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Producing means preparation. Over the past two days I produced the first few episodes of a new and ongoing internet tv show for medical education.
We did a dry run a couple of months back to figure out what we wanted to do without incurring a large expense for experimentation.
With that knowledge our group came up with some more ideas and we then searched for an appropriate HD studio to work with. We wound up at the PBS affiliate in upstate New York, about a 2 hour ride from our home base in CT.
I also wrote scripts for the various show segment intros, tosses and wrapups, and included input from the participants. I provided the studio with both rundown versions and prompter files.
Next challenge was finding a makeup artist with HDTV experience. It seems many of the mekeup companies are now selling "HD" product lines, taking advantage of the buzz word but not necessarily designed for actual use in HD television. So you rely upon the experience of the artist and the proof is in the pudding..er..the powder!
The talent sent me their materials (PowerPoint) which my team recreated as layered PSD files (PowerPoints generally do not look great scan converted compared to proper anti-aliased graphics). We provided a thumb drive with TGA 1920x1080 files which get pulled right into the AVID Thunder server via the Ross Vision HD switcher.
Finally the day of the filming...taping...recording! No tape. Line feed and ISO's go straight to ProRes 422 files using AJA KiPro units which will now get off loaded to a 3TB hard drive for ingest into our RAIDs for editing. Premiere CS5.5 handles the ProRes files as if we are using a MacPro, but we are not. Finally after so many years, the record format is less important than the image quality.
Speaking of image quality, the studio itself has 5 Ikegami cameras in studio configuration which produce simply stunning images.
Sitting at the producer's station in the control room, talking to the talent through the intercom and working with the director/td to develop the flow of the shows is great fun.
Once the talent got into a groove we were able to fly through our planned content.
At the end I got a nice group shot featuring myself and the talent - smiles all around (I swear this is me smiling!)
With 5 shows recorded we wrapped up and headed back to the hotel to escape the 7 degree January cold blast. The talent are flying out back to warmer climates and I'll drive back to CT to prepare for next week's assignment, and to initiate some pre-production prep work to prepare for the editing. Luckily, the editing will consist of chopping up the line cuts, adding supers, bumpers, music and credits, rather than full multi-cam edits in Premiere.
This was great fun and even better to end up with a great result. Stay tuned for more adventures from my ever-changing schedule of unique educational multimedia projects.
For now, thanks for reading.
Mike Cohen | | | | |
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Mike Cohen
I have a passion for my job, which entails training for medical professionals such as surgeons, nurses and administrators, not to mention various industries. Technology is great, but how you apply your skills is what pays the bills. Years ago I canceled my Media 100 support contract upon discovering what a treasure trove of helpful advice can be found on the Creative COW website. I am proud to be a part of this fantastic community. In my blog I talk a little about media production, a lot about travel and workflow, and occasionally about cooking, nature and my fluffy housecats.
Follow me on Twitter: videoeditormike
Hang out on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/videoeditingmike
LIKE my company (I do): http://www.facebook.com/pages/CineMed
I'm also on LinkedIn if you can't get enough of me!
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