The conclusion of Ready Camera One has brought to light several old existing ideas/concepts and also opened my eyes to several more. As a finale project, we embarked on a 2-3 week long journey of creating and producing our very own live show with ( very real ) live audience members. Our concept revolved around a breakfast talk show at midnight. The structure of the show followed very closely other shows like Saturday Night Live and even The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. We had elements of humour injected with mainstream news, just an average student production.

Following the pre-production planning, we knew our show had to go with a specific flow. This translated to having,

• introduction –
• monologue –
• news segment –
•  skit –
• short news stories –
• skit –
• main news story –
• skit –
• interview –
• conclusion. 

It can be said that this standard of having news stories broken up by skits and mini segments is a form os stylistic exhibitionism that several television genres are favourable off. ( Caldwell J T, 1995 pg 18 ) Caldwell explains in his book on Televisuality: Style, Crisis and Authority in American Television ( 1995 ) that television genres like daytime talk shows, nonprimetime public affairs shows etc all have a specific pattern or flow that the follow. Thus, we fed off that information and used it as a guide when creating our live production.

Touching again on the idea that our show had aspects of stylistic exhibitionism was the fact that the genre that Midnight Snack fell into had the tendency to call out on it’s own ‘liveness’. Caldwell (1995 ) explains that ‘ These genres stress liveness through quite traditional series of indices, such as the direct address to the viewer…..”. This, in which, we clearly display by addressing our live studio audience during the start of the show and sometimes even with the hosts encouraging audience interactions through laughing. Marriot ( 2007  ) also touches on this aspect of live, calling it the ‘discourse of immediacy’ which is the act of constantly going out of the way to emphasize the liveness of the broadcast. Which the Nicole and Jaie constantly bring up by saying ‘… take your time we’re only live’ and also during the interview when Pat asks if laugh tracks can be added in post and Jaie said ‘ yeah.. but we’re live so, no’. ( episode 2 )

Both episodes followed this specific genre flow, with stories and segments changing depending on the relevancy of each topic. For instance our first episode’s news segment was centralised heavily on the Royal Wedding as it was a few days before the special occasion while our second episode centralised on the Facebook data scandal which was the talk of the town a few days before we went live.

Of course, as amateur media professionals, we didn’t know what we were doing half the time and it was very apparent for me, especially, when I stood in for the role of the DA in the second episode. While I generally knew what was expected of me through having prior experience of being a DA in the last assignment, I could safely say that the weight and size ( not literally ) of A3 was minor in comparison to Midnight Snack. Orchestrating a 25-30 minute live show was significantly much more challenging than a mere 5 minute one. In the week 7 reading, Doing It Live (MacDonnell J,2005 ), we follow the planning an executing of a live drama show, The Bill. I felt like it was a good precursor for us students as it shaped what we should be expecting for the two live episodes. I also would like to think that my script/runsheet acted similarly to the ‘production bible’ that MacDonnell described hers. Below, I have added pictures of my script and hers for comparison

Tasked with the role of the DA for episode 2, I knew that if I didn’t know what was to happen when and for how long, then the show wouldn’t be cohesive. I struggled a bit during the rehearsal times for episode 2 as I felt we gave much more attention to episode 1, neglecting the latter. Scripts were not finalised until the morning of the show and even on our last rehearsal round, we were still adding EVS items into the show. As we’ve discussed in earlier weeks of the studio, it was most definitely scheduled chaos..

While I felt relatively prepared going into the last live show, it still was a little unnerving knowing that not everything might go as according to planned ( as it most usually does not ). However, no amount of rehearsal time or preparation could prepare us for liveness, because as many of our scholars have mentioned before- anything can happen live, which brings me to my next point.

Part of the appeal we have for live television is the idea that anything could happen and we would be witnesses to it as it is happening. As much as I would love to hedge all humans as being a decent and optimistic bunch, we just aren’t. We like to laugh at people’s demise, errors and mishaps. That’s why video compilations of people falling down can reach up to 1.8 Mil views ( see image below ). Similarly, Gadassik (2010) stresses on the fact that when New York Times release ‘ TV’s Best Live Moments ‘, none of the events included significant political or national occurances but rather moments of Janet Jackson’s bare breasts etc. When I asked some of my friends why they watched the livestream of our first episode, they said they wanted to witness my less-than-perfect performance on-screen. Just like when Jaie’s friends screen-grabbed the exact moment when graphics was covering his entire face in Episode 1. ( as I also have, so generously, included as well down below ) To summarise, ‘ the attraction of television liveness, as an idealogical ( or stimulated? ) media construction, depends precisely on such brief, unexpected ruptures in television’s controlled daily flow.’ ( Gadassik, 2010 pg 117-118 )

While nothing significantly jarring happened and both shows went by fairly on-time and smoothly. These little instances of mishaps are what makes up the liveness of our production. Even times of delay when cutting to different studios or even when we can still hear floor managers counting down in the background ( episode 1, 22:00-22:05 ).

Touching very briefly on my role as sets/props for episode 1, I knew it would be a much easier feat than my DA role as long as I stayed well informed of what was needed on sets. There wasn’t much for me to bring in terms of props because we kept the scripts fairly simple and manageable- my main worry for episode 1 was my on-screen performance as Miss Meghan Markle ( now Duchess of Sussex ).

I think our production was authentic in creating television liveness in a sense that it had aspects of intimacy when addressing the audiences directly – so that they felt they were connecting to something ‘real’. It also had aspects of immediacy in a sense that they audience knew they were witnessing something as it was happening, be it through the hosts explicitly mentioning it or even during our instances of mishap and delays. These aspects brought up the liveness of our production and it was what separated us from post-production work.

Personally, I appreciate live television productions because of it’s very rawness and authenticity. While all media texts are controlled and manipulated to show you only what they want to show you – live tv production included, I feel that there is a sense of an anticipation almost, a rawness to live tv. Being behind the scenes, live tv gives that kind of rush that I haven’t encountered in other forms of media productions during my course in RMIT. Ready Camera One felt like a haunted house, always keeping me on my toes- I’m always expecting something terrible at every corner and ready to face it. While other media productions feel like a slow canoe ride through the Yarra River almost, slow and predictable with some obstacles in the middle but nothing that gives you the same rush from live tv production.

All things considered, I think we did an amazing job with our two episodes and definitely gave it our best shot. Although I wasn’t able to touch on and analyse most other aspects of the production planning such as social media and writing ( mainly because I wasn’t tasked with the job ), with the roles and experiences that I’ve had during the two shows, it was enough for me to fully understand the idea of liveness- from talking about it in class to actually living in out in our last two weeks. I can safely say I have learnt a great deal about what it means to produce a live television programme as well as to be more aware of how I consume my live television programmes.

References:

Bourdon J, 2000, Live Television is still alive: on television as an unfulfilled promise, Media and Culture Society 22(5), Sage Publications, London, pg 531-556.

Marriott S, 2007, Live Television: Time, Space and the Broadcast Event, Sage Publications London, pg 59-72

Caldwell J T, 1995, Televisuality: Style, Crisis and Authority in American Television, Rutgers University Press, pg 18.

Gadassik A, 2010, At a Loss for Words: Televisual Liveness and Corporeal Interruption, Journal of Dramatic Theory and Critisism, pg 117-133.

MacDonnell J, 2005, Doing It Live! Planning and Preparing for a Live Drama Episode: a case study of The Bill, Journal of European Television History & Culture, vol 2 issue 4, pg 27-44

I really enjoyed this reading primarily because it gave me a good insight as to how a live production works coming from a first person perspective. For instance, a lot of the readings we’ve had thus far was more academic and thus felt like a third-person perspective but having read this article/journal felt more personal and even credible.

