Live Production - Mock VT

As I was ill when the mock VT was created, I decided to make my own practice VT using a script on the Google drive. I followed the script of the "steals of the season" VT which had a script on the google drive.

This is the script that I asked George and Connor to act out for me so that I would have some evidence of practising for the VT Shoot. It was a simple script that could be out in a restricted area which was good as I only really had access to my room to shoot a short film. 

I used my experience of creating interviews from the last three units to set up a two-shot of both of the presenters and then a close up of one of the presenters in this scenario. Ideally, I would have had more space to have had a better angle for the close-ups. I would also have ideally had a close up on both presenters but the size of my room meant we were restricted to a two camera setup.

I also realised that in our actual VT Cutaways we may include a "sting" which will be a way of transitioning from shot to shot. I asked Connor and George to act out to simple movements to create an effective sting. Of course, the restrictions of my room meant this sting was not that effective but I wanted to prove that I had been paying attention to the techniques that we are planning to implement in our shoots. The use of a sound effect or small music track would be used in these stings and I decided to find one myself. It was important to note that this music needs to be upbeat and entertaining as these stings are there to cut between two things in a quick way. A slow or boring soundtrack would limit the effectiveness of the stings.

If I had more space and time I would have of course made sure that the presenters were up to speed fully on what was being planned and ideally it would not b shot in my bedroom. I think the picture and audio quality was good considering the limited resources and also the lighting worked as the shot was planned so the window was behind the camera and that gave us good lighting. The use of graphics would have also been a nice addition but as this is only a practice VT and I would not be editing nor making graphics for the show I thought there was not much point as this test was mostly down to me working with the cameras. I feel all the work with the cameras was successful, I just wish I had more space and equipment to record a good three angle set-up. In general, for a quick practice shoot, I think this was a success and it gave me a good idea about how this VT could possibly work if I end up shooting this for the actual show.