The set up:
During the setup for the mock, I came across many problems. This included people turning up late, others not listening and running behind schedule.
The first problem was people turning up late. This made things very difficult because it meant there were less people to help set up. Unfortunately, this led to running behind schedule and adding to the stress. Someone who was particularly stressed was Tom. As he is completely in charge of the audio and has not got anyone in particular to help, he was getting rather frustrated with everyone including myself. However, I think that he was failing to communicate the things he needed. In order to ensure that this does not happen again, I will ask him to create a list of people he would like to do specific things and I will make sure that is then enforced. For the final performance, I will work out a way to distribute the workload evenly to reduce stress and improve timing.
With people ignoring his requests and standing around, we ended up running behind schedule. I find that this happens regularly when doing a live sound set up and I should have taken more charge to ensure things ran more smoothly. I find this difficult to do as I do not enjoy yelling at people. So I need to improve on my confidence and take charge as that is my job. Next time, I will contact people who are late or make sure I leave time for problems such as these.
Another problem we had was that Hareth was still unsure of how to turn on the lighting to begin with. This meant that Tom had to take up more of his time showing him how to use it again. After this, he realised that the lights were not pointing in the correct direction and so we had to ask the technician to change them. This meant we had to ask permission and then spend time altering the direction. For the final performance, we will not need to change these again but Hareth may need to spend some time in the lighting booth double-checking that he is happy with the way everything is set before the final performance.
Finally, we needed to set up cameras. This was hard as we wanted to get good angles but had to attempt to keep each camera out of other shots. As well as this we wanted to do some movement such as panning. We had the idea to use a rolling board to take a camera around the room on wheels. Unfortunately, this was unsuccessful as the tripod did not fit on top of it. Instead we got an aerial view using a table to balance the camera above the drums. This ended up looking very professional, capturing the entire drum kit and the drummer’s face perfectly. I think we should do this again work out ways we can use pan the cameras without being in shot.
The recording:
Initially, the recording process itself went really well in my opinion. All of the angles we got of each musician were really interesting and well-thought-out by Amelia. However, this did not stay easy as once we had finished recording the first year bands, the number of camera people diminished and we had to run between them to record each take. This in turn added to the total time it took to finish the mock. Next time, we will ask performers to turn on their own camera so that the videos start at similar times.
In addition, the audio recording had a couple of problems with the quality. This was due to some crackling and hissing noises on each channel. This is disappointing but Tom and Lewis say it is most likely a firmware issue on the sound desk. Within the next week, they will be looking at updating this and troubleshooting any other problems that occur. Thankfully this will not cause any problems with regards to the final product (the stream) as we have another chance to get much better quality audio recordings during the final performance.
The performance:
I think this performance was successful because of a few personal achievements. First of all, despite having a camera focused on me, I kept my eyes open and head up. This proves that my confidence has improved a lot since previous performances and rehearsals. I feel like this will make the footage quite interesting to use when editing as I am not looking down. Secondly, I sang this song much better. In previous rehearsals, I found it difficult to stay in key or reach the high notes but now I have practised and brought it into my range, this has become much easier. However, I think I need to improve on my stage presence and rehearse a few more times at home to get it perfect.
Throughout this performance, I was enjoying myself a little bit more than in previous rehearsals which is good because it makes the overall performance look better to people watching. I do however feel as though I was still relying a little bit on the lyrics and that meant I did not make eye contact with the camera as often as I could have. It looks a little bit awkward and I definitely need to spend time remembering the lyrics before the final performance. The rest of the performance (from the bridge) seemed to be very well performed by all of us.