Tuesday 23rd of March was broadcast day for the live show. The group I was in also included Brittany as second camera person, Louise directing, Ian editing, Stuart as Floor Manager and Zoyi and Shanice acting as presenters. Our group was first on the Tuesday, immediately beginning to set up the monitors using the correct cables and positioning the cameras all within the first hour before 10am.
The setting up process for the morning was all executed fairly quickly by the group, with all nerves appearing to stay at a calm level. With only one practise run where we were shown the full running set up, with minimal help from Dan Creed, every one acted as a group, but independently concentrating on their set tasks in their positions to make the show run as smoothly as possible. As I arrived just after 9am the set was already in place in front of the green screen. The mix of colour really did look chaotic and vibrant, feeling welcoming for any audience watching from their sofas.
As camera person, my immediate responsibility was to make sure, along with Brittany, that three HD cameras were set up, ready to film. Two HD cameras positioned on the left and right sides of the mixing/directing table to capture close ups of Zoyia and Shanice presenting, and one lowered to roughly knee height for a two shot looking directly at the Zoyia and Shanice. We needed to lower the middle camera to get the low coffee table in shot. Initially I thought this change would ruin the shot because as far as I am aware, the cameras aren't usually placed that low on real shows. I took the left camera facing Zoyia and made sure there was a blank tape inserted in all of the camera, and did an initial white balance with the lights switched on and positioned in a test seating with Zoyia in front of the green screen.
The first half went fairly smoothly overall. Zoyia and Shanice started talking whilst the opening credits were playing and the wrong part of Brittany's package was introduced. These problems were down to either simply forgetting or a slight breakdown in communication between members in the group. Overall the editing and cutting between the studio and the packages and the cuts between presenters as they spoke were nearly seamless considering Ian had missed the training lesson with the vision mixer. The second half after the break however proved a little more difficult.
After the break the only package ready to be shown was the interview with the Suzi, the university adviser. Prior to going live, there was a massive problem with recording the packages onto tape, with Stuart's Call of Duty review taking over an hour to record, meaning it wasn't ready on tape in time for broadcast. Stuart was rushed onto the set as the camera cut back to see him rearranging the set, this can't be blamed on him, as under the pressure, he initially wasn't supposed to be on screen, apart from a 30 second summary after the package.
Ian's news package was introduced as well, which also wasn't available to be shown at the time. I think the pressure started to get to us all, as my camera position slipped slightly, as Zoyia was positioned further down the screen as I had imagined for the 2/3 rule. I wasn't sure if I was allowed to reposition the camera whilst it was on her, so had to leave it as it was, referring to my cue sheet for camera cuts, trying to adjust the height.
The majority of these mistakes within the second half could be put down mostly, after reviewing the production and re-evaluating my opinion on it, as simple communication problems which lead to a lot of improvised material in front of the camera as these mistakes were corrected at the editing desk. All covered extremely well by Zoyia and Shanice, talking about subjects such as gaming, which would not have been their strong points of the show. The script was intentionally designed with these openings for improvisation as key points where things may, and did, go wrong. Mainly before and after a news package.
We all came together as a team and managed to undoubtedly recover from the negatives and produce a 30 minute live show. If the teams communication, execution or planning was faulty down the line from designing graphics to camera signals, 30 minutes of show would not have been an achievable task. As this was all of our first times doing anything as big as this, I believe it went extremely well and given another attempt, many of the blackouts experienced this time around would not be a problem again.
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