Week 6 Event day:

Upon arriving to Rmit on Friday , the big day of our event, I helped move the (extremely heavy) set from the studio in building 12 to our seminar room in building 7. After we managed to move everything, I got a few members of my group to help me obtain all the tech equipment I booked, such as the camera, lighting, tripod and stands, from the AV loans in building 8. At around 10:30AM when the seminar room doors opened, everyone from our TV group immediately burst in and began preparing during what was ultimately the calm before the storm.

As the camera department was the area that I was most focused on, I began immediately, upon stepping foot in the seminar room, to set up the camera equipment. While I was setting up the front close up camera, I got help from Aria to set up the lighting for the guests and the room’s ambience for the audience. Despite our group lacked a proper designated lighting person, I was still able to give some basic direction for the lighting atmosphere I was intending to create. However I believe I should have directed my attention a little more to the lighting, as the final result wasn’t exactly lit the way I had indented it to be. Unfortunately, there were so many things to do within such a small timeframe. Additionally I helped Kelly arrange the second wide shot camera that I positioned in the center of the room within the seating aisles, to complete our dual camera set up. Before I knew it, the time was 11:30. The auditorium was full and the guests where seated. The intro video began to play on the projector, and so our seminar began. From the moment I hit the play buttons on our cameras at the beginning of the seminar to when I pressed stop after our host announced the break, I was able to effectively capture the entire action of the seminar, without any problems. During the break I was able to playback the videos for both cameras, to watch the content that we were able to capture. It looked great. Connor our host was funny, the guests were getting into the spirit of the event and gave some great answers to our questions, and the audience seemed to be genuinely interested in the seminar discussions.

All of a sudden, the second half of the event began. Without getting a chance to relax or have anything to eat, I quickly ran to the front of the room to begin recording the second half. Mid way through the Q& A of the event my camera stopped recording due to the memory being full. Frantically I reached into my bag and grabbed my spare SD card that I had fortunately packed with me, and began to resume recording. Shortly after I looked back beyond the seating aisles to see how things where going for Kelly with the second camera. Much to my dismay, she expressed a look of concern. I signaled Troy who wasn’t sitting too far away from me to take over camera in the last 10 minutes of the seminar, so I could go to see what Kelly was having trouble with. It seemed as though the other camera was also out of memory, however luckily we had an extra camera, which we used to record the remaining duration of the seminar. When the host wrapped up the Q& A and thanked our guests at the end of our event, I was relieved to wrap up filming. Essentially, I believe things went fairly well and I collaborated well with my team members to organize and set up the technical elements of the event. Apart from a few technical issues, which we were able to efficiently recover from, It was a really productive day. Straight after packing up and leaving the seminar hall, I inspected the footage and was delighted to see the high visual quality of the clips.

 

Mid Semester Break week Post- Production:

During our mid semester break; I began editing our video for the 5-minute highlight reel of the event. After proper inspection of the video and audio content that we recorded from the day of the event, I was rather pleased with our results. Although the quality of Simon’s sound recording was a little questionable, I still think he did a decent job to capture the discussion and voice of the host and guests, which ultimately is all that counts. Additionally I was very happy with the visual aesthetic qualities of our clips that we managed to capture with the cameras. After working a few hours a day for five days during the uni break, I managed to complete editing the video. The part that I found most difficult was the process to limit the video to five minutes, as there was so much interesting content I had to exclude from the final cut. However I honestly believe I managed to include all the most vital aspects of the event for the final edited version of the seminar video that is informative and visually stimulating.

 

General Self-assessment:

Overall I strongly believe I was able to contribute effectively towards my group, specifically in organizing the props and technical equipment during the pre-production stages, by providing my camera operating skills during the staging of the event and efficiently editing the seminar video during post-production. From the seminar itself, I was able to properly understand the importance of practical skills and knowledge when applying for industry jobs (as described by the guests). Subsequently after the staging processes from the event, I understood that I’m more suited to peruse a career in television narrative production rather than live studio television, due to the high pressured fast-paced work environment associated with live television production, where there isn’t much time to deliberate whenever a problematic situation arises. Nevertheless I really enjoyed this experience from my involvement in the “Breaking in” television seminar. I honestly believe that I worked effectively, to contribute to my group as an individual by demonstrating my skills and knowledge (technical skills and knowledge relevant to our seminar) and to collaborate with my group members as a team during discussions, while attending all Media Industries classes and meetings.

