TV studio session – Tuesday 5th May
Our show was named The Geek Week and was designed as a topic a week show that would cover a specific area of Geek culture. This particular show concentrated on cosplay, its history and growing presence in modern western 
society. Our lengthy research into things Geek really paid off during the design and concept of our set which looked really good on camera with various items of Geekyness on display with a colourful couch and posters lining the walls. In hindsight I would have like to have the walls filled with a little more colour but the majority of our shots were tight and prevented the cameras from seeing the wider less populated set. Our VT’s were suitable to our project: one showing a trip our presenters took to MCM Birmingham Comic Con shortly after we had decided what topic to cover in our show and the international VT being of a trip to a large comic book store there and exploring the influences on the cosplay community. I feel these met the required criteria for our project however one of them seemed to be far too lengthy and I worried it would loose the interest of the audience. My role within the television team was Camera 2 operator, a role I hadn’t had the opportunity to prepare for as I had missed a few practice sessions due to 
international trips and the team deciding that my role should b changed, however, I found the process of camera operation simple and easy to pick up on the day. Essentially it relied heavily on floor manager and director working well together. Unfortunately, our director didn’t seem to take the project very seriously and acted rather unprofessional and as such communication between him and the floor manager were strained. I think the project would have benefited from a stronger director who could communicate clearly back and forth with the floor manager. Our director not only demonstrated a lack of professionalism in communication to the studio from the gallery but he also forgot to bring in the VT creating a large problem for us during the shoot even though we were allowed to add the VT after shoot. This meant our timing had to be really tight as we didn’t have the VT in front of us to make sure we could add it easily later. I was largely disappointed with our director in general and felt that we should have had someone else at the helm. Inside the gallery, early on in our shoot it seemed disorganised and argumentative which was a direct issue from lacking a strong central figure present. However, once we had began rolling and resolved our technical issues they co-ordinated themselves well. The auto-que scrolled a little too slowly the first run through but this was rectified for our following shoots. Our major problem on set was the audio, we hadn’t prepared sufficiently for 
recording audio in the two sections of our set which we discovered after our first take. This is something that we should have highlighted during practice but without our demonstration able to make practice we should have pretended that we had to move to a different section of the set. We remedied this by moving our mics so that one was positioned to pick up audio from the makeup tutorial even whilst not on screen and tilted the other slightly to accommodate for the interviewee. Our camera operators were organised and very aware of the schedule and timing of the show, especially camera operator one who also had the added job of operating the on set TV screen after positioning his camera into a suitable shot for the next segment of the show. We had four cameras in total, one unmanned aimed as a close up on the make up demonstration to give a constant view during the show. The Floor Manager also did a successful job of queuing the cameras and the Presenters were aware of which cameras they needed to look at during which part of the show. We had a duo of presenters who both dressed up in costume to fit with the theme of cosplay our show was following. They made for a good group but sometimes felt too scripted and seemed to be a little nervous. During one of our takes we found a gap of six seconds that needed filling and the 
presenters did a good job of filling this section with dialogue between presenter and make up artist. Myself and the floor manager also dressed in costume to add to the theme of the show and create a calming atmosphere which I think helped and showed commitment to the show. Other members of crew chose to wear Geek related items of clothing as well which showed a unison amongst the team. Reflecting upon my own performance, I feel I did so quite successfully considering I missed two rehearsals due to being away in Istanbul and had my job role changed from Presenter, to Floor Manager to Camera Operator in the last week. I would have liked to have been more aware of the blocking of the set beforehand and perhaps should have requested an image the set sent to me whilst I was aware to help prepare. With more time I also would have studied the operation of the cameras a little more in depth and was fortunate to have the assistance of the other camera operators in setting it up. I would have spoken out against the choice of director from the beginning to try and persuade the group to pick someone more capable of the role and also would have spent more time familiarising myself with all the roles in the studio and the equipment as then I would have been better prepared for a switch in set role. My feelings towards working in TV has not changed since this experience and it is still an area of Media that I would prefer to avoid. It feels far too regimented and structured and lacking in creativity and freedom to be a career I would enjoy pursuing.
The Journey Begins 