All of the Art Directors decided to have a meeting so that we could finalise a design for our set and then get started on actually building it.
This took longer than we imagined.
We all had different ideas of what we wanted to do, and found it hard to fit all of these ideas into one design. We did drawings of our top three designs and tried to discuss which one would work best. We did agree that we should have symbolisms of each round included in our design to relate to the production (Music, Film, TV, Internet)
Our first design was a film strip crossing the five flats and then having images that symbolised the other rounds around the main image. We thought this may appear like a film quiz, which in actual fact it wasn't.
Our second design was to have one flat represent one round, so four flats would be decorated with giant images of the round categories. We decided that the fifth flat wouldn't relate to the others as it wouldn't have a giant image and would therefore look plain.
Our third design was to have the middle flat decorated to look like a giant iPod with the headphones linking the other flats together, and then having images of the other rounds appearing to come out of the ear-pieces as music would do. We liked this idea as the iPod is a multi-media product and can relate to all the rounds, but we still felt that it lacked something to make it unique.
By the lunch came about we still had no design we really wanted to go ahead with, so we decided to think about it over lunch and then have another meeting.
After lunch and much needed brain power we suddenly had, what we thought, was the perfect design for our set.
We were going to go ahead with the idea that one flat represents one round, but this time we found a way to include the "Quickfire" round so all five flats were covered. Each flat would have a giant image to represent each round. It would be a flowing line that crosses all the flats and incorporates each round.
The first flat would represent the Film round, and would have a film strip crossing the top third of the flat.
The second flat would represent the Internet round, and would appear to look like a Windows Vista homepage, including a search bar and internet logo. This would join on from the first flat.
The third flat would represent the TV round, and as this flat has a rectangle cut out for the screen, we decided to paint a retro TV around the hole that had been cut out. We thought this was perfect to represent this round.
The fourth flat would represent the Quickfire round, and would consist of a collage of newspaper articles following the flowing line. The articles would be seemingly random to symbolise the Quickfire round being random and you never knowing what's coming next.
The fifth flat would represent the Music round, and would have giant musical notes placed on a giant painting of musical paper.
We also decided that our main colour for the flats should be a dark blue, as we have seen from various quiz shows that blue is the main colour used as it suggests intelligence and calmness. This colour would be used to finish painting the flats around our giant images to help make our set come alive.
Sunday, 29 November 2009
Art Director
"In front of the camera, nothing is accidental"
During our production meetings we also had to decide on a main job for each member of the group to undertake. The jobs were:
- Technical Producer
- Art Director
- Post Production Producer
- Content Producer
I originally went for the Post Production Producer, but later on in the week swapped with Amy, who was an Art Director, as we felt we were better suited to the others job.
In an afternoon session with Jon Dempsey he talked to us about the 5 steps that has to happen on the Production Design.
Step 1 - Broad Strokes
This step is where you need to think about colours and what you want the productions overall feeling to be like. We were shown a scene from "Lost in Translation", where we were told to descrobe how the colours related to the feel of the production. This film uses mainly cool colours, such as greys, pale blues and purples. This relates to the film content as the main character is feeling alone in a new country and is "lost".
The things you need to think about in this stage is:
What colours do you want to appear on screen?
What tonal angles?
How do you want the production to appear?
You need to think about all of this otherwise your production will look muddled due to mise-en-scene and a mixture of colours that don't complement the production.
You may also want to include visual motifs. This is a piece of visual design that draws a product to mind or is associated with an image, such as the Nike tick.
Step 2 - Concept Art
This step is where you design the set and how it is going to look by creating a small set design that is to scale of the actual set (1:25 in our case). This is where you have to take everything in consideration in order to design the set; you need to think about camera movement so that they can still get a good shot, alongside the set looking good.
The design of the set needs to add to the theme and the audiences understanding, it cannot distract attention from the actual production. There should be a matte finish so that the lighting does not reflect off the set, and there should not be any bright colours (luminous orange) on the set design.
Drawings of the set you wish to make may also help you to decide of that is what you want as your final design.
Step 3 - Lockdown
This step is where your design is "locked down"; nothing major can change from this stage onwards. The set design is therefore final and everything is as planned; little things may change, but the main large designs and ideas will not change from this point forwards.
There is also a few more points in this stage that needs undertaking. That includes scene breakdown, where you find the locations for each scene. Prop breakdown, where you decide on all the props needed and whether they are action or dressing props. Budget also needs to be considered.
