Roles and Process

As Broadcast students it's important for us to understand the different roles within the media. I've found Susan's lessons really helpful and they've been a great opportunity to meet and quiz the people who actually do what we are studying for a living. Recently we've met Eric Huyton, a very talented camera man who has worked on shows such as Freaky Eaters, commercials such as Hotwheels, and drama series Casualty - which he explained were very long intensive days of shooting. Most recently he's been working on a science documentary about the oceans and has been to Hawaii,America and Iceland (lucky devil!) He gave some good points on the main characteristics a camera man need : technical aspects you need to know, it's important you know the tools of your trade. Need to be good at problem solving, to stay focused and calm and work well with sometimes difficult actors and directors! Most importantly to always get the material you need and be adaptable. He also gave us 5 things we need to know :

1. Remember to close the camera box!! - the equipment is very expensive.
2. Sort your level head/white balance
3. The rule of 3rds
4. Keep your cool!
5. Produce something strong - script,film,storyboard - story is essential not necessarily the technicalities.

From speaking to Eric I learnt that it's important to not only know what your role is, but also to understand everyone elses role within your team. Another guest speaker who also touched on this topic was Dr Sanjida Oconnel. Sanjida is a TV presenter, writer and producer - so she knows a bit about everything! Her background is in zoology and she writes for newspapers and magazines on science, health and green issues.

Sanjida explained to us how having experience as a producer and TV presenter can help your understanding of the people you're working with and can be really beneficial. She stated that in her opinion presenting is definitely less stressful than producing - which I can imagine! I can also see why understanding everyone elses job roles would help as well, because in pre production or post production you need to work as a team. Understanding what your other team members need to do and the way in which they need to do it would mean you would be a lot more understanding and not just focusing on what you need to do, and your job role. A good example of this was when Eric was saying about the relationship between the camera man and the editor. Even though they may never meet, Eric needs to get as much footage that will be beneficial to the editor as possible - and think about the way in which the editor is going to work with his material.

Sanjida has worked on wildlife programmes such as Nature's top 40, and she explained about how important health and safety regulations are for these types of programmes due to the wild animals they are filming with. What with broadcasting regulations being so strict on health and safety and risk assessment, the required certificates and documentation are needed before filming starts. Also with Ofcom's ever so eagle eyed viewers watching for a slip up experts are needed to be on hand at all times when shooting.