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I would blow Dane Cook posted:Is it true that some news anchors will read anything you put on a teleprompter? In short, you knew the show pretty well, the issues you were talking about in the show were 100x less complex than issues today, and if an error came across the teleprompter (or, for those with no prompter, an error in the script) you were much more likely to know it and be able to fix it on the fly. Anchors today are much more likely to do newsroom updates throughout the afternoon, cross-promote on radio partner(s), do standalone pieces for the web, and shoot various promo pieces that will run leading up to the shows. To find an anchor that doesn't write any stories in 2016 is like finding a unicorn - so between radio, web, news update and promo on-air work, you're trying to squeak back into your office to hammer out a few scripts. In 1975 you did an hour at 6, now you're starting with live updates during programming at 4, an hour of live news at 5, and then another half hour at 6:30. Story count is 2x or 3x what it was in 1975, and the breadth of the stories is infinitely larger. In 1975 it was probably 80% local stories in a newscast - as a veteran anchor, you probably knew every issue and in fact almost every person you were quoting. In 2016 you are reading wire stories from people and places you've never heard of. In short, we're training people to read anything that's put on the teleprompter. By the time you hit the studio at 5pm, you may not have had time to even read the show through ONCE, and now you're expected to perform it live on-air. In 1975 we had a whole crew to back you up if you flubbed. In 2016 if you gently caress up, the show just steamrollers over you, because 75% of the crew is laid off and the whole thing runs on automation. The subtext of the question seems to be, is it true that people get paid $500k/yr and are so stupid they'll just read whatever's put in front of them, and IMHO the answer is that anchors, who probably make $150 or $200k, are worked like dogs, and if you slip a sentence 30 minutes into the show and that sentence doesn't make any sense, yes, they will belt it right out. It's not because they're so worthless, it's just that they're busy, it's dense material, often obscure, and I would challenge anyone to do better.
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Dec 24, 2016 09:44
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Wow I was just trying to make an Anchorman joke.
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Dec 24, 2016 10:02
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EL BROMANCE posted:Oh neat I didn't know NHL did it. I watch all the games on my local affiliate, I wonder if they make use of it or if it's just games on NBC etc. AFAIK it's Rogers and NBC/Comcast that do it most but I'll wager some of the other networks like MSG and NESN do it too.
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Dec 24, 2016 13:35
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Where are you that local news is 630? Isn't that the "local primetime" half hour? Then again I worked for a local lptv station that didn't do news. We only did two in house shows: a "meet the press" style mouthpiece for the tea party (ask me about how many times I had to replace the c in Obamacare with a hammer and sickle) and a country music video show. We finally upgraded to a computerized server shortly before I got laid off. Prior to that, it was all beta, all the time. With a manual mcr. Fun times. My favorite thing was due to being a tiny station all of our programming was via barter syndication (the distributor sells all but about 2min of ad time themselves to national companies). Well with all programming, but especially barter programming you get run sheets,which list segment times, national ads, and when local breaks are. They often use abbreviations for national ads. Well,one of the guys at the company that distributed Cheaters must have been really bored. For over a month straight there was an ad break that had an ambulance chaser that specializes in transvaginal meshes followed by one for universal technical institute. So the run sheet read TRANSVAG UTI for weeks until someone must have noticed and finally split those ads into different breaks. Also some of the notes left on tapes by our board ops.
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Dec 26, 2016 02:17
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photomikey posted:The subtext of the question seems to be, is it true that people get paid $500k/yr and are so stupid they'll just read whatever's put in front of them, and IMHO the answer is that anchors, who probably make $150 or $200k, are worked like dogs, and if you slip a sentence 30 minutes into the show and that sentence doesn't make any sense, yes, they will belt it right out. It's not because they're so worthless, it's just that they're busy, it's dense material, often obscure, and I would challenge anyone to do better. Best example of that in "recent" times. HO LEE FUK & WI Tu Lo KTVU Flight 214 Fail Asiana Pilots Names https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17GbGmDORwk
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Jan 3, 2017 19:32
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This absolute gem of a clip just appeared on YouTube with one of the funniest cockups I've seen in a long while. It's from the UK gameshow Talking Telephone Numbers on ITV, which I believed as a child was totally live but now I've found out that bits were pre-recorded (bits from VT + bits live mixed in) and somebody in VT hits fast-forward on the deck while the tape is on-air. After covering up that mistake and making arrangements to add some things in to make up the shortfall, the VT fucks up AGAIN and throws it all to cock. And remember, viewers think this is a live show. With money and prizes etc. Bit of a massive fail to mess that up, as the public will lose trust in it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgFyDwz8m_4 Programme audio in the left channel, talkback audio in the right channel. Edit: Also the normally squeaky clean Philip Schofield swearing is wonderful (off air, obviously). thehustler fucked around with this message at 14:52 on Jan 4, 2017 |
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Jan 4, 2017 13:08
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Ah that sounds fantastic, very much added to my YT list to watch tonight. If people like talkback stuff, this is a nice example. I guess the wrong copy went out somewhere as an episode of WWE NXT with the talkback included got uploaded to YouTube. While a lot of wrestling is broadcast live, the stuff that isn't is generally shot for live because it's easier for ad breaks, less editing, and practice for the real deal I guess. So this wasn't a live broadcast but feels like one. Neat to show how they cut around botches and the like, so an interesting watch regardless of whether you like wrestling or not. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTGDXN5jxUo Similarly I remember back in 2012, I was living in Cardiff with my mate and he'd picked up one of those cheap USB tv tuners that could be hacked to do some wide band frequency scanning. I can't remember if it was fluke or we had a heads up somewhere, but there was a football game on in the stadium just a mile or two down the road and connecting the USB box up to the tv aerial we were able to intercept all the control room comms for the broadcast. That was pretty fun, I remember the French getting some slagging off and the usual parade of F bombs.
