Today's session was our first introduction to using talk back. As myself and Melissa will be in the gallery on transmission day, we won't need to use the talk back headsets - however, it was still a good experience finding out how to use them. All the talk back headsets need to be switched to the same frequency so that everyone can communicate. The camera operators need to as quiet as possible as the gallery can hear everything on talk back and may need to be communicating the floor themselves. Talk back is good for the directors communicating the floor managers who cue the activity on the floor. Talk back is also good for the directors to communicate what shot they want to the cameras.
As we've had to merge two sessions due to snow, we had to fit a lot into today's session. We split into groups so that we had different people working on camera, then being the talent, then working on sound and then working in the gallery. This enabled us to try out the different job roles before focusing on our specific role for the production - this was especially helpful for me as the producing role is very pre production heavy so there is not a lot to do during the actual production of the show. During the rehearsals and production I will have to ensure people are sticking to the script, take on board any feedback from the presenters / contributors and apply these changes, ensure the show is running to time by liaising with the assistant producers and being on hand to make sure everything is running to plan.
We set up different scenarios that we may be dealing with in our studio production e.g. different format interviews.
I enjoyed being on sound - even though I could see this getting very complicated for the production. When on the sound department, you have to mic up the talent and do mic checks to ensure everyone's mic is working and is set to the right frequency. When the talent are talking, the faders need to be slid up - when they aren't talking, their fader can be slid down. This involves knowing who is using which mic so that the faders can be adjusted when they are taking. If someone's level is peaking, the fader needs to be adjusted to combat this.
Vision mixing was another area I enjoyed. Whilst I was nervous to do it, I could see myself getting the hang of it. Vision mixing involves staying silent and listening to the shots the director is calling. When the director says "standby one", camera one needs to be put up on preview. When the director says "cut one", camera one needs to be put to transmission. When the director says "mix to one", the t bar needs to be used to mix / transition to camera one.
I did not enjoy directing. The job of the director is to call the shots for the vision mixer to cut - the director needs to look at all of the screens at the same time to ensure what is being spoken about is seen by the audience which means selecting the correct camera. The director may also need to talk to the cameras to instruct them to shoot different things. I found it quite stressful to be looking at all the screens at once whilst calling the shots for the vision mixer and telling the cameras what to focus on.
The job of being PA (production assistant) seemed very simple at first as it just involved counting. However, there were many different things to count to (titles, VTs, time on interview) and with everything else going on in the gallery it was easy to get confused.
As well as this workshop, Myself and the rest of the production management team held auditions for our presenters.
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