Step 4 - The Team
This is where you decide roles for your team, this includes:
- Production Designer
- Art Director (Production Designer's Number 2)
- Props Master
- Construction Manager
- Lighting Master
There needs to be clear communication between the roles so that everyone knows what they need to do in order to finish the set design.
Step 5 - The Product
This is the final step and is making sure everything is going to plan. This stage is where you build the set, decorate it, erect it, light it and then strike it.
You will also need to remember to think about textures and fittings (it must not reflect!)
You may need to think about how much room you have for the set and for cameras; is there enough room for everything to fit in the studio, and for them to both do there job well?
Are there any specific needs? Such as a studio audience to account for.
Everything needs to be thought about in this stage and slight adjustments may be needed in order for everything to work.
Saturday, 28 November 2009
Jobs Taken in the Group
After we had been split into 5 groups, we then had to give ourselves a role from a list of four possible choices. In this post I will be talking about what each role is about:
- Technical Producer; Made sure all the inserts worked correctly.
- Content Producer; Made the final script, and made sure all of the questions made sense and worked well with the style of our round.
- Post-Production Producer; Put all of the inserts onto disk, and edited the live show after we had finished filming it. They also created the titles, credits and music.
- Art Director; Designed, made, painted and put up the set.
- Technical Producer; Made sure all the inserts worked correctly.
- Content Producer; Made the final script, and made sure all of the questions made sense and worked well with the style of our round.
- Post-Production Producer; Put all of the inserts onto disk, and edited the live show after we had finished filming it. They also created the titles, credits and music.
- Art Director; Designed, made, painted and put up the set.
Friday, 27 November 2009
Team Production Meetings
The group were split into four groups of four, and one group of five, where we would be each creating and designed a round of the quiz show. In my group there is Amy, Steph, Reece and Alex, and we would be tackling the "Quickfire" round. I feel confident with this round as everyone in our group has different interests and therefore we can cover all of the rounds equally and to the best of our ability. As we are the last round of the show, we needed to make our round stand out from the rest and end it on a high to impress the audience and everyone involved.
The other rounds of our quiz show are:
- Music
- Film
- TV
- Internet
In our group we started to discuss how we wanted our round to work and the format of it. After lots of heated discussions we decided to give each team a minute and a half to answer as many questions as possible. We also decided to have a heartbeat sound playing as the contestants answer the questions to create tension and give the round a more serious atmosphere to the previous rounds. The team with the highest amount of points would play first, and then the other team would try to pull it back in the last few minutes of the show. Each team would have approximately 5 seconds to answer the question presented to them; they may pass at any point. The lights would be dimmed on the team that are not answering and the set; only the host and the team who are answering the questions would be brightly lit.
Within our "Quickfire" group we set about writing questions for the contestants. We came up with 40+ questions, each one relating to the previous rounds. The questions would be mixed up so that each team wouldn't get the same type of question each time (e.g. music then music); it would be entirely random so that each team gets a shot at each category.
Also involved in our round would include various image and music inserts to help make the round interesting. The inserts would be very quick (5 seconds at most) and may aid the team in giving the correct answer. We hope that the inserts will liven up our round as we can't use long clips to interest the audience and contestants; we need to be quick and snappy and we felt that this would help make our round a little more interesting.
The other rounds of our quiz show are:
- Music
- Film
- TV
- Internet
In our group we started to discuss how we wanted our round to work and the format of it. After lots of heated discussions we decided to give each team a minute and a half to answer as many questions as possible. We also decided to have a heartbeat sound playing as the contestants answer the questions to create tension and give the round a more serious atmosphere to the previous rounds. The team with the highest amount of points would play first, and then the other team would try to pull it back in the last few minutes of the show. Each team would have approximately 5 seconds to answer the question presented to them; they may pass at any point. The lights would be dimmed on the team that are not answering and the set; only the host and the team who are answering the questions would be brightly lit.
Within our "Quickfire" group we set about writing questions for the contestants. We came up with 40+ questions, each one relating to the previous rounds. The questions would be mixed up so that each team wouldn't get the same type of question each time (e.g. music then music); it would be entirely random so that each team gets a shot at each category.
Also involved in our round would include various image and music inserts to help make the round interesting. The inserts would be very quick (5 seconds at most) and may aid the team in giving the correct answer. We hope that the inserts will liven up our round as we can't use long clips to interest the audience and contestants; we need to be quick and snappy and we felt that this would help make our round a little more interesting.
Thursday, 5 November 2009
Wednesday, 4 November 2009
4th November
Today we had another session with Peter where we learnt more about the Audio Mixer and the different signals.