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Jan 4, 2017 16:13
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Aye that's commonly known as "as live" - good video! Edit: Why can't I hear them calling out cameras and cuts? Maybe that's done in a separate truck and this is more about production/moving people around? thehustler fucked around with this message at 16:41 on Jan 4, 2017 |
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Jan 4, 2017 16:34
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Your off-air pickup may have been a video sender of some kind - very nice when you pick up that kinda stuff. If any of you have a radio scanner you should tune around the 440-470 range and you may pick up some talkback from your local TV production area of choice. Obviously best near the larger venues like Glasgow/Salford/London. Clips like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0T2771yVjtA That's the comms for Blue Peter at Salford, control room/cameras etc. You can also hear the network playout guys at Red Bee down near London as they control all network presentation so they need to be in the loop for count outs/ins etc.
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Jan 4, 2017 16:37
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thehustler posted:Aye that's commonly known as "as live" - good video! Yeah it feels like we don't get the full thing on there, he complains about the feed from Stanford having a ton of static on it but I couldn't hear that either so presumably it's just the one channel that's leaked into the feed. It's quite amazing WWE didn't get that one pulled from YT but it's been up for 5 years.
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Jan 4, 2017 16:52
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Stanford would be the production centre at NBC Universal I imagine
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Jan 4, 2017 17:00
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It's the WWE corporate headquarters, everything goes in and out of there.
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Jan 4, 2017 17:03
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More sexy talkback audio with quadsplit view! It's the live BBC F1 show with Jake Humphrey (before he quit). https://youtu.be/BheV32Xe_W8
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Jan 4, 2017 18:43
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Bio-Hazard post about the police please it sounds fun
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Jan 4, 2017 23:45
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i took a "tv production" class in school. we shot stuff on minidv cameras. for microphones, um the camera has a microphone built in, duh. then we used the most advanced part of the entire process, this fancy new thing called firewire. we imported everything into a really early version of imovie on some OG imacs (the fruit-colored ones). the import process was quite simple: we clicked buttons and waited to see if it worked, and if not, we cussed out the equipment, fiddled with whatever checkboxes and dropdowns were available, then tried again until something came through. sometimes we had to make do without getting all of the footage off of a camera, due to using cheap and/or old consumer electronics having problems that probably no one in our entire town knew how to diagnose. the same went for editing, where depending on what computer you got stuck with for your project, maybe applying some edit or effect once we had a finished product, we somehow got it onto a VHS tape, probably with some more quality loss. this tape was then put into a player in the copy room of the library, which housed the school's local coax TV system. i don't know what the technical name for this kind of thing is, but it took in signals from ota/satellite/cable and a couple campus-only inputs (like the channel that showed the screen of ancient mac they had set on an infinite powerpoint loop to show school news) and sent this out to all the classrooms. then there was a school-wide announcement and most teachers would turn the channel and let their class watch our little productions i know this isn't broadcast television really, but drat that was the most fun i ever had in school during my years of mandatory education. the year i took it, the school had not offered it for many years, so there was pretty much zero review for our videos beyond our teacher yelling at us to cut some bit out that he saw or heard from across the room and didn't like
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Jan 5, 2017 02:54
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I managed to broadcast a too hot signal at my first job. This was back when CRTs were the norm, via analog cable. Every TV tuned in let out a huge fart, flashed white, followed by a black picture with the actual supposed feed relatively slowly building back up from the bottom. Best part was this was at 7pm and noone noticed - which made me realize: If you broadcast video errors people tend to blame their sets rather than the station. My favorite fuckup was when the teletext-thing didnt switch to DST and noone noticed until we got a call on our answering machine at 2am with some drunk woman telling us to fix this asap or shed "complain somewhere else"
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Jan 5, 2017 19:10
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Fantastic. I've been reading about teletext today. Lots of European broadcasters still use it over the DVB stuff. Even though we now have DVB. They kept support in for the old analogue system I think. Crazy. Also today I plugged the multiview output from my ATEM vision mixer into a recorder and sent the talkback comms I it too so when I do streams I can record it for later review. Or behind the scenes stuff. Really awesome how you can just plug stuff into stuff when it comes to AV. Your imagination is the only limit. Next thing is to rig up a wireless earpiece so I can give my talent a cue over the talkback.
