The regular semester has finished, and our Broadcast students are current involved in Practicum, where the Broadcast Center turns into a leaving, breathing Television station.
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.
Employers demand students and alumni trained in digital and tapeless production technology. BCIT delivers.
(Note: No students were blinded in the making of this science, but it was the best title I could come up with … The only other option was trying to find something that rhymed with “Bill Nye the Science Guy”)
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.
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.
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What a night!
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.
- Footage was shot on the Panasonic HPX-300 P2-HD cameras
- After aquisition, the footage gets loaded onto the iMac Final Cut Pro edit station via P2-reader and a USB interface
- 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!
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More HD production this week!
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!
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Following our successful tests last week of our new, portable Broadcast Pix production system, this week we trained our first year students on it.
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…
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Had a chance to get our new Broadcast Pix switcher up and running last week! Our HD gear is commissioned now as well, so we’re going to be starting HD productions in the next few weeks!
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!
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