When you start to produce live programming you’ll find yourself watching TV in a new and crazy way!   You start to look for every cut, every transition, and every camera position to find the motivation that lies behind each of them.  As a Director, it’s your role to pull everything together to produce a cohesive mix.  The question that I’ve found myself at many times is what makes for great live production?

“There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer.”

Ansel Adams

When you are Directing, your show will only be as good as you prepare!

1. Show prep One of the critical things that I learned during my career in radio broadcasting, the more show prep that I did, the better the broadcast went.  The more prepared you are going into a show the less that can go wrong that you’re not already going to be ready for. You cannot prepare for everything, but for most things. At the height of my radio career I was the executive producer of my own two hour prime-time Saturday night show, “Binary Radio” was a live DJ mixed radio program there was no safety net, no live delay, my one and only line of defense was a prerecorded mix CD only to be used if I needed to re-boot Final Scratch.  Because of this there were times which  it was like juggling five chain saws and 3 bowling pins, and on rare occasion it was like watching a train wreak in revers and in slow motion.  The weeks that I would afford myself a 4 hour session of practice and programing my show it would go so nearly flawlessly  that it was scary.
2. Pre-Flight Checklist
   

   “I’ve got a checklist with 3,200 items on it. At any time, 150 of them are burning.”

   Fred Reid

   When you work from a checklist – it’s like having a silent assistant that keeps you on task, reinforcing your preparation.  (Provided that you make the time to make a worth while checklist that is.) What are things that you need on your checklist? During the course of your show prep you will run into areas that need work – marking a note of things that could go wrong, and what you can do to get around it.

3. Limited Stimulus before, during, and after the show This, honestly is just a personal thing that I’ve done dating back to my live theater experience.  I try to lay low before an event, to reflect and rehearse what’s necessary to execute the show as best I can.  Also during a show – I don’t want any kind of stimulus, and once I even had to spit out my gum as I ran out of things that I could do at one time (which at that time was seven.)
4. Post show exit meeting After you wrap a show, it’s a good practice to strike while the iron is hot and capture as much feedback about the show / event as you can – going over every triumph and tragedy that occurred.  The process of debriefing is critical to growth as a director, if you want to grow you’ll have to learn to take the good with bad.  This often is not a very comfortable meetings (when things go very wrong), and things can get heated – the important thing is to not take it personal, and not to make it personal!

So, What’s the “One” thing that makes for great live production?

Prep, prep, and more prep!

Your show will only be as good as you prepare for it to be.

Most people have no idea what the “Rule of Thirds” are, nor can they look at an image and tell you why the love it, or why it has striking composition if it was using the “Rule of Thirds”. I saw a post today (found here) that called the Rule of Thirds both lazy and a sham…
While I agree that all rules are made to be bent and at times even broken, you can only do so – when you fully can understand the rules that are in play!

I was first introduced to the Rules of Thirds for the first time in a Nikon Manual that my Grand Father (Popo) gave me when I inherited his Nikon FE (manual 35mm camera and lens kit – Thank God for Popo!) I later studied these rules via an Eastman Kodak VHS that we watched over and over again in High School (Thanks to my photo teacher Mr. Charles Scherbel – where ever you are.)

I’m not really sure if it’s just because the word rule is in name, which is causing the author of the post to question its validity.  I’d have to agree that the Golden Mean is mathematical at its core and therefore for the faint of heart easily avoided and I agree that the Golden Ratio while found in nearly every thing in existence (wonder who put that there -  well that might be a topic of conversation sometime other than now.) Does it negate the simplicity of breaking things up in thirds?

I have to say that this has really opened up some areas of thought and will cause me to question the composition of my shots next time I do a set up, but to say that the Rule of Thirds is a sham – come on, really? I’ll concede the point that the rule of thirds is a much more simple means of looking at it, and it’s not exact science as the Golden Ratio.

Is Not being Exact all the time – lazy?

Also super huge thank you to @TGaul – I had no idea that was in there!!!

Photos used in post:

golden spiral 2 by Shannon Henry

In the coming years it will no longer be enough to be able to read and write, I firmly believe that it will be critical that the next generation (as well as present generations) also learn Media Production as a form of literacy. I know that this is a rather bold statement but I’m finding that I’m not the only one who believes this to be true. I feel very strongly that it’s one thing to be able to have the ability to express your self with words and phrases, it’s another thing completely to be able to present those expressions in a social relevant way with media (visually or otherwise).

As most of you know I was extremely blessed to have a computer at a very young age – this allowed me to experiment and become very engaged with electronics, and it didn’t hurt that my Father was a taught electronics at a local trade school.  Because I was always around this world – and had the great fortune of having teachers that would urge me to explore and learn all that I can in every field I came away with a very broad understanding of how everything fit together, rather than being very focused on just one part of the equation.

I really don’t think that our education system will catch up with this until it’s too late.

What is one to do?  How do we educate others in ways of media production?

Photos used in post:

june 28th 280c by striatic