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Jan 5, 2017 19:14
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Would it be ok to throw some technical Q's at you? Let's say you want to do a 'studio' (garage) multicam setup. What's the best way to accomplish switching between 3-4 cameras and out to a computer on a budget? Right now I'm using USB webcams but am planning to upgrade to something with HDMI outs and a cheap switcher/mixer if I can find one.
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Jan 5, 2017 19:31
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Yeah isn't teletext more popular than the internet in one of the Scandinavian countries to this day? I have a lot of love for Ceefax/Oracle/Teletext. Back when it was relevant I had a piece of software on my BBC Model B that let you make your own system that naturally looked identical to the real thing. I loved that thing to death. God bless Digitiser and Mr Biffos parting image of Turner the Worm 'being sick'. I guess these are like our reveal button!
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Jan 5, 2017 19:31
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EL BROMANCE posted:Yeah isn't teletext more popular than the internet in one of the Scandinavian countries to this day? I have a lot of love for Ceefax/Oracle/Teletext. Back when it was relevant I had a piece of software on my BBC Model B that let you make your own system that naturally looked identical to the real thing. I loved that thing to death. Haha yes! All of this brought back so many memories. Grand Prize Winner posted:Would it be ok to throw some technical Q's at you? Let's say you want to do a 'studio' (garage) multicam setup. What's the best way to accomplish switching between 3-4 cameras and out to a computer on a budget? Right now I'm using USB webcams but am planning to upgrade to something with HDMI outs and a cheap switcher/mixer if I can find one. You can get some HDMI mixers, the problem is how quick the switch is. Otherwise you'll have big empty gaps while it switches that looks bad. Ones with low delay will cost you some money. Over a grand. That's where the cost goes up when you get to broadcast kit. It's the quality of it.
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Jan 5, 2017 20:45
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Then there's stuff like this http://recolive.com/en/
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Jan 5, 2017 20:56
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Also please do watch that YouTube video. I can't get over Philip Schofield using the F word. He's so chill usually and I can't deal with it. I'm gonna do a video of my studio setup for you tomorrow I think
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Jan 5, 2017 20:59
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I just got around to watching it, loved the panic. Will rewatch it again with headphones so I can separate talkback from air and get the full experience (my tv, it seems, does not have a balance control. Infinite blacks and no bloody contrast control...)
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Jan 5, 2017 21:23
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mR_wJkxKSXU Here's a tour of an analog tv transmission facility.
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Jan 6, 2017 11:47
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I work in feature films and TV dramas in the UK as an assistant director, it's not very technical and I've only been doing it for about 3 years so not enough really to warrant starting a thread! Just wanted to say this is fascinating stuff for someone who's only ever had a passing interest in the technical aspect (AD is a more logistical role).
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Jan 6, 2017 13:58
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thehustler posted:By putting 4K locked off cameras in strategic locations in a studio or bespoke broadcast in a venue you can feed them to a workstation, reframe the shots, make editing decisions, and have a nearly-live HD production. All of the video I shot in HD was in 1440x1080 60i, so it was easy to crop new shots from a wide shot. In fact, it was dictated that every interview was to be shot entirely in a 2-shot, with the reporter in the frame. Made it awkward when a male reporter's interview was used the next day by a female reporter. So, we did a lot of cropping. photomikey posted:When Ron Burgundy was an anchor in the 1970s, being a TV news anchor was a pretty glorious lifestyle... This is correct. Except now, it's live from 4:30-7am, noon half hour, live from 4-6:30pm, 11pm half hour. Still a pretty sweet gig, though. thehustler posted:More sexy talkback audio with quadsplit view! It's the live BBC F1 show with Jake Humphrey (before he quit). I'm the guy behind Cam 2. I love walking backwards, into things that I can't see. Grand Prize Winner posted:What's the best way to accomplish switching between 3-4 cameras and out to a computer on a budget? Find 3-4 cameras that have outputs that match the inputs into a switcher (which I'm sure exists on eBay). Output from the switcher into a video capture card. Record. I would blow Dane Cook posted:Here's a tour of an analog tv transmission facility. Cool, everyone's switched over to DTV, I believe. They're auctioning off the old frequency ranges to big telecom. thehustler posted:Bio-Hazard post about the police please it sounds fun What should I post about? I offered to talk about dealing with police who didn't like me, but there's plenty of situations. Riot situation, unfolding SERT (or SWAT) situation, crime scene tape politics, etc. So, here's a couple situations: Rolling Up on a Scene: I never take the direct route (or google maps route) directly to the location, especially if it's in town. The crime scene tape is already up because of the bystanders, I can guarantee you, and they'll make sure nobody sees poo poo. So, I just drive one block down and swing around the back way. It's almost never taped off. Situations include:
Riot Situation: This actually happens quite frequently, but that's because I was in Portland. Most of how I do things operates on being "cool" with the people who are rioting. It's very easy to be the "uncool mainstream media guy" and much harder to be the "TV guy we want around in case police start gassing us." I'm pretty active, so I tend to float around and stay up with the front of the group who is causing the trouble. In these situations, I'm usually wearing my camera, a LiveU or TVU backpack, my satchel bag with gear, extra batteries, my coat or raingear, and other items. I've hiked miles throughout the city just to film some kids breaking poo poo for fun.  "What did I get myself into?" Once, protesters walked onto I-405/I-84 interchange into traffic. I could see this coming a mile away, the police got backed into it. While it was wrapping up, I decided to walk along the concrete barrier to get above everyone. I ignored the female officer telling me not to walk there, thinking she had other protesters to deal with. A second later, she grabbed me with both hands and threw me down from the concrete barrier onto the grass below. Then she was all like "Sorry!" but I was fine with it, since I chose to ignore her command.
