Research Portfolio

For my research portfolio, I decided to watch a talk-show broadcasted on ITV in the daytime. The show is not a live broadcast, it is recorded, edited and then the show will be put on television to be broadcasted.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1KMrJGz3EIg

After watching one of the shows of of Jeremy Kyle, I learnt that the show is a multi-cam production, I know this because there is  more than one camera being used whilst watching this particular extract. The cameras I counted was 5 camera set up around the studio to film this production. One camera is on a crane which is responsible for all the high angle shots and the wide shots and is located at the back of the studio. Another camera is located in the audience which is most likely handheld to make the shot realistic and show the audience reaction. The other three cameras are located at the front of the studio just behind the stage so that they can film the guests and the presenter of the show. One on these will mainly focus on the presenter which is jeremy kyle when he is speaking, the other two cameras will focus on the guests which are speaking. Whilst the wide shot camera which is located at the back of the studio, is being used, this is a safety shot which captures most of the talk show which allows the other camera to set up a shot which could include the next guest, people from the audience or even backstage. One of these cameras located at the front could possible be on a dolly so that it can pan left and right of the stage which covers more shots and angles of the studio. The way the cameras have been setup works as they all correspond together and capture everything when needed and not wasting a shot opportunity.

From watching this extract you can see that the guests and the presenter are using mini microphones which are attached to their clothes to capture the sound. This makes it easy for everyone to have more movement and freedom are the studio. This also prevent to use of a boom mic operator following everybody around the studio and being caught in the cameras and being shown in the broadcast as this would look very un-professional.

You can notice that the show needs a crew that consists of camera operators, floor manager(s), vision mixer, director and a presenter. These are vital and most multi-camera productions will need these crew members during any production. I also found out that they use these particular crew members and more by reading the credits at the end of the show, I will use the credits of the show as my reference.

Floor Plan:

Report

The roles I took responsibility for during the assessment days at Lever Street on days 10th January & 17th January were the following in correct order,

• Camera Operator
• Sound Operator
• Vision Mixer
• Floor Manager

These roles link to the rest of my production because in any other environment, the skills and experience which I have gained will need to be applied to the specific role. For example this could be inside broadcasting instead of outside where we will gain the skills. The camera operator role can be used in all environments in my rest of my production. 


There was other roles that I didn't get to work on and someone of these roles, I would have liked too such as the Director role. This role is really intense and has no room for error in as it plays a big part in any production. I would have liked to experience this role but because of popular demand of this role, there was chance of experiencing this role during the 8 acts. The other role I didn't take part in was the Online Network. The online network was mostly done by Josh Lloyd who is limited to specific jobs roles, when he was in control of different roles, I already had a role in which case I couldn't take on two roles to experience this specific role.


I think I played a vital part in the production as every role during the production was important and if the role was completed efficiently then noticeable errors in the broadcast would have shown. I also fixed certain errors so that the broadcast wasn't held back any longer than it was, I did some trial and error on the camera and found that the composite lead was not in a working state and informed the floor manager to tell the directer. This lead to a replacement composite cable and after this was connected, it was working perfectly and the problem was fixed. I was happy with solving this problem as it helped the overall production of the broadcast. During the role of camera operator, I ran into a problem of not knowing how to put the Panasonic P2 camera into 'Preset 3' this was a new camera to me and have never experienced the use of this camera before. As I wasn't the only one knowing how to change this setting of the camera, the director was getting frustrated because this setting was not being applied, I then was shown how to apply this setting and I have now taken note of how this apply this setting for future reference. The button is located at the front of the camera on the left hand side. This is the only difficulty I experience during any of the roles I took part in.


If I was to repeat this project, I would definitely try to make time more worthy as a lot of time was wasted in both weeks. A lot of time was lost during the setting up of the equipment and the testing. One way to help us all solve this problem as a team was to do more equipment rehearsal's and practice at our own studio of setting up the camera's, talkback's and broadcasting. This would have saved much more time. Another thing I would change if I could repeat this project is to change my attitude during the production. I felt that I had very low patience which lead to a poor working environment attitude towards the director and people around me. If this change was applied then the production could have probably worked a bit smoother and stop people feeling uncomfortable around me due to my poor attitude. Even though I had a bad attitude, I still kept a professional element about me and kept my behaviour at a good quality.