Studio Production Essay Example for Free

Studio Production Essay With academic reference, research and analyse what your studio role involves both technically and creatively from pre production to production of a studio programme. And with reference to your team’s studio programme, discuss your role and how you contributed. Introduction The purpose of the â€Å"Studio Production† module was to produce a live studio programme in a team, starting from the pre-production stages right through to the live studio broadcast. Each member of the team was assigned a studio role that they would carry out throughout the course. The different roles available will be discussed in more detail later. Television studios supply the appropriate environment and coordination for making live studio programmes. Everything that goes on within a studio can be properly controlled and gives you the opportunity to get the best use out of the equipment; such as cameras, lighting and sound etc. Television studios are convenient and spacious enough to create sets and hold an audience. The audience are often there to interact; either by asking questions, or simply to laugh in the right places and give the presenter(s) someone to bounce off. Live studio programmes generally come as daytime or late night chat shows or discussion programmes. Research Daytime television has programmes such as: Ready, Steady, Cook, Paul O’Grady, This Morning and Loose Women. The media is the biggest cause for stereotyping, and daytime television is usually directed more towards women, who stereotypically are the ones at home in the day, whilst the man is at work. They are also for students and OAP’s who are also thought to be at home watching television. As these programmes are intended for the daytime, the content of these programmes must be suitable to be shown before the watershed. Late night television programmes are on after the watershed, so are allowed to be more risque. These programmes usually consist of a presenter, guests and some debates for factual or entertainment value. Friday Night With Jonathan Ross, Match of the Day, Parkinson and the Friday Night Project are all examples of late night shows. Discussion shows like Jeremy Kyle, Trisha Goddard and Question Time are often on during the day too, again its target audience being women, students and pensioners. There is usually a presenter who raises three or four different news or topical issues that are discussed, or problems are solved. There are many different roles that need to be undertaken in order to make a live studio programme: †¢Producer – they create the show and are responsible for the studio equipment and crew, as well as the content and timing of the programme. †¢Director – it is their visual input that makes the programme what you see. They are responsible for the overall flow of the programme, the shots, what cameras and graphics are to be used and to direct the crew. Vision Mixer – they are responsible for the output of the live programme. The director instructs what shots and graphics are needed and when and how they are transitioned, whilst the vision mixer gets it done. †¢Presenter – the one who delivers it all to the audience, reading from the autocue and adlibbing. †¢Scriptwriters – they write the programme script , so often the producer, presenter and prompt operator will be involved in the scriptwriting process. †¢VT Graphics – Graphics, titles and Astons are all designed and created for the programme. The VT’s are the videos used as cutaways in the programme to essentially give the presenter a break and to possibly change the scenery/area. Both work closely with the vision mixer. †¢Lighting – lights up the set, presenters and guests accordingly. †¢Sound – testing sound and responsible for the audio set-up. There are usually two sound engineers working on one programme. †¢Camera Operator – operates the camera. The director tells them what shot they want and the camera operator generates it, quickly framing and focusing on the person/object. A basic studio programme would have at least three or four cameras. †¢Floor Manager – manages the studio floor and making sure everyone is where they are supposed to be, controls the audience and passes on instructions to the presenter and guests on the programme. †¢Prompt Operator – inputs the script into the autocue, runs the autocue for the presenter to read. A daytrip to London’s Leicester Square Studio to watch TRL was organised, in order to get a feel of a live studio programme in transmission. Vision Mixing Vision mixing is similar to editing, only in real-time, as you are editing for a live studio programme, so you only have one chance to get it right. Once a moment has passed you cannot get it back, so timing and initiative are extremely important qualities to ensure for being a vision mixer. Like post-production editing, the cuts between takes want to look seamless and subtle, not clunky and obvious. The aim of the vision mixer is to follow the action. Viewers do not want to look at a shot of an inanimate person whilst someone else talks, they want to see who it is doing the talking. The vision mixer listens to what shots the director wants and how they want the cuts to look, and it is their job to bring the directors instructions to life. There are two main screens the vision mixer needs to be aware of: the â€Å"preview screen† and the â€Å"programme screen†. The preview screen shows what will need to go live next. Such as if camera 2 or a VT needs fading in, then it should be displayed ready to fade in on the preview screen. The programme screen shows what is currently being broadcast. A For-A VPS-700 Ginga Video Production System was used as the video switcher for the studio programme. It is a 12 input switcher, allowing for: 3 camera channels, 2 VT playback channels, a graphics fill key, an internal still store and also