The Day

Wednesday! I was helping set up some of the sets and getting some of the Fuzzcocks stuff finalized such as teams and layout of the set. I also had asked Sophy if she wanted an audience in the studio and she had said yes and said the maximum capacity would have to be about thirty in order for the cameras to move. I offered to make tickets to sell for 50p each so that the audience could pay to come in, she agreed to start with then a few hours later she changed her mind and said not to bother because she wasn’t confident that it would work. I still went home later that night and designed some logos for the radio show team for Thursday and also designed a two sided ticket for the audience.

Thursday! I handed the radio graphics into media resources but some of the graphics weren’t working, so after a quick image resize later I had all the radio graphics ready for the day and James was impressed I believe. I also printed out the tickets and spent about three hours cutting them out and sticking the two sides together. During this process I had sold three tickets already which was awesome! After I had stuck thirty-five tickets together I took them to Sophy to show her, suddenly she was impressed and agreed to go ahead with the ticket idea. After that I single handedly moved the autocue out of the studio (with Andy’s permission) and a bunch of chairs and tided up some cables. This was too clear some room for an audience.

Friday! Woke up very early and got to college for 7:30am. Once the studio got opened I began to use gaffer tape on the floor to act as markers for the audience so they know where to stand. After that I logged onto the graphics computer, loaded up a clock and MxNavi and changed the Fuzzcocks blue team strap line. Then I went to Costa and The Zone to sell some tickets. By 9:10am I had already sold eight tickets. I then had Chris Ross venture with me to sell some and we sold a few more to people in ALS, Costa and the smoking area. Once I had sold about 29 I stopped with the selling and focused on being the runner. I had made sure the table material for Fuzzcocks was accessible so we could quickly get to it. I switched between running around for people in the media block and the zone a lot. The media block I was mainly fetching people things such as sandwiches and equipment whereas in the Zone I was being used as a messenger to the people on the zone floor and the media block. When the Fuzzcocks show was being prepared I was walking around double-checking that people on the crew list were around and making sure that things were all set up. I had to help Katie Ulett find my graphics and had to tell the audience where to stand. I think today went really well though, hectic but really good fun and professional I would say.

Closing In.

So today was fairly interesting, I had absolutely nothing to do all morning and there was hardly anyone in to actually ask what needs doing, when people actually turned up I found out the conga line we were supposed to be doing was cancelled. I then began setting the studio up alone, then when it came to sorting the lights out Ian helped me out. I then ended up sitting around waiting for the script to be finished which took about an hour and a half of our time up. I then went onto graphics and sorted out the order they will be going in and also helped play the VT’s. Another thing, today I was asked to create a logo for Greg Clarkes radio show so I got that done as soon as I got home as well as creating some graphics we need for tomorrows taster broadcast. Apparently I have to act again for 12:34 tomorrow because a scene didn’t work so we have to re-film!

Getting Closer.

So…I haven’t updated this for a few days now…the reason being, I’ve been so busy with sorting things out. Last week was basically setting things up ready for Saturday for when the BBC came in. Saturday came, the Fuzzcocks show was ready for being recorded, we just had to wait for the scheduled slot to get it set up. Whilst the first show was being recorded I was given a running position, for a few minutes I had to actually run some errands for cast and crew. Wayne wanted me to make him a lemsip for his throat, some guy who was watching the sound technicians asked me to round up the main people for a sound check, I had to clean up the set floor from balloons and I also had to help cut out some letters for a bit of corridor decoration.

After those errands I wasn’t really being asked for much so I offered to clean the new set that had arrived the day before because it was a tad dirty. As I did that I then got a bit carried away and started cleaning the windows all around the media block. After that it was merely just standing around waiting to be ordered to do something…nothing happened. Went on a lunch break, got back and we were told that the Fuzzcocks filming was being cancelled. This was annoying seeing as we were supposed to be filming it the Monday before, Wednesday and then this day.

