Space Bar Music Event - 27th January 2015

Last night I took part in covering a Jools Holland style music event at the Newcastle College Space Bar. Me and three of my peers were responsible for setting up cameras, taping down equipment, setting up sound equipment, and generally making sure that we acquired enough footage to work with that would produce a dynamic and fluid edit.

We worked with 5 of the Panasonic AG-HMC81E's  and a GoPro and worked out a good floor plan to allow us to gain a good amount of coverage. The floor was set out so that Stage A was located at one end of the room, Stage B in between on the right-hand wall and Stage C at the opposite side of the room. We set up two Panasonics at either end of the room for safe locked off shots, two roaming cameras next to Stages A and C, C being the one that I operated, and one handheld roaming camera capturing close up shots on foot. Finally we had a GoPro locked off overhead for extra safety. To be honest I thought that the GoPro was slightly overkill but the more footage the better I suppose. For our audio we took a linefeed direct from the mixing desk, with the intention of later syncing this up with audio captured from the in camera microphones.

I found that working on the roaming camera for the first time was a big challenge for me. I have worked on a Panasonic 81E before, during the Musical Theater event, but that was just monitoring a locked off safety cam. This time, there was pressure to move the camera and capture good shots which would sync up with what the other cameras were capturing. Since there was no way of communicating with the other two roaming cameras, this proved challenging. There were times I managed to close in on a good shot and wouldn't move the camera for fear of ruining it, but left to my own judgement I think I managed to cover the important points of the gig well, and there were times I was proud of myself for managing to capture good points in close up, such as guitar solos and the emotions on some of the singers faces. I know that it would be common in a situation like this one to have comms to communicate with the those monitoring back in the gallery, and this would allow me to know if what I was getting was good. However, being left to my own judgement was a fantastic experience for me to build my skills. Though working on a three hour gig with no break was exhausting I really enjoyed the experience, and would love to work in this role again. I am excited for the further opportunities that Work Based Learning will bring me.

Current Status - Febuary 2015

We are now well into the second term of the course. I was extremely happy with the grade that I received for my camera test. I was extremely nervous going in but ended up getting 15 marks out of a possible 20. I think that buying a camera and practicing in my own time really helped me and I am so proud that I took the initiative to do this in my own time. The only things that brought me down in the camera test were the tascam which I haven't used as much, and the fact I didn't ask for a white sheet of paper so that I could set the custom white balance. As a result my white balance was a little bit off, and I failed to record any audio. However, I am still extremely happy with the results of this test.

Now that the camera tests are out of the way Practice Enrichment is finished and we are well into Work Based Learning. However, this entails also entails learning about a lot of new equipment and practices. The first thing was to learn a new camera. The Panasonic 801E is an entirely different beast to the Cannon 600D, but at the same time it is not as indimating using for the first time as compared to using the Cannons for the first time. Now that I know what all the common functions of a camera are, such as white balance, shutter speed and ISO (called Gain on the Panasonic), whenever I use a new camera now it is simply a matter of finding out where all these functions are and how they work. The most immediately obvious difference between the Panasonic and the 600Ds is that the Panasonic is much more heavy duty, and can be held either over the shoulder or in your hand by the handle. A big advantage of it as opposed to the 600D is that it is not constrained to recording for a mere 10 minutes or so at a time, and therefore it is perfect for covering gigs, events etc. For our first work based learning gig we had the task of filming a Musical Theater event within the college. We had a set up which involved two of the Panasonics at the back for safe coverage, and two 600Ds at the bottom for closeups. I was entrusted with the task of looking after the Panasonic on the right side, and it was a great experience for me. The most challenging part of this was getting the sound levels right, as I had to adjust both the left and right channels individually by hand, and while a very loud Musical Theatre show is going on right in front of you this is a very fiddling thing to do, but eventually I got them to a place where I was happy with them. There is a TV show being broadcast from the college's SPACE Bar on 27th of February and we are going to cover it as part of Work Based Learning. I think it could be a great opportunity to further develop my skills.

In Intro To Factual I have been placed in my group and set away working on our documentary. The piece is called 'Life By The Landfill' and involves a landfill in Ryton which is disruptive to the life's of the people living there. Even thought I am a bit disappointed that my idea didn't get picked I think that this has the potential to a fantastic factual piece and I glad to be working in this group. I am still planning to work on my idea for Factual. My piece is called 'In Search of Buzzcocks' and in it I want to track down the star of the Buzzcocks YouTube videos, from Cramlington my home town, and find out why exactly he disappeared off the scene. I have had an appeal going around Facebook asking for any information about Buzzcocks, and I am hopeful this will led to something really good for me to add to my show reel.