On the Spot

After all of that foolishness last week of being intimidated by the master control room, I ran into a real "situation" this week. On Wednesday, we were scheduled to shoot the Rick Comegy Show. I'm thinking to myself, no big deal. I am helping Leon and Keith get everything together as we wait on Rob Jay to arrive. I was introduced to Coach Comegy, a very nice guy, as we got the set together. When Rob Jay arrived, everything was in place and ready to go. That's when Keith told me to operate camera one. I froze. Was he seriously talking to me? Someone who has never worked with a camera this sophisticated. Yes, it was apparent he was talking to me when I was instructed to put on the headphones and make sure the camera was positioned correctly. Leon then came over to give me a crash course on how to operate the camera. He gave me the basics, and it didn't seem hard. But then again, Leon makes everything seem simple. I took a deep breathe and prepared for the best.
The show started recording, and everything was going fine. I didn't have to do anything but stand by the camera, listen to Keith through the headphones, and make sure I had a good shot on Coach Comegy. And then it happened. Coach Comegy switched positions and kind of leaned forward, messing up my shot. And I heard Keith loud and clear. "Zoom out on Comegy. His shot is too tight." So that's what I did. I took my time and zoomed out carefully. Didn't get yelled at. Guess I did an okay job. Everything was back running smoothly. Then it happened again. Coach Comegy sat back and kind of leaned to the side in his chair. Here was Keith again. "Pan left on Comegy. He's out of his shot." I did as I was told. This time I heard a response. "Great shot on Comegy." I was super relieved. After that, Coach Comegy stayed in place and there wasn't much more I had to do.
After the show was over, Keith came out of the control room and told me that I had done good job. He said that I had done well in getting Coach Comegy back into his shots. I was soo excited. I am now looking forward to other chances when I will get to work with the camera. If everything goes according to schedule, that may be as soon as this weekends' football game. Wish me luck!

Who is the Master?

This week, I was introduced to something very scary: the master control room. It even sounds scary, right? The master control room houses a huge block of machinery that controls every aspect of what is being played on a television network. Surely they didn't want me to do something in there. Wrong. Leon told me to go in and add some commercials to the shows that were already scheduled to play later that day. I just stood there and looked at him, then the machine, then back at Leon. He started to laugh and told me that he was only kidding. What a relief! There was no way I was going to touch that machine and risk ruining everything that had already been programmed. That would have been a tragedy!
After going over the different sections of the machine, I sat down with Leon to see exactly how to add stuff to the program line-up. It actually turned out to be pretty simple. All you have to do is find the item you are looking for in one column and drag and drop it into the center column. Sounds easy enough. The tricky part comes in when you have to time everything to flow smoothly. Just one second can throw you completely off schedule. In this world of media, timing is everything.
Unfortunately, with my hectic schedule, timing is everything for me as well. And as usual, just as we were getting started, it was time for me to leave. I didn't get a chance to actually put something in the line-up, but I was promised that next time it needed to be done, I could help out. This was a major step in learning something new this week, because going over Final Cut Pro was getting kind of boring. (Don't tell that to Leon, though.) So it turns out the master control room isn't scary at all. I guess you can say I am learning to "master" it.