STOB --Weak-->Audio Desk--Ana, Line level-->DIV-300 (Digital)
An Audio Mixer has 12 Mic inputs, and 4 Line inputs. A Mic level has a weak signal, whereas a Line level has a strong signal (1 volt).
All equipment in the 21st Century is digital, but it used to be analogue. There is a few differences between analogue and digital signals. An analogue signal is tolerate, and can take frequencys louder than it is designed to have (can handle +3, +6, +9). Whereas a digital signal cannot handle this without becoming extremely distorted and ruining the sound quality. This is measured in a VU meter, which measures frequency / volume units of audio. You must not allow the signal to go above 0, as the signal will become distorted, and the meter will turn red to warn you that the signal is peaking.
Peter also told us the correct terms to use for camera movements.
Pan is where you move the camera side to side, without moving the pedestal.
Tilt is where you move the camera up or down.
Crab is where you move the camera left or right by moving the pedestals. This is called track in film productions due to the tracks laid on the ground to help move the camera.
Track back and track forwards is where you move the camera backwards or forwards via the pedestal without moving the camera.
Ped up / down is where you use the pedestal to adjust the level of the camera (eye level, high angle, low angle). This is easily done by pushing down on the circle bar located halfway up the pedestal.
You must use instructions from the cameras point of view, and you musn't zoom or move when on-line as it looks tacky and is very difficult to pull off.
When a red light is on the top of your camera, this means you are on-line and is called a tally light in the industry. The director will tell you when your camera is on-line so you need to hold the shot! The cameras that will be on the outside edges of the TV studio are called pole cameras, or winger cameras.
When filming you need to remember the rule of 3rd's, where you must have the eyes on the upper third. Remember headroom! A safety shot will always be in place in case a shot goes wrong and the director needs to use this shot until it has been sorted. This is usually a wide shot. The eyeline is the direction of where the talent is looking, and this determines which camera will be filming them.
STOB --Weak-->Audio Desk--Ana, Line level-->DIV-300 (Digital)
An Audio Mixer has 12 Mic inputs, and 4 Line inputs. A Mic level has a weak signal, whereas a Line level has a strong signal (1 volt).
All equipment in the 21st Century is digital, but it used to be analogue. There is a few differences between analogue and digital signals. An analogue signal is tolerate, and can take frequencys louder than it is designed to have (can handle +3, +6, +9). Whereas a digital signal cannot handle this without becoming extremely distorted and ruining the sound quality. This is measured in a VU meter, which measures frequency / volume units of audio. You must not allow the signal to go above 0, as the signal will become distorted, and the meter will turn red to warn you that the signal is peaking.
Peter also told us the correct terms to use for camera movements.
Pan is where you move the camera side to side, without moving the pedestal.
Tilt is where you move the camera up or down.
Crab is where you move the camera left or right by moving the pedestals. This is called track in film productions due to the tracks laid on the ground to help move the camera.
Track back and track forwards is where you move the camera backwards or forwards via the pedestal without moving the camera.
Ped up / down is where you use the pedestal to adjust the level of the camera (eye level, high angle, low angle). This is easily done by pushing down on the circle bar located halfway up the pedestal.
You must use instructions from the cameras point of view, and you musn't zoom or move when on-line as it looks tacky and is very difficult to pull off.
When a red light is on the top of your camera, this means you are on-line and is called a tally light in the industry. The director will tell you when your camera is on-line so you need to hold the shot! The cameras that will be on the outside edges of the TV studio are called pole cameras, or winger cameras.
When filming you need to remember the rule of 3rd's, where you must have the eyes on the upper third. Remember headroom! A safety shot will always be in place in case a shot goes wrong and the director needs to use this shot until it has been sorted. This is usually a wide shot. The eyeline is the direction of where the talent is looking, and this determines which camera will be filming them.
Tuesday, 3 November 2009
Live TV Event
It's the 3rd November, and we've just got back from a relaxing half term thinking that today would be an easy day. We were wrong.
Today we were told about our task for the next 5 weeks, which is a Multi-Camera Production where we would be creating and filming our own quiz show. I was so excited on hearing that this would be our project as it's right up my street and is what I enjoy the most, so I was eager to get stuck in.
But first we needed to learn the theory, which was what this afternoon and tomorrow would be about. So we got stuck in on the Vision Mixer and the Audio Mixer.
Peter explained to us that the Vision Mixer (VX) has 12 channels of which 4 are line channels, and 8 are program channels. For our production we would be filming with 4 cameras, which would be mounted on pedestals to make it easier for us to film and to move the cameras about. We also learnt that you can add a DVD (video input only), HDDR and a VTR into the VX; but there is only one output.
