CIRCUS: AVID and Patching
0AVID
Avid, Avid, Avid, where do I begin, It’s hard to say I liked it, because I didn’t, and the truth be told I don’t think I will be finding much time to edit using it. It’s handy to know the basics and it’s little quirks with the Rave MAM System. This little bits of knowledge will help me troubleshoot problems with the software if required, at a later date.
Patching
Patching was an interesting, yet small session, aim at teaching me on how to route signals around the ravensbourne building. There’s not much more than that i can say about it.
LECTURE: Electronics and TV Systems and Signals
0Electronics
Continuing on from the basics we learnt in the first few lectures, we moved on to some basic analogue circuits, including creating a Hi-pass and Low-Pass filter. These filters are both very simple, yet they provide crucial functionality in many everyday appliances. A good example of this is the Phone it has a 3KHz Hi-Pass Filter in it, creating the distinctive sound you hear. A Mid-Pass Filter is another extremely common one, particularly in broadcasting. Used mainly in TV tuners, to decipher one signal from the next. They are used for this purpose as they can be set to allow a very small frequency range through at a time, useful for splitting the hundreds of signals sent over FreeView.
TV Systems & Signals
TV Systems and Signals, was unfortunately canceled today due to unforeseen circumstances.
CIRCUS: Studio Sound
0My final main Circus session today was on Studio Sound, and how it can make or break a live or as live television production. Bellow is what i had to say about today, in my circus report:
Studio sound is quite similar to Location sound, with the main difference being the amount of microphones / audio sources you can mix and output. In a studio mixer you can also use techniques such as Compression, Effects (Reverb, Delay and such), and Limiting.
In the studio at Ravensbourne there are 3 wall boxes each with a set of input / output tie-line which link back to the sound gallery. Each socket from this wall box can then be patched to any channel on the Solid State Logic C10, digital sound mixing desk. Each socket could be patched as an aux on the desk, allowing you to feed particular channels into the studio, for example as monitors for a band.
Each channel in the SSL C10 can have its own effects and compression applied to it which can be very useful in a band / interview situation, were you would like some reverb on the performance mic’s and nothing on the interviewees. Also each channel can be supplied with phantom power individually; this means that if you have microphones or other equipment that require phantom to operate, they can be supplied with it, without the rest of the inputs being affected. Some older sound desks only supply phantom to all or nothing, this can cause some problems with sensitive equipment.
The SSL C10 can handle “64 full input channels, each with dedicated 4-band EQ, Comp/Lim, Insert, Direct Output”5 as well as “16 dedicated mono Mix Minus buses with insert points, can be stereo-linked”5, all of which allows the sound supervisor to provide the studio floor / in ear monitoring all different mixes. For example a presenter will want to hear the Director, PA, and VT’s but they don’t want to hear themselves.
CIRCUS: Studio Camera’s
0Our second to last Circus session today, and it was defiantly one of the most interesting, Studio Camera’s. Heres what I wrote about it in my Circus Report:
Studio Cameras are in some respects simplified versions of PSC cameras, as they don’t have the ability to record directly or capture sound. Studio Cameras are operated by a single operator in the studio and a secondary racking operator in the gallery. The racking operator is responsible for the exposure, white / black balance and the colours. If each camera operator had these controls, the picture wouldn’t be as consistent as if it was operated remotely by one.
We were trained on the Sony HXC100 HD Camera’s, with four being mounted on Vinten Pedestals and the fifth on a non-pressurised Pedestal. The operation of the zoom and focus has moved from the camera body (PSC) to two wired remotes on the pan and tilt handles of the Pedestal, with the exception of number 5, which is designed to be used as a hand held and its pedestal, is only a place to keep it when not in use.
Camera 5 also has a Wide Angle, which again changes the perspective of the studio for the viewer, with this lens the studio looks larger than, when it is viewed with one of the other 4 camera’s which all have the same narrower lens. Graham Reed2 also went through a great deal on perspective and depth of field and how it can greatly effect an images composition. The great example he used was a line of tree’s and showed how using different focal lengths you could make the trees look closer together (narrow angle) or further apart (wide angle), than they truly were.
CIRCUS: Location Sound
0Another day, another circus Session this time we were learning about location sound. this is what i wrote about it for my Circus Report:
Locations sound works hand in hand with location camera’s providing additional sound capabilities to the single camera, for example an interview situation that required two personal mic’s could be mixed together before being fed to the camera as stereo or mono line level mix. Location mixers often have 2-4 inputs and can either mix in stereo or dual mono. Location mixers normally have better Microphone pre-amps than Camera’s, which in turn provides better sound quality, as the mixer is outputting at line level (0db) and the camera won’t apply any more amplification to the signal.
Some microphones require batteries or phantom power (+48v) to operate; these mic’s are a form of capacitor mic’s are much more sensitive than standard dynamic mic’s that don’t require power to operate. Most cameras and mixers can supply phantom power to these microphones.
When setting up for a shoot, you can use the tone that the mixer is supplying to the camera to help setup the record levels on the camera. Tone should be set just below the 0db mark as this allows some “head room” before the camera starts to clip the signal should you go above the tone volume.