Multi-Camera Production

T.S.T  Magazine Programme Evaluation

For this unit of work, we as a class were assigned the task of creating a Television Magazine programme. In preparation for this task, we were given the opportunity to attend a live broadcast of the Television show, ‘The Allan Titchmarsh show’. It was a good experience as it opened our eyes to the television industry and gave us first look experience at how things are run; from minor roles such as cable basher and warm up man to camera men, floor manager, and presenter so on and so forth. Going on this trip to the London Studios really fascinated me and made evident how important each and every role of production is to making a successful show.

Next, we watched a TV show called ‘Faking It’ which showed a fire station operator ‘Faking’ being a Multi-Camera T.V director. After all these tasks, we finally had an idea of what we wanted to do.  Primarily, we had to write up our proposal of what we wanted in our individual shows (to start with) and present our ideas to the class. This was a way of determining which aspects of each other’s show would be incorporated within the main live production. 

The pre-production process of the task was demanding as the team mates seemed to find it challenging to keep on top of the different tasks that were assigned to them. Consequently, the things that had to be produced quite prior to the live show we done hastily within a few days of the Show.

The lack of communication between the entire class appeared to be the team’s downfall. An example of this would be when auditioning the special performing guest. It fell apart as majority of the group had no knowledge of it ever been planned and felt ostracised  by some of the teams decisions when it came to running the process. Some of the ideas and suggestions put across by the team members weren’t listened to or put into consideration until the very end.

 I was given the responsibility of producing the Equipment List.  I was in charge of finding out the props we would need for the live show and produce a budget list that corresponded with the items needed in order to obtain funds for them. This process was done fairly quickly and effectively. As we chose to centre our Live show on Halloween, all the props and costumes had to compliment that theme. As a result, our prop list consisted of items such as fake blood, face paints, pumpkins, spiders etc.

As chaotic as the pre-production stage ran, I enjoyed this unit. At some stages I was given other roles however no enough time was given to me to performance them. I was given the role of understudy presenter, floor manager and co director. Each of those roles we’re taken from me within days of being assigned them. Likewise, to many others faced with the same problems as me, it made me irritable.

In conclusion, I think the entire process would have been more successful if the team worked and listened to each other. There are many things we could do in the future in order to improve ourselves however one thing I would say, is that we must comprehend the importance of time management; as sticking to deadlines would have eliminated all prospects of anything going wrong. If something had gone wrong before the show going live (as many things did) it would have given us enough time and ability to rectify them before the live show. Nevertheless, I must commend my team mates for the set of the show. As we all had the same vision of what we wanted it to look like, it made it much easier to produce a creative set revolving around the Halloween theme.