Lights, cameras, “I’ve gone blank…cut”

Our media master class simulates the experience of giving real media interviews with cameras, lights and an experienced broadcast trained director. This one day course is designed to familiarise you with professional recording techniques and equipment. It will allow you to experience a variety of recording situations, including studio autocue, location autocue, prepared statement and formal interview. It is designed to make you more comfortable with the process of being recorded, increase your self-awareness and improve your ability to communicate on camera.

Aims The aims of this course are to familiarise you with video recording and to optimise your on screen presence and performance in a variety of interview situations. It’s not going to make you a media star but will make you more confident about being recorded and representing your company or organisation.

Biog This short course is hosted by director / cameraman Brian Becker. His experience includes ten years working for Central Television, directing programmes for the BBC and over twenty years production of corporate videos and TV ads for companies such as Cadbury, Coca Cola, Morgan Cars, Porsche, Norwich Union, Royal Bank of Scotland, Boots, BP and Camelot. Brian has interviewed a very wide range of different people, from Jo Bloggs in the street to blue chip CEO’s, company directors, well-known personalities, sportsmen and politicians in the UK and abroad.

Info We bring the course to your business or organisation. All we need is a large, quiet room with power sockets, a small table and enough chairs for the attendees. The course is designed for between 4 and 6 people at a cost of £300 each [+vat]. Please note that this is a specialist media course, which deals specifically with video recording. It does not cover radio interviews or writing press releases.

Some useful TV terminology

Aspect ratio This refers to the shape of the picture on the TV screen, 4 x 3 [normal full screen], 16 x 9 [wide screen] etc.

Bars and tone This is a visual pattern and a sound level recorded onto every tape to ensure consistent picture and sound quality throughout the production process.

Cromakey A way of recording images against a coloured background which enables you to replace the colour with another image during editing.

Director The person who takes everything the producer has set up for him and coaxes everyone concerned into producing their best performance. It is the style and vision of the director which will influence more than anything else the tone and quality of the final video.

Editor The person who meticulously cuts the pictures and sounds into a complete programme.

Frame TV pictures are recorded at a rate of 25 frames per second.

Gofer Traditionally someone employed to do all the production errands Gofa this, gofa that

High hat is in fact a very low tripod.

ISDN A double, high quality telephone line which voice artists use to communicate with recording studios.

Jiffy A jiffy is an actual time unit of 1/100th of a second.

Kilohertz One thousand hertz. TV broadcasts, radio waves and other transmitting devices are measured in frequency, cycles-per-second or hertz.

Logging The process of making notes about recorded shots so that they can be easily found during editing.

Monitor A classy name for a high quality TV used in recording or editing. The main difference is a TV has a tuner so you can watch your favourite programmes.

Non linear editing Now the norm in editing. It enables videos to be assembled from pictures stored on computer discs. The term non-linear means the information can be stored, edited or outputted in any order, unlike videotape.

Offline editing This is the rough cut of a programme where all the scenes of the video are roughly edited in the right place but it might lack music, sound effects, captions, special effects etc. After content approval, the second stage is online editing. This is when special picture and sound effects can be added and the sound track is balanced.

Producer The producer arranges for everyone and everything to be in the right place at the right time and the right cost.

Qwerty The nickname of a traditional keyboard layout. Its got very little to do with video but we were really stuck on this letter.

Rushes Field tapes or camera originals. These are the first generation tapes recorded by the camera on location.

Standards conversion The electronic conversion of the picture from one international tape format to another. Eg. PAL [UK] to NTSC [USA].

Time code This is a continuous series of accumulating numbers which is added to the original recording tapes. Through this, every frame can be identified and selected for editing.

U-matic An obsolete video format, avoid it like the plague.

Videographerer Usually a photographer who thinks making programmes is just joining shots together, tend to specialise in weddings…probably the best place for their limited talents.

Voice over Usually recorded in a studio but can be recorded on location if practical and quiet enough.

White balance A technical operation which adjusts the camera to record colour as accurately as possible.

X certificate Yes, we can make these films but rarely get asked!

Y-cord A specially constructed wiring connector which enables two lights to be fed from one electricity source.

Zebra A pattern seen in the camera viewfinder which helps cameramen correctly expose the pictures.