Tim is a member of our broadcast advisory committee and offered us a chance to drop by and see what was new in the way of their mobile production vehicles, as well as some purpose-built equipment for doing mobile and event productions (something we’re keen to do more of!)

One of the most impressive things about seeing the Proshow operation is the attention to detail – a good model for students!

We’re going to try and get some students more involved with Proshow, and we are already working to train students in the types of skills that are required for live event production.

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!

Television & Video Production students perform the roles of:

• News Camera (aka “Shooters”)
• News Editors
• Graphics and Animation production
• Newscast production (Director, Assistant Director, Technical Director, Audio, Floor Director, etc.)

Our Broadcast Journalism students are responsible for the stories and interviews that make up the content of our weekly BCIT Magazine production.

Practicum is an intensive 4-week process that ensures that all students get exposure to all aspects of Television & Video Production in a live environment, with the challenges and deadlines that exists in a real station.

Practicum begins another first this year, as BCIT Broadcast has installed two video servers as we move closer to gracefully retiring our tape infrastructure.

Our Facilis server is an 18 terrabyte storage server that provides us with almost 1400 hours of storage for our edit bays.  The Omneon server is a play-to-air server which takes the final edited stories and allows playback through our control rooms.

Most of our aquisition and editing facilities are currently using digital tape formats, however we’re moving towards a totally tapeless workflow that allows us to go from acquisition to broadcast without any physical media (aside from memory cards) involved in the process.

Tape, old and busted...

Our Television & Video Production advisory committee, composed of broadcast and film professionals from Western Canada are very supportive of us making these changes.

Memory cards - new hotness...

Employers demand students and alumni trained in digital and tapeless production technology.  BCIT delivers.

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!

First up was a commercial for Gold’s Gym – the “under glass” part comes from the location – in the racquetball courts at BCIT (the gym was busy).  Inner (and outer) strength can show itself in many ways, and a bench full of cheerleaders (who are eyeing the athletic hero) feel the earth move from an unlikely source.

Shooting on-location offers some unique learning experiences.  Shooting on location in poor weather offers additional learning experiences…  While we didn’t get much in the way of snow for our Olympic experience, mother nature is making up for lost time with rain.  And a lot of it…

Today we ventured forth with a production for “The Running Room”, which illustrates a strong motivational factor for a lonely athlete to encourage him to do more running.  Extra points if you can guess the concept!

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!

With a small group of volunteers, we assembled our five new Panasonic HPX-300 P2-HD camera packages!  Starting next term we’re going to be moving to HD productions and tapeless workflows.

Post production will be one one of our new Mac Pro edit suites which are loaded with both Avid Media Composer and Final Cut Studio, in addition to the Adobe suite of products to give TV & Video Production students the widest possible range of options for their post-production workflow.

The TV & Video Production program will also be shifting focus somewhat – in addition to our single-camera digital produtions (film style, but without the film!), we will be producing more live event programming (such as sporting events, theatre, music, etc).

To accomplish this, we’ve purchased a portable Broadcast Pix production package that we can take out to events to enable us to do multi-camera switched live programming.  We will be looking for non-profit community events where BCIT students can bring their production skills to the project and provide clients with high quality end-products.

Exciting times!