Week 12 - Dance Show 2

Julia was too busy again to do a meeting for the pitch. I think it's mainly to do with the time of the year though as she has a lot of work around Christmas. I will gently remind her from time to time as this is actually the last official week of the work placement in this module. Next week I will already be back in for a final class before this needs to be handed in.

Instead, she did have more work experience for me with another dance show. This time it was filmed in the Beachcombe Holiday Park, which is a smaller venue than last time but we had three shows to film instead of just the one.

In comparison to last week, I felt a lot more useful. Perhaps it was due to the experience of the week before, so I now knew how to set things up by myself. We had the same setup to last week, with a three camera tricaster system and talk-back mics. I helped set this up as well as having the responsibility to tape all the cables down to make sure it was safe for the audience to walk over them. I also arrived before everyone else apart from Julia, which meant I was able to start setting up early on. Which is fortunate, as we had similar technical issues to last time: some temperamental connections with the cables.  Thankfully, we were again able to get them fixed a few minutes before the start of the show, but it was a bit close.

During the shows, I was on the wide shot camera again, but due to the nature of this show I was able to be a lot more creative with the camera movement. This made the day a lot more interesting to me too, as I wasn't just making sure the action stayed in the shot. Instead I got to pan and zoom in and out as occasion required.

By the third show, we had some technical issues again, but this time with the talk-back system. The mic going to my receiver wasn't working just as the show started, which meant I had no directions from the director for the whole show. Thankfully though, it happened on the third show, which meant I had a fairly good idea of what the director wanted from me. I made sure if ever I did move the camera that the movements were careful and slow just in case my camera was being used at the time.

I had a very enjoyable day, and again gained a lot of useful experience. I now feel more comfortable on a moving camera. I think Julia sees this, as she has asked for me to do it again next week. I was also pleased that I could set everything up OK too.

 

I am on the camera on the far left

Reflections on Week 12

I feel like these eight weeks have whizzed by. I've learned a lot from them however and enjoyed the experience immensely. I have no doubt the things I've learned during these eight weeks will serve me well throughout the rest of my career. I think one thing I've realised though is that one cannot have enough experience in this industry, as even though the basics will be the same, every job is different. No doubt I will continue learning even after these eight weeks as I continue on with Julia and my university course. I have now completed another SWOT analysis found in the "About Me" section of this blog, to showcase my progression from the start of the work placement to after its completion.

Week 11 - Dance Show

Firstly I'll just mention that within a day of that previous meeting, I finished off the (hopefully) last of the changes to the pitch and with Julia's rubber stamp of approval, it should be ready to be sent off to the commissioners.

This week we didn't have a meeting as Julia is pretty busy in the build up to Christmas, but it does mean more work experience opportunities for me! This week we were filming a dance show at the Grimsby Auditorium, which is a large venue with hundreds of seats. We spent three hours setting up a three camera tricaster system, as the cables had to stretch out to the far reaches of the room, meaning using multiple cables and connectors so the cables would reach from the cameras to the tricaster. The problem was that there were some technical difficulties and the image from the cameras were not coming cleanly through, sometimes turning blue or red or green. All the camera operators, including myself, had to go through these cables one by one to see which one was at fault.

In the end, one camera was fine from the beginning, one had a broken cable leading up to it which got replaced, and the last camera had a fault with the socket in the camera itself, but gave a good image signal if the cable was taped at a certain angle. The problem was that this camera would be moving, and the cable could easily become dislodged, so I suggested we switch cameras so the camera with the temperamental connection would be one the static wide shot. That way, the cable would be taped into place and the camera wouldn't have to move very often. This turned out to be a good solution and the equipment worked for the rest of the show.

The camera-ops were then given talk-back headsets so we could hear the directions from the director. I was on the static wide-shot.

Directing us for the show was Andy Harris from ITV. He used to work with Julia and she sometimes still hires him for bigger shoots. It was very interesting and great experience to be part of this team, as I got to see how people in these kinds of productions perform their roles.

It was also a good lesson about leaving enough time to set up the equipment in case anything goes wrong. In this case it did, but we had allowed ourselves enough time to still have everything ready before the performance started.

Although I did feel useful throughout the day, I did also feel like a bit of a third wheel overall, as I hadn't done anything like this before and I spent a lot of the time watching how it was done. I wish I could have been a bit more useful. Also, because I was on the static wide shot, it meant I didn't get much opportunity to experiment with different shots. All I ended up doing was making sure the cable didn't come out and also that the action stayed in the frame. I realise this is because it was my first time doing this kind of production, but I hope I will feel more of an integral part of the team next time!

The ECP team for the event

Me on the static cam

Vision mixer

After the show

Julia Thompson and Andy Harris

Reflections on Week 11

This week made me realise the importance of leaving enough time to set up should everything go wrong, which in this shoot it felt like it did. Had we arrived with only an hour to spare before the show, the equipment wouldn't have been ready, the show wouldn't have been recorded and we would've had a very angry client on our hands. As I'm not producer yet, I don't have to be the one making these decisions, but maybe in the future I will and I'll have to take this experience into account.