internal matte generators. Along the bottom of the switcher are two rows of thirteen numbered buttons (numbered 1-12, for the twelve inputs). These numbers represent a channel input that is being used for recording. For example, Camera 1 will generally be fed through button 1. Camera 2 is on 2, Camera 3 is on button 3 etc. The very first button on the row is â€Å"Black† which brings up an empty black screen. This is used to begin and end a programme: â€Å"fade to black†. The top row of buttons represents the ‘live’ buttons and when in use, will be lit in red. Red means â€Å"Live†. Whatever button is on here will be being shown on the programme screen. The bottom set of buttons will be what is displayed on the preview screen, and the buttons will light up in yellow, meaning they are ready to go live. There were six screens in the gallery that were assigned to channels on the switcher, so the first six channel inputs (the most used ones) were easy to view, without needing to set them up on the preview screen: 1. Camera 1 2. Camera 2 3. Camera 3 4. VT 1 5. VT 2 6. Graphics The transitions that could be used to edit between shots are cuts, mixes or fades. There are also many effects that the For-A VPS-700 Ginga could do. The come under wipes, digital video effects and downstream keys. Wipes do not manipulate the video source and are used by an inbuilt key. They can be used for graphic transitions, but are not ideal for live television productions as look quite juvenile. Digital video effects (DVE’s) can make picture-in-picture effects and change the position of the frame. Downstream keys (DSK’s) are used for Astons, logos and for rolling credits. â€Å"Back to the Movies† The chosen type of live studio programme that Group 3 chose to make was a quiz show. This was chosen because the majority of programmes being made by the other groups were late night chat shows, so a quiz show would stand out more from the others, as well as also providing more of a challenge to make. Quiz shows need to be spontaneous and can be unpredictable when it comes to people answering questions and what will be said. A good deal of the content is scripted, but the guests cannot be given scripted answers, as this would make the idea of the quiz fake. This meant that guests on the programme would not be able to rehearse all of the rounds or hear the questions that they would be answering in advance, so that they would not know them during the live broadcast. This means that cameras would not know which people to frame and focus in advance, nor would the director or vision mixer know who would need to be shown on the programme, until the guest buzzed in. This makes for harder work than a fully scripted programme, as well as impulsive shots to be taken by the camera operators and vision mixer. Being on a film course, the quiz show was decided to be based upon film questions, and separated into four rounds: †¢Ã¢â‚¬Å"Quick-fire† round – random film questions, teams buzz in to answer. †¢Ã¢â‚¬Å"Guess the Odd One Out† round – each team is shown four images of film celebrities. They need to guess who is the odd one out and why. â€Å"Guess What Happens Next† round – each team is each shown two film clips. Using their imagination instead of knowledge, they need to guess what happens next. †¢Ã¢â‚¬Å"Movie Tagline† round – Each team is given different taglines from films, they need to guess what the film is. The director instructed that as a contestant spoke, the vision mixer would select the appropriate camera set up to capture the action. This involved a lot of quick switchin g, because during the quick-fire rounds, any of the four contestants could be answering. This meant that for this round, one of the three cameras needed to be on Team 1, another on Team 2, and the other camera on the Presenter at all times, because any of the teams could be answering the questions, and depending on the length of their answer, the action may switch back to the presenter. The presenter sits in the middle of the set, with a team of two guests to either side of him. The presenter has two buzzers to himself; one with the noise signalling a wrong answer, and the other making a noise to signify that the answer to the question is right. To make things easier for knowing who to switch to, the teams each had a separate buzzer noise, so that the director, cameras and vision mixer would realise who was about to speak, before they began. â€Å"Back to the Movies† starts with a fade from black to the opening 30 second VT on channel 4. The last ten seconds of the VT are counted down, and the establishing shot of the set is set up ready on the preview screen, through channel 2. The title graphics naming the show are faded onto the screen at this point, using the downstream key. They are faded back out, and a direct cut is made to show a shot of the audience clapping. Another direct cut is made to show the presenter, whilst his name is faded on and off screen, followed by direct cuts to introduce the teams, and again the graphics are faded in to show their team names. Direct cuts are used mostly throughout the show, as the cuts need to be quick and often you do not know in advance who will be the next to speak. The only fades used are for the graphics, VT’s and at the start and end of the show, when the programme is faded to black. Conclusion The idea of a quiz show was different to the more expected late night chat show that seemed to be a favourite among most students. It also provided more of a challenge because of its unpredictable nature that kept the crew on their toes at all times, and helped things to be less tedious. New guests each time helped to keep the atmosphere fresh during rehearsals. The only hindrance with â€Å"Back to the Movies† was the lack of cameras within the studio, as there were some shots that were just not doable with only three cameras and five people on set.