Nisserin Bessioua - UCA Television Production

Overall I'm really happy with the way my placement went and I really enjoyed working for the company Trickbox.  I found that over the course of the placement, I have developed an interesting in studio work, specifically live productions. I enjoy the live element to a show and the fact that everything how to be done by a certain time. I like that it's a team effort to get everything running and ready for when a show goes live.  I liked working in a professional environment and found it easy to get on with everyone that worked there. I enjoyed working with a variety of different people from different backgrounds and learning about the things they've previously worked on.  Throughout my time there, I made some good contacts with some of the people I have worked with and have gained from their knowledge and experience.  My time there was really positive and I didn't have any issues, the only downside I found was that the times and days of the placement didn't ...

On some of the productions, I also took on the role of a runner where I was given talks such as making tea/coffee, printing out scrips for the director, collecting parcels from the loading bay and looking after the clients and guests that came in during productions. Although this role went strictly confined to working in the studio, i gave me a better insight into how many different jobs there are that need to be done to help a production move along smoothly and make sure everything is done on time.  Whilst I was there, there was another student also on work experience so I wasn't working alone and we shared the role, so one went of to collect a parcel of the back up microphone we had brought in from the equipment warehouse while the other went to the get the director her script and tea. This made me such just how much team work is involved and needed within a production and how important it is that every works together and communicates.  Throughout my time as a runne...

Throughout my time at Trickbox, I spent many hours working in the sound department. Sound is something that I hadn't considered as a job before but I was keen to learn more. I work with the sound operator JoJo, who was a huge help in explaining the process to me. We started right from the beginning and he allowed me to help him complete the set up for the production, from the radio mics to the sound desk.  When we started, he begin explaining to me how to set up the radio mics, resetting the frequencies to not only make sure that the transmitter and receiver are connected but to also make sure that we weren't using a frequencies that was being used for something else, for example there were other buildings in the area that were working off specific frequeinces so we had to be careful not to mix them up. We then moved on to testing out all the radio mics and the IEM (in ear monitor). For this, I went to the studio floor and to sit in the specific seats with the ri...

Camera: For some of my time on my placement, I was helping out of the studio floor with the camera operators. During this time, I had to help with the line up of the cameras, matching them up with the greyscale chart, which was something I was familiar with from our studio production unit. I also assisted in the framing of the cameras and focussing by sitting in the chairs where the guests were going to be. I also had to test out the autocue to make sue it was working and that it could be seen from where we had positioned the presenters chair. Lighting: Due to the location, and having floor to ceiling windows, there were often times on a sunny day where we had lots of glare and bright sunlight coming through the windows, even though all of the windows had a filter on. There were some day we there wasn't much we could do and we just had to hope that the sun moved round past the window so that it didn't show up on the cameras.  There was one day where ...

During some of the live shows we filmed, I spent time helping in the gallery. This gave me the opportunity to talk to the director about her role and what it's like to be a director/vision mixer and to work on live productions.  Rehearsals and 1hr 15mins before live We were filming a 1+4 interview, during rehearsals I helped the director with labelling which guest was going to sit there so there was equal balance, depending on how many men and women were going to be there and using the information the company had given us about the guests and putting them in an order that meant the ones that were most talkative were placed near the presenter. I then had to write down the order and go around given everything the information, specifically the camera operators and the sound technician who need to know the line up so sound board can be labelled and we know which mic is on which guest and the cameras know who is who and where they're sitting.  Live Show - Mar...

" Trickbox TV provide outside broadcast facilities, PPU hire, broadcast equipment hire, and multi-camera services for any production, whether it's broadcast, corporate, webcasting or event coverage. We also offer turn-key design, installation and integration services for studio and webcast facilities." (2016) The company started in 2010 and provide equipment and services for studio and location  multi-camera productions. Trickbox TV also manage Tower Bridge TV Studios, which is a fully  equipped HD studio with a view overlooking Tower Bridge, the Thames and HMS Belfast.  Previous things that have been filmed are include a press junket for Minions, which featured and interview with Sandra Bullock and appeared on Lorraine.  They also hosted the Mayoral Candidate Interviews in 2016, which were broadcast live.  Not only do they host productions but the team also go out and work on them as well. The team at Trickbox ...

