Theory On Multi-Cam Productions

We have been learning the theory behind or next big group project. We will be doing a Live Quiz Show. This will include the whole group, which will give us all a wide varity of jobs to do for it. Things like learning to be Sound operators, Camera Operators, desiging the set, leaning to use the Audio Mixer and Vision Mixer. All of these skills will be put forward to a live broadcast of 2 15 minutes halfs for one long 30 minute program.

First thing we learnt about was the visual aspect of the production. Camera's are usually labelled in diagrams as an equaltiral triangle, and are numbered. This way the director can easily command the operators, instead of remembering names he/she can justsay one number, and the operator using thtat numbered camera will only respond. All the cords from the cameras, feed into something called a Vision Mixer. The Vision Mixer focuses only on things that can be seen, not heard. It can have numerous amounts of inputs, but only has 1 output. The reason for this is beacuase the Director watches the feed back from the cameras on a screen. So if there were 4 he would se 4 seperate feeds.

The purpose of the Vision Mixer is to chose a 'Line'. Line is the program output which sends out what the viewers would see. So the Director will choose which camera is giving him the best feed or what seems appropriate, and 'Cut to Line'. This way he can naturally move from on shot to another. The Vision Mixer can be adapted to numerous inputs; recording on VTR, even though that is becoming an obsolete technology. A DVD player can be hooked up aswell, however people now tend to save directly to a HDDR (Hardrive Disk Recorder) This is done digitally so if the footage was to be repoduced it won't lose anything.

In terms of the sound booth, hey themselves have an Audio Mixer, which functions quite similarly to Vision, but it onyl takes Audio. Also its the place where the Sound Operator, monitors the noise and signal frequincies, making sure they are balanced and not too loud or too quiet.