However, moving on from Saturday, the Monday yesterday, I was going to be doing the Fuzzcocks but that again got cancelled because we had to do our taster. I was on graphics for this and had to create some strap lines for the cast that hadn’t got a graphic for them. And then today was perhaps the busiest day for me. I got in and started getting the set for Fuzzcocks ready with Josh, it was mainly decorating the tables we did and sorting out the colour scheme for each team. Then whilst the lights were being sorted out I had to assemble a new team and change the names on the strap lines. I had to help Ian set up a light on set for the next recording, which was the taster, I had too carry two sofas into the studio and cover the floor with balloons. I also had to quickly get some double strap lines created ready for the show. I think the recordings went well, although a few hiccups, but everyone seemed to be working more in motion today rather than moaning and vanishing.

Ruining The Future.

Okay, so yesterday, after sending an email out to people the night before saying that I wasn’t happy with having Fuzzcocks recorded…it ended up being rehearsed instead. I was told in the morning as well that it needed to be ready for Saturday for when the BBC come in to watch us produce some shows, Fuzzcocks being one of them…no pressure then! Ugh.

The day basically involved a few people being told to work on some things for the show’s rehearsal in the afternoon, they went off and did the things they were told, but then some people swapped jobs for the show and the crew and cast were being swapped around without my understanding. This created much confusion for me, but everyone else seemed to have been told about the swaps. I didn’t appreciate being put down behind my back behind the scenes…yet again, but at the end of the day I do feel like I have let everyone down, I wasn’t listened to in national diploma so agreeing to produce a show wasn’t a great idea. I wanted to have the new experience of producing because I wanted to widen my skills, but no one listens to me unless it’s a higher authority saying my words for me. However yesterday I did burn the opening titles to a DVD and helped out with discussing how the set can look.

Today though, Sophy and Matt kindly sat the group down and got people doing things that they should be doing, the only thing I have to do now apparently is sort out some cards with questions on them. May start working on this debate show for me and Kate, either that I get started on sorting some stuff out for the Never Mind the Fuzzcocks live show. Either way, I’m not feeling too shabby with this whole producing lark, but I’m going to get through children in need and then not do producing ever again after it.

Going In.Sane.

Half term, a time of relaxation for students where they are free for an entire week from educational related studies, apart from me! The entire half term, from Tuesday to Friday I was needed for acting in the HND 2’s production, ’12:34’ where I played the role of a space ninja, a character that is the Timekeepers assistant, mostly dumb and has absolutely no ninja skills off any kind. Tuesday though, nothing really went to plan in the morning, media tech was closed until an hour after our scheduled equipment book out and the actual acting schedule had changed on this day, so instead of me acting I had to help film the big brother and antiques roadshow scenes in the studio. Wednesday to Friday though I acted and it mostly involved with me having to fall over and pretend to die. Admittedly I cut myself loads whilst doing the stunts but it was great fun, the entire acting thing was fun to be a part off, but it could have been more detailed in giving us directions on what to do whilst acting.

Other than acting I was also chasing up my Never Mind The Fuzzcocks content, which was finished on Friday annoyingly. The content was only emailed to Sophy and me and Wayne were given a physical copy. Wayne left his copy at college so can’t do any script work, which means I can’t do any camera script work. It’s really frustrating and I highly doubt that we can get the pre-recorded one done on Monday. I did try chasing it up online with the co-producer but his email wasn’t listed in the contact sheet and he didn’t go on Facebook often.

Really stressing about everything, I may not be sane at the end of the children in need at this rate.

No Contact

Haven’t been able to do anything for the past few days due to not being able to contact the co-producers of mine that are apparently supposed to be sorting the content for the Never Mind The Fuzzcocks show and also the Debate show now. I’ve emailed them and contacted them via email or Skype, but they haven’t got back to me at all. Should be acting for the 12:34 Doctor Who spoof though on Tuesday.

A Short Day?

Not a lot happened today really. I basically chose to be a runner or set designer for the actual children in need broadcast but left myself open to graphics if no one else comes through. Really don’t want to do graphics though. I also helped Chris Ross out with his bumpers. We got a Sony V1 out and upped the shutter speed to something like 160, we then got I think it was at least six people to stand waving some glow sticks around as we filmed them. We also put the JVC studio camcorders in the middle of the studio and filmed them in a fluid way, this is to hopefully make a nifty title sequence for a bumper. That was really it today.

Judgement Day

Judgement day. The day all my pre-production I had to hurry for the past few days would prove whether it has all been worth it. The answer...slightly.

