Hallé Orchestra Project
The project was to film the ‘Back to Nature’ concert for Primary Schools at the Bridgwater Hall, Manchester.
Pre-Production
Client meeting outcomes-
In the meeting we discussed the following:
- What event we would be covering and where.
- Who the Hallé are and what they did.
- The layout of the venue (Bridgewater Hall).
- Where each section of the Orchestra was on stage.
- The roles which would need to be covered by each crew member (4 camera operators and a visual mixer).
- Camera angles we would need and positioning of cameras.
- Details of the performances (music set list, guest performers etc.)
- Dress Code (all black)
From the meeting with the client Steve Pickett who is the Musical Director at the Hallé, we needed to decide who was doing the each of the job roles at the venue. With the cameras we chose to take the JVC’s which we previously used for the Graduation at Sheffield Cathedral so each of use had experience and knowledge of using the cameras. Although previously we used the Sony F700’s which also helped me use the JVC’s more effectively as most of the controls were the same and the skills were easily transferable. As there was a role for a visual mixer, I wanted to take on the role of this, however when the Hallé came around there wasn’t enough time to learn how to use the ATEM equipment so in preparationI spoke to my peers who had previously used the ATEM to show me how to use it. Luckily it was straight forward and easy to use.
When working with any client or any media production environment, it is important to have communication skills and the ability to talk to people to get as much information out of them as possible to get a clear understanding of what they want us to do. With this you need to be able to transfer your ideas back to your client as well as the rest of your crew so that they can elaborate back and this is where different ideas come together, without this communication you could be doing something completely off track from what the client wants. An example of this was when we has the initial meeting with Steve Pickett, we had an idea of getting the children lively by filming them so that they could see themselves on the screen. However, if I didn’t have the communication skills to communicate with the client we wouldn’t have known that they didn’t want that to happen as it would make the children disruptive.
Production
When we got to The Bridgewater Hall as a crew we set up the equipment such as:
- Cameras on Tripods
- BNC cable cables into cameras and then connected into the venues feeds
- ATEM setup and tested
- Computers connected and tested for ATEM control and Video input
- Connecting to the projector to the screen behind the stage.
When working at The Bridgwater Hall and setting it up, it was important to have timekeeping skills as on the first day, we went to setup however, we has a two hour gap to make sure we setup correctly and that all the equipment was working. This put us under a lot of pressure to use our time efficiently. We had to think about Health and Safety when connecting the BNC leads as we had to tape them down where we could to avoid trip hazards and children pulling them.
My personal contribution to the Hallé project was Visual Mixing and Camera Operating. When using the ATEM to Vision Mix, firstly I had to set up the slides for the events so that it was easier to move between them whilst in the performances. Throughout each of the shows I vision mixed I had cues from the vision mix director to change between cameras and slides. Sometimes this would be very difficult a some pieces of music had fast changes which required lots of hand, eye and hearing co ordination.
When I was operating the camera, we had directions of what to film from the vision mix director. He would tell us what instrument to film and whether or not the shot was good enough. We also had a cue to tell us when we were live. This put me under pressure to make sure my shot was well composed and in focus in the short amount of time I had.
The key learning points of the Hallé project were:
- Learning how to film a live performance in a professional environment.
- How to cope with making quick decisions that could effect the overall performances working on the cameras and the ATEM.
- Learning how to setup the ATEM Unit with multi cameras using BMC cables to get a live feed out to a projector.
- Learn how to work up to real client’s wants and needs in a professional manner.
Evaluation
If I was to improve the process of the project I would have researched more into how to use the ATEM and had more practice runs using all the elements needed for the show. This would have reduced the chance of messing up like what happened a couple of times during the performance.
Before we went we did a brief check of the equipment to make sure everything was working correctly, however when we got to the venue, the cables were not working correctly which pushed us back and short of time, if we had done a more detailed check of the equipment, we might have found the problem before we left College.
In terms of communication, I would have suggested that we had more between us as a group and the Hallé, this is due to the problems some of the crew faced when put behind a camera. A couple of students had never seen an Orchestra before, nor do they know all the instruments so having much more communication and information on the orchestra would have helped as it was a lot to remember and added more pressure during the performance, leading to mistakes.
Improving on professionalism, I feel like some of us could have been more professional to the job roles that we were doing, during the times which we were not live, students would face the camera on each other, use the radio system and make gestures to get their attention in an unnecessary way. This made the crew as a whole look unprofessional and set a bad image on the ones that were trying to take things seriously. To improve on this, I would have taken a lead on the crew and told them how they were acting, wasn’t suitable for the environment they were working in.
As a team we worked well. However, at times due to tiredness and stress, people would neglect equipment and not put it away correctly after the performance. This meant that other member would have to sort this out and this would add to the frustration of not cooperating as an efficient team member. To improve on this, it could have been suggested that whoever was using the equipment had the responsibility of taking it down after they had used it no matter what and would be pushed to work better as a team member than just sitting back and letting someone else do it.
As the camera operator, I could have improved on my ability to work the camera better, although the performance was good, I feel like, at times, that I was taking too long to focus the camera and use the functions, this could have been improved by taking the camera out and practicing more outside of College to get used to the controls. Although cameras do the same things, they have the controls in different places which made it harder to control.
Overall, I feel that the Hallé was a success. We did well to overcome the problems we were faced during the week that we were there, and with the small amount of preparation we had before hand, we still managed to make very little mistakes and take on the roles effectively.
-Joshua Poole- 