What stood out for me was how much prep was done in for the live show yet in the end the pre-rigged car for one of the stunts had to be removed with a forklift during a 3 minute commercial break. On top of that, camera angles and script changes probably had to be made during that slim 3 minute time frame. It goes back to the idea of managing live; the idea that anything could happen and that is what makes it live television. Just as Gadassik reiterated, ” the attraction of television liveness, …… , depends precisely on such brief, unexpected ruptures in television’s controlled daily flow. ” ( 2010, pg 117 ).

I felt like even though MacDonnell’s reading did not introduce any new ideas or concepts relevant to liveness etc, it acted like more of a case study on a live production and therefore was valuable in it’s own way in terms of being a pre-cursor as to what we should expect in the coming weeks with the last assignment.

References:

Gadassik A, 2010, At a Loss for Words: Television Liveness and Corporeal Interruption, Journal of  Dramatic Theory and Criticism, pg 117-134.

This week we start our prep for A4, setting out crew roles- I’ve been assigned sets/props in studio C for week 1 while I will be DA in studio A for week 2.

The general vibe of the class was really just brainstorming ideas on what we want to do, ideas on content and structure and getting into groups to familiarise ourselves with our roles etc. The writers, producers and directors all sat down in a circle to finalise the idea of our shows and by the end of it we had decided on a breakfast show. I really liked the idea of  ‘Breakfast for Dinner’ and felt like there was a lot of potential to add in several aspects like have a news segment or even cut into a skit segment. I felt like the idea didn’t limit us to a certain structure like for instance a game show would.

Because I was props and wouldn’t have a specific task to do until a proper script has been done up, I took it upon myself to float around and expose myself to other equipment. I really enjoyed playing around with the vision mixer table, which would’ve been my third choice in roles for A4. Otherwise, it was a pretty productive session of sort of feeling the role we were assigned and getting our idea set.

Above I have attached the collaborative worksheet we did in week 5 as a class. Ed split us up into groups and gave each of us a role and we were to explain how that specific role worked with/ related to the other roles available.

We were given the role of the director- which technically had to work with everyone in the crew more or less. As a director, the three main people you would be working with would be the DA, vision switcher and producer. The DA would probably have more contact with the rest of the crew as compared to the director. Vision switcher is basically the ‘hands and feet’ and the director is the ‘brain’. The producer and director often work together to ensure the vision of the production is brought to life satisfactorily.

Elaborating more on the role of the director, he/she is meant to be someone who gives direction and vision to the production. Of course, different types of productions may ask different things of the director. For instance, a director in a live TV production usually tends to make quick and split-second decisions because as we’ve been discussing, everything or anything can happen during live TV. Alternatively,  a director in a single camera film production may make more selective and thought through decisions according to how he wants to frame the scene to his vision.

In Effective TV Production, Millerson (1994) explains that there are two main approaches a director can take when directing a production; the selective approach and the ‘director as the originator’. With the selective approach, the directors take into account the strengths of each crew role and bridge on that advantage ( ie. a good camera person with excellent camera handling skills and able to take quick changing shots/scenes)- for the most part just allowing the skills of the crew to shine and only making little changes here and there. This director mostly focusses on the performance, the switching, the action and shot development ( Millerson, 1994 ). The director as the originator approach, the director focusses on the details of the production, the settings, the composition of the frames and even the general mood. His main focus is to bring his idea to life and he as a director shapes the production ( Millersons, 1994 ).

The former approach, I feel is much suited for a live TV production because directors should be quick to adapt and be able to focus on only what needs to be focussed on. While I am more familiar with the latter approach as a director, it is more suited for a film production or sorts. In this sense, the director is the mastermind of the production because he creates the ideas, he frames the production according to his ideas. The director can still be considered the mastermind of the production in the former instance, however in a different way- here, he is the mastermind because he manipulates what is being seen. He calls the shots to the different camera switches to record what he wants the audience to see.

