So I applied for a couple of projects going on in RMITV and I got accepted into a talk show called ‘Tough Times Don’t Last’ with Michael Kuzilny, who is a crime lawyer that sits down weekly with guests that have been through a difficult time in their lives. The purpose of the show is to share experiences and inspire more people who are in a similar situation and to encourage them to be strong and stay positive. Before this I had no experience with any TV production nor have I been on a set or a studio. So I was so happy when I got in. The staff who are mostly students treated my so nicely and literally taught me hand by hand if I did not know how to do it.
So I started my first role as a switcher, whose job is to cut from camera to camera as the host and the guest were talking. If the host was speaking, cut to camera 1. If the guest was speaking, cut to camera 3. If they were both speaking, cut to camera 2. It sounds very simple but it’s the HARDEST job in the world!!! Sometimes I completely failed to predict who was about to speak and often times when I had already cut to camera 1, the host stopped speaking and I had to switch to camera 3 to cut to the guest, but the guest just nodded or said yes and then the host started speaking again. I failed to follow the flow of their conversation so many times that it looked horrible on the program screen. But thankfully they switcher trainer Jenny was very nice and patient. And tutored me through the whole making of the first interview. And I started to get the hang of it after the first section was done.
Then I was assigned to be the floor manager as we take turns to do the jobs in the studio so everyone could experience all the aspects of producing a talk show. Thank god, the floor manager was so much easier to do than the switcher. Basically I had a set of headphones and the director would speak directly to me if s/he wanted me to fix anything on the set. And the floor manager had to do the count down before every section started/finished. And before every section was finished, I has to do a time running gesture with my hand at the last 1min. And increase the speed when it’s the last 30 secs.
In all I did the floor manager job so much better than switcher and I definitely enjoyed my first time in a studio TV production. There’s still 2 times to go so I’ll keep blogging about this later.