The main Event!

The day didn’t start the best way we hoped. The weather was quit worrying as it looked like it was about to rain non-stop and all the activities we had planned were for outdoors. As well as walking to and from rooms. Myself and Rich were the first to arrive so we prepared everything for the day ahead including balloons and chocolates etc. When the group first arrived the group was smaller than expected which came as a good surprise as a smaller group is always easier to manage. We then split into two groups of around 7 and after a couple introductions the day began. My group were first to arrive in the presentation room which was basically the room we all met up in, the problem was because I brought the group in 15 minutes early the whole day started earlier than planned, Therefore giving us some extra time during the break. To make the extra time I decided to take my group out on a tour of the university. This included the main sites and specific lecture rooms. Fortunately we caught up with the other group and we could go on and head into the green screen room. Something else that didn’t go quite to plan was the amount of time that the green screen presentation took up, this also arrive us some extra Q and A time however it was clear that everyone knew what they wanted to know.

Media event. Two weeks to go!

The second and third meetings have taken place and Mean has more or less decided who will suite what job best. After a lot of thought I decided to put myself up as an all round runner. Someone to basically make sure everything is running according to time and if anyone needs anything or anyone, they come to me. Obviously if everything is running smoothly I won’t be needed. Chris and Hannah have assigned themselves to be deputies therefore I will also join Rich as meet and greet and an ambassador for the day. We have decided to split the group up evenly and myself and Rich will be in charge of a group each. To plan for this we will need to do the following;

• Find out how many students are coming
• Explore all venues and plan to accommodate the specific numbers an make sure everyone has a seat
• Work out timings between walking to each building
• Look at blue prints and see what can be held where and why
• Look into ice breaker games and one game which will split the group into two separate groups (A+B)

Obviously more tasks will follow, so far so good. Planning an ice breaker to cater to everyone is quite hard at the moment. But we have a lot of ideas to follow up on.

It's Media Event time!

Day one.

Right, so first things first! As a group we have to plan and organise a media event which will be held on the 30th of April at Bath Spa University. There are 15 of us and at the moment we’re not sure how many students specifically there will be at this shindig so we have guessed around about 20. Megan has decided to assign herself to being chief organiser and co-ordinator, so it will be down to her to decide what everyone’s job will eventually include. The first meeting has already been adjourned and so far everyone has had the chance to say what role they would like to play within the planning and at the actual event. I have already expressed my passion for event management therefore I would like a role that entities me to a good chunk of responsibility, possibly a deputy organiser or something along that route.

Friday 19th March. The Final countdown!

As today was the last day Annalise was quite lenient as to what was on the schedule for me to do. I basically had the freedom to look at what I wanted to learn, as I couldn’t get any closer to the banker, or Noel. I took the opportunity to look at the editing suite and a bit of Sound. The editing suite I found fascinating as they were editing on Avid and not final cut. As this was something I had never worked on before I enjoying stepping back and watching three individual editors edit the programmes in their own way. I saw the raw footage, and they also explained how they have to edit the shows down into three separate sections in between breaks. I then saw the overall programme, and tried my hardest to get my name on the credits, it never happened. Watching the overall package was the perfect way to end a very insightful week.

Interview. Ingo Nyakairu - Head Runner

So how did you get into the tv industry?

I started by doing work experience on Deal or No Deal just to gain a bit of an insight into the industry and to gather some contacts for the future. A few months later I heard there were some runner positions going at Deal or No Deal and decided to apply. I didn’t get the job at first as I didn’t have enough experience in tv so decided to gain some more experience by applying for jobs not just in Bristol but nationwide.

What are the best and worst parts of your current job?

I have really enjoyed managing a team of runners over the course of this contract as you need to be organised and be ready at all times to solve any problem that arises. I like a challenge in life and this job has definitely had some challenging moments. I am a people person at heart so really enjoyed going on the audition tour and helping the contestant team pick new players for the upcoming shows.
There are some jobs you have to do that nobody really likes doing like making teas and coffees and general cleaning duties throughout the site but it all has to be done as you can’t really film with a filthy studio.

