As Live Production | VT Shoot: DIY / Etsy Interview

Today we were at a contributor's house, ready to interview her about selling her homemade clothing range on the internet.  We needed to shoot a short interview with her and film a demonstration of her making an item of clothing, as well as various GV and cutaway shots for the entire VT.

The crew for this shoot was more or less the same as the previous one, except George Nicholls has now operating a second camera, and Laura Dagga had joined us as a production assistant.  I also helped with the camera and directed some of the shots, as we all did.

Unlike the previous shoot, the entire VT contained diegetic sound (as it was an interview), so I was now using a boom pole with the Rode mic to ensure the audio quality was the best it could be.  We were using two Rode microphones as well as the internal camera mics - one was attached to the boom pole, while the other was mounted to the second camera.  This meant that we had three backup audio tracks to fall back on in case the main boom track failed for whatever reason.  Luckily it did not and the sound came out very clear.

The shoot only lasted a few hours and we were able to get plenty of cutaway shots as well as good coverage of the interview itself.

From this I have learned some valuable experience in working with contributors from shooting in a contributor's house.  Small things such as asking whether we should take off shoes and asking whether it is okay to move some things around works really well to build a good rapport and shoot the best interview we can at the same time.  I have also gained more experience in working with a boom pole, such as getting it as close to the subject as possible without getting in shot to get the clearest audio.

As Live Production | VT Shoot: Old to New

Today we were shooting the first of the two VTs that our team was putting together for the studio production which would play during the 'Old to New' segment.  This part of the show focuses on fashion through the decades and the resurgence of particular styles.  The VT would feature clothes from four decades (the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s) and we used one male and one female model to portray the fashion trends of these eras.

Each member of the VT team had an important role to play:

• Conor Deamer was our producer - he wrote the script and organised casting models, scheduling the shoot, booking the locations and many other things to ensure everything ran smoothly throughout the entire process.
• George Wing was the director - he was in charge of calling the shots and directing the talent and crew.
• George Nicholls was our researcher - he did the bulk of the research into the fashion trends and clothing alongside Conor.
• Alex Baldwin was our camera operator.
• I was on sound but I also operated the camera for some shots, and I will be editing the VT in the coming weeks.

We had some issues leading up to the shoot with regards to scheduling which meant that we needed to find different models for the day of the shoot.  Conor acted quickly and efficiently to find replacements and the day still ran very smoothly.

The shoot was fairly straightforward.  There were six scenes, each filmed over the same backdrop with only a couple of props, such as the photographer's camera, some vinyl records and a stool.  There was no dialogue, as the focus was entirely on the clothes, which would play over a music bed with a stylised edit.

This VT did not require any dialogue or other diegetic sound therefore as sound operator, it would seem I did not have to do very much.  However, I did ensure that we were still recording sound, such as the sound from the camera shutter which features in the VT, as well as a wild track in case I needed it in the edit.

(EDIT: Upon completing the edit, I did not end up using any sound recorded on the day, however I have learnt through past mistakes that it is vital to record as much sound as possible so that in case we changed our mind, we could still include audio recorded on the day)

I am happy with how the whole day turned out, we got a good amount of coverage to show off the clothes and the footage turned out really well.  I am particularly happy with how the 90s scene looks as we utilised the projector in the room to create silhouette effects as well as give off the 90s grunge vibe.

I have learnt from this shoot that it is vital to ensure you have a backup plan in case anything goes wrong - this relates to our issues with scheduling and with the audio which we did not need but recorded anyway.  Communication between crew members is also important; had Conor not kept us in the loop, we may not have been able to find models at such short notice but luckily we were all communicating well with each other and were able to resolve the issue fairly quickly.

Transition | The Brief and Initial Ideas (12th March 2018)

This unit is intended to give us a more in-depth look at a particular role moving in to our third and final year on the course.  Our task was to choose production role and produce something, either individually or as a team, with a heavy focus on what that role entails.  I have decided that I would like to focus on the role of 'WRITER/DIRECTOR', meaning that I will need to focus on the script-writing process, and then translate that script onto the screen as the director.  I will be working with two people that I have worked with before: Katie will be taking the role of Director of Photography, and Melissa will work as Editor.  As writer/director, I will have most of the creative control over the project and my input will be required throughout the entire production process.

Initial ideas:

I have never written or shot a comedy before, so I would like to try this genre and see whether I can make a funny piece of work.  The 'mockumentary' genre in particular appeals to me. 

Fly-on-the-wall

• The Thick of It

Mockumentary?

• Like Come Fly With Me or The Office
• Maybe focus on another place of work - a shop for example - like Trollied?

