MED4115 - Television Studio Skills

This is one of our rehearsals for our final production, the actual takes will be uploaded soon.

For the module MED4115, our class as a group were asked to create and produce a 15-minute live TV show that would take place on the 17th March 2017. There were 30 of us in the class and we had to work together as a whole to get this production done. Our idea was a 15-minute game show that would host two teams, both with two members on each, and a presenter. The name of our show was ‘Flashback Friday’ which was inspired by ‘Throwback Thursday’. This name was generated due to the fact that each round would contain questions focussing on a specific era. The layout of our show was three games including a Q&A quick fire round at the end. Each round went up a decade, for example, round one was 1990 – 2000, round two was 2000 – 2010 and round three being 2010 – Present. We were told that we must complete eight takes on the day and that rehearsals were down to us. Our production call time was 9:00am. and we planned to finish by 7:00pm.

The first thing that we had to do as a team was to sort out roles for pre-production work, Caroline and I were the leading figures throughout this process as we took charge of what we needed. The pre-production role that I underwent was as a producer of the show, this role was chosen by myself as I believe I am creative and organised and I feel like this was shown throughout. The role of producer entitled me to help decide what the show was going to contain as well as creating the first ever schedule with Caroline that took a lot of work as I had to find out what each member of our group wanted to do as well as what they didn’t want to do, all this information then had to be put into an excel document which listed all eight takes and highlighted the specific roles that were being marked.

Another role that I took upon myself was to be chief editor of the VT’s that were to be played on our show. This role consisted of me spending a lot of time using Adobe Premiere Pro as I had to edit the VT’s for round one and round three. This process was not too tricky but more time-consuming as I had well over 35 clips/images to edit. The first editing I completed was for the zoom-in pictures of our celebrities, this consisted of me tracking the image and ensuring it fit into the strict six-second timeline. The second bit of editing I had to complete was for our ‘guess what?’ round, this consisted of me speeding up a clip ensuring that it fit into our 20-second timeline. I then exported the files and placed them on a USB for them to be placed onto the VT computer. I had no troubles with this and it all ran quite smoothly.

One other pre-production role that I took upon was to be managing director of the production pack and the production paperwork. My job in this role was to ensure that every week I was receiving a substantial amount of paperwork that would all come together and be placed into the production pack that I supplied via Amazon. This role was enjoyable as I am quite an organised person and I like filing. One thing that I believe I could have done to improve this was if I created a front cover for the production pack.

As I was in charge of generating the schedule I put myself down for at least three roles on the day, and to be a part of at least five of the takes. I did this due to the fact that I wanted to be involved as much as possible throughout the day. My first role of the day was as Director on take 1. I chose this role myself as I have had a lot of practice throughout the weeks prior to this and I also enjoy directing and being in charge of the show. I think that the first take went better than expected and I believe that my research prior to the production day also helped me. The rehearsals before the live show were intense and fun, and I used this day as a chance to get to grips with what camera angles I wanted as well as what transitions I was aiming at. Once I knew where I wanted to place my camera’s I took a picture so that I could duplicate this on the production day, it also allowed me to study the angles and to get a basic understanding of when I would cut to each shot referring to the script and running order throughout. On the actual production day, as director I was first to arrive at the studio at around 8:10 shortly followed by Simon. We then started piecing the set together. I took more time to adjust the cameras to how I wanted them and to how I prepared. Doing this allowed for a smoother take and helped with communication as I often found it hard to direct the cameras through a microphone. Overall I think my role as director was good and I believe that the show looked great. One thing that I would improve for future cases would be to try some fading in and out of the VT’s. I took this into consideration straight after my take and put it into action when I was Director in take 5.

Another role that I was being marked on was camera operator during take 4. I chose this role myself as it is one of my favourite floor roles. One thing that I believe held me back in this role was the camera I had chosen prior. When I chose this role, we did not have an idea about which camera would be doing what, so this led to me having to operate a camera that was a static shot throughout focussing on ‘Team PM’. With this in mind, I knew it would not enhance my marks or get me any more so I took this into consideration and during the quick fire round decided to zoom in and focus on specific team-members so that the shot did have a change throughout the show. I also believed that this would help the director as they could use my shot to show the other team-members expression/emotion. One thing that did go well for this role was that my shot was always in focus and there was no sudden movement throughout.

In conclusion, I really enjoyed this module and loved having the opportunity to create and produce a TV show. I believe that I gained a lot of experience throughout and also generated some techniques for specific roles in which I can use in the future. Throughout this module I think I have done well in taking on leadership roles as well as completing specific roles to a near-professional standard. My most enjoyable role was as Director and I would definitely take on this role in the future.