References:

Millerson G, 1994, Effective TV Production (3rd ed),  CRC Press

Assignment 3 brought my perspective and experience with TV production to a whole other level. As mentioned before, I didn’t have much contribution to the pre-production planning stage other than keeping myself on task with what the show was about, what was supposed to go on and for how long.

During the class itself, Marcus ( our producer ) handed us run sheets and a copy of the script and I took my time breaking down each segment. I familiarised myself with what part of the script correlated to the run sheet and took notes for how long each segment was to go for. I then made marks along the run sheet and script as to where I should cue my audio person and graphic people.

I then coordinated with Francesca ( our director ) as to what tasks she was about to do before we started rehearsing. Her main focus was to brief the talents and to set up the cameras according to how she envisioned it. While I made sure Francesca was on task, I also had to take note of the time as we were only given 20 minutes to set up, 10 for rehearsal and another 10 for filming. I went around counting down the time for rehearsal and checked up on everyone to make sure they were on task. I also provided assistance wherever possible.

During the rehearsal, everything was in chaos. We did not know what to expect and did not know how to react to our mistakes. Ruth made a good point of just running with the rehearsals and making a mental note of what went wrong during it so that we could fix the problem before the actual run. Some problems we faced during the rehearsals include, uncoordinated graphics and audio and lack of audience interaction.

I managed to prep my audio guy and cue him as to when to start playing the voiceover, which occurs around the middle of the production. However, because I was too flustered with the job at hand, we did not manage to solve the audience interaction problem which, in hindsight, could be blamed for our lack of coordination with the Floor Manager ( and when he should cue the audiences to laugh or clap )

Overall, as a DA, it felt like I had to micro-manage everyone in the team. I spoke a lot with Jaie ( Floor Manager ) during the set up stage to ensure that we had our lighting set up, which was something we all almost forgot in the midst of everything. Going into this role, I didn’t understand fully what my task was, however if I were to look back on the events yesterday and cancel out my role, it’s very easy to see the significance of having a DA present. DA’s have to keep track of the time, and ensure that everyone especially the director, is on task. DA’s have to know specific cue’s for audios, graphics and even audience interaction and coordinate these with the respective crew members. In retrospect, DA’s act like the glue to every production.

This week in class, we were given time in the second half to have a bit of pre-production planning with our group, mainly to brainstorm ideas and to ensure that we were suitable prepared for A3 filming next week.

My group decided to do a talk-show cum Q&A set featuring a panel of 2 and a host on stage with one or two pre-selected audience members to ask the questions. Our topic of choice: Memes. Because everyone was fairly passionate about the topic and exceptionally well- versed in it, brainstorming was relatively easy. We managed to come up with a rough script, and a general direction/vision we were aiming for with this recording. Crew roles was easy to divide because everyone knew what they wanted, which left very little to fight about. I decided to be DA this time.

Every group was given about 20 minutes to refresh or get familiar with the equipment relating to their assigned roles. Because I was DA, I didn’t have a specific equipment to familiarise myself with therefore I took it upon myself to float around and get to know more about the control room stuff as I had no prior experience with or in it in A2. I got to play with the vision switcher a little bit and would be open to trying that out for the next assignment. I also stuck around to hear what Ed was explaining with regards to the graphics side of things. Because this was a role that wasn’t previously needed in assignment 2, it was interesting to see what exactly and how exactly it worked in relation to the entire production.

Coming out of the class, I did not personally have a task to prepare for next week although I’m sure once filming is a go, I would be running around like a headless chicken.

It will definitely be interesting to try a different role this time and I am quite excited for A3!

It seems each week we dive into another layer of what ‘live’ means- this week’s reading delves into liveness from a surveillance perspective; more specifically CCTV cameras.

