Job Roles/My Job Roles

Camera - The job of the cameraman is for him to follow the action of the performance and to listen to the director to give out the instructions for to tell you who to follow at that time.  If you haven't been given any instructions by the director just try to follow the main characters in scene at the time.  The camera operator has to make sure also that the camera they are operating is in focus at all time.  

Sound Mixer - The sound recordists may often record the audio straight through the microphones on the camera instead on using something like H2 or using a boom.  Sometimes a separate copy will be made so that the editor has more than one option to use and the other recording may have extra audio that the camera couldn't pick up.  So if the audio on the camera didn't sound good enough you always have a back up.

Vision Mixer - The vision mixers job is to be with the director and he will have to watch the screens in front of him to see which shot is the best to use at the right time, they need to make sure they are on the actor that is active at the time, but if there isn't a person with the correct shot maybe he goes to a camera with an actor who is reacting to what is being said. 

Lighting Desk - The lighting technician is the person who will be controlling what lighting to use in the theatre.  They will control the intensity of the lights depending on what kind of scene it is.  The lights will sometimes be moved to match the patterns of the performance.

Floor Manager/Talk Back - The floor manager is in charge of the whole floor and making sure all the crew is ok and to make sure all of the equipment is ready and working to go, if something happens during the performance they have to be on the ball for example if one of the talk back systems isn't working or has ran out of batteries the floor manager has to be there to fix the problem so that nothing is missed or they haven’t missed any instructions.  

Graphics - TV graphics help the narrative depending on what type of production is so its the news and there is a special guest, they work with the producer and director so they know when to add the graphic, putting the graphic in at the right time is important you don’t want to add it as soon as you see the guest you will wait 5-10 seconds.

Director - The director is one of the biggest roles within the production it is his job to instruct the camera operator to tell them who to follow at the right time and to make sure if anything is running smoothly, he is the one that has to have the visual he has the screens to look at and if he doesn't like a certain shot or there isn’t a specific shot he was to be verbal and tell the camera operator to move to the shot that he wants.

My Job Roles 

During the production of Fame I had to do 2 job roles so that everybody got a chance to do at least 2 job roles.  The 2 job roles I had were being a camera operator and then I went on the vision mixer.

The first 20 minutes of the production I was on camera 4, this was the camera on the left hand side of the stage, it was the camera closest to the sound and lighting technicians.  Whilst I was on this camera I had a lot to do.  Originally the camera I was on was only supposed to see the action of the right hand side of the stage but it was changed and I followed the active actor at the time and I had to make sure that move the camera smoothly but not move it to fast that it looked rushed.  At times I changed from the active actor because the director told me to change and I followed my instructions, if I didn't have any instructions I stayed with the main active actor. 

Once my job was over on the camera for the next 20 minutes I was on the vision mixer and I has nervous going on the vision mixer because I had never used it before and was afraid that I would mess up.  But I had help at the beginning so that I knew what I was doing so for the first 5 minutes I was told what the best shots were to use. After the 5 minutes I was comfortable with using it.  So on the vision mixer there was A, B, C, D.  A was camera 1, B camera 2, C camera 3 and D camera 4.  So being sat next to the director I was looking at the screens to see what was coming up and from that I had choose the best shot and make sure I was choosing the shots that had the right actions at the right time and made sure I tried not to miss anything.  I found myself towards the end really comfortable using the equipment and I found myself asking the director for specific shots that weren't on the cameras.

My 20 minutes were up and I had already done my 2 job roles after being on the vision mixer I want to camera 3 which was the one in the middle as the wide shot so there was really that much to do and soon after that it was the interval.  I then had my break so every body else could get there 2 jobs done.  The last 10 minutes I went on camera 1 on the right hand side the camera had a fault on it because it was really over exposed and I couldn't seem to fix the problem and there was nothing really I could do so I still listened to instructions but after that the vision mixer didn't use that camera because it looked to bad.  

Overall I had a great time filming the production of Fame it was a great day and I learnt a new skill with the vision mixer which I didn't think I would of ever have done.