What has been your favorite role within the tv industry?

Last summer I was working with the celebrity booker on itunes festival for Endemol which was aired on ITV2. The job involved looking after the guests that were going to be interviewed in the show and bands that were performing over the month. There were 62 concerts in 31 days so was quite an intense month but a lot of fun.

What do you plan to do after this contract ends?

I’ve started applying for researcher roles in London as that would be the natural progression in my career. London also seems to be the city that has the most amount of shows being made so is a good place to start looking for work.

What advice would you give people coming into the industry?

Be polite to everyone, get your work done quickly and efficiently, choose a path, follow it and remember everyone is a contact for the future.

Brief Overview Of an Office Runners schedule

Runner’s Guide Deal Or No Deal
The Runner’s team on Deal or No Deal consists of 6 Runners and 1 Head Runner.

During filming weeks the team is split into two with half joining the audience team and the remaining runners being spread over Studio, Gallery and Office duties.

During Dark weeks the team is again split with their main objective being to get the site prepared for filming weeks.

Office Runner Duties:

· General cleaning duties in preparation for filming weeks.
· Make sure site is open and ready to go during filming weeks.
· Liase with Production Manager as to any jobs that need to be done.
· Clean and prepare Noel’s Room and Contestant room for each record.
· Collect Costumes, Contestant Train Tickets and general shopping that is requested to assist with records.
· Supply Lunches to Executive Producers & Series Producers.
· Reply post to general public requesting Application Forms and Noel’s signature.
· Archive Rushes that are not needed by the edit.
· Be on call at all times to assist with any urgent matters that may arise.
· Secure the site at the end of each day.

Thursday 18th March

This morning was another chance for me to get involved on the studio floor. I was first sent to help out with the camera crew and the lovely Scott, who showed me what I needed to know. I looked at various cameras including the steady cam. Because Deal or no deal is an original game, the eye line of each person on the camera has to be the same. He pointed out what the director can see, and how each camera covers a certain spot on the studio floor. I then helped out with the runners again, because the schedule was running on time it gave me the chance to interview the head runner, as I thought his journey through the media industry was quite interesting. Towards the end of the day I was with a familiar face again, the vision mixer Dan. As I was shadowing Dan he gave me the feedback from the director and the banker, i’m not allowed to say anything else about the banker but shadowing Dan was the highlight of my week.

Wednesday 17th March 2010

Finding my way round the site was a lot easier on Wednesday. I almost felt like part of the crew. My first mission was to find the gallery as I started the day shadowing the lighting crew. I bumped into Kevin Sharp, who also assisted us with the lighting for our multi cam music shoots back in Feb. He went through the basics, how to control, alter and direct the lights on cue to the show. I then watched them in action s the first recording began. As the director was close by I decided to ask him a few questions myself and ended up sitting with him for the second show. He briefly went through how he controlled the cameras and explained how it’s all about creating a story within the show, by using just the cameras. He was also attached to the mixing desk. After lunch I was back on the studio floor helping and shadowing the Floor Manager, Greg. As the show was recording he explained everything they did, it was certainly a lot faster paced! He also gave a prep talk to the contestants before they went into the studio, possibly my favourite task of the day.

Tuesday 16th March 2010

Tuesday schedule was different from what was originally planned. I spend the majority of the day shadowing the Audience team where I tried and tested different parts of this specific job. As I watched more and more recordings from different points of view I suddenly felt like I was in the film, vantage Point. As now and then I saw someone I had worked with. The jobs that the audience team had to take care of involved the taking and signing of release forms from the audience members, as well as giving them pass bands for the studio. They then had to see to the F+F of contestants and made sure they had appropriate seats in the studio. Once they were then settled in the studio, the runners then went up to the office and booked audience members for future shows. Obviously I couldn’t leave until I found a twirl and a flake bar for Noel for Wednesday’s shoots, clearly one of the hardest jobs of the day.

Monday 15th March 2010

My first Day!