What I found interesting about the first half of the Scanell ( 2013, pg 2 ) reading was that he mentioned that the past would not prevail if it were not for recording events through writing or narration. We would not know how Jesus spread his faith if it were not for the written records of his followers. He then mentions that the advancement of visual and audio recordings have managed to capture these same historical events more accurately. I like to relate the era of pre-technology ( ie, the time of Jesus ) to a game of chinese whispers. At the start of the game, when the sentence is created and then passed on to the first person, it is so clear and true to what the sentence was originally. As it is passed down along the line to several people, the sentence becomes distorted and often times wildly inaccurate. Similarly, stories and events during the pre-technology era depended on it’s spread through word-of-mouth narration or written records. Often when modern scholars review these same stories/events we question how credible or even how accurate it is. Scanell then explains the beauty of the audio and visual recording era- how we see events that happened before in all its true form- it is live again once we hit that button ( Scanell, 2013 )

He then mentions about why we might not consider CCTV or surveillance footage as something live even though it most certainly is recording and relaying something that is happening in real time. It is simply not considered as live because it is not something watchable, it merely serves a purpose when something has happened and we want to find out exactly what ( ie, a murder or crime was committed and the killer was caught on CCTV footage ). CCTV footage has ” no motive, no intentionality, no concern in what it ‘blindly’ and ‘unthinkingly’ records” (Scanell, 2013 ).

This, specifically, got me thinking about time lapse videos and whether it is considered similarly to CCTV footage. Time lapse videos are often left in a specific spot for long amounts of time and use to capture something progressfully. It is left on it’s own without a human operator, similar to a CCTV camera. Although I couldn’t find any scholarly articles to shed some light on this argument, I have come to a conclusion that because time lapses are often used by professional photographers or video-makers to capture a sunset or a busy street often to signify the change in scenery or the progression of time, then therefore it has a motive, intentionality and some form of concern to what it is recording and therefore cannot be compared to a surveillance camera/footage.

References:

Scanell P, 2013, Television and the meaning of ‘live’: An enquiry into the human situation, EBSCO Publishing, pg 93-106.

For the final recording process, I was tasked to be a producer in the Parks & Rec group and a floor manager for the Rosehaven group- this was because there was a shortage of crew members in the class.

With the Parks&Rec crew, I felt more prepared going into class because we had already did some blocking on the script prior to coming into class. We were the first to go and the set-up took us awhile, and we were slow to pick up momentum but once Ella ( FM ) got her groove, everything started running. As a producer, I was unsure where I fit during the set-up and filming process. A producer, by definition, “a person responsible for the financial and managerial aspects of the making of a film or broadcast.. ” ( Dictionary.com ) While there were no financial aspects with regards to our assignment, I still felt like I met my requirements by liaising with Ruth and making sure everything was generally running smoothly. It was a good opportunity for me to observe what everyone else was doing to prepare me for my second crew role as a floor manager for the Rosehaven group.

With the Rosehaven crew, because I had prior practice/observation with Parks&Rec, it was a less daunting process. As floor manager, I was basically the director’s voice on set and had to ensure that all equipment was running as well as talents were suitably prepared. In saying that, I felt in control of what was going on. The groups all had some sort of momentum coming into their recording slot so we found very little hiccups. What was interesting was because we were one of the groups that were formed quite late in the process, we all sat at the back of the room trying to figure out where to put our cameras, when to switch to what cameras etc which was something i never really realised needed to be planned until we were given a multi-camera exercise like this. We had trouble deciding where to place our cameras, and where our talents should walk into and around the set. Ultimately, we decided on having the cameras spread out on each side of the stage and the talents walking in from the right side. On of our camera setting plans that didn’t make the cut was having two cameras on the left side of the stage and one in the middle. We decided that that option was unfeasible because it didn’t follow the 180degrees rule. According to Broth M ( 2009 ), there is a rule in TV production that all cameras should be orientated on the same side of an imagined 180 degrees line.

All in all it was an exciting first step on what to expect in the following weeks to come! Multi-cam recording definitely  requires more pre-planning than single cam, in terms of where to place which camera and at what point do you switch to different camera perspectives. Excited for whats to come!

References:

Broth M, 2009, ” Seeing through screens, hearing through speakers: Managing distant studio space in television control room interaction”, Journal of Pragmatics, vol 41(10) pg 1998-2016.

