The Dream Job (for now)

Seeing as I have finished my first week of work, I thought I might share what I do with all of you (not that anybody reads this anyway). As many of you know I've always wanted to go into Film and Television production, it's been a dream of mine for quite some time. Here, in sunny Provo, lies the esteemed BYU Broadcasting team. BYU Broadcasting is responsible for television, radio, and other news/journalism related positions. 

The Northwest view of the BYUB

        The BYU Broadcasting Building was opened in 2010 and housed 3 production studios, 2 control rooms, and enough equipment to wireless-ly broadcast 3 television shows at the same time. It is within this state of the art building that I work. The place is a spectacle in itself. If anyone out there is in any way interested in how tv shows are made, they give tours all the time. Trust me, I know, we see them walk through A LOT. It's a really cool place to be, in my humble opinion. 

Control Room for Media Day 2011, that set in those images on his screen is the set I've been putting together this week. 

        My official title as an employee is "Production Assistant", how to tell you the truth there are about 4 million ways this could be taken. You could be assistant to Engineering, Electrical, Cleaning, etc. I am an assistant in the Electrical/ Set Design department. For my first week I have been setting up sets and lights for next week's "Media Day" for ByuTv. I help make the stage look and appear on camera as perfect as possible. And let me tell you, what we see and what the camera sees are two very different things. 

        Due to my Stage Tech experience in high school I wasn't completely in the dark as to what to do, however, my experience had been for Stage Production only. Cameras had never been present, multi-million dollar franchises hadn't been involved either. So I had a lot of learning to do. For example: I was always taught that different colored lights create different moods and tones for a scene. In television, to an extent that could be considered true, however we're filming in very close proximity so the mood is being set by the actors and the content. The lighting serves another purpose: to make it seem as real as possible. I hate to break it to you guys but Rachel Ray's kitchen isn't a real kitchen. Sure it may have hook ups for an oven, a sink, and a stove, however they are missing an entire wall (The 4th wall... I think I'll be posting about that later, long story) where the audience can sit and see, and there are hundreds of lights trained at specific angles to create as much "Real Light" as possible. Not to mention you can't have too much or too little light or else the Talent is too dark or washed out. 

Now that I have bored you with all of that, I'll show you what I have been working on!

This is Set #1 of Media Day 2012. We have two shows to do, this is the first one shot in the morning, then the second one will be shot in the afternoon. That set was already staged and everything before we set this one up so we can make a quick and easy transition between shows.

As you can see here, all the work lights are on in the above two shots. When we're ready to shoot, the house lights go out and we have between 35-40 lights all trained on this set. Not to mention the LED lights behind the polypropylene walls. If you can't guess what color they will be, just think BYU.

This is one of the cameras we were using to check lights. Sorry for the reduced quality, I took the pictures on my iPod. If you look at the upper left picture you'll see the Fiber Optic Cable that transmits its information via light received. Fiber Optic Cables are VERY delicate and we are sure to give lots of respect to these. The upper right picture is an image of the lens of the camera with its teleprompter screen on it. Words are projected onto a pane of glass right in front of the camera lens so anchors and other acting talent can read their lines and still look at the camera. 

  

This picture here is the back side of the camera where the operator stands. I can not tell you how smoothly this thing moves. It seems to glide both across the floor and going up and down. There are so many buttons to push on this machine it can be very overwhelming. I have a lot of respect for these HD cameras and their operators.

This picture is the set of the Latino television show NEXOS. BYU International has a slew of shows in Spanish, and many other nationalities make appearances as well. Nexos is filmed weekly throughout the school year. The red lights are LEDs and can be changed to any color. Travis, one of my senior colleagues, turned them to Red, White, and Green for some pictures in honor of Mexico. It's truly crazy how this thing looks in person as compared to on screen.

This picture is on of the checks we did. We'd set a some lights, then check it in the camera to see what it looked like on screen. What looked normal to us in the studio looked incredibly blue in the camera. Steven Enfield, the head of lighting, knows what he is doing. It never ceases to amaze me how he can look at something in the camera, tweak a light here, scrim a light there, and viola! It's suddenly just right. That bright white light above Mr. Enfield's head is the ESPN logo we were trying to fix. It's a little bright as you can see. 




Well, hopefully I'll have better pictures for you next week from the shoot. I'm so blessed to have gotten this job. It's a step towards my future and I'm so very excited to take it. Hope you guys learned something new, I know I have. This is Megan, signing off. 

IN CASUS PERGIT