Planning and Lighting a set

Three Point Lighting

Three point lighting is an common method used in visual media such as film, video, still photography and computer-generated imagery. The three-point lighting system is made up of:

The Key Light

The Key Light is the light that shines directly onto the subject and is the principal illumninator, the strength colour and angle of the key determines the shots overall lighting design. In indoor shots, the key light is often used as a specialized lamp, or a cameras flash. In the outdoor daytime shots, the Sun is the often served as the key light.

The Fill Light

The fill light, like the key light, also shines onto the subject, only from a side angle relative to the key light. It is often placed at a lower position from the key light, and balances the key light out by illumninating shaded surfaces and lessening or eliminating chiaroscuro effects, such as the shadow cast by a persons nose upon the rest of the face. This light is usually softer and is less bright than the key light.

The Back Light

The back light(or the rim, hair, or shoulder light) is the light which shines on a subject from behind, often(but not always) to one side or the other, this light gives the subject a rim of light, and seperates the subject from the background.

Planning and Designing a set

For the planning and designing of a set, it is generally left to the Art and Design team, who desigb the whole set - from the board on the front of the table to the back boards, it is the Art Designs job. When planning and designing the set for a TV Show, one of the important things to think about is that the set design needs to match the meaning of what the TV Show is about, you couldn't have the design of 'Question Of Sport' be all pink and colourful with no real reference to sport at all. For our live TV Quiz show, we have chosen the theme of a circus, and have designed our set to be like a tent that would be seen at a said circus, including the Show Logo, "Media Circus." Here are some pictures of our set still in-making.

As you can see, we have chosen quite colourful colours on our set to represent a circus theme, although we had to be careful in which colours we chose as one of the important things of designing and planning a set is choosing the right colours, you have to think about what will make the talent stand out, rather than the set, aswell as colours the camera will be able to film, as the cameras may not be able to handle too bright colours, and could end up with a messy and untidy looking set on the final filming.

Talk-backs and their use/protocol

In TV studios talkbacks are often used to enable crew members to be able to communicate to each other if needed, it is especially used by those who are in different rooms to give instructions or ask a question, an example of this is if the sound operator was wanting to peform a mic check and they are in the control room, they just have to speak through the talkbacks and ask the floor manager on the studio floor if he can get the talent with the microphones on to speak.

Talk-backs should only be used when needed and no general chat is allowed, people must also be able to keep stuff short and be clear, they need to also state who they are and who they want to talk too or it could cause confusion. One final thing you should never do is talk over the director, as he has the most important role and the things he's saying need to be heard clearly.

Planning audio coverage

Planning camera placement and shots

For any Live TV show, it is important to be able to place cameras in places where they are able to get a varied amount of good camera shots. For our live TV Show, this is how we placed our cameras:

For my groups quiz show, "Media Circus", we decided to have Camera One and Camera Three getting over the shoulder shots, over the shoulder two shots, medium close ups and single shots of the guests, as well as a few other shots also, these cameras are both referred to as the pole cameras. Camera Two is more of the host camera and general stays on a Medium Close Up of the host, as well as the occasional three shots of the host with either A and B or C and D. There is also a fourth camera(not featured in the above diagram) which is on a jib arm, this is there for wide shots as well as panning over the audience.

All of the cameras each have options to be able to CRAB or PED right or left, and Camera One and Three also have the option to Track IN or OUT if the camera operator feels the need to.

Floor Plans

Director & directors calls

In any type of production, a director is needed as he is the main person in charge and will know everything that is going on in the show, and will direct crew members etc in what they need to be doing, generally though the director communicates through the floor manager and the floor manager is the one who will direct the talent, hosts and guests so that the director can concentrate on the camera operators, and make sure that they know what is going on and to also make sure that any shots that the camera operator is thinking of doing look good. The director will generally need to try and keep things short, so uses director calls to explain what he needs from what crew member or talent at any particular time.

Here are some examples of the type of director calls you would generally hear if part of a TV Show production;

DVD Ready

- To ask for the next DVD to be prepared, the director will say to the DVD operator "next DVD" and once this is done DVD operator will respond with"DVD ready" to signal to the director that the clip on the DVD is ready to go.

Floor Ready

- This is the call the director says to F.M to ensure the floor including the crew, talent, etc. is ready to record.

Roll VT

- This is the call the director uses to address both the DVD operator and the vision mixer so that they both know that its time to run the DVD Player and play the VT Insert for that part of the show, the vision mixer should however wait a second or so after hearing this instruction before cutting to the DVD player so it allows time for the DVD operator to hit the play button on the DVD Player.