Masterclass 2 (With Del) | Workshop ~ SP

For our second masterclass with Del, he wanted us to rig the equipment ourselves with help from Alex and Fergus. To do this he put us into groups of either three or four, and set us to different stations to set up and do different roles.
I was in a group with Ellen, Josh B and Rosie, and we were given the task to set up the talkback and start off with the directing and vision mixing jobs. Talkback is the system that allows the camera operators, sound operator and the floor manager to hear the gallery. This will be what everyone on the floor will use to hear the director (me) call out the cues and instructions and, the PA (Rosie) counting the stings, the rounds and the VT's.
Once we gave the people on the floor there talkback headphones, we went back into the gallery to make sure they could hear us. As soon as we got some contact with the people on the floor, and we were confident that they could hear us, we moved onto the directing and vision mixing.

Del came into the gallery and told us to take turns being the director and being the vision mixer. One of us, as the director, would call different shots out to the vision mixer, and the other person, as the vision mixer, would standby and cut those shots on the desk. This was a good task to do as I got some practise calling out shots, but also we all got the chance to be the director and cut to the different shots using the vision mixing desk.
Then once all four of us got a chance to do that task, Del wanted us to try and get a split screen on the screen. We worked as a group to find out how to do this, and I actually found it quite difficult to do. Once we got the split screen on the screen it was time to switch over to doing the graphics and using the graphics computer.

The computer was already set up when we got to use it, but that did give us more time experiment with the different things that we could do with the graphics for our show. Fergus gave us a run through of the computer and how it works, and he showed us the best softwares to use on that computer. Once we had the knowledge of how to use the particular software to use, we all took turns in experimenting with the different sort of graphics and effects we could use and how to put them onto the screen.

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After lunch, everyone that was in the gallery moved into the studio, and vice versa. My group started on the cameras, and before hand Del had told everyone to de rig the equipment slightly, so we all had a chance to rig the equipment.
Our first task as the camera operators was to make sure that the cameras were white balanced correctly and that they all looked very similar in terms of colour. This is something that should be done before starting a shoot for anything, but especially for the live production show.
We had a few problems trying to get them all looking the same, meaning we had to look at each camera and figure out what the problem was. As a group we went through the camera menu and looked at everyones settings to make sure they were all the same. After a few changes to the settings on some of the cameras, we managed to get them looking relatively similar.

Then once we had set up the cameras to the right colour and the correct balance, my group moved onto the sound. Sound isn't something that I feel very confident with, so when we had to rig the equipment and the sound desk I found it quite difficult. Myself and Rosie worked together to connect everything together, while Josh and Ellen wore the clip microphones. We managed to get the music coming out of the laptop working and it was connected properly, but we were quite confused with how the clip mics connected to the mixing desk.
We decided to ask Alex about how that is done, and he showed us how it's all connected. This helped us a lot as we were able to see for ourselves how the desk worked. Once everything was working, we moved the levels around and experimented with different things like gain and how the sound would sound like if the levels were full volume.

After everyone had experience with every job role we finished the masterclass.
I really enjoyed today, and I thought having the experience of every role was very useful. Even though I'm only doing the role of Director for the actual show, it meant that I had the knowledge of how to set up the equipment and how to do the role which will be useful for future projects.