 

Personal Score: 80/100- HD

Earlier in the week, Troy and I returned to the Building 12 Studio to confirm and make an official booking, on behalf of our group, for all the props we needed for our seminar. We gathered all our props consisting of a couch and seats for the guests, a stool for Conor our seminar host as well as some bookshelves, plants, a rug and a coffee table for the mise-en-scene of our domestic living room set.

After attending the recent Non-fiction documentary seminar, our group wanted to collectively head down to the Props department at the RMIT studio in level 2 building 12. Troy and I showed our group of all the props that we had already selected for the mise-en-scene of our stage/ set. After the group was happy with our choices and were done exploring the props room for additional items, I went down to the AV loans office in building 8 and confirmed my booking for the camera and lighting equipment, just incase. It seems like we’re all prepared for our seminar next week.

By the end of the fourth week, our group managed to secure our four seminar guests, consisting of Anna Gregory (Executive producer at Fremantle Media), Jeff Shenker (Line producer & production manager at Ch.9), Ron Frim (senior News director at ABC) and Lucy McLaren (Producer at Renegade films). Surprisingly everything seems to be moving along well for our seminar preparation, especially after the confirmation of our professional industry guests, who all seem to be quite experienced in network TV.

After little deliberation, our group decided that the stage theme of our seminar would resemble a domestic living room, which would correspond to our “breaking in(to a house)” theme. As we collectively made a brief list of essential props needed for our staging, I ensured everyone that everything on our list can be obtained from the props department next to the RMIT studio located in building 12, as I was familiar with the studios facilities from having classes there previously while studying the screen & media course at RMIT. After the group meeting, Troy and I paid a visit to the props department and took a look around, finding extra props that we could make use of. We then approached the studio manager and asked him whether or not we could borrow the props for use in building 7, who told us to go back to the studio, closer to the date of our event, in order to confirm the props- due to the fact that studio productions there have priority over the props.

Seems Promising…

So its week 3, with only 3 more weeks to go till the big day of our television seminar. It feels like we have a long time to go until the day of our event, however I bet the time will go by fast, and before I know it, it’s showtime. This week, I’ve managed to secure a booking for the production equipment courtesy of the A.V loans office in Building 8. The technical equipment that I’ve booked include a Canon 5D Mark 3 DSLR with a couple of excellent lenses such as the 24-70mm zoom and the 50mm prime lens that will allow us to capture some aesthetically pleasing shots with a shallow depth of field when recording. I also managed to book in three LED flat panel lights, which is a better alternative to the redhead lights, as the LEDs are lightweight and don’t have the tendency to overheat. And what use is all this equipment if you don’t have anything to put it on? I’ve booked Stands, and tripods so we’re all covered in regards to the essential tech equipment. I also nominated myself to be responsible for the post-production/ editing of the five minute seminar highlight reel. Since I’ll be shooting the event on the day and will have access to the clips, It seemed rather logical to take on the role as video editor.

Our group has also managed to create a shortlisted group of people, who we’ve either started to contact or will attempt to contact, in order to attain the seminar’s guest speakers. Quite a nice list of potential guests consisting of  Elspeth Iredale (Producer/Production Manager), Jeff Shenker (Producer/Production Manager), Brendan Campbell (1st Assistant Director/Line Producer/Production Manager), Samantha Strauss (writer), Ron Frim (Senior News Director at Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), Lucy MacLaren (Producer at Renegade Films), Josh Thomas (actor, comedian, douchebag), Nicole Minchin (Producer / Executive Producer), Antony Cirocco (Producer / Writer / Director) and some more people who I cant be bothered writing down. Seems promising, now all we need to do is contact them all and get a response from them..

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Alright, I’ve found myself a group and we’ve established our topic; Network television production. Great! It’s an industry I hope to work in hopefully in the near future and am passionate about. This is always good, to be involved working on a topic that your actually care about. Anyway we’ve decided to stage our event in week 6 since week 5 became quickly taken by the non-fiction  group. So hopefully we’ll be able to learn from the documentary group’s mistakes to stage a better event (I hope that didn’t sound too harsh). Straight away I nominated myself to be in charge of all the technical aspects for the event, which requires me to manage duties such as booking all the camera and lighting equipment, as well as operate one of the cameras to film our event video. I knew this technical area of the event staging would be the best area of focus for me since I’m more than capable in video production from my prior involvement in various quality film and community television production and my skills and knowledge gained from studying the Screen & media production course at RMIT. Although majority of my skills revolve around cinematography and camera operating, I hope I’ll be able to assist whoever decides to help out with lighting on the day of the event.

Also, I hope that we’ll be able to get some interesting guests to the event to boast a prolific experience in the Australian television industry, as that’s my main concern at the moment. Whether or not we can actually find decent guests!