Saturday 6 February 2010

Live TV Analysis

Evaluation of Live TV Quiz show

Roles performed on Live TV shoot

Originally I had put my name forward for the roles of Vision Mixer, Audio Op, Floor Manager and Camera Op. However, in the final filming of the show I was a Cable Basher/Camera Assist in the first half and a pole Camera Op in the second half.

After spending most of the time on cameras in the rehersal, after finding it very enjoyable, I was happy with the role I'd been given. I would of like to have had a go at Directing but due to time restrictions it wasn't possible.

Overall I enjoyed being part of the team on the live shoot and found my role both challenging and rewarding.

Technical overview of Culture City




Pre-production evidence and Planning role

For the pre-production side of the project I worked with Lauren, Stu and Dan to create the Film round of the show. We each assigned ourselves one of four roles. Stu was the Round Producer, Lauren was Technical, Dan was Art designer and I was the Post Production producer. Even though we had assigned these roles to ourselves we each worked together on the various parts of the project, finding that we could each lend a hand in every area of work we had to do. This, I thought, worked out well as we each got on well together and were able to help each other out if need be.

As Post Production producer I was mainly tasked with the production and planning of the VT inserts for the Film round. However, this eventually stemed into me planning and producing the entire set of VTs for each of the 5 rounds, as well as the openning and closing title VTs.

As well as that, I helped to produce the questions for the film round, working with both Lauren and Stu to create a good blance of hard, but interesting questions for the contestants to answer. To begin with we produced a number of different question ideas and then picked the three best of the bunch.

The first round of questions we chose to run with was a Credit Roll round. For this round we chose 5 cast and crew members from both Jurassic Park and Lord of the Rings and had them scrolling upwards in the style of movie credits.

The second round involved Stu and Lauren going out and filming someone describing 2 different films. The video was filmed on a DV cam which failed to get a good quality of sound due to the Camera's built in microphone being unshielded from background noise. This was unfortunate but did not detract too much from the quality of the final cut however, but I would of liked to of gone back and compiled a clip which was filmed properly with better equipment and location but due to time and resource restrictions it was impossible at the time.

The final question for our section was a movie poster in which we had blanked out the main subject of the poster as well as any crew names and movie titles. For this we used the 'Knocked Up' poster and decided to keep the tag line visible to make it slightly easier for the contestants.

Altogether I think that the pre-production aspects went well as everyone pulled their weight and contributed something to the group, as well as working cooperatively with everyone within the group itself.

Once we had put together the questions I took it upon myself to produce the openning titles and VT inserts. With help from Gemma and Stu I proposed the idea of creating a mock up of a student dorm's kitchen table. On the table would be various items related to media and students such as mobile phones, wallets, cinema tickets, books, cameras, Dvds and so on. We easily created this inside the lecture theatre using a table, some fabric and the various items we needed to dress the table.

After we had finished placing the items I filmed one 2 minute insert using a bird's eye view shot 'travelling' around the table, displaying the various items that were on it. This was used to create our openning and closing titles. Afterwards I filmed five 30 second inserts in which I used the same bird's eye view shot but I started from different corners of the table and finally ended on a blank bit of fabric which was used as the background for the text used to signal the new rounds.

Overall I think that I contributed to every aspect of the project, from set and logo design to round inserts and the overall script. Personally I wouldn't change anything about the set up of the planning stage as I think we all worked well in our small groups but eventually branched off and the entire group all pitched in and helped each other in their own way.

Technical rehearsals

Efficent rehearsal practice

Before we did the final recording of the show we went through some rehearsals in order to get a feel for the thing and to make the final recording as good as possible. For each rehearsal we took it in turns in being guests and using different studio equipment.

These rehearsals were vital in helping us find any technical problems that might occour and to run through our questions and script to find anything that might not work as well as it could.

We found that the rehearsals really helped in helping us find which roles we'd like to do for the final recording and it also enabled us to see just how much of a mess our script was in. In the end, we revised the script and it was alot better that it was before. If it wasn't for the rehearsals we'd be positively stuffed really...