Andrei Allen UCA Broadcast Media Blog

For this shoot Tim has asked me to be 2nd cameraman for the day.

My role as a 2nd cameraman was to get 'noddy's' of Jordan and Gregory, plus close ups of them when the main camera was on a wide. My role was also to get cut aways/cover shots, and any footage of graffiti so that the editor of the package has more content to use during post production. (168. Producing for tv and new media)

The equipment that i brought with me for the day was:

Sony A7S
Canon lenses:
50m f1.8 -
17-85 f4-5.6 - main lens because it's a zoom allowing me to go from a wide to close up
70-200 f4 -
ND grad filter - to reduce over exposed sky and bring back some of the clouds
Polarise filter - to reduce glare in shots



How the day went

Due to the weather being inconsistent on the day, it affected the exposure on some of my shots. Sometimes my shots would be correctly exposed, then the next second it would either be over exposed or under exposed, due to it being cloudy then sunny.



Because i was on support camera, i used my zoom lens throughout the day as this offered me a variety of adjustable focal lengths that i'd be able to quickly change to, from a wide to a close up, back to a wide.  (119. Television production Jim owns 2009)


The shot types that i filmed on the day was:

Single's: "A shot of one actor, in close-up, medium shot, or wide shot."


Establishing shot: "Also called the master shot, it establishes the scene and what's going on in it. It is a wider shot of the whole scene that shows its action, the actors' movements, and their relationship to each other. (168. Producing for TV and new media Cathrine Kellison 2005)





Here's behind the scene pictures from the shoot.





Conclusions

For today i feel it went well, the cutaways, close ups; singles and 'noddies' that i filmed should hopefully come in handy during post production for the editor. If i was to change something about today, it would be for us to further do a rece of our location again before the shoot based on the direction that the sun is falling, as sometimes the exposure was inconsistent due to the clouds covering the sun, another thing that i would use would be a shoulder rig to get more steadier shots - as it was very cold/windy at times and my hands were freezing causing me to shake the camera more than usual.

Where i'm head cameraman for the Domestic violence VT, i've been given the responsibility of sorting out all of the technical tasks such as figuring out how we're going to hide the cameras, and set them up so that we have sufficient coverage to cover the action.

After doing a rece around the studio and also based off of the treatment that was made for the VT, me and Danny experimented with using the iMacs in the base room to see the kind of coverage that they could get. 


Here's a digital story board / plan of how the set up will be:

Dslr camera will record the test subjects coming through the door

DSLR will be recording from inside the auditioning room filming test subjects walking past

The computers in base room 2 are going to be recording the base room via their webcams

This is going to be the sound/control room where the wireless cameras are going to be controlled from.

Inside board room 2 is where the action is going to take place, with the webcam on the iMac acting as a wide for the room, while the two hidden cameras record the action, with an additional two more people using their phones in portrait mode to record what's happening. 

A zoom recorder with wireless mic's is going to be attached underneath the desk to record the audio from inside base room 2

I contemplated using the computers instead of the iPad and android phone to stream the wireless GoPr's to however, when i streamed it to the mac i experienced a severe lag issue, plus the connection was not consistent and kept cutting out.