The studio tour proved to be an insightful process for me as I got to see the behind-the- scenes works of TV production after weeks of talking about it. I think being able to tangibly see everything up close and personal really accentuated the idea of liveness for me- it’s like talking about something for so long and then finally seeing it in person to solidify the idea of it.

The guy brought us around the different studios and the control room and went through what each mechanism does. He explained how each would be used during a live broadcast and even showed us examples of it while fiddling with the screens/buttons. The idea that these little buttons and hinges were created to help to record a live production that is happening live is crazy. Each knob was built for a purpose to record something that is happening now, in that instance. Everything in the control room was so complex but yet so needed for live production as compared to a simple camera and mic needed for pre-taped clips. I guess you can say that the control room has machinery that is equipped to recording ‘dynamic’ time while machinery that I’m more familiar with like the simple camera and mic, is more equipped to record something more ‘static’. Lyons from the Marriot ( 2016, pg 7 ) reading speaks about this idea of ‘dynamic‘ and ‘static‘ time as dynamic being something that is happening in this instance while static being something more linear, like on a timeline – one thing happening after another. I guess seeing everything in front of me kind of shifted my perspective of how we use different machinery to record different things, if that makes any sense.

As of this moment, I’m not completely sure what pre-production planning needs to be done although from what I’ve gathered from last week’s class the only thing we can all do at the moment is to research more on our roles ( camera man to familiarise himself with the camera/how to use it etc ) and be mentally prepared for something to hit the roof- not literally of course. I absolutely have zero expectations for how the rest of the semester will turn out however i do know one thing; it’s going to be hectic as heck and i’m ready for it.

References:

Marriot S, 2016, “Time and the Live Event”, Live Television: Time, Space and the Broadcast Event, SAGE publications, London, pg 59-72.

Laugh tracks have gone from being extremely desirable to extremely tacky in the years that it’s been around. These tracks have been around since the 1950s when it was first invented by Charles Douglass who first named it the Laff Box- which is quite a hilarious typo if you really thought about it.

I never really paid attention to laugh tracks until i was shown an episode of Friends without one, quite unnerving if you ask me. It just felt like we were still waiting for a punchline that hasn’t arrived, or hasn’t been told properly. On the other hand, now you look at laugh tracks and scoff as if it devalues the quality of the sitcom. I fully agree that the absence of laugh tracks in comedy shows and sitcoms now show a sophistication in the viewer as he/she isn’t prompted by laugh tracks and laugh purely because of the comedic content of the show. This is backed up by the reading when it is mentioned, ‘ This lack of audible laughter was frequently cited in popular discourse of the period as evidence of a show’s quality, smartness, and respect for the viewer who now apparently laughs on her own volition and not when prompted to do so by a machine. ‘ ( Giotta G, 2017 )

The rise of popularity of the laugh track was mainly because comedy was seen as requiring ‘ intimacy and copresence‘ ( Giotta G 2017 ). Comedians would bounce of the live audiences’ responses while the audiences’ themselves vibed off each other’s laughs etc. For television shows specifically, the laugh track proved to be a form of controlled liveness which was sought after during that time because often, live audiences can prove to be unpredictable and detrimental to the production process.

The reading also mentions that a lot of television shows in the 1950s included laugh tracks because it was a form of a familiarity enhancing technique- technology was seen as something alien and ‘outside’ at the time and consumers/civilians had to be assured that this was not something radioactive that could kill therefore television shows would have presenters that were warm and prompted small talk, to have a sense of human-ness. In sitcoms, laugh tracks were used. Later on, voice over narration were used instead of laugh tracks and were said to be a ‘surrogate’ for them.

PS. I’ll link the episode of Friends without the laugh track because it is absolutely too funny not to watch.

References:

Giotta G, 2017, ” Sounding Live: An Institutional History of the Television Laugh Track”, Journal of Communication Inquiry, vol 41(4) 331-348.