Daily Diary 22/11
Today I finished doing research on leaks and helped with sourcing adverts for the show, I didn't have much to do today so I decided to just add onto the research I've already done. The rehearsal is tomorrow, I have to arrive at college at 9:00 for the retro gaming interview that'll be in the show
I think the rehearsal should go fine, there'll probably be a few problems since its the first rehearsal but it'll hopefully be easily fixable as we continue having more rehearsals. With what I'm currently doing I'm confident enough in myself that I'll do fine, but I think it'll be extremely difficult for everyone on set since they have to move around so much. The presenters also have to say their lines too and I remember from the game show unit that the presenter did have to write his own script, so they'll probably be reading off of that for a long while. I don't imagine that the first rehearsal will go very well but there's a reason why we have multiple
The adverts sourced more fit the primary and secondary target audience rather than the tertiary I think, but I think that's fine since there's multiple adverts in there that can target anyone really (the McDonalds ad is a notable example). There are also adverts for games as well, but I tried not to include too many since we do have a trailers section in the show
Rehearsal Day 1 Video / Production Video of Set 1
Production Meeting 8 (first rehearsal feedback)
wix doesn't allow videos over 10 minutes
Production Log 1
Today was the first rehearsal, we got to item 9 on the running order. Tomorrow we'll try and get to item 20, although that might be difficult
Yesterday we did casting calls but only one person showed up and they weren't suitable for the role, so the producer had to be the co-host for the show
There was a major problem with sound, there wasn't enough working microphones to use for the entire show (we only had three but we needed more for: the two hosts, the person playing live gameplay and the two people being interviewed about game development). We decided that we'd have to use stationary boom microphones for the people doing live gameplay and interview
For my lighting plans, set 1 followed what I put for my lighting plan but there were two issues with it still: the cameras and the TV monitor. For the cameras they weren't marked on the plan I was given so I had to estimate where they'd be and I didn't know the TV was going to be used for the script the presenters had to read from, so I have to change the lighting plans to fit around these problems
I also put three lighting stands around each set because I was only planning on using three lights, but I was reminded about the plan to put gels on some of the lights. I decided to add two more lighting stands so the lights wouldn't only be coloured
During rehearsals the shots looked very dark, I tried to add more lights but it still looked very dark. Turns out it was because of the ISO settings on the cameras so that was sorted
Daily Diary 23/11
I think I did fine as both roles, as mentioned before I was already very comfortable with the vision mixer and how we're currently using it
I said this in today's production meeting but my main concern with adding more lights would be having to move them all, but the two extra lights are planned to be stationary so this shouldn't be too much of a problem. Either way I'll have to update the lighting plan to fit around these new issues
Overall the first rehearsal went better than expected, everyone did their role pretty well from what I could see. There were obviously problems with moving around the set since this was the first time but it should get better as we continue doing more rehearsals
Second Draft for Lighting Plans (set 1, set 2, set 3)
Rehearsal Photos for Day 2
.png)
.png)
Production Meeting 9 (half day)
wix doesn't allow videos over 10 minutes
Production Log 2
Today was the second day of rehearsal, we got to item 14
We had a meeting during half of the day, it was mainly about fixing smaller things like the timecodes in the schedule sheet being wrong and the lights not appearing on the camera (this is so the presenters know which camera to look at, what's usually meant to happen is there's a light on the camera I'm currently on with the vision mixer). The timecodes on the running order are incorrect so that has to be changed. The introduction for the trailers were too short and since we have extra time as we haven't hit the hour mark yet, we added 10 more seconds to that section
During rehearsals I noticed that one of the presenters looked washed out, I was told to check if so many lights were necessary but it turned out to be an issue with one of the cameras being on the wrong ISO setting
Daily Diary 24/11
I think we would've gone further if it wasn't for the behind-the-scenes issues again (time wise we've been smooth so far). It's mainly been an issue with the sound but I'm not completely sure what about it, hopefully it should all be fixed by next week. From the limited amount of rehearsals we have had though I think we're very quickly getting better
Production Meeting 10 (set dressing feedback)
wix doesn't allow videos over 10 minutes
Daily Diary 29/11
Today we dressed the set, we're almost done with it and it shouldn't take too long to finish it tomorrow. Tomorrow we'll also be filming real for a Real Talk episode
Despite taking the whole day, set dressing didn't feel like it took too long and I think we should be able to finish it quickly before tomorrow since its just tying up loose ends (USB plugs for the neon signs, print out posters for the easels, bringing all the consoles & TV). I plan to do more lighting tests since I didn't account for the gels on some of the lights
I'm slightly worried about the rehearsals since we're supposed to have done about five of those by now and we've only done two, this is mainly due to issues with the gallery (specifically sound has had a lot of issues). I hope to have more rehearsals done since we haven't finished rehearsing the entire show yet
Production Video of Updated Set 1 Lighting
