After The Rehearsals - Understanding The Camera Controls

With the Live shoot day happening tomorrow. I wanted to dedicate one blog post to understand what camera controls I will be adjusting throughout the show as well as understanding my camera positions.

We have left the cameras in the same position overnight so we will not need to hook up the transmission wire tomorrow which has caused many issues in the past with all our cameras. That shifts the focus onto the camera controls.

We understand that we will be shooting at the Iris setting F11. This has been calibrated across all the cameras so that we do not need to worry as much about matching shots up tomorrow morning before the final rehearsals. However, I am sure we will go through another check tomorrow to ensure they're all still the same and that the producers and directors are happy with the shots that we have.

We will also adjust the white balance on the day I am sure. I do not think the lighting guys are too happy with the current setup so we may need to adjust the white balance once again. As I write this we are set at 3100K but with possibly more lights going up that number could come down. All we need to make sure of is that we are all on the same settings and that are cameras look more or less the same when on air. if we have a big jump in colours and look it would look like a student project and at this stage of university, we should be looking as near to professional as possible.

As for camera movements - I have taped down two positions on the floor for my camera to be set up at. I am only focusing on my half of the show but I did also tape down Cailan's positions as well to help him out. I was happy that I remembered to do this as nobody else did and it meant that my shot was the same every time which was good for the directors.

I only crab to the right on one occasion during the show which is simple enough, you could think. However, the camera next to us does a lot of moving and an issue we had was their wire and ours getting tangled. We have to make sure with 100% certainty that doesn't happen in the actual show. We knew by the end of the day that the assistant camera operator would hold the loose wires so that it does not become an issue.

Overall, we have mastered the movements on the floor as well as adjusting the cameras. The nerves will be there tomorrow and I am sure during the actual production that we may encounter issues like heat which affect us - but I feel we have learned all we can over the last few weeks in terms of camera knowledge to get us through. We just need to make sure that we do not let the pressure get to us! Looking forward to it now - Let's get it over and done with (in the best possible way!)