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.