Daily Diary 30/11
Today we finished with dressing the set, I also edited the lighting stands slightly and added one to the left of set 1 because the lighting there looked dark still
We would've done rehearsals today but the director and sound mixer weren't here. I’m starting to get concerned since we should’ve done at least six or so rehearsal days by now, but we’ve only been able to do two since we keep having technical issues
Final for Lighting Plans (only set 1 is different)
Production Photos
.png)
.png)
Rehearsal 3 Analysis
One thing I didn't fully notice until watching the rehearsal back was that the set looks very good, I like how colourful it is and how many different games are represented in it. I can also say similar for the lighting: it makes the show look more colourful, fits with the colour scheme for the show and helps make the show feel more about games. The primary target audience would most likely appreciate these two parts the most as the show does catch the eye and is appealing for them to look at, we wanted to design the set to be a more modern gaming room a 16-20 year old would want to have. The tertiary audience would like the retro gaming consoles (mainly visible on set 2) as well. Speaking of the target audience, I think all the advertisements so far do fit with what the primary and possibly secondary target audience would be interested in like: other games that just came out, popular foods & drinks, etc. All the topics that are in the show are also interesting, the show has a clear structure and order that's easy to follow. This specific episode is divided into two main sections (retro gaming and the live gameplay of Sonic Frontiers) and I can imagine what other episodes of the show might look like due to the more neutral topics such as the controversy or trailer talks
The first issue at the beginning that's obvious throughout the entire show is the earrings one of the presenters are wearing, they're too long so you can hear them make noise throughout the entire show. This is easily fixable though as all they have to do is not wear them. Throughout the show there are multiple instances of the timing being very off, leading to very awkward moments of the presenters just looking around while staying silent (this is seen at its worse during the introduction to the pre-recorded trailers). The timings being off also leads to the problem of the presenters taking too long to speak, such as the transition between the live gameplay and the interview. It happens multiple times during this rehearsal but I think this should be less of a problem as we continue doing more rehearsals though. I also feel like the framing on the presenters could be better, during the controversy talk and the trailer talk at the beginning there's a lot of dead space in the shots. The framing and positioning for the quiz topic wasn't correct either, but I think this could be easily fixed as we continue doing rehearsals as this was the first time we've made it to that topic. I said I liked how the lighting looked but it still looked quite dark despite me adding another white light before the rehearsals, I assume this might be more of a camera issue than my own though since this has happened before
Overall I think all of these problems can be easily fixed before the live show as we're all learning very fast on set. Considering that this was only the third rehearsal we've had, I think we're doing pretty good so far!
Production Log 3 & 4
Today we had two rehearsals, so I'll talk about them both in a joint production log
Before the rehearsals I ended up adding an extra light behind the green light because the right of set 1 looked dark, I'll have to update the lighting plan once again. I did get feedback about the green lighting being lost because of this though
With the help of the tutor and the graphic designer, we were able to figure out how to use the graphics on the vision mixer. This is great as this was one of the last major problems in the show, I found out that it was just a simple press of the DSK CUT/AUTO buttons on the right
The presenters are obviously reading off of the board and there's still framing issues from the camera operators at times, but from the few rehearsals we've had I've noticed they all learn very quickly so it should hopefully be smoother when it comes to the live show
Daily Diary 01/12
Over the weekend I'll be analysing the rehearsals to see the strengths and weaknesses of the show currently. This is important as we're going to be going live soon, so we should try to fix all of the issues before the actual live show
I would've analysed rehearsal 4 but I'm not sure where the recording of that is, it's not been uploaded anywhere as far as I can tell. This also made me realise I don't think we have videos for rehearsal 1 or 2 either due to me reformatting the SD cards those videos were on, so I can't analyse those rehearsals either
I think the lighting how it is now looks much better even if the green lighting isn't very noticeable. I sort of agree but during the portion of live interviews one of the hosts and the guest gets much closer to that light and I'm worried upping the dimness on the green will make the guest look green, I hated dealing with it last unit too so I'll admit I'm slightly biased against it
I was also thinking of using the fade to black button during transitions of the show (cut to ad breaks for example), I'll try it next rehearsal since I remember professional TV shows usually do this as well. The transition itself is only one second and using the program buttons to immediately cut from a camera to the computer screen is fast enough. The only concern is if I do it wrong since I have to press the two buttons (cut to [blank] & fade to black) quickly to do this. The only solution I've come to is using the rhythm of pressing the buttons to make sure its right each time, which isn't very practical but it works for now
