Roles in a TV production

For our production class we produced a news show, we set up the green screen to have a suitable background for a news cast. At the start of the lesson we had a group discussion on what stories we should use in the final broadcast, our News Editor had the final say on what stories we could put into the show. When we were happy with the stories we had to put them into an order of relevance starting with an important story and slowly scaling down towards a less important story.

Floor Manager

A floor manager manages the presenters and camera crew during the broadcast, if it is in front of a live studio audience they will tell them to stay quiet during the recording. The floor manager will do the 20 second countdown to the recording after consulting the director on when they call action. The floor manager will call 5 seconds to action and tell the presenters to when they are live. Before the recording the floor manager will check on the camera crew and see if their shots are perfect and will adjust the presenters desk and green screen if it is needed. When I was floor manager I watched over the production in both the control room and on set behind the cameras, making sure the presenters looked into the correct cameras and made sure they knew they were on air.

Vision Mixer

The vision mixer is the person who switches the cameras in the control room and makes sure the graphic in the back matches up to the story that is being told on the new show. They also set up the title card for the production making sure it says the correct thing. They also choose which background they want for the green screen to make it look suitable for the news cast.

Director

The director sets up the team in the control room and watches over them. The Director will instruct the vision mixer when to change camera and switch the image on the green screen so it matches the story. The director also watches over the entire production before hand such as making sure the stories are in the correct order, making sure the camera operators adjust the angle so they are at a good angle for the shots. When I was the director I had the news stories that the presenters were reading on my iPad so I knew when to switch the camera to the wide and change the image on the green screen. However, this did not go to plan as the presenter got the order of the stories mixed up which resulted in the image on the green screen background not being the correct image for a few seconds.

Presenters

The presenters job is to read out the stories in the correct order and make sure they speak with a clear enough voice so their mics can pick it up and that they look into the correct camera.

Camera Operators

The camera operators had to make sure the angles were perfect for the show and that if the tripod messed up the shot that they adjust it quick enough. I helped out the camera crew to make sure the shots were in line and perfect for the vision mixers in the control room.

Sound Engineer

The sound engineer has to check the microphones are working and that the presenters can be heard with no back ground noise. They have to adjust the sound board so the presenters voices aren't blown out for the actual broadcast. I watched over the sound engineer during the sound check and they made sure the audio was good enough for TV.

What we could do better

When I was the floor manager I could of communicated more with the control room to make sure the presenters were looking into the correct camera and checked if the presenters were speaking clear enough. When I was the Director I could of kept my cool when the presenters messed up the order of the stories, before the broadcast I could of checked that the stories were in order so the presenters knew what they were reading and in what order. Overall I need to improve on my communication skills.