My Roles

17/01/12

My roles on this day were as follows:

Performance 2 - Camera 1

  The second act of the day was Yu Min Kang, a long with Andrew Tarling on backing vocals, she performed 'Until I See You Again'. For this act I was assigned to Camera 1, which was the camera on the far left side of the studio floor, with Yu Min Kang closest and Andrew Tarling on the other side.
  I enjoyed this role a lot, and feel that I offered up a variety of shots to the directing and vision mixing team of Andrew Greenland and Rebecca Quarmby, respectively. As the perfomance was relatively sedated and rather static throughout, there wasn't a lot to offer in up in terms of action shots, but it gave us as a team, time to be more creative with our output, for instance, I tried to offer Andrew a couple of shots that moved in and out of focus, among other things, but the main shot he seemed to like that I gave him was a sort of close-up of Yu Min playing keyboard and moving in and round that area.

Performance 4 - Sound

  Next up, it was my turn to take on the role of the sound mixer. For this, I would be working from the gallery, right next to the director and the vision mixer (Jack & Kassem). The act that was performing during this were Charlie Cheesecake & the Corned Beef Inspectors, a three-piece consiting of Andrew Tarling, Elliot Beese and Mike Devaney.
  With never having done the sound mixing properly in a practice session - or otherwise - before this, it was safe to say I was fairly apprehensive when I found out it would be the role I would be taking up at some point in the day. However, during the third act, I was able to stay in the gallery and watch over Imogen as she did this role just before me, so I was able to take note and ask her some questions about it afterwards. With Imogen's input, I felt I was equipped and ready to perform the role to a good standard.
  With the act I was mixing being a full band, as opposed to Yu Min Kang on acoustic guitar, which is what Imogen took care of, I was wary of the fact that some of the settings may have had to have been toned down somewhat. The green room interview ended, and the performance began so I raised the dials, but it quickly became apparent that my caution was too heavy handed and the sound output was far too low, I reacted as quickly as I could to improve the sound and thankfully was able to fix the problem, keeping everything pretty well mixed from then on, despite the early hiccup.

Performance 5 - Camera 4

  During this performance I had to take charge of Camera 4, which is the camera used in the green room where the post-performance interviews take place, with this camera not coming equipped with a tripod I had to use it as a standalone instrument, I went with the technique of harbouring it on my shoulder to film the interviews, which let me keep the camera quite static and left me able to capture the interview more or less as though I was using a tripod, but still granted me that kind of gonzo feel, and the option to move around freely during the interview.
 
Performance 7 - Online

  For what should of been the final performance of the day, I was assigned to do the online broadcasting, so I was in charge of the UStream and making sure the production itself was properly broadcast, on the Manchester College UStream site.
  This role was another one I hadn't really had much experience in, something I had only really seen people do, or watch Colin do from the practice sessions. All that was required really was to know when to stop the broadcast in order to save what had been filmed, name it and then save it, in order to start recording the next section which would be the interview, if this was done properly, then the role is pretty much done with.
 The event was broadcast without any real problems, and I was quite happy with my individual input during this performance, however, although I had recorded the broadcast, it was unfortunately not captured on the tri-caster which meant the only version of the performance was a slightly pixelated copy that I had recorded from the live stream.
 

My Roles

10/01/12

My roles on this day were as follows:

Performance 3 - Vision Mixer

  During this performance, I was scheduled to be the vision mixer. This was one of the roles I was very keen on doing at least once throughout the performance, I really enjoyed doing this from back when we first started doing it with Colin in the studio. Also, this is the role I have to undertake in Ricardo's assessment, so I thought it would be good experience to try and get some experience during this task.
  I feel I performed this role very well, and was probably my best effort throughout the day. I had Ashley as my director, and we had discussed our codes for when to switch and when to preview etc. We had also decided the effect that the lower third would use and when it would come in. I felt that I was quick and efficient with the tricaster equipment, and could use it without looking at the buttons, and provided every shot that Ashley asked for.
  I think I was able to this role so well because, first of all, I enjoy doing it. Secondly, the direction was very good, with only one issue when Ashley forgot to ask me to provide the lower third at the time we discussed, but I was able to remind him without affecting his own work. Finally, I think that while some of my classmates tend to use the top bar of buttons on the tricaster, I always work with the lower bar which is the preview section, which may seem like more effort but makes it a lot easier, especially when fading to black etc.

Performance 5 - Camera Assitant 2

  For performance 5, I was supposed to be doing the role of Floor Manager, however, as I was down in the gallery, I was slightly late coming back up to the studio, and a classmate had already picked up the talkback and taken over, which was slightly frustrating as I had waited all morning to get my first role, however we agreed that I would do it for the next act.
  So instead, I was the Camera Assistant 2 for this performance, an important but rather uninteresting role, consisting of tedious manual labour carrying the cables so that camera 2 can run on the track properly, but seen as it is all a team effort, I was more than happy to do it.

Lever St Shoot: Practice

Today we had our official practice shoot at the Lever Street campus, starting off by retrieving the equipment from the van, then hauling it all into the main room where the band would be playing, then downstairs to the studio, which was acting as our Vision Mixing suite. The day was and will be an assessment for a few different courses at the college, so we had to work directly with sound engineers, mixers and performers themselves, who are all due to be assessed as well as our group.

The day got off to a slow start with the setup taking longer than usual, working out technical hiccups and issues with everything from performers not turning up to a general lack of communication in some cases - despite our fancy headsets - and the sweltering heat in the main room, coming from the lights, the abundance of electrics and the high body count. However, once everything was sorted technically, things ran a lot smoother with changeovers getting quicker and quicker, the sound engineers became less disillusioned with the whole thing and we began to get some decent results.

Some tedium:
http://www.ustream.tv/embed/recorded/19678281

My scheduled individual roles for the day were vision mixing for the third act, floor managing for the fifth and camera assitant for the sixth (which we didn't make it to). With my roles completed to what I felt were a good standard, a long and stressful had come to a close. All in all it served as a valuable experience which will no doubt serve to be very important indeed for next week's official shoot, if the people from the other courses decide to turn up we should have a very productive and exciting day on our hands.

Lever St Shoot: Equipment List

This is the equipment list for shooting the performances at Lever Street on the 10th and 17th December.

x 4  Panasonic P2 Cameras
x 4 tripods

Tricaster Equipment
Monitor(s)
Laptop
Sound Mixer
Dolly Track

x2 Boom poles

Wire Protection Mats

x2 Microphones  (condenser)

x2 Microphones (dynamic)

x3 XLR 3 pin cable

x3 BNC cable (long)

x3 RCA male/ Female

x4 talk back

x9 radio charger batteries

Floor plan For Band Setup

This is the presumed floor plan that the band will be likely to use, when they come in to be filmed in the studio, for our project with Peter.