I got in this morning knowing that I had to create some props and set design stuff. I struggled for at least an hour and a half trying to work out the new printers that are now around the college, failing to print out a proper A3 sized logo each time wasting at least 40p. In the end I got the hang of it, then I had to print the main logo out into small pieces to stick on the cardboard that I had cut out (badly might I add) and then stick the printed out questions and such onto the other side. This was to give the show a more professional feel. The cards would act as props and make it look like the presenter has professional cards to read from. The big A3 logos I printed out were to decorate the set, sadly they weren’t that wonderful on the set, they looked fine but the set still needed something more, perhaps more colourful bubbles everywhere to suit the main children in need logo theme. I did try and inform people I needed to talk to them in the studio but most of them just said they were busy, ignored me or walked off so I just tried to sort some VT’s out.

The VT’s I needed were a clip from a music video, but the recording deck wasn’t recording when I told it too so I waited for Matt Olorenshaw to get back from lunch, but when he did get back he and the media techs were busy trying to sort out the faulty VT player. It was from this moment I decided to consider holding back the full recording tomorrow and pushing it a week or so.

As for the actual moment where everyone was coming in to do his or her roles I was seriously stressing, when everyone came in, people were asking me what role they were doing, but the fact was, the other day, last Thursday I went around asking if people wanted a job role for today, they either ignored me or said no. Only a small majority were interested, and by small I mean at least three people.
The ones who knew their roles and signed up for that role got straight to work, I was meanwhile trying to get the script onto the autocue, but it turns out it was broken and one of the media technicians had to fix it. I had to hand out camera scripts and talk Wayne roughly through what he had to present and which game came first because he didn’t have an autocue to inform him. The intros round had the teams not knowing what intro they had to act out because I had lost the intros list and couldn’t get a free moment to print another one out. I had to explain to the teams what was going on as well but I kept getting pulled away to explain other things. I stated that even without a recorded VT we could still throw the music video we needed into full screen on YouTube and put that up which worked.

I was happy with how long the show was, it hit about twenty-one minutes, the aim was thirty minutes. I was happy with the presenting, it was enjoyable and funny despite the fact I was still feeling down about the production messing up. The directing by Alex Burton was pretty good although he needed to get quicker shots and different angles. The set I was happy with, but it needs so much more decoration. I know I failed today, I feel that all my pre-production was good, but it needed to be…well elaborated more and explained more, maybe next time I’ll force everyone in a room and lock them in. I also needed someone helping me, the reason I didn’t have help was because everyone was so caught up doing their shows I thought I’d let them sort their stuff out, but now I’ve got an assistant producer and Wayne has offered to help write the script.

Could have been better, but at least the newbies can see the failings and not make these mistakes.

Busy Day.

Nine to ten hours I have spent today, sat in front of my iMac as I type up tons of word documents all to do with one show for college. It’s been exhausting I must say, but at least it’s all being done! It all has to be done by tomorrow at least anyway, that’s when we see if the shows fully ready for the pre-recording on Tuesday. I’ve been surfing all over the Internet as well today for music news and song lyrics and anything else I needed for the shows content. I also got some credits done but I still need to put them onto a DVD to take into college, or at least on my USB that annoyingly has no more room because of the Photoshop documents for printing out tomorrow. I’ve created some team logos and the main logo and they are all good for printing tomorrow, they will be going on the cardboard pieces I cut out earlier just to give the set that professional look hopefully.

I can’t really explain much else really, it’s only really been typing and typing all day, still need to do a camera script I think and time how long it’s going to be. I’m unsure whether I have any homework on audiences to do for my research techniques lesson though, shall have to ask Andy tomorrow, as for my contextual studies, I know I have homework to do, but my practical stuff is taking a higher priority, I love the film studies but I find it rather pointless giving homework about it on top of deadlines that are more important to sort out.

All Alone

Okay I am seriously tired whilst typing this, the days events are catching up with me. However, good news! I did most of my Never Mind The Fuzzcocks paperwork last night, got myself a little to do list thing going on. I sorted out my cast and crew roles that are available to get first dibs on, I got ideas for the games in the show, the points system, set design ideas then opening titles and promotional clips ideas. May not seem like a lot but it really is!

