We hit the ground running by setting up the studio space. The set team got to work with tacking up the footprints while I worked on getting the micromedia player set up, There was a problem with this and none of us, not even Nigel, could resolve the fault so we went to Finn with our USB stick. It turned out that the file we had was a JPG, which is different to a JPEG, which meant it wasn’t compatible with the TV screen. Finn was able to convert it to the correct format and soon we were away! It looked really nice.
The team then got to sorting out the rest of the set and props, including grabbing the chairs from Cain and Clive's office. It was then that we realised that I had made quite a serious mistake in that I hadn't gotten any pictures printed for the set – I had misheard the team of Friday because I thought we were just going with the footprints. Calum had printed some A4 pictures but they looked a bit lost in the set. Emily and I decided on 6 images that weren't in the collage to print out in A3 on the reprographic printers. As it was my fault that the ball had been dropped on this I went and sat with the printer.
Once the first picture was printed I took it up to show the team and they were very impressed with the quality. They were practising away so I left them to it and asked them to add the birdie lights in at some point.
I came back with the last pictures just as most of them were heading out to get Mia and Kelsie's boots muddy for the set. They also told me that they'd been to see Alison and that she'd asked for someone to go back at 1pm – I volunteered to do that because I live closest and I knew I would have finished eating by then. We put the pictures up and then left to have lunch promptly at 12:30 – as per the call sheet (it's nice to run to schedule).
At 1pm I went to see Alison, as per Mia and Kelsie's instructions. She needed about 20 minutes more to finish the brackets off, to which I said that we started again at 1:30pm so could she come up then.
Just before 1:30pm Ed came up to have a chat with us but I had to duck out to go and help Alison with bringing the blocks up. To then put the false wall in place we had to clear a lot of the set and have Mia and Nigel climb behind the boards to hold the board in place and screw the blocks in – which actually ended up being quite amusing. Calum then screwed the other side in place but accidentally screwed through the board which Nigel complained about (we initially thought he was joking but then we realised what had happened).
Calum commented that he couldn't believe that it had actually come together so well. Unfortunately I must have made a mistake in my measuring so the step wasn't actually long enough. We solved this with a bit of a botch job by covering up the gap with white gaffa tape – a special thank you to Nigel for always being our Deus Ex Machina!
The set was then reassembled and we began rehearsing. Although Lequane was originally scheduled to arrive at 5:30 he was eager to come in early to get some practice. He ended up being a bit later than expected but we made use of that time with more timed, technical rehearsals (where Calum voiced all the parts) where I tried to measure the time of inserts using the stopwatch to give a better countdown for the floor. Once Lequane was miked up we then did more technical timed rehearsals with Calum filling in some amusing guest answers. I got some feedback regarding how I needed to call out my shots which was useful, although I'm not really sure I appreciated it at the time.
At half 4 we had our final break, as planned, before the talent was due to arrive. We actually regrouped a little earlier than scheduled but we began to get ready to go.
Then at just before 5, Emily had some very distressing news, and she needed to take some time out (at David's insistence) to work out what she was going to do. This took place just as Mike arrived.
Calum and I had a quick discussion as to whether we thought Emily would stay or not. Although we really hoped that she would, we decided it would be best to enact the contingency plan, just in case. This meant moving Isaac from the Autocue onto Camera 1 (which had no movements except for a couple of zooms) and Kelsie moved up to Camera 2 as she is our next most confident camera operator. Thank goodness I actually sorted those contingencies as I nearly didn't bother - it pays to be prepared! Calum quickly ran through the shots with them and we prepared to do a run through in contingency formation. Ed was very impressed that there even was a contingency plan!
Thankfully Emily then came back, and said that she would be staying so everyone went back to their original places. Hooray!
We then did a run through with Mike and Lequane to get an idea of timings with his answers. We then gave Mike some time to prepare answers as he'd been so busy that he hadn't had a chance. Cain then arrived so we were able to then do our final recorded rehearsals.
By this point I had finally figured out how to incorporate the camera operator's feedback regarding calling out the shots so I was able to begin doing this job in a more efficient and helpful manner . Once this had finally sunk in (it's only taken what, 3 months?) I was able to truly own and enjoy this role I finally felt like I wasn't the weak link in the chain!
We whizzed through our 3 recorded rehearsals. After the first rehearsal I called the team in to tell them thank you for all their hard work and to hand out the little gifts I'd made for them. Pretty sure they liked those a lot!
Ed came to chat to Calum and I just before we went live to say how impressed with our production he was, and how complex we'd made it - and that his only minor nitpick that he could currently think of was that he would have liked us to use more close ups. We took that as a huge compliment.
At 6:30, more or less on the dot, we did our final recording. It looked fantastic - the contributors all did an amazing job and the camera shots I was able to look up for were just ace. I cannot express how good it felt to see something that we'd worked so hard on come together so beautifully! Calum and I did a little celebratory dance as the end titles played us out.
After this we had a debrief from Ed who gave us some feedback, the highlights of which were:
We have some very talented people in your group and it would be nice to get us in a similar situation to see what we could do in the future – it's a shame for us to have come so far for us to then just stop.
We added complexity that wasn't necessarily required – but that was a good thing. There was an easy way to do the interviews but we decided to take things a few stages further which really looked good including crabbing, tilting and pushing all in one shot.
The set was great. The false wall was ambitious and made the limited space look very different – the floating TV was an excellent idea, and one that he wouldn't have thought of and has never seen before. The props were great, especially the muddy boots which helped to tell a story and target the audience.
In the Gallery there were two people undertaking multiple roles. He would have really liked to have seen what the production, and the communication, would have looked like had we had a full complement of staff. We did, however, manage to undertake these multiple roles and make it look easy.
In fact, his only little tweak he suggested was that we could have faded up from black at the start.
The final order of the day was to dismantle the set. Nigel gave us a helping hand while Ed gave us feedback by taking down all the stuff that had been posted up. We initially thought that we would have to leave the false wall in place overnight, but Calum remembered he had a power drill, so we were able to dismantle it there and then – probably should have thought about that earlier! We were out by 7:10pm, which meant Nigel was able to leave on time.
What an amazing day! I can tell you that I left the studio buzzing! I'm absolutely delighted with how it all came together and how all our hard work has paid off.
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