It’s the first day and as usual I am looking like a rabbit in headlights, heading into the oversized fishbowl yet again. Its 11:30 and I head into reception to meet the general manager, Annalise Snell. I then go through the order of my week of work, starting with shadowing the first two runners, a studio runner and the gallery runner. As I had mentioned I had never been to a site like this before, Annalise thought it would be a good idea to put me in the audience for the first recording of the day, after getting over my star struck state from seeing Noel earlier that morning, and sorting my make-up out, I was ready for my first show. My first mentor for the day was Amy who sorted out my forms at reception. She kindly gave me a tour of the studio’s and introduced me to the main production crew for the day. After the first show was done I as assisted offset and rejoined the studio runner, Abi Seabourne, whilst the second show was recording. It was exciting to see how she managed to complete her tasks as she described that particular job as ‘racing with time’. After the second recording was over I joined the gallery runner, George James. She then showed me what it’s like to be a Gallery runner, which included tasks such as catering to the needs of the director and the vision mixer and finally collecting tapes at the end of the day.

Endemol West studios!

Active in 25 countries on five continents, Endemol is a global leader in television and audiovisual entertainment. It incorporates a number of production brands including Brighter Pictures, Cheetah Television, Initial and Zeppotron. These four specialise in a broad range of genres including factual entertainment, reality series, specialist factual, arts, live events, music entertainment, documentaries, youth shows and comedy.

Credits include Big Brother,(Channel 4; E4); Deal or No Deal, (Channel 4); Would I Lie to You? (BBC ONE); Golden Balls (ITV1); Comic Relief Does Fame Academy (BBC ONE; BBC THREE; CBBC); Ready Steady Cook (BBC TWO); Soccer Aid (ITV1; ITV2); Orange Playlist (ITV1); and Charlie Brooker’s Screen Wipe (BBC FOUR; BBC TWO)

Endemol UK has offices in London and Bristol and employs up to 1000 people at any one time.

Endemol West set up as a regional production base in 2004 and encourage local talent particuarly at entry level across production and technical grades. Facilities include 7 multi-cam studios, 4 galleries, production offices, an art/prop department, audience/contestant hold areas, green rooms/make-up, post production (via The Farm Group) including 8 avid adrenalins. Studios/facilities can be hired dependant on availability.

They are currently producing C4 blockbuster ‘Deal or No Deal’.

I have been lucky enough to get 1 week of ork experience working on the show..

Nothin but a muffin productions brings you, our final documentary!

I think we all felt a sense of achievement watching through our final edits on thursday. We could all picture ourselves crowded round the Mac the night before, making sure everything was perfect enough to show. I am happy with our fianl doc. I feel that everything we had worried about the week before we handled very professionally and i am happy by how the group worked together to get everything polished. Even though Jess and Chris did the majority of the editing I feel like I had my input in the last week when it came to my voiceovers and how the whole thing structured out.

When we first had the documentary in mind, we wanted to have a contributor that had a bad experience with laser eye, as well as someone who had it done sucessfully. However as the weeks progressed it wasnt just me and Jess trying to find a bad story contributor who was willing to be on camera, it was all of us. It was then we realised that it would be ok to include an email we got from a certain contributor about her bad story, and then put that into a voiceover. Visually we showed Graphics throughout. I loved this idea, I thought it showed a lot of imagination and creativity.

We then used thursday to look at everyones work. The one critisism the group had for ours was the sound levels and colour correction. And how this showed up on screen. However it was only minor misstakes that didnt make a difference compared to the layout of the whole thing. A proud momento for us all. For the future there would be only one thing I would change. We well worked together as a team however we were a little too optimistic at the start of the planning. This lead to use forgetting to do minor things, such as finding locations and specific contributors. In the future I would plan our time out a bit more, it was similar to my individual project as well. However I dont have any regrets.

The longest week ever..

