if i was paying attention it wouldnt have happened
Sunday, June 3, 2007
Presenter
The second week of assessment i was the presenter. This was my second time in front of the camera and again i didnt like it but it is a good experience to see the production from another perspective. One thing thats different is going from one week hearing everything the director is saying to the next week hearing the director and the DA through the floor managers. Since i wasnt getting marked on my acting there wasnt much presure to do well but i did make mistakes that had nothing to do with my acting. One mistake was not talking when cued by the floor manager because the red light on the camera wasnt on. One thing i did do pretty well was during the stagger through, the floor managers were busy and forgot about queing me so i started talking when i saw the red light on the camera. When you're an actor on the floor pretty much your only communication to whats going on is through the floor manager. They tell you whats going on, ideas from the director and when to start and stop talking. Probably the hardest thing to do as the presenter was read the telepromter coherently and act happy in front of the camera. Other than that it was just listning to the floor manager and reading lines.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Vision Mixer
The first week of assessment for hello riverina i was the vision mixer. There were two people i had to listen to when vision mixing and they were the director and directors assistant. The directors assistant would say what camera needed to be ready next so i knew which camera to cue up. I then had to listen to the director to tell me when to take the shot. Working the desk was fairly easy. The top row showed what was on the program and the row underneath was for cueing up a camera. Then there was the cut button and the lever used for dissolves. Those were the only ones i used. Under suggestion of the director i pulled apart my script and layed it out so i didnt have to keep flipping pages. After the stagger through, the director said with the news that i could pretty much cut it myself using the script which was good because it kept the room a bit more quiet so people could only hear the DA speaking. Another thing i learned was to not cut to tapes until i saw a picture otherwise it would cut to black for a second which didnt look to good. The hardest part was the interview where the director improvised the cuts. When i was cutting, i was looking at the screen too much and sometimes forgot which camera was which but i got used to it the more i did it. So if the director and the DA worked well that helped me work well.
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