I'm still worried about how much time we have until the live show though since we should've been through much more rehearsals than we've been able to do. I'm confident in my roles personally but there are still the issues with the show as I listed above
Rehearsal 5 Analysis
The reason these two are split is because I was told to stop since we heard something fall on set, but we kept continuing afterwards. In actuality rehearsal 4 is just the beginning of rehearsal 5. The shots for the interviews and controversy talk sections look really good, I like how you can see all of the props in between people
The music for the opening still plays while the presenters are talking and abruptly stops afterwards. The lighting for the live gameplay section looks a little dark also. There's a lot of stuttering from the presenters and the earrings are still really loud. You can also hear something move in the background (most likely the chairs for the interview)
Rehearsal 6 Analysis
This rehearsal has no audio, I think something wrong happened when recording the sound. I hope this is fixed before the live show especially since it's very difficult to criticise the show. The presenters look at the camera and each other more
The camera on David seems slightly out of focus. The camera on the TV screen can be seen for a second which meant that wasn't cut away from fast enough
Rehearsal 7 Analysis
Because we were able to practice with David, the dialogue between him and the presenters seemed much more natural
The lighting on the right is very strong and makes one of the presenters too purple. The opening graphic is also very slow. The shot on the TV moves and isn't cut away from fast enough and for a bit I could only cut to the shot on the presenter due to the shot on David being slightly unfocused. The transition between the live gameplay and interview isn't good either, the presenter takes too long wrapping up the section and for a moment we can't hear what the other presenter is saying
Rehearsal 8 Analysis
As more rehearsals continue its getting less and less obvious that the presenters are still reading from the script. There are still some times where they stutter but I imagine those will get better with time
The close ups on the presenters during the trailer talk had a lot of dead space. The shot on the Nintendo Switch wasn't centered and was slightly unfocused
Production Log 5
Today was the last day of rehearsals, tomorrow we're going live
We were able to do a full rehearsal with the Nintendo Switch for the quiz topic and the guest who'll be playing the game throughout the show. We also added the chairs from the gaming room, I'm a little worried about them since they have to be moved onto set and from what I've heard they're very heavy. We will have one full rehearsal before the show though so we'll be able to see if the weight impacts anything
During most of the rehearsals today, there was another issue with sound (for awhile communications kept cutting out every 25 seconds until they seemingly stopped working completely). Around the end of the day this was able to be fixed although there's apparently static noise every few seconds with the headphones now
I added the fade to black transition during the rehearsals today. I only use it when we're cutting to a pre-recorded item (ads, trailers, retro gaming video) currently. Another issue is with the trailers, I noticed that whenever I faded to black at the end it wouldn't show up properly. I usually fade to black – cut to a camera – press the fade to black so the camera fades from black, but for the trailers everytime I did it it always looked like I cut from the trailers to a camera – the camera fades to black for a second and then corrects itself. This might just be an issue of me pressing the fade to black button too early the first time though, if it happens again in the dress rehearsal, I'll just skip the fade to black for the trailers
For lighting I didn't change any of the positions, only upping the green lights brightness slightly and lowering the purple one since I noticed the purple light was very strong during the controversy talk. I also ended up lowering the blue light in the middle as it wasn't actually adding much and since I got feedback on the lighting looking a bit too blue
Daily Diary 06/12
I'm the only one in the studio without headphones so I'm not affected by the static at all, but I think it could be an issue since the director mentioned having a headache wearing them. I can only hope sound is fixed for tomorrow and won't suddenly go wrong
I'm glad I decided to try the fade to black since I think it helps to make the show look more professional, but I still worry about me overusing it slightly and if I should only use it for the adverts. Ultimately I don't think this matters too much
I added the fade to black transition during the rehearsals today and I think it looks good, I worry about potentially overusing it though
Its always bothered me how the curtains appear slightly green due to that light but it isn't too detrimental. The green light was getting lost so I think upping it wasn't a bad decision, especially since I did previously get feedback about it being too faint
I think tomorrow should go fine, I'm confident enough in our team and myself to be able to get it done. My only main issues are with cameras being unfocused and having awkward pauses where the presenters go too fast since we still had those problems in our rehearsals today. Another (albeit more minor) one is sound because sound in particular just never seems to go well during rehearsals
Final Rehearsal
From this point onwards this was when the sound stopped recording, so its hard to give criticism on it. The lighting looks much better as the purple is turned down more. The shots also look much better in the live gameplay segment, especially the shot on the TV
There's a long pause after the introduction, this was because it was taking a long time to load and I can't cut to black for too long. You can also see the media source player on the graphic too. When transitioning from the live gameplay to the interview the camera focused on the presenter doesn't move smoothly