Today I printed them all out so I could show people like Sophy and Wayne what I’ve done for the show. I then sat the moving image group down and asked them to choose which job roles they would like to do for the show, I did have to pull in about two people from the radio crew but two spaces are still open so may have to see if the HND 2’s want a role. After this it was clear that everyone had either gone off to do their shows pre-production or to go and relax until their next lesson so I used this moment to grab the studio and get filming the promotional videos…however it didn’t go how I thought. I started putting up the white stand in front of a few people, clearly struggling, after about five minutes Matthew Olorenshaw kindly helped me set the stand up, then I went and booked out the Sony V1, a tripod and headphones and set them up in the studio in front of the stand, by this point the studio was now empty and it was just me setting it up. Matt then came back in and offered to check if my sound was correct and going through. After this I then jumped into the gallery and started turning the lights on, however this left a hard shadow against the stand, which would be noticeable when I sat in front of the camera. Graham kindly helped me set up one of the halogen lights, but man, it was scary having such a rickety stand to hold a heavy light with no support, it got rid of the shadow mostly though so I wasn’t complaining. I recorded myself some 18 odd seconds of colour bars and then called Wayne in, he sat down, did his acting and then had to run off to lesson, I still needed Tom and myself to sit in front of the camera and do our promo’s, I quickly grabbed Chris Ross and he kindly accepted to quickly record me doing my bit.

This was done, I then knew Tom was in a lesson so thought I’d just rig the studio up another time for Tom’s promo, so there I was, all alone in an empty studio de-rigging everything, I even decided to put the chairs to one side for the hell of it because I was in the cleaning up mood. I’d edit the footage later.

Later after my contextual studies lesson I went to the edit room with my girlfriend and whilst waiting for media resources to open up I started making an updated Never Mind The Fuzzcocks title in Motion using the camera tool and bloom filters. Once I got a camera I began capturing the footage in Final Cut Pro, Chris then came in discussing about his idea for a title sequence and showed me some videos on YouTube of some titles that were created in Motion and wanted me to show him how to make something similar. Chloe, (my girlfriend) helped throw in some ideas which he took on board whilst I showed him the basics of the 3D camera tool in Motion, then me and him got a Sony A1 and changed the shutter speed high, to about 425 I believe. I don’t know what he’s done with it though, whether he filmed any footage or not I have no clue because I was finishing of my promotional videos. Editing both of them so that the background is a bleach white with a bloom effect and both quite entertaining.

Later on at home I opened Garageband and created a soundtrack for the opening titles, it took me about half an hour to get a certain style, then I recorded myself saying the titles and added some sound enhancers to it so it sounded more grunge like. Now I just need to sleep and get some energy back into me, got to go and take part in the HND 2’s Most Haunted show tomorrow, so that’ll be at night.

*yawns*

The Long Day

The second blog, this time I have actually had a day of college work that I can include in this blog, which is worth typing about. Today started out pretty normally, the same old wake up, groggily slump into college and attempt to awake yourself before everyone starts moaning about the day ahead. Very rarely will I come across someone who will be super excited about starting the day so early. I am usually that person. After donating several hundred pennies to the Children in Need collection mugs placed at the media resources desk I made my way into the TV studio along with the other students.

Firstly we had a short talk from Andrew Tyers basically stating that we’ll be rigging the studio up and then producing an interview, after that he disappeared and kept appearing randomly to check up on us. We stuck to the same crew that we had the day before, the new students, Frasier, Melissa and Kat were on cameras and then everyone else was doing their main favourite roles. I was on graphics, having to create some graphics, opening title logo and get the clock up and running. For those who don’t know, the on screen graphics is the graphic that usually bears someone or something’s name, details or title, take Jeremy Kyle for example, the show always bears the name of the show and the scenarios at the bottom of the screen in the middle, this is the on screen graphic and helps the audience to understand who and what things are.

