We had 2 great and talented people agree to be presenters and they acted calm, friendly, understandable and said their lines in a way that made them sound casual and comfortable. People the audience could happily listen and watch. Naomi Burrows and Johnny Weston did a great job!
The first shot had the 2 presenters standing in front of the stage with all the musical equipment in the background and I felt this would give a big hint as to what the audience was watching and it mixed it up so after the title sequence the camera wouldn't open up again on the same place. I felt it went well and the lighting at the start came in nicely.
Whilst the title sequence was playing all the cameras moved over to the stage to set up as well as the presenters and the band themselves. The 2 presenters were looking into camera 2 which had a medium-shot of the pair of them. Nothing fancy but I felt it was best to stay simple. The aston for the Twitter page came up a little late as Naomi says "follow us on Twitter @" and by that time the aston had gone. Also the Facebook aston shows up with no intro plus it covers Johnny's head a little bit so not great, for future tries it will be best to possibly have them lower down and to come in at the right times. No big deal though! There's a small cut just after this but there was just a hiccup with the script so again not really a problem. Setting up for the next part I had camera 3 get a wide-shot of all the cast so the presenters and the band on the sofa. This I thought would be a good shot to cut to to introduce the band. Camera 1 managed to get a shot of the band as a whole so when they were talking I could cut to that camera. Great camera work from the camera crew, very on the ball. The astons also came in at the right time and area of the screen. I had a slight problem there though with when the lead singer was talking I thought he would be talking a lot more so while camera 1 had the wide shot I wanted camera 3 to move and get a close-up as best they could with whoever was talking at the time. By the time I had the shot I had to quickly change back due to Naomi saying her next line. The worries with non-scripted parts! Essentially my plan was to have camera 2 on the presenters and with the band there would be one camera to cut to with a safe shot of the whole band while the other free camera would grab hold of a close-up of whoever was talking at the time. It went well I think, a couple of shakes but nothing major.
So we needed to jump to our next section which was the VT. Originally on the script we had it so the band would play next, the VT would play afterwards and then we would have the band play us out. We figured this had to change because from the interview to the playing there would have been a gap of nothing while the band was setting up so we swapped it around so whilst the VT was playing the band could set up and then the presenters would just introduce them. Which worked perfectly. The VT wasn't anything to do with me but if it was I would have drastically changed it. I felt the edit was awful! Not in a harsh way at all, the editor worked hard but they should have noticed that the intro just starts then suddenly stops and cuts the music like a parody of some sort, its just odd! The setting was good, being in a sound tech room and the discussion went well. I would have had a better camera angle on Alex and Nick but there may have been some issues with space and the cameras so no issue really.
Cutting back to the studio with the band all set up I cut back to camera 2 who had stayed on the presenters whilst the other 2 cameras were ready and set on the band. The plan was when the band started playing and we cut to either camera 1 or 3, camera 2 would then move and join the fray. One rule with filming a band is as soon as the singer starts the camera has to be watching them. If they have a lengthy musical intro then go crazy but as soon as the singers about to start, cut to them! as long as you have that your'e away. The same goes for different verses the singer will sing and such. I asked camera 3 which had the pedestal to grab some high-angle shots of the band and some movement around his area so we could cut to interesting high-angle shots or maybe a close-up on an instrument whilst being high up. Something different. Camera 2 had some good safe shots of the band and camera 1 was focusing a lot on the lead singer. The only issues I had with this scene is the fact that we couldn't really rehearse this section so it was very much up to the cameras with a few instructions to get some good shots. I think they did well but they shouldn't have been afraid to move a bit more. I felt they could have done a lot more moving shots and some more close-ups and such. Another issue is when one of them felt like something would make a good shot like zooming up on a guitar the problem would be is that the other 2 would have the same idea so the shot variety wasn't much. It was the movement that was the main thing. Its a band, its going to be lively and upbeat so movement is very important. Sure safe shots are good but a lot more movement would have made this look so much better in my opinion. They did really well though so it was all good. When the song was finishing camera 2 moved back to the presenters for the exiting lines and then we cut back with a same deal of shots on the band playing their last song.
I've pretty much said everything I felt was good and what could be improved on in the future. One thing we decided afterward was the structure of the show. We decided that next time we'll have the band play first so the audience won't get bored straight away. Going to the interview first was a bit of a problem in that it wasn't bad but a little boring. If the viewer likes the bands first song then they may be interested in learning about them in an interview. Overall the show went well and we learnt a lot for our next show. Bring on being on camera next time!
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