Throughout the second year of my film production course I realised I had a very keen interest in live broadcasting. This all began when I got the opportunity to film a live stream for an adventure race near my hometown where I first got to experience the buzz live filming can give you. After all, if you make a mistake on a film set, no worries, we’ll just go for another take. However, you trip over while holding the camera on live tv, it’s hard not to think about all the people who witnessed your fail. Sounds fun! Right?
I knew my placement in third year would be the perfect opportunity for me to branch out of the film industry and try my hand at honing my broadcast skills. This is when the email about joining the Sonic Arts Research Centre video team grabbed my attention, or as I know it now as the SARC Video Team! Just what I needed to help start my broadcasting career.
To reflect on my initial experiences of my placement at SARC, I’ve decided to use Gibbs Reflective Cycle which will enable me to look back on situations that occurred and come up with a better solution to handle it next time.
Where to start? Well, we are a team of five inexperienced film and broadcast students and each week we are tasked with recording and live streaming a performance by a different artist. A recipe for disaster? I wouldn’t quite say that but undoubtedly mishaps were bound to happen.
Description of Experience: With an hour and a half to go until it was time to go live on YouTube, we had all three cameras positioned and cabled into the switch box which allows us to see the cameras feed from the control room. We all congregated downstairs in the control room to input the cameras into the vision mixer. Unfortunately, when we went to search for the cameras on the network, nothing was coming up. Having then quickly ran upstairs and checked all of the cables were set up correctly. I came back downstairs expecting the issue to be resolved. No, was the answer to that question. With some time spent dilly-dallying on the computer. It soon became clear that there was a problem with the entire network. This was very much out of my expertise and my fellow students so all we did from then on was sit and watch as the SARC broadcast engineer and the technician tried to fix it. Setting up a completely new network seemed to be the only solution. With thirty minutes till it was time to go live, it was a race against the clock. The network finally got up and running with five minutes to spare and so we had a rushed job to colour match each camera. As we were all preoccupied with the network issue we had forgotten to watch the bands rehearsal and see if the cameras were positioned well to capture the performance. We were heading into the concert blind. Much like these three…
Feelings: To begin with the team and I were feeling calm and collected as we had plenty of time to spare. As the time shortened a sense of curiosity began to settle in me. I was not thinking of much else except for what happens if we don’t get this issue resolved in time. Does the concert go ahead as scheduled? Is it delayed? Do we get in a heap of trouble? As time went on and we were all sat observing the professionals at work it occurred to me that if this issue is solved when the band is done rehearsing or even just before it’s time to go live, there won’t be any chance for us camera operators to work out what shots are possible from each camera. This thought was interrupted by the awareness of the intense concentration in the room which I felt at the time should not be disturbed. When the issue did get sorted and I had to go upstairs to operate the camera I began to feel regret and anticipation as we had not had the opportunity to practice shots during the bands rehearsal. Therefore, it was all on me to decide where and who was best to point the camera at. During the filming I put my trust in my instincts to shoot what I thought looked best and was most relevant to the performance. This part of the experience left me feeling confident as the director didn’t say too much to me throughout, so I must’ve been doing something right.
Evaluation: While I thought the concert filming went well considering the little preparation time we had, the time I spent gawking at the broadcast engineer and technician trying to fix the network issue, could have been spent watching the bands rehearsal stood at my camera finding the “effective viewpoints” which video production experts Jim Owens and Gerald Millerson believe a director needs “when shooting with two or more cameras”. All in all, looking back I regret my decision to stay down in the control room. At the time it appeared as a learning opportunity but on reflecting I think it was clear early on that with time at stake, the people around me had little opportunities to stop and explain what they were doing. Even when I concentrated on what they were doing it was unclear as it was all very technical and from what I remember they seemed to be speaking in code as the technical terminology was beyond me. An obvious observation now, however, in the moment I lacked enough initiative to speak up as I believe I was lacking confidence in my position as I thought of myself at the time as simply an unpaid and undertrained placement student.
Analysis of Situation: A utilisation of some communication and team leadership skills would have improved the final result of this situation and this is something I will remember in the future. If I had communicated my initial thoughts or worries of being unpractised with the camera, I do believe I wouldn’t have been the only one who felt this way.
“Taking the lead means influencing outcomes and inspiring others to act towards productive outcomes regardless of interpersonal and technical obstacles”
Whitcomb, C. A. & Whitcomb, L. E. (2013) Effective interpersonal and team communication skills for engineers. [Online]. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.
A possibility is to put part of the blame on the placement providers for not suggesting to us to do something productive while they worked on fixing the problem. However, on deeper analysis they are there for us to learn from, their purpose is not to guide us every step of the way. They have selected me for this placement so they must believe I am a capable person who can make smart decisions. On reflection, I am experienced and mature enough to be able to make these decisions on my own. I shouldn’t be afraid to take the lead.
Conclusion: The problems encountered on this day has been a one-time thing so far. However, if I am wanting to have a career in live broadcasting, there is no doubt I will encounter a similar problem a good few times throughout my profession. Although this might have been a slightly stressful experience, I am fortunate it happened to me for the first time in a learning environment rather than on a real job. I recognise more now how important communication is in a role like this. If I pursue a career in live broadcasting I must ensure I understand completely how to effectively work as a team and not simply sit and gape as one member of the team attempts to solve the problem.
“A group of people is not a team. A team is a group of people with a high degree of interdependence geared toward the achievement of a goal or completion of a task. In other words, they agree on a goal and agree that the only way to achieve the goal is to work together.”
Parker, G. M. (2008) Team players and team work : new strategies for developing successful collaboration. 2nd ed. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Action Plan: In future I need to make sure to voice my worries rather than internalising them. If I get a sense that my time or others could be spent more productively in a time of need I won’t be afraid to speak up and say it. Although I may not be able to help with the main problem at hand, I will, in future, look to see what else can be done in the meantime.
References
Gerald Millerson & Jim Owens (2012) Video Production Handbook, 4th Edition. Focal Press.
Whitcomb, C. A. & Whitcomb, L. E. (2013) Effective interpersonal and team communication skills for engineers. [Online]. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.
Parker, G. M. (2008) Team players and team work : new strategies for developing successful collaboration. 2nd ed. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.