As Live Production | Studio Masterclass with Del

After our initial sessions with Del, today we were getting some hands on experience in the studio, trying out different roles.  We were also working with talkback for the first time, which took some getting used to.  We mainly stuck with shooting a chat show-esque format, alternating between roles such as vision mixer, director, floor manager and more:

Vision Mixer

Of course I was eager to get my hands on the vision mixing desk first after getting a brief taste of it last time and I feel I took to it fairly quickly and the experience really made me excited to do this job for our show.  From my prior research and this experience, I found that the key skill of the vision mixer is to remain calm and listen to what the director wants, as they are (literally) calling the shots.

Since we had the time to, I jumped at the opportunity to have a second go at being vision mixer for this exercise.  This time Del asked me to try some more complex cuts, such as a split screen.  For this, I essentially had to cut to another mix effects bus and leave the T-bar on a half-wipe.  He also asked me to add a border to the wipe, which I worked out by looking at the monitor and adding changing the border size and colour.

Overall, I am so glad that I went for and was picked for this job.  Of all the other roles, I feel I fit best into vision mixing.  From my experience and interest in editing, vision mixing gave a new twist to editing as everything was live and I was making the cuts as the footage was being recorded.  I am very excited to practice more.

Camera Operator

I found operating the camera fairly straightforward in the exercise, as I am familiar with the cameras from other projects.  I feel that I did fairly well, although I did struggle with re-framing and re-focusing from time to time, and it became very tempting to lock the tripod head, which Del had forbade for any camera that had to move.

Sound Operator

This went disastrously wrong in my opinion but that was largely due to a lack of preparation.  When trying to work out the individual sliders and buttons, I did not realise how little time I had before we went 'live', and so I missed my cue on several occasions.  This was a good insight into the studio portion of sound compared to working as on-location sound op for the VTs.  Similar principals applied, such as keeping speech being at an optimum -6 dB.

Talent

Although none of us would actually feature as talent in the show, it was refreshing to see how the presenters will have to work in the show.  For example, being cued in by the floor manager and ensuring that the segment wrapped in time to the floor managers count.  This was a lot harder than it looked and I have gained a new level of understanding into what our talent will have to put up with during the show.

PA

In my opinion, this was the most stressful job, as the PA needs to multitask a lot and cope with counting down on different timers.  The PA needs to be very calm and patient to ensure that they keep time with the show.

VT Operator

Since we only had one test VT to play, the role of VT operator seemed fairly easy from this taster, but once we had some actual VTs to rehearse with including stings and credits, I can see this job getting more intense depending on the type of show.  The VT operator also has, arguably, the most important role during the live recording as they have to actually hit the record button to record the show.

Floor Manager

Even though I had never done this before, I feel I was a terrible floor manager.  It is the job of the floor manager to communicate the needs of the director to the studio floor.  This includes counting in the talent to the their mark and ensuring they wrap up when they are supposed to.  I completely missed my mark for wrapping up the show and the talent ended up carrying on talking after we had cut.  This certainly gave me an appreciation for how important it is for the floor manager to effectively communicate between the studio and the gallery.

As Live Production | Editor Research: Dan James

I've been looking at the work of editor Dan James who is known for his work on Top Gear and The Grand Tour.  George (VT Director) and I were discussing the sort of look we wanted to go for with the 'Old to New' VT, and we both liked how both shows are edited and we wanted to incorporate these features in our VT.

James has been nominated for four BAFTA Craft Award nominations and worked as senior editor on Top Gear for 11 years.  James is now editor for The Grand Tour, moving along with a lot of the old Top Gear team to the new Amazon show.

In an interview for 'Pro Video Coalition', interviewer Steve Hullfish asks Dan James about the editing process for shows like Top Gear and The Grand Tour.  Both series involve a combination of heavily scripted content and improvised actuality.  James describes the traditional 30 minute The Grand Tour VT as a 'rough guide' to which the editor fills in the gaps from the huge amounts of footage captured.

He also describes how these 'insert films' are not involved in the studio at all - the studio content more-or-less revolves around the content from the inserts which are prepared months in advance of the studio recordings.  He also talks about the shooting ratio of these shows being 150-200:1 which is an insane amount of footage - although baring in mind that for long road trips etc, the cameras are always rolling.  This makes for vast amounts of footage that James has to sift through to find "the real gems".  James must sit and watch through all of this to form his edit - see left: Avid project window and bins from The Grand Tour.

He will sit with the director and go through the basic structure of the edit, but he says that he is left alone for a lot of the time during the edit.  The producer, Andy Wilman and Jeremy Clarkson have the final say in the edit, but James and the director form the shape of the film.

James uses a sort of 'formula' for his edits, which he describes as 'hold and release', which involves intense passages of about 30 seconds with frame cuts between longer periods of calm with more spaced out cuts.  He also discusses how to cut humour, such as through answering a question with a cut.

James' editing work on Top Gear and The Grand Tour is masterful at showing off the vehicles featured on both shows and I would like to transfer this to a similar style for our VTs in Steal the Style.  I love the 'hold and release' technique and I aim to incorporate this into the 'Old to New' VT in some way.

https://www.provideocoalition.com/aotc-grandtour