The Making Of | |
On the morning of the 8th the crew of 13 began arriving from 06:30 to unload the large amount of equipment from the vehicles. The set up included over 5000 watts of light, 4 cameras (plus one other which was used to document the day), a live gallery with digital mixer, 2x 21" autocue screens and a PAG orbitor (a steadie-cam like device), 6 microphones and 12 talkback headsets and beltpacks. The live footage from each of the cameras was fed directly to a gallery set up on one side of the room. From here the director, Tom Pearson, could see and therefore direct the cameras and mix their feed live using a digital mixer. The output from the mixer was then fed into the state-of-the-art editing PC to be captured and catalogued live by Davina Hughes and saved on to one of three massive hard drives.
At 08:45 the crew got together for a production meeting in which they discussed the finer points of the day's shoot ahead. On the cameras would be Eddie Hughes, up in the balcony, Bobby Cliff, stage right, Daniel 'Taylor' Chesterton, stage left and Alex East on the Steadi-Cam assisted by Nick Pearson, Joe Burke and Matt Nolan. Rachel Hughes would be operating the autocue and working alongside Althea Pearson, the Script Supervisor.
Tom would direct the action and mix the feeds from the gallery while Davina captured and catalogued the mixed feed as it was streamed to the computer. Tom's right hand man would be Daniel Goodby, the Floor Manager. He would be in charge of all that went on within the studio area before, during and after filming, enabling Tom to stay in front of the gallery monitors. Daniel would also be in charge of cueing Brian and calling cut at the end of a take. Once the audience arrived Daniel would explain the filming to them and how the afternoon would pan out. He would also talk to the audience between takes, explaining what was going on where necessary and keeping them relaxed, as well as being in charge of Brian's props. All the crew would be able to talk to each other using the talkback headsets and beltpacks they were all wearing. This meant that Tom could whisper instructions throughout a take to the cameras and instruct cameras which weren't being used in the live mix at that moment for repositioning.
Once the blocking was completed a full rehearsal began; Brian performed the scripts while the cameras tracked the action, while Tom and Davina watched from the gallery. At midday it was time for a much needed lunch; Production Assistant Robin Stangroom had taken people's orders earlier in the day and had been out to the local bakery and supermarket. The crew spent a few minutes eating but were quickly back in the studio area working away, setting up, many still with a sandwich or cake in hand!
At 13:00 Althea and Rachel began laying out A6 flyers on the audience's chairs. The flyers told when the programme would be available and how copies could be ordered as well as explaining that by attending the recording they were agreeing to terms expressed in the release form on the reverse.
At around 14:30 filming began and was going well until the computer which was capturing the live feed stopped communicating with the mixer. This meant that final output, the mixed edit, was no longer being recorded. The crew was now relying on the cameras alone to record onto their tapes. If things were to continue like this, when they got to post production they'd have to capture each camera individually into the computer and then edit between them. This could double or triple the post production time. Tom explained the problem to the crew over talkback and Daniel called cut. He then explained the problem first to Brian and then to the audience, and assured them that Tom and Davina were doing all they could to rectify the problem.
At 15:30 the audience had a refreshment break and half an hour later filming resumed. At 17:30 the shoot wrapped. The audience headed home, but before the crew could begin the long de-rig the introductions to the monologues had to be filmed. It wasn't until 20:30 that the last remnants of the crew finally left for the day, tired, exhausted in fact, but very pleased with how the shoot had gone overall. |
8th April 2006 saw Wild Duck Productions shooting multi-camera at a church in Kenilworth, Warwickshire for a programme comprising of a series of sketches, performed by Rev Canon Brian Pearson, taking well known stories from the Bible but presenting them from a unique point of view.
At around 08:00 Alex East, the Head Cameraman, met with the other camera operators to ensure that all the settings and functions on the Sony PD170P camera were fully in place.
As well as assisting Alex, Matt was filming for the 'Behind the Scenes' extra on the DVD and Joe was taking high quality digital photos of the day for use on the website and in publicity for the programme. Nick would white balance and use the clapper board when not needed at the start of a scene. When he couldn't be spared Daniel Goodby, Joe or Matt would do it.
At 10:00 camera blocking began, a process during which the cameras run through their main positions and, directed from the gallery by Tom, making sure that they knew which shots would work best.
Brian began another rehearsal at around 12:30 but there was a problem. Davina, over in the gallery, could hear the feed from his radio microphone and the audio kept dropping out. Brian would be talking and there'd be a click and the sound would disappear and a moment later there'd be another click and the sound would appear again. After a quick check of connections and batteries it was discovered that the battery in the radio microphone that Brian was wearing was running very low. The odd thing was that it had only been replaced with a brand new one just minutes before. Another brand new battery was put in and the rehearsal continued. Moments later Davina heard another click and the sound dropped out. The battery in the radio microphone was the culprit again. The batch of AA batteries we had were obviously not up to standard. Joe offered to run out to the local supermarket to pick some more up. When he got back, a few minutes later, anything with the old batch of batteries in had them replaced with the new. This did the trick. No batteries had to be replaced for the rest of the day!
Brian headed into a side room to get changed into his first costume and crew took their positions. It was 14:00 and the audience were arriving. Daniel began his meet and greet and once everyone was sat down he commenced the all too familiar announcements regarding mobiles, pagers, watches, fire exits and toilet breaks.
After a short break normality was restored. The computer started capturing again and the shoot continued.