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What comes first, porridge or milk? 

It seems to be quite a mundane dilemma. Surely porridge comes first, right? Then you pour the milk into the bowl just like you would with a cereal. Truly a rookie mistake! When microwaving porridge, I find that putting the oats in after allowing them to float upon the milks’ surface, allow the milk to heat up a little before the oats begin to cook in the boiling broth, at least it does in my mind. It’s strange how procrastination always seems to kick in when we are aware of an unavoidable impending responsibility. In my experience I procrastinate most before going to sleep, otherwise the day feels unnaturally short. However, unlike most days, this little ‘porridge incident’, as I will refer to it, began in the morning. I believe my overthinking stemmed from the fact that within 2 hours, I will be stepping into the shoes of a producer for the video team at the Sonic Arts Research Centre (SARC) I’ve never been a producer before, what happens if I press the wrong button? Will people witness my embarrassing shortcomings live? I couldn’t bare to see my reputation defaced, hereafter be referred to as “the student who broke the broadcast on his first day”. After all, the people I was working with may already know me from my university classes. Luckily, I would soon find out that my work would not be the social ego death I so thought it would be. 

Strolling through the familiar front doors at SARC, I was greeted by a quiet and absent lobby, a place once boastful with students that was now transformed into a liminal space of which only the hush speaker system could be heard emitting ambient birdsong. The absence of anyone gave me the impression that I was here for an important reason. Proceeding into the sonic lab, I was greeted by a friendly face. The woman introduced herself as Aisling. I have been communicating with Aisling via emails in the past. Whilst chatting, it dawned on me that this was the very woman that would frequently email all students in my faculty about important notifications, changes and or opportunities. This put me at ease as I’ve always imagined her as a caring and easy-going personality. Upon exchanging pleasantries, I was promptly introduced to the rest of my work mates who were also enrolled in the SARC video team for their work experience. It felt good to know that the people I was going to work with were in the same boat as me. My team consisted of Dillon, Owen and Sabrina. As we began setting up the equipment for the live show, we were able to converse amongst each other, getting to know one another a bit more. It felt great working in a team alongside other like-minded people. After deploying tripods, routing cables and tinkering with various other gadgets and tech, the first 2 hours had swiftly vanished and the moment for the live broadcast was approaching. 

As I assembled my team in the control room, we established a communications system for when the live broadcast was taking place. We all downloaded and used an app named ‘Unity’ which was recommended by Aisling. Unity enables your phone to act as a walkie-talkie. This allowed me to direct my teammates from inside the control room as they operated each of the various cameras. As the time for live broadcast drew closer, my teammates disbanded to attend their individual workstation. In the control room remained only Aislin and me. Aislin demonstrated how simple it was to switch between cameras and use the corresponding computer software. Aislin seemed to have a way of teaching that placed a lot of emphasis on practicality as opposed to theory. Her ability to communicate with me was comforting and made me feel safe. As the livestream began, Aislin assumed the role of the producer but within the span of a few minutes she encouraged me to carry out more and more activities on behalf of her. I began by communicating which cameras were live to the corresponding camera operators. Aisling allowed me to do vision mixing next. This is the process of switching between and/or controlling cameras when multiple cameras are active. As I switched between cameras, I was simultaneously communicating with the camera crew. At this Point, the training wheels had been fully detached. I was now fully in the role of ‘producer’. Contrary to what I thought, I was fueled by confidence and did not hesitate to make decisions. I was communicating and switching between cameras with zero friction. When problems arose, they were swiftly dealt with, examples of which include; Audience members getting in front of the camera, cameras losing focus and moving subjects. Fortunately, none of these problems were seen by the online audience as a result of my vision mixing. Everything during that moment seemed so grandiose, as If I was the arbiter of live broadcast. Reflecting upon my morning porridge milk dilemma only filled me with apathy. I couldn’t be less concerned about whether the porridge or milk goes first anymore. When taking control of a live broadcast, I was reminded of just how fun life can be. I think I’ll put the milk in next time… 

In retrospect, I believe that my team and I executed our first live broadcast operation with ease, however, this was not without fault. Whilst the process of setting up and vision mixing was admittedly easy, I noticed minor quality control issues throughout the performance which could not be fixed during live broadcast. These included, miss-matching white balance across cameras, cameras going out of focus and lights flickering due to improper shutter settings. Luckily, I now know exactly what must be done to mitigate these issues in the future and plan to implement them in my next live broadcast by thoroughly checking the camera settings before going live.