One aspect in our class discussion that stood out to me this week was the Oprah Winfrey “You get a car” scene and reading from Vox ‘How Oprah Winfrey became our interviewer in chief’ (James, 2021). I’d seen the iconic “You get a car” scene floating around social media for years, it’s been adapted into memes, punch lines and skits, however I hadn’t watched the full scene before this week’s tutorial and considered how the crew filmed it amidst such chaos. After being in the audio booth in week one’s Thursday class, I can’t even imagine what the audio levels would have been like once it was revealed the whole audience was getting a free car. Assuming The Orpah Winfrey Show is not live, I’m sure there would be alterations made to the audio in post-production. One aspect we spoke about in the tutorial discussion was the multi-camera production during the scene, obviously The Oprah Winfrey Show is higher production than our 3 camera set up last week in the studio, watching back the scene I estimated around 10 different camera shots, those being the shot of Oprah herself, establishing/wide shot of audience, women walking in with prizes, and multiple close-up shots of audience’s reactions. This made me realise the level of attention to detail and focus the crew have to obtain in order to achieve the perfect reaction shots of the audience in such a high-pressure environment. Another element that fascinated me was they controlled the audio. After being in the audio booth Thursday, I can only imagine those levels would have been beaming red once the audience realised they had won a car.

The reading gave insight into Oprah Winfrey’s high-profile status and how she has achieved the title as one of the world’s most recognised interviewers. Yes, Oprah has achieved mass success and interviews some of the most high-profile celebrities, Meghan and Harry for example. But what’s makes her trustworthy and reliable with such ground-breaking information in Infront of the camera for the whole world to see? The reading delves into this thoroughly exploring her ability to make others feel at most comfortable in such high-pressure situations, “Oprah excels at creating a friendly, warm atmosphere in which famous people feel as though they can share their innermost thoughts.”