Final Production - Comm 360

On our final project for studio production, we focused on shooting a real production with a real subject and credible talents.  Our group, (group B) chose the subject of the 2012 end of the world prophecies.  For preproduction, we had to make sure we had questions prepared.  My choice of topic was the economical effects prior to the estimated time of the end of the world. As said in my discussion board with my classmates: "I'm not sure if I'm beating a dead horse with the economical subject, but I feel like believers of 2012 will highly affect the county's economy.  A great sample questions would be:

WIll the economy be affected before and/or after the proposed date of the end of the world and how will it be affected?"

Although the idea was not used, we finished the questions and brainstorming and found our talents. We were ready for the big day of filming.

Unfortunately, when that big day came, a power outage occurred on campus. This caused our talents to not show up and questioned whether or not we were actually going to film that day.  After waiting, we found the power to be restored. It was starting to look as if we were actually going to be able to film.  However, none of our talents showed up.  We improvised by replacing them with members of our team. Setup for filming was in progress and then suddenly one of our original talents showed up. Now, we actually have some credibility in our production. I was assigned the position of video switcher.  I listened carefully to the director for switching directions, and although it is not allowed, gave advise of when to switch and camera directions. The only error made was that the microphone on our guest fell of in the middle of the production.

Moving on, I volunteered to edit.  When receiving the footage there was a huge problem with the audio. There was a huge buzz noise the entire time. Also the part when the microphone dropped was very loud. On top of that, it was slightly overtime.  So, the first thing to do was to take the audio into audacity and take a print of the buzzing noise alone and remove the audio throughout the entire file.  This worked very well. I was impressed at our sound guy for making sure each talent had the same audio level.  This was something I noticed no one else had.  Next, I solved both of our last two problems.  We were overtime and the microphone was dropped halfway through. So, I decided to take out the entire phrase where the microphone was dropped (which happened to be irrelevant to the conversation, so no continuity was sacrificed) I managed to edited it to be right on time. I turned in the edited video the next class and we noticed that the format was a very low res format. It was then that I re-edited the entire thing (because I didn't save it) and rendered it again as an AVI file.  Finally the file was done and we rendered it yet again with the Shepherd University bumpers. Our project was done!

Writing Center - Comm 360

When shooting the writing center assignment, the first thing I noticed was that the script required lots of intensive editing.  This means that the production should be looked at very intensively so that the editing process is easier.  There lots of small snipets of video that were going to be used.
The first thing I helped with was troubleshooting. Especially with the reading of the script by the talents.   I had noticed that the angle that the talents were reading from was obvious in the video. So I found a way to hold the board so that way the further the talent got in the script, the the board could roll down so the talent's head stays at the same angle.
I noticed in production that the subject would breathe or take a break after finishing each phrase or snipet. The talent would also have a different inflection with the next phrase which will lead to a lack of continuity in post production and i would limit the choices of who you would pick to say the next phrase. I would also like to note that I worked on lighting for the first time which was pretty fun.

Director with Studio Production - Comm 360

As stated in other blogs, such as Studio Production Positions and Multi-Madness, my all-time favorite studio production position is the director.  I'm sure I have shown this when blogging about Hamilton Hamish. 

I have said that I do not enjoy having control over just a small part of the production process and I like making decisions for myself. The position of director seems to be the only position that has any control.  All other positions mostly rely on directions of the director.  When I was the director I first ensured that everyone was doing their jobs.  You can think of the director as the quality control before the production starts.  He or she should make sure and remind everyone of their jobs to ensure that everything is in working order and no errors will occur while the production is in action (which is to late).  I have made sure to pay special attention to the audio in pre-production. My reasoning for this is that it is hard to find a mistake for audio even while the filming is in progress. In my experience, audio mistakes are not found until post production when it is too late. So, it is better to be prepared when it comes to audio.  I feel like I did a good job of that.  

Moving on, I made sure that both cameras matched as far as exposure and white balance.  Camera #2 was a little dark, but after fixing the exposure (although it was hard to tell on the video switcher monitor) the white balance was fixed and we were ready to go.  However, looking back, I should have done some extra preproduction work.  I should have ensured that the talents knew their jobs and know where to look and to not move or make distractions while filming.  Other than that, I feel like I have done my job for preproduction.

Moving on to the production.  While filming my main focus was to make sure the camera angles were good.  I made sure that each camera (even if we weren't using it) had a good angle. A good angle means that all exposure and white balance is set, no one is cut off from side to side, and most importantly, head room.  Head room is the space from the top of the shot to the top of the subject's head. However, after post production I have realized that we were actually shooting in full screen and it later is turned to widescreen.  So, in the future I want to solve that mistake by giving a little more head room to compensate. Next, I ensured that I could anticipate who will be speaking next so that way I could time the camera movement and video switch correctly. The only reason I knew to do this was by watching other directors make the same mistake.  As far as mistakes, I feel like I did not pay attention to the timing as much as I could have.  The ending was slightly abrupt and interrupted the conversion suddenly.
All in all, I feel like I have a pretty good feel for production now.

