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!
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| The ECP team for the event |
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| Me on the static cam |
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| Vision mixer |
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| After the show |
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| 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.
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