What went well: I found that over the course of the project,  my skills in many different aspects of my role have developed. for example my experience with editing graphics in After effects has increased and I feel more confident now in working with the programme. I also found that I now know how to use other software such as Adobe Illustrator which helped me in creating the posters for the show. I enjoyed the studio aspect of the show and found working in the gallery really interesting. I found working with Del Brown really helpful and I found that from his knowledge I learnt lots about working in the industry. I found that communication between the gallery and the floor was majorly important, and that it was just important to listen to the director give instructions to the rest of the crew.  Working with in the Social Media Producer was good and I enjoyed being able to promote the show, creating a trailer and posters to advertise the show. Challenges: Worki...

During the show at the end of each round, the scores for each contestant were revealed. This was part of my role and at the end of each round, between  the producer and I, we had to calculate the scores and then I  had to type then up into the graphics design that we used for the show. I then would have to tell the director that the graphics were ready to use by saying "Graphics standing by". This was the same for the name straps for the presenter and the contestants.  During the actual live show, we had an adjudicator who was counting the scores because throughout rehearsals it was getting difficult to count the scores and write them down in time for when they were needed on screen so by having some else count the scores it was much easier for me to get the scores up on time.  For one of the rehearsals, the producer and I decided that we wanted o test out what would happen if we fixed the results to create a draw. On the third round, the results came out ...

When I was looking into graphics I found an interesting article about different logos and how some of them have hidden meanings inside them. Until I looked through the website and the images, there were some well known logos that i'd seen many times before but hadn't recognised the hidden images and meanings within them.  For example: Within the FedEx logo, between the letters E and X, and arrow is created due to the font used which was does because they are a company that delivers parcels.  The amazon logo has an arrow pointing from A to Z, showing their customers that they "sell everything from a to z".  The logo for formula 1 has the number one within the logo. The empty space in the middle creates the outline of the number one.  Although this isn't something that I feel I can incorporate into our logo, I still found it really interesting and made me want to look further into graphics and logo designs...

During our graphics workshop with Fergus, we were learning how to use Adobe Illustrator which  is something that I haven't used before. We looked at creating posters and following the Fibonacci sequence to make our posters look visually attractive.  The Fibonacci sequence, also known as the "Golden Ratio" is a design concept that is to create visually appealing proportions in art, architecture, design and even the human body all throughout history" (3.7 Designs, 2010).  We looked at using the golden ratio to help us in the placement of images and text on the posters we were making. Looking at some examples of images made with the golden ratio, I could see how  grouping all the text together in one section by following the lines and making the most of the background image made the poset itself look pleasing to the eye.  We were given some images to test out this way of creating designs and I found that they looked much more  aesthetically...

When it came to looking into opening titles for the show, Ellen and I had to make sure that whatever we chose was something that could be put at the beginning of every episode if the show were to carry on as a real TV series. We first looked the opening titles for Ant and Dec Saturday Night Takeaway; we liked the way that the two characters went on a journey through the titles and made it to the tv studio where the show was being filmed. We liked this idea and wanted to use it for our show but we weren't sure how to incorporate it into an idea that would fit with the theme of our show.  I liked the smooth transitions between the different locations they used and they used the presenters actions more move between locations. For example, we see them walking down some stairs which cuts to a close up of their feet and the when we go back to a wide shot they are in a different location but it is done seamlessly which makes it look really professional. ...

When looking at trailers for shows similar to The Big Movie Quiz (TBMQ), I found that almost all of the trailer had clips from previous episodes and I found it very hard to find a trailer for a pilot show which is what we were trying to create.  I first looked at the trailer for 8 out of 10 cats does Countdown as the show is similar to the style of TBMQ. Their trailer contained lots of clips form the episodes of the show, including some comedy moments from the show. Although it was also like a compilation of the "best bits" of the show, you could still understand what the show does, and how it works. It clearly shows the two different teams, the fact that they are on different sides of their set showing they are competing against each other.  They also include a title card at the end which advertises that time and the channel that the audience can watch the show on which is something that Ellen and I wanted to make sure we inc...

Ellen and I decided that because the two VT editors were quite busy with editing the VTs, we would edit the trailer and the opening title sequence together. We started with the opening titles, working through our shot list and script to put the clips in the order we wanted. OPENING TITLES There were some clips where we had to do some colour correcting and changing the brightness and contrast as some shots were slightly over exposed but overall the clips that we had to work with were all really good. There was one shot where one of the chairs in the shot were very over exposed, because the chair was white as well so it reflected lots of the light. In order to help fix this, I found another shot of the same scene where we had changed the lighting, however the reason we didn't use this shot was because it too dark to see the actors. I chose to try and merge the two shots together; to do this I took the one chair from the darker video and layered it over the operas posed chair, I t...