For the Audio Mixer, there is also 4 line channels, and 8 program channels; but again, only one output. You can add a CD player and a computer into the Audio Mixer to play sound effects and tracks into the studio if we wanted.
Peter also talked to us about the lights that we might wish to use. We talked about the grid, of which the lights are all attached to. The grid is a square of black bars fixed to the ceiling.
Soft lights are used to add fill light are are flourescent, so do not get really hot.
Spot lights aren't flourescent and so get really hot and also draw a lot of power. They give out concentrated, hard light to light faces.
Floodlights are used to light scenery. They have no barn doors, so it is very hard to control the spill of light.
Barn doors are flaps attached to the lights so that we can control the spill of light and control where the light is being used.
All of the sockets (number on the lights) are numbered and fit into a channel on the dimmer pack, where each light can be individually controlled. A dimmer pack has 24 channels and it gives power to the lights.
A "STOB" box is a big, black box situated in the corner of the TV studio. It stands for:
Studio
Termination
Outlet
Box.
The curtains that you normally see around TV studios are almost always black, and are designed to absorb light. They are good for low budget productions like ours.
After our break we talked about the studio crew, and what jobs we would need to undertake. As we are filming our quiz show in two 15 minute halves, Peter told us we would have two jobs during the filming, and we would swap to our second job in the break of the filming.
The jobs we needed to undertake would be:
- Sound Operators*
- Lighting Operator
- Director*
- Assistant Director
- Vision Mixer
- Floor Manager*
- Assistant Floor Manager*
- Camera Operators*
- Assistant Camera Operators
- Producer
A producers main job is editorial (content based), thus will have been decided on before we begin filming.
To keep everyone in touch with each other, we will be using talkback systems, where the director can tell everyone what he needs and the shots he will need. He needs to prevail as he acts as God in the studio. The talkback system is also where the crew can report problems to the director and tell him how long until they are ready to shoot.
You should never take off Cans until told to.
Today we were told about our task for the next 5 weeks, which is a Multi-Camera Production where we would be creating and filming our own quiz show. I was so excited on hearing that this would be our project as it's right up my street and is what I enjoy the most, so I was eager to get stuck in.
But first we needed to learn the theory, which was what this afternoon and tomorrow would be about. So we got stuck in on the Vision Mixer and the Audio Mixer.
Peter explained to us that the Vision Mixer (VX) has 12 channels of which 4 are line channels, and 8 are program channels. For our production we would be filming with 4 cameras, which would be mounted on pedestals to make it easier for us to film and to move the cameras about. We also learnt that you can add a DVD (video input only), HDDR and a VTR into the VX; but there is only one output.
For the Audio Mixer, there is also 4 line channels, and 8 program channels; but again, only one output. You can add a CD player and a computer into the Audio Mixer to play sound effects and tracks into the studio if we wanted.
Peter also talked to us about the lights that we might wish to use. We talked about the grid, of which the lights are all attached to. The grid is a square of black bars fixed to the ceiling.
Soft lights are used to add fill light are are flourescent, so do not get really hot.
Spot lights aren't flourescent and so get really hot and also draw a lot of power. They give out concentrated, hard light to light faces.
Floodlights are used to light scenery. They have no barn doors, so it is very hard to control the spill of light.
Barn doors are flaps attached to the lights so that we can control the spill of light and control where the light is being used.
All of the sockets (number on the lights) are numbered and fit into a channel on the dimmer pack, where each light can be individually controlled. A dimmer pack has 24 channels and it gives power to the lights.
A "STOB" box is a big, black box situated in the corner of the TV studio. It stands for:
Studio
Termination
Outlet
Box.
The curtains that you normally see around TV studios are almost always black, and are designed to absorb light. They are good for low budget productions like ours.
After our break we talked about the studio crew, and what jobs we would need to undertake. As we are filming our quiz show in two 15 minute halves, Peter told us we would have two jobs during the filming, and we would swap to our second job in the break of the filming.
The jobs we needed to undertake would be:
- Sound Operators*
- Lighting Operator
- Director*
- Assistant Director
- Vision Mixer
- Floor Manager*
- Assistant Floor Manager*
- Camera Operators*
- Assistant Camera Operators
- Producer
A producers main job is editorial (content based), thus will have been decided on before we begin filming.
To keep everyone in touch with each other, we will be using talkback systems, where the director can tell everyone what he needs and the shots he will need. He needs to prevail as he acts as God in the studio. The talkback system is also where the crew can report problems to the director and tell him how long until they are ready to shoot.
You should never take off Cans until told to.
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