We used the contructive critisism from the group last week to make our project come together as quickly and efficiently as possible. We met up everyday for the past week to bang our heads together on how to make it as sucessful as possible. We had the beginning sequence, which included the close up and long shot of the text, followed by the clip from the optician who briefly described the sequence of Laser eye surgery for us beofore we went into describing it ourselves. For this we used a vice-over from myslef. One thing I would change about the progression of our work towards this would be to plan it out a bit more. Because of finalising scripts and going through what I had to say It took up some of our recording times. However we did manage to get it finished eventually and the voiceovers worked pretty well. We then went through Eleanors interview with a cut in the middle of her with her child, watching the rough cut showed us that the was excess footage on there about Eleanor that we didnt really need. So we used more information and voiceovers to go over it, as well as the ever important slice of cheese at the end.. even so, the song worked extremelly well with the end credits..

Bulimia...

After showing my individual rough cut on thursday i realised how much work I had to do myself. The interviews with both contributers went well however they were pushed back quite a lot. This gave me less time edit them together so they worked in the sequence I wanted. Within my fianl edit I had to make quite a few changes.

This was due to sound levels and positioning of interviews at uni. It kinda looked like they morphed which wasnt really the vibe I was going for.. Bulimia is and remians a serious issue amoungst young people, especially women.. I wanted to portray that in my documentary however I wanted to inform people as well. To do this I wanted to include a clip from the film "Zoolander" to put at the beginning of the doc. To change the mood and keep peoples attention! I saw many poeple started wondering what to have for dinner about halfway through mine.. After a week of consideration I have tried to turn that around.

The production!

One we had finished filming and getting the particular cutaways we needed, we began putting it all together as according to the script. Chris was happy to start this off for us in the easter break as we all decided he was the chief editor! It was sometime after that we realised we all needed to make a fair contribution to the fianl edit..

We decided not to include Marks story anymore as Eleanors went so well, she was happy to chat and great in front of the camera. This gave the documentary an overall possitive look and we could use a lot of her interview, as well as her eye surgery check ups and what not. The beginning sequence was down to the lovely Jess who put the picture in our heads of the development of the senses before we actually bring up the subject of Laser eye surgery. This worked well with Chris acting out the scene when he puts on his glasses, marvellous work. It was at this point we realised we needed more archive footage than expected. The rough cut proved that we had too many gaps that had to be filled with visuals we didnt have yet. However this gave us the oppurtunity to include more voiceovers from moi to introduce our extra footage.. I think showing the rough cut proved how many holes we had within the project, which reflected on the amount of work each person was doing individually. BUT the process of turning it into pure gold was possible, we were on the up!

Mid Production. Laser eye Surgery

Looking and researching more into laser eye surgery, we thought it might be best to give an insight into an actual demonstration of this particular procedure. It was my job to look at facts and figures of laser eye to see what people really thought of it. I compared a number of news websites and forums to get some more info.





I looked at optician and private clinic websites as well as the obvious ones such as optimax. This also gave me an insight into Lasik AND laser eye surgery. This website also had a forum i could use as reactions from the public.. possible contribuors??





Laser Eye Surgery
The procedures costs vary from around £395 per eye and provide a naturally clear vision without the use of glasses and contact lenses. "Unlike most operations to cure eye disease, laser eye surgery is only performed on healthy eyes."

Lasik eye

LASIK is used to correct a wide range of prescriptions, making it suitable for correcting mild to severe short sight, mild long sight and astigmatismm. Recovery usually takes around 24 hours.

We also want to use a voice over to describe what happens throughout a particuar procudure. Whether that will be me or not we'll have to see!

Pre production. Roles within Nothin but a muffin..

As a group, we decided to split ourselves into roles that we would work best as. The documentary was on laser eye surgery and we need someone to research the history and current news on the subject. As well as putting together all paper work including finding contributors, completing risk assesments and keeping a record of production meetings and script meetings. They would also have to produce the portfolio as well as possible and make sure everything was signed appropriately.

We also needed a production crew! We all needed to work together to film interviews and vox pops. As well as the odd cutaway. However we needed a chief cameraman who would take care of everything to do with how we shot each vox pop and interview, also finding the right cutaways and made sure everything fit to frame. The cameraman would also contribute to how each shot is edited as well. They would also help with the production and development schedule which they would have to stick to!

