(no subject)

[prog]

First studio camera class today.

The big difference between this and the community producer course: there, one learns to be a one-person showmaker, running around with a portable DV camera (and maybe a partner if you happen to have one lying around), making your own content off the cuff and on a shoestring. Here, the goal is to train you to work the SCAT studio equipment so you can volunteer to help make other people's shows. (Though I'm sure that knowing how everything works is valuable in any case.)

In tonight's class we learned basic studio camera operation and director communication. Really fun, though it's essentially robotic work, with all decisionmaking centralized in the director, sitting out of sight in the control room. (This is how it's done at SCAT, anyway.) The camerafolk just follow the director's instructions as they come over their headphones, and the floor manager does little beyond flashing the director's cues to the talent (that is, the people actually on-camera); this is the role that gets to make those fun 'wrap it up' and 'stretch it' hand signals.

I can see myself volunteering to help work the studio for others, actually, as a wholly separate activity from my own production goals. I think it would be a fun occasional activity rut-breaker. One more class of this, and I'll be able to put my name on the volunteer list, actually. (Even though there's a part of me that's a little bothered by the fact that the cameras aren't literally remote-controllable robots. Surely the technology exists. It can't cost that much, can it? (Ha ha ha.))

The other implication is that I needn't worry about finding a crew to help make the Gameshelf, if we end up using the SCAT studio for it; it looks like I can trust the station to provide a crew for me. That's... pretty awesome, actually.

Comments

[xymotik.livejournal.com]

"SCAT" is rather unfortunate. I really wish they had chosen a different acronym.

[prog.livejournal.com]

Nobody's commented on it except people whose minds are already in the gutter. (I picked up on it immediately.)

I think the word primarily means "poo" only to cool people like us. Otherwise it is an archaic term for "go away", I guess, or a kind of vocal accompaniment for jazz, perhaps.

[xymotik.livejournal.com]

I blame the internet!

The voters on urbandictionary agree with us coolsters (and the other definitions you mention are there as well).

[ruthling.livejournal.com]

I think SCAT = poo, but then again, we all know my professional relationship with wastewater.