Studio Production Positions - COMM 360

One of my biggest fears of my future career is that I will get stuck with a job that requires doing the same miniscule job over and over again.  Like being a sound guy where all I do is mic up talents over and over again.  No... I'd rather do it all.  Operate the camera, direct the camera shots, switch video, and anything and everything.  This is why I have enjoyed my studio production class lately.  We have filmed several different talents (which happen to just be my own classmates) and every time the production ended we all switched positions. So, this way, we all got at least one turn with each job. Never did the same person have the same job over and over. Most of my positions were not supportive but hands on and thankfully they were all behind the camera or in the production room.
I used the cameras and received directions from the director. I had to encounter troubleshooting with complex settings with the other camera operator's camera (some zebra pattern setting that took for ever to fix) then after we figured out the exposure settings and made sure the audio was not being sent to the video switcher, we were ready to shoot. The first thing I noticed when shooting (and found the importance later after I got to be director) was that it was important to listen to directions of the director and to change shots as soon as possible so that the switcher can switch and the shot can be used. Slow camera operators can hurt a production easily.
The next notable position was the video switcher. I was very excited about this position, but I found it was rather boring because all you would do is listen to the director telling you to push a button.
The director was my favorite position. I was able to control everything the way I like it.  The most difficult thing to learn was to anticipate who will be talking next rather than who is talking at the time.  Generally, as a director wants to set up a shot (for example, a close up on the person talking) the director will generally set up the shot to early and by the time the camera operator is done, the shot is lost.  Instead the director should anticipate when someone else will be speaking.
Other positions were floor manager, sound man, lighting director, and much more.  They weren't my favorite positions, but I found that they are very important to the whole production because the director should not have to worry about these jobs or any of the troubleshooting.  I believe this is why many productions have these multiple small jobs.

Show Ideas - Comm 360

In my studio production class, I have been asked to post ideas on our discussion board of show ideas that we can potentially film.


1.) Battle of the Sexes Game Show - Like i said in the last class, I can see this becoming a very popular show if it were to air on the Television channel when we get one.  I will have examples soon and I think that it would work without being to over the edge.

2.) Sports Cast - just like any other one you would see on tv.  We could also put a "game show" like spin on it where players would guess what team would win a sporting event and see who would have the best results.

3.)  Arts Show - as a photo minor I know that there are alot of talent in the art department that would be more than willing to show off their pieces and be interviewed on air.  

Studio Production - COMM 360

In our studio production class, I have worked on both sides of production. This does not mean that I have been in front of the camera. But, I have been both behind the camera and in the lab editing the footage (although most of my work was at home since I do not know how to use final cut). In the studio, I worked on the video switch board closely monitored by the director. I also worked on some problem solving when setting up the set.

Some things I really liked was the set up for the chairs and table. It seemed very professional. Next, I want to give credit to the camera operators at the time. They were very still with their shots, gave proper head space, and quickly changed their shots when instructed to. These are three things (in my opinion) that make or break a camera operator. Moving on, I did not enjoy several things about the production. Because of the recent power outage, our guests did not show up except one, but we managed to replace some with our own production team. This gave our production less credibility, but overall, I found that it worked out nicely. Next, I did not like the choice of shots. Some shots were on two talents that were not even talking. The director attempted to set up a shot and did not anticipate the particular talent to stop talking. This resulted in lost shots by the time the camera man panned over. Finally, I did not like the microphone falling in the middle of one of the talents speaking. However, this was an easy fix in post production.

The post production was a joint effort with me and John Chapman. At first, John edited the video, but we found that it was difficult to remove the buzzing noise in the background and John did not know how to remove it. Also, it was hard to separate the video from the audio to cut down a particular part of the video to fit it properly in the time restraints. So, I took the original file home and edited the entire video with Vegas Pro and worked on the audio file with audacity, which removed the buzz entirely. After rendering (and eventually rendering again the next day to get a higher quality format) it was returned to John Chapman where he rendered the entire file again with the Shepherd bumpers.

Overall, I did not enjoy that Vegas Pro was not available in the lab, but that is to be expected. I find that I can work better at home on my own computer anyway. It gives me time to do it right. I wish the bumpers were more readily available so I could have done it in one shot and John wouldn’t have had to do the rest on final cut, but I understand that is hard to do.

In conclusion, I am proud of our video. I wish there were some things that were changed or that I wish we did differently. However, in the long run, no production is perfect and mistakes are bound to be made. Overall, I find that if any mistakes were made I am glad that these mistakes were made rather than anything worse.

Multi-Madness

Ever wonder how CBS and NBC produces large, live events such as football games and concerts? Recently, in my Studio Production class, I have been viewing and experimenting with live and multi-cam studio production. Although our hands-on production is only with two cameras. We have been exploring other and larger producers such as Hamilton Hamish . Hamish is a famous producer that specializes with live and multi-cam production with large stars such as Kayne West and U2. These are intricate and complicated productions with magnificent results. Exploring these large productions has shown me:

1.) How fun these productions may be

2.) The director has the overall say with everything while everyone else simply follows directions rather than shooting at will

3.) timing is very important with music productions (notice the woman yelling counts in the U2 video)

Furthermore, when doing this process ourselves, we quickly realized how it is still difficult to do the same thing as Hamish does with only two cameras. Although, it does seem obtainable very soon. I believe that perfection will be achieved when everyone's strengths are used to their expertise. I have learned:

1.) How important lighting is

2.) Problem solving and how often problems happen (almost always)

3.) Equipment managment and care

Overall, studio production is more than one person working and pulling levers. It is a team effort that only works if everyone does their job correctly.

Photo: http://photos.presslist.oscars.org/downloadpreview.php/Hamish_Hamilton-p.jpg

Plans for a Better Website

As assigned in my new communications class: "Computer Mediated Communications", I am required to build a twenty five page website for the conclusion of the class. Thankfully, I am in need of a website. Actually I already have a website for the business I own: Stevenson Productions. Stevenson Productions is a event and wedding videography company. The website was build by myself using a template on Frontpage. Frontpage is a very out of date web editing program. In fact, spell check did not even recognize the word "Frontpage".

I am very excited to use a more up-to-date program. Also, I am excited about expanding the website to include even more pages including:

• A videographer and editor's biography - this will help potential clients meet our workers before they even show up at their wedding
• A preferred vendors list - this is a useful tool for networking since most business comes from other vendors. Most vendors return the favor and put your name on their website
• More Testimonies - This will show how other clients have viewed my work
• More!