SYTYCD Interviews

It’s been almost a week since my last post and I apologise for that. With a weekend shoot, a birthday and an illness to contend with, my blog unfortunately took a back seat.

Shame on me!

Where was I up to….

Ah yes, the shoot with Tommy and Lizzie from SYTYCD went really well and ran smoothly; in and out in 20 minutes.

Both Tommy and Lizzie were lovely and really helpful. They had clearly been filmed a lot in recent weeks, as they didn’t have to be told twice about putting a question in the answer.

I did have to ask Tommy to repeat one question, as I realised I hadn’t framed the DG logo out correctly. He was fine to do that and it meant I didn’t have to spend hours blurring it out in post production.

I shot it on Z1 and used dedo for catching the interesting brickwork in the background. The actual room was well lit with natural light because it had large windows.

I sat the two interviewees facing slightly away from the windows so they were softly lit.

Once the interviews were done, I went back to the office and edited the footage together using AVID. By the end of the day the interviews were ready to be viewed online.

Easy!

It was an interesting difference to the day I was about to have, filming for Dragons’ Den Online using a DSR 450 camera.

Ahh back to the big boys! How I’ve missed those cameras…

Shoot Day

I’m just putting the finishing touches to the paperwork for today’s filming.

The Call Sheet is nearly complete thanks to the help from my Production Co Ordinator (who, in other news, has recently been made Production Manager so well done her!).

The Risk Assessment has been signed off and we have been given clearance from the location. Contracts were sent back and fourth and an agreement was finally reached.

I have the equipment all ready; a Z1 camera, Sony clip mic and a tripod. I’m also going to take Dedo lighting with blue gels just in case the light in the room isn’t the best. It looks to be a bright day down in London though so hopefully I won’t need the lights.

I am taking blue gels in case I need to use the dedo’s with natural light streaming through the windows.

Balancing of light temperature is something I learnt on a shoot I did 2 years ago as part of BBC Aspirations. I think, because it was something I figured out myself, it increased my confidence with lighting.

I think the key thing is to play around with different scenarios if you have chance. You learn so much by having a practical go of filming.

Anyway, I’ll continue my printing and will blog about the shoot soon.

SYTYCD Recap… have that!

Victory is mine!

Today I finally completed the 60 Second Recap, got it signed off and finally published. Who said that persistance and pestering piss people off? They get the job done and that’s the important thing!

Also, the collection of words give great alliteration.

OK, so now for a bit of geek. Please scroll down to the next piece of text in bold if you don’t fancy the following…

I think the Firewire connection has been damaged somehow on the J-30 at work.

It means I have to be a little crafty and wire the Digi deck to the DVCam deck with a Composite Video A/V Lead so that I can connect the DVCam deck to my laptop and use this to digitise.

Great news regarding a short term fix for digitising.

Bad news because it means I don’t get the correct timecode and have consequently found it quite difficult when syncing the multicamera footage for the Learn to Dance tutorials.

It usually means I have to find a piece of obvious audio wave that is visually noticable, so that I can use as a point to mark. Then, because I use AVID, I can go to Bin > Group Clips > choose inpoints to sync the camera angles.

It’s fidley but not the worst thing that could happen.

Ok, geeky moment over.

I’m now on to organising a shoot for Friday afternoon with Lizzie and Tommy from this years SYTYCD. I’m interviewing them about their experiences during the series and will hopefully be eiditing this on Friday afternoon ready to publish ASAP.

Although the ASAP may have to be AS(as I can do it) as I’m back up to Manchester this weekend for other filming on Saturday.

Have you figured out what it is yet? I promise I’ll let you know in due course.

There may even be pictures!

Answers on a postcard… or alternatively you can tweet me your suggestions.

60 Second Recap… Screeeeeech!

The 60 Second Recap that I produce for So You Think You Can Dance came to a sudden stop today after the TX tape wasn’t available for me to use… sorry for everyone who expects to see it on a Monday but it shall be published tomorrow.

The day began like any other Monday I have encountered the past 6 weeks.

7:45am
Get to the office so I can digitise any tapes. Also write up Voice Over script for the 60 Second Recap.

9:00am
Leave the office to travel to Clear Cut Sound Studio near Soho Square… get off the tube at Tottenham Court Road and walk a little up the road. Although this morning I ended up taking the wrong turn and ending up a few streets over to where I was supposed to me.

Thinking about it, I should have known about the day I was about to have when this happened

10:00am = 11:00am
Record the Voice Over with Danny Nutt (the artist) and Malcom (the sound engineer). Once it has all been recorded we wait for the CD to burn.

 At this time in a morning I am sure I bore (or scare) the life out of Malcom, talking about whatever random things pop in to my head after such a hectic morning.

11:00am
Run back to the office to find post production people had arrived in (woohoo). Tapes were no where to be seen (uh-oh).

It’s at this point when the day seems to trail off in to a collection of, getting a tape, not getting a tape, not finding the correct tape, not having any tapes, checking my Twitter account (obviously), back to finding the tape, there’s nothing on this tape, no tape, forget the tape, go home.

I shall return tomorrow morning to continue the fight with the TX tape and the attack of the Time Management.

I hear from myths and legends (also known as email) the tape is ready for me to pick up first thing.

We’ll just see about that!

Mwah-hahahahahaha