The next role, which would be later on in the production. Is the editor. We needed someone who could sort out the interviews, vox pops and cutaways as well as the particular information we needed in the right order. As a group we would then look at it together and finish off the documentary as a group. The editor would also contribute towards the script and the portfolio.

Finally we would need someone to keep us on our toes! The production manager/ director would keep an eye on everything and every role within the production. They would need to be good with sticking to schedules and timing. They would be the first to look at the rehearsal and make sure every role within the group is equal. They would then look and finalise the portfolio together with the researcher.

SO we decided the researcher would be myself. I thought instead of being the main editor i would work best at being the brains! however I would also contribute to the interviewing, being the interviewer myself as well as the voice over within the documentary.

Chris Arrowsmith: Editor. We all agreed that Chris has the power when it comes to his mac. So he would be our editor. He showed us his enthusiasm and interest in editing. As well as researching many a documentary before he started with ours.

Nathan Russ: Cameraman. Nathan would work best in this role as he has a passion for photography and a good eye when it comes to shots on the camera. He will also be involved with the portfolio and the finalised edit

Jessie Barstow: Producer/ Director. She was the main idea behind Laser eye surgery which we all took an immediate liking to. We feel with her bubbly personality and organisation she would be the best person to make sure every role was fair for each person.

Individual project..!

As we all know by now, i have chosen to do my individual project on Bulimia. The idea came along a few weeks ago now and i have finally got my research and portfolio sorted out. The scary part is i still have much to do! I have two main filming locations. These will be the two locations of the interviews i wish to carry out. Both taking place in week 9, a little late i know. I have nearly brushed up on the cuttaways and still need to do some more filming in the next couple of weeks. The script is being put together on the 26th of April with the help of another University student who kindly offered to help out. I am also interviewing Lance Workman on the 30th. So far so good.

Bulimia
Bulimia, also called bulimia nervosa, is a psychological eating disorder. Bulimia is characterized by episodes of binge-eating followed by inappropriate methods of weight control. Inappropriate methods of weight control include vomiting, fasting, enemas, excessive use of laxatives and diuretics, or compulsive exercising. Excessive shape and weight concerns are also characteristics of bulimia. A binge is an episode where an individual eats a much larger amount of food than most people would in a similar situation. Binge eating is not a response to intense hunger. It is usually a response to depression, stresss, or self esteem issues.

In the idividual project i want to use this information in the most effective way i can. Using information from a sufferer first hand and an interview with someone who can tell me a lot about the disorder. I also want to include ways it can be helped including where and who you can get help from.

Outside the box..?!

Whilst travelling around Washington as much as i could this week, i managed to get myself in the way of a film location on one of America's well known television shows. Luckily it came to my advantage when it gave me the opportunity to be nosy and explore the equipment and how they framed each shot. The filming location was 15th Street just outside of the White house with a small filming crew of about 10. The scene they were shooting was quite simple. The actor ran through the public on his mobile and stopped outside of a restaurant. Looked into the window, and ran off down the road. One side of the road was completely closed off- which i found out the hard way when a couple of people asked me to get out of the way.

(The Camera from behind)

The camera was put onto a track and rolled as it followed the actor. Everything was there, complete with the boom and clapper board. The scene was then broken up into different angles as the actor when through the same scene over and over again. Obviously the same went for the extras who were all staged in the right places. I managed to get next to the extras and watch the process first hand. It all took a good hour. I also managedto get some half-decent photos. One thing i do regret is not using something like this for my individual project. I am working on this though..

(Film location)

Production meeting 8!

So we're in week 8 now and things are finally coming together for this documentary. Call sheets, location agreements and risk assesments are being finalised and we also have the help of the lovely Donnie, who will start putting together some graphics for a story from one of our contributors. We have also added som more location suggestions for filmng and sorted out the script, which comes within the time limit. we are also debating whether to add the interview from Mark, as we have a lot of content already. However so far we are still going ahead with the flming. I am currently looking into budgets as well for everything, locations, crew, equipment and extras. All papers and emails have also been put into a portfolio. Nothin' but a muffin productions are all happy. Good times.