For Week 5 of “Ready, Camera One”, we discussed the role of Graphics behind the whole production team of a studio. These are the results of our group discussion:
Taken by me during Week 5’s class
If you look closely, we discussed where the person in charge of Graphics would usually be located (in the Control Room) and what their roles and responsibilities consist of. Graphics would have to prepare the required Graphics for the show – this usually meant that they would have to make their own template via Photoshop, Lightroom or even from a quick online search.
Graphics’ interaction with the other roles of the studio would mainly be between the Director and Vision Mixer, whilst it also requires interactions with the Audio Director and EVS but not as heavy of an interaction in comparison to the Director or the Vision Mixer. In relation to the Vision Mixer, these two roles would usually have a discussion of when the graphics should go on and therefore, the person in charge of Graphics will need to know when to prepare the upcoming templates. As for the Director, he would usually give directions for the role of the Graphics, when and where they should place the graphics on the live screen and how long it should stay on. Finally, the role of EVS and Sound’s interaction are usually limited to the Graphics role – they would only be required to heavily interact if EVS or the Sound required graphics. Finally, it is the D.A.’s responsibility to kindly remind the Graphics person to get ready in preparation for the Director’s cue.
I mainly discussed the role of Graphics’ and its interaction between other roles in the control room, rather than the roles on the floor. For further information about the roles of Graphics and other floor roles, it is all written in the photo above!
The Pre-Production Stage
Before we were all assigned to groups, the class was shown videos from the previous year in regards to Assignment 3. As we assembled into groups, we discussed the successes and errors that occurred in the video and they were the following:
- The characters were ‘built up’ well, such as the host
- The underlying racism – in one of the quiz shows, a joke about race was mentioned. Our aim as a group is to try and avoid this issue.
- Good sound effects but there were some issues with the audio
- It would be better to have more general questions for the quiz rather than specific ones – we all agreed to this in order to avoid long and awkward silences
As we were brainstorming, naturally, we expressed the roles we wanted to fulfil. For this assignment, I initially decided to take on the role of Props/Set and also the Host but I decided to swap with Ella to the role of the Floor Manager. As I have fulfilled multiple roles in and outside of the Ready, Camera One, I have never been a Floor Manager before, so it was exciting to see how I would operate along with the floor staff. My expectations as a Floor Manager would be double checking the setup of the set/props, ensuring the talents knew what they had to do and of course, relaying the message from the control room to the floor production. It wasn’t until the date of the production that I would realise that there is more to the role of a Floor Manager than I thought there would be.
We all decided as a group that we would do a quiz show about the 90s to the early 2000s – it is because the majority of us could relate to the era’s pop culture and music, and of course the rest of the class too. We organised a group chat where we could freely discuss our ideas and which role we would take on. It was an easier way to communicate considering we only had this class once every week.
(Screengrabbed at 4:51 PM, 14/04)
Overall, I’m feeling pretty confident about the week of the production. It should run smoothly according to our plans. I feel that I am also paired with an organised group of people and that we are all able to work interdependently in the upcoming production of our 90s-2000s show.
Bring on the 90s baby!