Project Evaluation

Project Evaluation

Today was our final project for the News Room Operations assignment, we begun the day by setting up the studio. As I was enrolled in the Camera Operating role, I set up the camera I would be operating during the live shoot. This involved setting up the tripod to correct head level for the presenter, then mounting the Panasonic P2 camera to the Tripod. The next step was changing the tripod setting to my personal preferences so that the tripod moved the way I wanted it to move without it dragging, which affects the shot during the live mixing sessions. The next stage was applying the correct settings to the camera to give to best quality picture available, these settings were: Aperture, Focus, Shutter Speed, White Balance and Gain.

Secondly, after I finished setting up the camera in the studio and the director was happy with the picture quality, I started helping out on the studio floor by marking our hazards with the correct hazard tape to highlight any risks of hazards such as tripping over cables. I made sure cables mats were used on the studio floor and in the appropriate places so that it didn’t leave any stray wires. During this point I felt that the studio floor was safe for the crew to do their roles. The reason I took this responsibility is because the designated floor manager wasn’t present at the time because he was late on arrival, so I took matters into my own hands and took responsibility for this roles as health and safety is a top priority on the studio floor due to so many hazards that can occur.

After I finished making the studio floor safe, I checked for any hazards in the gallery room where the Tricaster is located and I found that the whole room was very untidy and a lot of loose and stray cables were scattered everywhere, so I also took responsibility for the safety of this room and tidy the room immaculately. I then got rid of any stray cables that we not needed during the production and packed them away appropriately. I then managed all the cables that were needed for the production and made everything safe using duct tape to tape the loose cables to the floor, near tables and walls to ensure no hazards of tripping can occur, I thought I did a very good job with the motive of health and safety in mind.

The next job was getting ready for the production, everybody got in position with his or her role responsibilities, then the director said over the talkback communication that Camera 2 was a very good picture quality and the camera operator for that camera couldn’t correct the problem so I took responsibility and changed the camera settings of camera 2 and then the director was pleased with the final picture of the camera after I applied the correct settings, I changed the aperture so that the picture wasn’t too dark and applied a white balance so the camera understood what the colour white should be as it was confused that is a blue colour. This made the camera look like the other cameras and there were no differences with the cameras. I felt that I did a very good job by saving time and improving the quality of the final production.

After the cameras have been sorted, it was time for a rehearsal before the final shoot, we got through the rehearsal without any problems until towards the end, because we had a sports presenter, we had to schedule which cameras would be next up so that no interference got in the way of the continuous live production. As a group we identified this problem and

The next stage was the actual production; the production was 30minutes long and after doing research of various news shows, I found that there wasn’t a lot of action between the camera as it stayed to on camera for the majority of the time, the only time there was action between the switching of the camera was when there was a guest or interview involved. During our production we had a guest on our show so this is when my camera came into use and took orders from the director, other than that I stayed focused on the presenter incase of an emergency safe shot if a problem occurred with the main camera. So before we shot the production, I used the viewfinder of the camera to make sure everything is perfect as the viewfinder gives you the correct information rather than using the LCD screen, I was happy with the picture in the view finder so after that I used the LCD screen because I didn’t need to frame any other shots due to the research I gathered and the running order that was present at the time.

During the whole production, I felt that I was consistent during the whole show because I also felt that I could have paid more attention during the points when the VTs were running, I should have been focused more on my camera instead of taking on other responsibilities which the Floor manager didn’t notice, for example the monitor in the background which presented the title graphic of the news show went idle, so I noticed this problem and then solved it during the interval of the VT which stopped the problem from occurring and I was able to go back to my camera without any problems.

Additional help I offered to my group during production was providing important documents on the studio wall such as: Floor plans, Running order, Reece location survey, risk assessment, production call sheet and healthy and safety documents. They were there to help the crew know what hazards to look out for and any additional information that everybody needed to know. I thought this was a good touch to the final production and was happy with my own involvement.

Overall, I thought that I played a good part of the production in my group during the role of camera operator and taking the floor manager role into account as they wasn’t present during the morning, I made sure health and safety was the main priority on the studio floor. The only downfall to our performance was that our group had to cut out the last VT so that the whole show fitted into the 30 minute scheduled gap. This problem occurred due to the Tricaster crashing making the VT’s buffer during the production therefore losing time in the total cumulative time during the production, I think there could have been anything to prevent this but for the group to be aware that problems can occur and that we need to prepare for problems and be organized.