Studio Production - Del Brown Workshop #1

In the first masterclass we had with Del Brown, we had a run through of everyone's roles and responsibilities and how we can apply these roles appropriately to the show.

“A highly experienced multi camera director/vision mixer with nearly twenty years experience working in live TV.  With a background in technical operations, having launched and consulted on new channel start ups.  Del also teaches ‘live directing & vision mixing’ both in universities and on his own short course.” (Taken from Del Brown's website)

We spent a large portion of the masterclass breaking down each and every scene in the show as we have it so far. As the Producer and Director, Josh and Becca would read out what they will require from each round, providing this information in as much detail as Del needed in order to map out each camera, contributor and prop amongst other things.

Del would talk about how we can make each scene work by analysing the camera setup we are currently looking to use, and creating his own visions as to how we could set the cameras up differently. If he felt there was something wrong in our set up, or even in the round as a whole, Del would look at how to correct these issues or simply explain that these details needed to be replaced entirely.

Round 4 looked to experience the most changes with a number of issues, meaning the whole idea about the 4th round needed to change. These issues included how the game would work in the final show from a competitive perspective as well as a technical perspective. Originally, 'The Box Office Lineup' was a final round that only the leading contestant would participate in. Del then suggested that we make this a one on one round, like the other rounds. He then looked at how this can be shot on the cameras to get the most of the round.

We were then taken down into the gallery to take a look at where everyone in the gallery will be placed and what they will be doing. A full outlook on what will go on inside the gallery would be covered in the next workshop, however a few of us got the opportunity to use the mixing desk. Each area of the desk was explained in some detail, giving us some idea of what a vision mixer would be doing.