Camera One

This week I operated camera one. I was a little nervous because as far as I can remember this is the first time I have been on a camera for Hello Riverina. The biggest thing that I was afraid of was the moves at both the start and end of the show. It looks simple on TV but as I tried it I found out that it is much harder in reality when I have pan, tilt, zoom and track the camera all at once while keeping myself looking at the viewfinder! The first few times were shaky but I felt more confident as I practiced a few more times. The biggest problem I had that Bruce helped me spot was that I wasn’t panning the camera but trying to track faster to keep the presenter in the shot. I never got it perfectly right and during the record run I felt that my performance on the camera was lower than it had been in the practices.

The worst mistakes I made during the session were moving while on air and a terrible track at the end. I think I had got so use to the rhythm of the show that I just moved like I normally would have without even checking the tally lights. It is a mistake that I will very much try and hope will never happen again to me. The end track was in my opinion the worst I did all day, but that isn’t a good excuse. I think more camera experience will help me get a grasp of how to perform a pan, tilt, zoom, and track better in the future.

Pat and Bruce commented at the end of the session that the quality of the show had dropped. I agree and think it is because we may have been getting a little cocky and use to the routine. I felt it was also because many people were in positions that they felt uncomfortable in or had never been in that position. This was especially evident in the control room and floor.

My floor manager often passed on information that I had already hard on comms about shot sizes and angles. This got annoying especially when he kept checking my shot in the viewfinder. He also had a problem where he would remove the headphone off his ear when talking to people on the floor and leaves it off. I had to tell him several times there were people wanting him. The AFM did a good job making up for this. He also stood in front of my camera where I was going to track every time at the star and gave a wrong cue because he didn’t tell the talent the first countdown was for the tapes, these was the only issues on the last run through, he did everything else very well.

I could hear the troubles I the control room. This highlighted to me the importance of good communication in the control room and the Director and Assistant director’s communication especially.