Humber Connected: Work Out
(Originally Broadcast February 15th 2011)
Today's House Blogger was Reyadh Rahaman!
Today, I walked into class excited do make some awesome productions. After a few minutes of chatting with my classmates Karen posted the jobs. Curious to what my first position would be, I rushed over to check. I was blogger. "What the hell is a blogger?" I thought at first, but after Karen explained it to me, I was excited to get started.
After everyone found out what positions they were, they went straight to work. Well, sort of. Randy, being his usual energetic self, started to ask for lotion while wearing a very attractive outfit. I did not reply. Gates, on the other hand, informed him that now was not the time to be a pervert. He then exited the control room to go into the studio and prepare for his position as host for our first production. I distinctly remember thinking "what a great way to start off the day".
I then went over to Keasha to ask her how things were going, since she was the producer for the upcoming show. As I expected, she was very busy getting things ready, but assured me everything was going swimmingly. After this, I entered the studio to see how things were set up and who was working in there. I was then informed that this production was going to be a work out show. This made sense since Randy, Stephanie, and Kyla were in clothes suitable for the gym. Randy was getting pumped up for his role as a workout instructor, and for some reason he took off his pants. There was then a roar of laughter, mine included. After this chorus of laughs, Randy put his pants back on (thank God).
Afterwards, I noticed that the cameras were focusing on Kyla holding the chip chart to do black/white balances. Curious about what was going on back in the control room, I left the studio. When I re-entered the control room I had a brief talk with Andrew, who was working the switcher. He told me that he had no idea how to work this switcher, but quickly learned. I guess this shows that the BRTV students are quick to learn and always ready to take up a challenge. I walked over to Anthon to see how things were going with the shader set up. After a little help from Judy, he had things looking awesome. Once again, this made me realized what a talented group of individuals were working around me.
Anthon and I then talked for a bit about the interesting aspects of the shader, then we saw Randy on the preview monitor being....well, just being Randy. I told Anthon that Randy took off his pants earlier, and Anthon replied with "yeah, that's not the first time he's done that today". I laughed and said that this is probably Randy's gradual segway into the porn industry.
We then saw Marco, who was floor manager for this show, press his face up against the glass between the studio and control room and exhale to leave a breath mark. Anthon and I laughed, then dismissed this after a brief statement that he probably picked up a crap load of infectious germs by doing that. Dan then walked into the control room and started to check out the script for the prompter, as he was the teleprompter operator for this show. He told me that he liked the prompter in last semester's classroom better because the prompter knob was easier to use and that this one made scrolling backwards awkward.
Jim, who was photographer, came up to me and we discussed what awesome jobs we got for the first show. We joked about this for a while before Keasha walked back into the studio to check out the videos showing on Blue. I asked her again how things were going since she seemed less busy now, and she replied that she is very happy with the way things were going so far. The people in the control room then watched the Body Breaks commercial that was showing on Blue and we all experienced a massive wave of nostalgia. This made me miss the days when the only thing I needed to worry about was my mom forcing me to eat vegetables at dinner. Everyone was then called into the studio for our usual pre-show pep talk. Things got fairly energetic and it was obvious that everyone was ready to make a kick-ass show! After a few words from Keasha, Marcel, and Karen, everyone went to their positions to start the rehearsals.
I took a seat next to Anthon and observed everyone getting ready. Anthon then told me that he found some random Valentine's day chocolate and offered to share some with me. I accepted and we, along with Dan and Charlotte, devoured this mystery treat. Afterwards, we realized that this could have ended with us all passing out from roofies hidden within this attempt at date rape. Luckily, this did not happen.
The first rehearsal started after this and everyone was ready to rock. This rehearsal, like most first rehearsals, kind of failed and was cut short so we could start from the top. This was from a combination of switcher mistakes and a need to reposition the cameras. The second rehearsal went far better and was completed with only a few mistakes, like a lack of communication between the control room and the studio, timing issues with the commercials, and Randy creating a massive continuity error from switching between British and a German accents.
After the second rehearsal, the talent took a quick break and we all then prepared for the real show. Before the show, as always, the air was electric as everyone became laser focused on the task at hand. Things did not start off to well as the title slate did not work and we had to substitute it with the title graphic from the CG machine. Towards the middle of the show, the prompter lost the position of where the script should be, but the talent was able to stall until things got back in order. As Randy was "exercising", I noticed that his deodorant was visible. Clearly visible. Ew.
There were a few more bumps as the camera operators had to quickly track Randy's movements as he ducked down to do some stomach crunches. They did very well in this aspect, as it almost looked like it was planned. The show turned out to run a little fast, so the talent in the studio had to stall for an extra minute by exercising like madmen, working up a ferocious sweat. Also, to compensate for the fast run time, the credits were rolled slowly. Very slowly. The credits for this 15 minute show were 2 minutes. Longest. Credits. Ever.
With that being said, everything went off without a hitch and the show came out to be one of the best and most entertaining yet. Almost everyone was happy with the way things turned out. Sure, there were a few mistakes, but how else would we learn if we didn't make mistakes? The minor errors we had during this show will definitely make our strong crew even stronger. Today's events made me certain that we are all on our way to being exceptionally skilled members of the television industry.
Check out these "behind-the-scenes" photos from todays production!
Today's Production Team...
Producer - Keasha Warrington
Director - Marcel Baker
TD/Switcher - Andrew Marchand
Assistant Director - Gates Stewart
Floor Director - Marco Carboni
Camera 1 - James DesRoches
Camera 2 - Christian Jimenez
Camera 3 - Joe Simone
Shader - Anthon Grogan
Audio Operator - Jim WhyteGraphics Operator - Charlotte Stitt
Teleprompter - Daniel Wright
Video Playback/Record Operator - Melissa Bobbette
Blogger - Reyadh Rahaman
Photographer - Jim Cudmore
Host - Randy Bynoe
Work Out Crew - Stephanie Sanuto and Kyla Reid