Thursday, January 28, 2010

TV Party Tonight



Today was the first day of the term for my Television Studio class. I hate to have students wait to get their hands on the equipment, so we went right into switching.

I set up three cameras, then got the students into pairs: a Director and a Technical Director. They would call what camera to prepare, then what camera to cut to.

"Ready Camera 3. Take Camera 3. Ready Camera 1. Take Camera 1."

It's relatively easy to direct that sort of live switching -- until the pressure is on and you are trying to time which shot should be up. So we set the clock for 60 seconds, and tried to bring the show in from black, follow a conversation (always deciding if we should see the speaker or the reaction shot) and then back out to black on the dot.

It's harder than it sounds, in a good way.

No comments: