Media write up 4/10/17

This week on carousel we went to our own department which was  media. We learnt how to work as a team in a real live production setting .

The task was to create a 1 minute  TV advert  showcasing a Bic pen .

we had to do this working  as a whole group, however  we all had to  chose a specific job role , just like in the media industry  and  have good communication skills across the whole team to notify each other of what was going on.


Firstly,  we were taught about some health and safety  rules that must be followed when being  in  the TV studio.

Health and safety rules:

Make sure  cables and wires  on the floor are cellotaped down to prevent people from tripping over and stopping any injures. 

Do not  have any food and drink whist being in the studio in case  they are dropped on the floor and people slip.  in a addition to this equipment can become sticky when handling it after having food or drink and may stop it from functioning.

Be aware of the lower hanging lights in the studio to make sure they do not bang your head.  Make sure not to touch any of the lights in the studio as these can get very hot and can end up burning you. Make sure that you are always at a safe distance from any ladders falling if people are tying up any lights to the ceiling to prevent any injuries from occurring. Make sure that tripods are stable and at a safe distance from where people may be walking.  Do not look directly into any of the bright lights in the studio as they can hurt your eyes and potentially blind you. 

We also were taught that as a requirement of doing a production, part of the pre-production work involves having to fill out a risk assessment form to check for any dangers and hazards. 
After we were spoken to about the health and safety  rules , we then got the brief for the task. We were split into groups and had to plan and  come up with an idea  and pitch it to the rest of the group. The idea that was the most popularly voted by  the group  was the idea that was going to be made into a live TV advert.



We had to base our idea on  the brief of the advert.

Here is the  photos of the brief :

The idea that  the whole group  chose  was a space theme about four hippies trying to steal the pen.



Once the whole group had chosen the idea they liked  we all had to pick a job role.

This included:


Lighting Technician 
Sound technician 
Director
Floor manager
Actors
4 camera operators 

The equipment we had to use in this production was a choice of cameras, control desk, video player, recording screen, auto cue and sound desk.

I chose to be the Sound technician . This reason why I chose this job was because It  was  a job that involved sitting  down though the whole duration of  the production. Furthermore I thought this would be the ideal job  for  me because in my spare time I do DJing , which includes using a mixer to fade in and out tracks and  making sure  the levels of the tracks fading in or out  are equal,  and the peak of the tracks does not go passed 0 decibels, otherwise this can cause clipping and distorts.

Here is a photo of me on ' The sound desk which was the one and tool I used to fade and mix a good composition of sounds during the live production.

Me on the Sound desk

Research that you carry out in these sessions.

In this session I was shown how to use the sound desk by the technician which was a form of primary research. 

Skills that you have tried

The skills that I tried were; fading with the channel faders to fade the sound in at the right time to synchronise the sound with the picture.

Any processes and methods you used

The process that I used when operating the sound desk was to make sure my master channels were all the way up to the top so the output sound of the recording could be heard and was at the right level. Also, I had to make sure that I synchronised the sound level in time with the picture by fading the channel faders up at the correct duration of the production. Some of the fades had to be really acute to make sure the sound was in time with the picture. 

When sound is being faded from a sound desk it is important that the two channels on each channel input fade up or down at exactly the same time to get stereo sound. I am very good with channel fading as I do this for my Djing but because you have got to have two of your fingers on each of the channel faders  to fade in or out stereo sound,  otherwise there will just be mono sound. To help me fade the channel faders more accurately and quickly the technician and I came up with the idea that we both selotaped the channel faders  together using red tape and a paper clip.  On the whole I found this method useful as it helped to stabilise the two faders together meaning that I could fade them up and down easily. Also, another method I used rather than fading the sound in and out using the faders, in order to be quicker with the sound coming in when the sound wasn't required to be faded in or out, was to use the cue button to be able to quickly put sound into the mix.

Here are some pictures during the session of different people's job roles.

here is a picture of the control desk, video player recording screen and auto cue.

Here is a photo of the editing booth where people were collating sounds for the production

Here is a picture of the camera operators

Picture of the actors in the studio with the cameras and the lights

Overall I felt that the session went well for me with learning practical skills such as working the sound desk. However, I felt that the whole session did not go well for the whole group as there was a complete lack of communication from the director during most cases about what the camera operators and people in the studio had to do. Furthermore I felt that sometimes as the sound technician I was having to ask when was I bringing in sounds and sometimes no one was telling me or informing me when to bring in those sounds although this did get resolved in the end.

. I think that I worked well with the group communicating my role as to what I was doing. However I feel that next time as a group when we do a production we need to have a planned strategy of how we are going to communicate to each other, whether we are in the control room or in the studio because even though I felt the production went well in the end, it took us much longer than it needed to do due to the lack of communication from everyone because of the lack of communication and focusing from some people.

On the positive side however the production seemed to be well sychronised. 

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