Wednesday was my 2nd day on the Deal or No Deal set, though the day was 4 shows being recorded, annoyingly I had work in the evening so had to leave after 3 shows.
Show One
For the first show of the day I was with one of the camera assistants Jess, she showed me the basics of using the cameras and even let me have a go when they were filming fill shots of audience applause. So if you see an Indian couple clapping on the 10th October show that is my handy work! The main thing to grasp when using these cameras was keeping everything in focus. It was essential to quickly master a crash zoom and focus to keep it all looking good. I also got to have a closer look at the steadycam that I had seen on Tuesday, the operater has his own focus puller who controls the camera focus remotely, and in total the technology involved in the harness, camera, screen and remote focusing was worth around £120,000! During this show I was also listening to talk back through the headset and could further understand the directors control/effect on the camera operaters.
Show Two
For this show I was with the sound department. I was shown the microphones used and how they were set up on the contestant. During this they get the contestant to talk at a normal level and they before they start the show they quickly take them outside and get them to shout as though they had won the quarter of a million so that the sound editor Phil (who's full name I have forgotten...sorry!) knows the levels. Their job throughout the show is to alert Phil who is based in a building next door which of the 22 microphones is about to be needed as the contestants speak, and also to keep an eye out for anything not working correctly.
In the last section of this show I went to see what Phil SoundMan (his new name!) did. His job was monitor and adjust the mic levels out of the 30ish microphones in order to keep levels audible, for example when audiences applause Noel's voice needs to be put up. This process tries to make the editors life easier to give them one less thing to have to edit. The audio file for one show by itself is 17GB! Imagine how big the video file is...
All morning they had been having issues with the lighting, I tried to understand what they were saying but to be honest it was all far beyond my understanding! But whatever it was it meant the start of the 3rd show was about 45mins late.
Show Three
The last show I was able to see for the day I was in with the two guys who adjust the contrast and colour to keep everything looking constant and identical. To do this they used equipment which included vector scopes and wave scopes we have just been looking at on Final Cut Pro. This roll also gives the editing team an easy time as all 7 cameras used will all look the same and little to no (depending how well these two have done their jobs!) colour correction will need to be done. This is a job that requires constant attention and adjustments through the show.
I have had an amazing 2 days on the set and I think it is valuable knowledge and something that can't really be taught or understood at university itself, the co operation and sheer size of the crew needed just to make a game show is a lot more than you would think watching a tea time TV game show. What I did find interesting is that the director and general feel on set (with the exception of the lighting difficulties) was far more relaxed than I was expecting! My favourite parts of my 2 days there was the editing and camera's, oh and of course being in the audience!
No comments:
Post a Comment