As-Live Production | The Rehearsals

We did not have that many days to rehearse the show, and the days we were rehearsing were mostly spread over a few weeks due to adverse weather conditions and the Easter break.  Despite this we were able to make the most of the time we had thanks to the patience and determination of the whole team.

For our first rehearsals we were relying entirely on stand-ins as we did not have any presenters or models booked.   The directors, George and Gavin were also still working on blocking out the camera shots and movements.  We were also all getting used to using the talkback system - although I only ever used it between the rehearsals in case I needed to communicate to the floor manager about the plasma screen in the later rehearsals.

For our next set of rehearsals, we had our presenters, Alfie and Adeline which made things a lot easier as they were able to practice their lines and we were able to practice having them there as if they were presenting the real thing.  The directors and producers also taped out a layout of the set on the floor to make blocking more straightforward.  I was also able to work out some more complex aspects of the mixing desk than just cutting between cameras.  One of the first things I did was apply a colour key to the graphics, so that any astons that we wanted to appear on screen had a transparent background and could overlay onto the programme.  I did this by going into the control panel and selecting the colour to key out (chroma green) and applying the key to the graphics input.

I also set up a split screen with a border by pulling the T-bar to a half-wipe on one of the mix effects buses and cutting straight to that bus on the main programme bus.  I then went into the control panel and added a matte with a thickness of about 0.75 to create the border effect.  Learning these things early on proved very useful, as it meant we could practice framing up for the split screen before every rehearsal so we were ready for the actual show.

In the next set of rehearsals, we had some more of our contributors in the studio, mainly models, which made rehearsing so much easier.  We also had all of our VTs ready during this block of rehearsals so we could effectively run through most of the show.  Del noticed that some of the VTs faded to black (including my Old to New VT), which was a big no-no, as I explained in most editing post.  He said that mixing to and from black looks very sloppy and makes the audience very aware of the cutting - therefore Aimée and I will need to go back to the editing suite to amend this.

During the studio interview with Bonnie, there were points where her handmade clothing items are discussed, therefore Del suggested that we get graphics to show on the plasma screen of these items.  This is something that the graphics department needs to sort out but it will be my job to punch it to the plasma.  Therefore I discussed with the technical staff how to make one of the mix effect buses output to the plasma screen on set, and they set up the screen so I was now not only controlling what went out on the programme, but also on the on-set plasma screen.

Something I am particularly pleased about with this rehearsal was that I now had a frame memory captured with the show logo to leave on the plasma screen.  This meant that we had a placeholder to leave on the screen when there were not graphics on the screen.

On the topic of plasma screens, I inherited responsibility for the plasma screens on set.  I noticed that the on-set plasma screen was very bright on the cameras.  This is something that would change when the lighting was rigged, but I still wanted to try to fix the lighting issue with the screen.  I went onto the set and manually adjusted the backlight, brightness and contrast on the screen so it was not too bright on the programme, and this fixed the problem.

Aside from this the main issues were with blocking and practising how to shoot some of the segments, which largely fell to the directors, but of course I needed to practice how I was cutting these segments as well, under their direction.  For example, during the 'fashion fails' segment, camera 1 heads in to the audience via handheld, which we usually cut too late so we saw some very clunky camera movement on the programme (which was not the operator's fault, but mine and the director's for neglecting to cut to a steady shot).

Del also suggested that the lower third graphics were left on screen for longer to allow the audience to digest the information - again this was something for the directors to consider but since I was pulling the T-bar, this was also my responsibility.

We were coming up to the final rehearsals and the set and lighting was now rigged.  The first rehearsal did not go well at all - there was a lot of miscommunication between the gallery and studio which meant the presenters and models were missing their marks and the cameras were not framing up as they should be.  As the day went on however, things got a lot better and the final rehearsal of the day was almost perfect.  There were a few minor details to fix - for example, I was cutting from the stings ever so slightly too early, so I needed to wait for the text to appear then disappear before cutting.

Simon and Danny (graphics department), as well as the directors and myself also agreed that rather than animating the lower thirds, I would use a still image to mix in.  This was due to a problem with the graphics machine which processed the graphics very slowly and made the graphics look very cheap as they were animated on screen.  It was a shame because Simon's animated graphics looked great, but due to the limitations of the software, we had to sacrifice this.

The show has come a long way through the rehearsals and I am nervously excited for the live show.  I have gone from knowing almost nothing about vision mixing to being able to mix for a whole 30 minute show and I can't wait for transmission.