Week 5

     Today's experience left me with a feeling of being defeated. Looking sober at work I performed as a Production Assistant - it was not bad. However, my expectations to the role were far from accurate. Rod Fairweather reffers to this role as a 'timer' (2001, p. 72) which I have found appealing. But below this name, there is the entire list of subsequent PA duties. A sentence 'PAs have a counting fixation' (Fairweather, 2001, p. 72) describes me pretty well, but as it turned out - PA does also have to be a multi-tasking genius. My biggest problem today was following and communicating current and following shots in a connection with time management. I could not do everything at once and on the beginning I made Floor Manager's and Presenter's roles more difficult by an unexpected and fast countdown to the end of the program. To keep them on track with time, I had to give up following shots. Last week I was working with the camera and I have found PA's help very valuable. I wanted to provide same kind of help our today's camera operators, but I could not. I am comforting myself because I noticed that an experienced module coordinator was facing a similar problem. Eventually, it helped me a lot when a director took over a part of my role informing which camera is on. Thanks to that I was able to communicate remaining time more clearly. This week was highly challenging for me and I hope to get a long rest before I will sit down on PA's chair again.

Cooking programme was a big challenge for all the people in the group.

     In my opinion, more pleasant part of the workshop was getting to know the evaluation forms.
I am a person who likes to write a lot, so a table that will keep me in line is a good solution. It also seems to me that it is a good idea for the whole group, to fill this form, so everyone can contribute with their opinion. These are effects of my thoughts on our Week 3 and 4 productions:

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Sources: Fairweather, R. (2001), 'The Studio Team' in Basic Studio Directing. Oxford; Boston: Focal Press

Week 4

     During the last production meeting, I was surprised by low attendance, but it also gave me more freedom in choosing a role I wanted to do. I considered the camera operator or PA. the matter was resolved quickly and I gave way to the person whose first choice was PA. In effect, during this week I was camera 1 operator - I was framing captions from a book.

     At the beginning of the workshop I was slightly afraid of operating under pressure of time and on such a small format like a book. My fears have come true partly, but overall I was surprised how well we have worked as a team today. Communication at the stage of shots testing was surprisingly pleasant and intuitive - when I realised that scripted frame looks strange it was not a problem at all to adjust it. This small amendment gave me great satisfaction. Initially, during rehearsals of shots, it was difficult for me to keep up with comments from the gallery and at the same time set the camera. At some point I stopped focusing so much on conversations from the gallery, and the fragments that were directed to me were picked up as if automatically. Similarly, later when we rehearsed a programme I paid a little bit too much attention to the script and what is happening next to me, the other cameras work etc. When I focused only on my task, I quickly fell into the rhythm. Sometimes I fell out of it because of falling captions and minor delays, but a simple, clear hand gesture to the person responsible for it solved the problem. 

     I noticed two interesting ailments in my work. First of all, I have noticed that for the most of the time I treated the preview screen on my camera as an actual shot. I used to ignore frame lines. Realising that helped me a lot with accurate framing, especially with small pages. I did not feel doing this mistake while working on wider frames. A second thing was too quick panning. At first I did not adjust the tempo to the size of the frame. In the middle of the workshop I realised that camera's pace is felt more when the movement itself is not long. It seems to me that I was able to correct it before the end of the workshop.

     I was happy to see a very satisfying effect of my work while watching the final take. Multi-camera work seemed to me more difficult than a single camera but anyway, I feel like I am doing better with a little bit of pressure.

I was extremely happy with pleased with the cooperation on the set.

Week 3

     The gallery view can be overwhelming and frightening with the number of buttons, knobs and equipment you do not know. Although I feel confident with technology, I was particularly afraid of effective communication. However, my feelings after the workshop are very positive.

     My first steps in Q LAB did not cause me any trouble but I did not have an opportunity to use it during rehearsals or takes. I feel that operating it 'live' is much more harder, especially when there is more pictures and videos to queue. I was surprised by sensitivity of the mouse connected to the computer. It was very low and make it a little bit difficult to comfortably operate it. I know it is simple to adjust and if I will have the opporutnity to work with Q LAB again - I will definitely spend a minute, before my actual work, adjusting the mouse to my needs. I have the impression that such a small thing could cause a lot of mistakes and delay my work. That is a reason why I am even more pleased that Q LAB allows us to control it with the keyboard. However, I am not used to Mac systems. Usually I use many keyboard shortcuts which are slightly different for Mac. I would like to get used to them and feel more comfortable with this system.

    
     My main task for today was dealing with sound. I heard the opinions of my friends from the group that the sound could be distracting when performing their tasks in the gallery. In this sense I feel lucky that sound was my main focus. While I was mainly involved in listening to the sound, the other members of the group had to coordinate with their tasks between sound and visual aspects. I had the impression that the sound mixer works under less time pressure than people dealing, for example, with Q LAB or PA. Adjustments during a take can be done quite easily in a smooth manner. At least in the conditions that prevailed today. I am sure it would be more challenging with unexpected noises or problematic presenters and guests. But in truth I would like to experience such unexpected conditions when working with sound. I think it could be a useful experience in terms of sensing this role that I hope to repeat during the module.

First steps with sound mixer

Week 2

     This week brightened up what I can expect in the coming weeks. At first, I was confused by how a script for TV live programme looks like and I have found it chaotic. After a short explanation, I noticed how well everything was organized and readable.

     During the second week of classes I took on three roles: camera operator, guest of the program and I counted and signaled the time. The role of the camera operator was the most enjoyable for me. I stood behind the camera 1, which crossed with camera 3. I really like the cooperative aspect of work while working with multi-camera. However, it was a challenge for me to adjust between shots 'live' so guest's and presenter's eyes are on the similar level on the screen. While working with small groups and single camera, contact between camera operator and director was much more chaotic and roles were mixing. I am happy that it does not happen on set of TV programme. I like that director's expected changes must be clearly communicated so I can easily execute them. Setting the frame before an actual take is quite simple, but what will be a challenge for me in the future are quick 'live' changes with more complex scripts.

     As a guest I felt uncomfortable. I definitely feel better standing behind the camera. But what it showed me is how well prepared people in front of the camera have to be. I saw it in my experience, but even more so in the experience of the presenter with whom I spoke. Although it is live TV which usually is supposed to show life just as it is, it requires good acting skills, or at least the proper manners in behavior. Cooperation with the floor manager was very helpful and instructions before takes are very useful. For the next time, I appreciated a good communication on set.

     The last of my roles was checking and signaling the time planned for the video clip. Although I have always had the impression that my voice is loud - I realized that it was lost on the set (and this is just a fraction of how loud we will be in a couple of weeks). This role, although small, showed me the most important how important it is for me to feel comfortable and bold on set. I see that there is a mental barrier to break in front of me, but I also know that it is just a matter of time to see it disappearing.

In 'free' moments I could learn a lot from the experience of others.

Being in front of the camera is unlikely to be my strong point.