I think it took about two hours to actually rig the studio up and get everything up and running and then another hour to actually get a decent take of the interview. Everyone did their jobs pretty damn well, I was surprised I still felt comfortable with all the equipment seeing as I haven’t actually been in the studio for nearly a year. After the interview was done me and Sophy Blount saw each other and got talking about the show that I’m producing, ‘Never Mind The Fuzzcocks.’ We decided to get me working on a style for the set design, so I got three desks into the studio, one for the main presenter and then two for the teams on the sides. The only lighting I did was setting up the…halogen lights, I think, which are on the studio floor. I got a red and blue gel to place over the light and this gave either side a certain team colour. Once the floor and lighting was sorted out I was only aware that we were just doing a practise recording, which we were, but then I was given some VT’s from last years Children in Need show to use and suddenly I was being told by various people that we were going live at one-thirty, whereas other people were saying we were filming the actual show right there and right then. I got so confused and lost with what was going on, but in the end Alex Burton managed to get my head in a sane area and we did a quiz show with what we could do. This helped me see how much content I would need to make a show last for twenty minutes at least…and surprisingly I need a lot. Also before this recording I helped Jack learn about the cameras functions and then left him to give it a shot, he seemed to do pretty well but I have to agree with him, if you aren’t being asked to do much movement it’s a pretty stationary job…see what I did there? Also I came to the conclusion that I don’t like graphics. I don’t mind creating the actual graphics but as far as working the MxNavi software goes I’m not a fan of it and never really have been, but like Ian said to me at lunch, I always seem to get stuck with it because I can make some decent logos and such and I love creating the logos but then this is associated with the actual TV studio area. Might try making logos and leaving someone else to do the graphics software while I do something else that actually interests me. I'm in a serious course now, I'm paying for this, I need to actually figure out what area suits me best rather than choosing a role just because no one else wants to do it, or because they wish to choose it for me.

I did know that I was producer for the Never Mind The Fuzzcocks show, but I thought that because Wayne was the person that ran it all last year that he would have some type of role in the pre-production stage, so I thought he had been doing some things working with me. But as it turns out I have everything pre-production wise to do…all for Monday. I have quite a big list, mainly ranging from creating a script, creating a camera script, a schedule to creating an opening title, gathering some VT’s and finding set design stuff, such as banners, decoration and much more. And all this for two shows! One pre-recorded and then the same things are needed for the live show but with different material obviously otherwise it’d just be the same thing.

So yes, I’m going to stop blogging now and actually get on with this pre-production and audience research stuff that I have to do. It’s so annoying having to sort out a huge assignment and then still have to do these little pieces of work which actually matter. ‘Till next time!

Starting Again.

Well, here is my first post onto my blog. Allow me to introduce myself firstly, I’m Ben Bayliss, I’m 19 and have been studying media for three years and I am now studying media yet again for another two years on a higher national diploma course. I have a strong passion for media. I enjoy the whole atmosphere you get in a TV studio, on a film set and behind the scenes. When I was younger I remember sitting in front of the TV watching ‘Toy Story’ countless times in one day for many months.

From there on I watched many films and always watched the behind the scenes features on the DVD’s. When I turned 17 I started becoming more interested in TV shows and the news, however I had been teaching myself about pre-production and post-production since I was about 13 so film seemed to be my main passion. Starting college at 16 I joined the first diploma in media course with learning editing as my main focus. During this course I found a new passion, which was both photography and graphic design. Joining the national diploma course the year after I focused on doing anything I could with my skills, Gaining more experience in new programs such as Adobe Photoshop, Motion and Final Cut Pro along the way. I also made some new friends and some valuable contacts, mainly with mySCR.co.uk, which was a radio station I presented on and did some pre-production for a show called ‘That Local Show’

And now here I am, on a higher national diploma course, a huge range of friends, a great deal of experience in loads of software and hopefully I’ve made it known I’m a reliable person and ready to help anyone out if I can. This year has only just started and I already have a huge assignment underway. It’s a Children in Need assignment where we produce a number of shows, both pre-recorded and also live shows. My year, which is usually called “HND 1’s” have to make a series of TV shows and get them ready for broadcasting on the 19th November. I believe I am helping Matthew Olorenshaw pre-produce a stand up comedy show, and I already have a treatment done for it but we need to discuss about the show in more detail when we aren’t busy helping out with the HND 2’s (higher year group) stuff. I think I’m in charge of graphics on the actual day but this needs to be confirmed and I also know that I have to help Alex Burton and Chris Ross with creating a bumper in Motion by just walking them through the basics of what I know about it.

More updates to be coming your way when things get underway! Shall be practising in the studio to refresh our memories tomorrow.