World Partnership Walk 2010

Everyone had a great time and we put on a show that the crowd really enjoyed, helping to showcase the events of the day, as well as producing short video vignettes telling “walk stories”.

Thanks to our tapeless production workflow (and some great work from our camerapeople & editors), we were able to turn the segments around and push them directly to the server for playback onto the bigscreen in a matter of minutes

Special thanks to the crew that helped bring the equipment back to the broadcast centre, and spent some time washing the mud off of the tarps and cabling.

Also, special thanks to Tim and Sandro at ProShow Vancouver for helping out with some extra broadcast cabling to make the production run even more smoothly!

World Partnership Walk

We had a great time with the walk last year and both students and staff alike will be on-site in Stanley Park this Sunday, May 30th.

Come out and walk to raise money and increase awareness to fight global poverty.  If you’re in the area, feel free to drop by the production tent and have a chat with us!

Day 1 - Telus World of Science - Centre Stage

So what’s this about Science?  We had the opportunity to take our production on the road and head down to the Telus World of Science to do a live production of their Centre Stage science education show.

This was our first live event production using the new Broadcast Pix production flypack that we’ve been introducing the students to this semester (check the blog history for info on our practise events back at the school).

We are actively looking for projects that students can produce with our equipment to get additional production experience.  If you have a project you’d like to submit, please feel free to contact us.

Day 2 - Our "Control Room"

Details:

• 4 camera shoot (2 x Sony DSR 370, 1 x Sony DSR 400, 1 x Panasonic AG-DVX100BP)
• Broadcast Pix Slate 100 Flypack
• Crew (15 students, 3 Instructors)
• Load-in 10:30, Full Facs 12:45, Showtime 15:20, Wrap 16:00

I have linked a copy of our SW Technical Production Manual that includes some project planning details for aspiring production staff out there (some contact information has been removed for privacy reasons).

We expect students to provide this type of documentation (and more!) when planning their projects.

First off was a going-away party for both our Associate Dean, Brian Antonson and his administrative assistant Janet Wadsworth.  Plenty of good stories, good friends and good food.  Thanks to everyone who was involved both planning and holding this event.  I’m sure it left everyone with fond memories.

Also tonight (as if the party wasn’t work enough), we had our Big Info Session, where all of BCIT’s programs show up and show off to the general public.  The broadcast department had some great displays up (would it be too much to say we stole the show?).

Part of the Television Booth at the BCIT Big Info Session

This was the first public performance of our Broadcast Pix production system in combination with our iMac edit stations and Panasonic HPX-300 P2-HD cameras.

This was also the first time that we had an end-to-end digital workflow.

1. Footage was shot on the Panasonic HPX-300 P2-HD cameras
2. After aquisition, the footage gets loaded onto the iMac Final Cut Pro edit station via P2-reader and a USB interface
3. The finished edits are pushed via ethernet to the clipstore on the Broadcast Pix system and into our live show.

For the most part, it worked flawlessly – just a few hiccups when the power went out (note to student editors: “save often”).  Looking forward to our next live event in the second week of April when we take our class out on location to do a live show for a client!

We used the portable system to successfully replicate the same “Studio 1 Live” show that we produced earlier in the year with a full control room, audio room, and VTR room within the broadcast centre.  The possibilities are very interesting indeed…

We’re starting the training process in order to get students out doing live multi-camera switched productions in the near future!  Students will be looking for production opportunities (read: non-profit projects) soon!

On the equipment side of things:

• We’re in the process of purchasing five new HD camera packages (we’re getting the Panasonic AG-HPX-300), which shoot on the P2 memory cards.  This is hopefully spelling the beginning of the end of tape at BCIT.  Of course these cameras will also come with all of the supporting hardware, new tripods, etc.
• We’ve also purchased 7 iMac computers.  6 for Final Cut Pro editing stations for news, and 1 for audio control 2 for playback into the News Magazine.  We also purchased two 8-core Mac Pro systems for post-production on major projects (one for first year, and one for second year).
• In order to get more live-event production training, we’re getting a new Broadcast Pix portable production switcher package.  The idea is that we can take this out to live events (sports, plays, non-profit, etc) so students can develop more live multi-camera production skills aside from our normal news programming
• The Facilis and Omneon server installation is progressing, and we will soon have network-accessible drives available for news and project editing.  The Facilis is the “storage” server while working on your edits, while the Omneon is the “play-to-air” server that connects to the control rooms for direct digital playback (we’re phasing out tape).

All of this won’t be immediately available in September (heck, not much has actually been delivered yet).  We understand students will want to play with use the new gear.  Us too!  But we also want to make sure everyone is properly trained in it.

What this will likely mean is “in-house” use for training purposes until we get all of the bugs/workflow resolved.  Afterwards, we’ll get people using it ASAP.  Some components will be rolled-out in September, some may not be available for groups or individuals to sign-out until January.

As far as instructional staff goes, Al Klein has decided to stay on as a full-time director with CityTV in Vancouver, therefore David Griffiths will be taking on the responsibilities of teaching first-year TV students with John Mills.  Ashif Jivraj will be returning to BCIT Television as a full-time assistant instructor.