Bio-Hazard fucked around with this message at 06:50 on Jan 8, 2017 |
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Jan 8, 2017 06:47
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I was in TV News broadcast for about 8 months and in all seriousness, it was at a San Diego news station (I won't say which one at this point). I started out as a camera op/PA and left as a floor director/other miscellaneous things. I mostly did evening news but I did occasionally do some remotes with my station but I can't really speak to the engineering side of things much but there seems to be some people who know about it in this thread. Now, I do mostly concert audio production and engineering but we occasionally do work with ESPN, HBO, SHOWTIME and a few others for different sporting events. I did the on-site audio production for the women's slalom, and GS at Killington Vermont a few months ago. It was later broadcast on NBC and around the world live. Regarding actual studio broadcast stuff, I can speak to my experience as a floor director/camera op, working with and managing talent and the other camera ops, show-flows, rundowns, etc. I do have a few stories and whatnot but it's 4:30am and I'm having trouble just forming a coherent sentence. Feel free to ask any questions about those things I mentioned and I'll try to get around to answering them. Oh, and if you want to "hear" what a broadcast sounds like being called by the director just type in "with director track" into youtube. Here's an example. There's an infinite amount more out there https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru1ZbjVMnik What you don't hear from most of these is the producer yelling at the director across the table and the talent through their IFBs. i am kiss u now fucked around with this message at 10:31 on Jan 8, 2017 |
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Jan 8, 2017 10:22
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In the UK we use the term "gallery" instead of control room so google for "gallery talkback" for some British stuff. No idea why we call it that. Historical I guess.
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Jan 8, 2017 12:36
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i am kiss u now posted:I was in TV News broadcast for about 8 months and in all seriousness, it was at a San Diego news station (I won't say which one at this point).
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Jan 8, 2017 16:47
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thehustler posted:In the UK we use the term "gallery" instead of control room so google for "gallery talkback" for some British stuff. a gallery is a place where one observes things
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Jan 8, 2017 16:57
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Lutha Mahtin posted:a gallery is a place where one observes things Aye, I suppose that makes sense. Britain seems to have a lot of differences. Mix/dissolve. Cut/take. There's local differences and of course every director is different too.
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Jan 8, 2017 19:12
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What would you focus on in school to do these types of jobs? I always just equated it with Acting with it being a case of being lucky / knowing people
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Jan 8, 2017 20:48
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There's certainly a lot of knowing people involved. Volunteering or doing work experience was a way in in the UK decades ago. Nowadays there's more of a focus on academic skills. TV Production, Broadcast Journalism are where you want to be. May be different with smaller stations around the world.
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Jan 8, 2017 21:37
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thehustler posted:Aye, I suppose that makes sense. One relevant difference is that the British word for a radio or TV news person is a "news reader" while in the US they are often called a "broadcaster". I've always wondered if this was due to the respective differences about how our countries talk about class and social status. Like I remember reading about how the telephone was controversial with upper-class British people at first, because it might allow dirty commoners to bother them inside their home, so some of them put the phone in a room that was mostly used by the servants in order to shield themselves from such an indignity. Empress Brosephine posted:What would you focus on in school to do these types of jobs? I always just equated it with Acting with it being a case of being lucky / knowing people In addition to what the OP just said, you might also look into Mass Communication. The college I went to had a film degree that wasn't a true "film school" type of degree, but was a hybrid mass communication and film degree. I also know that in the US, it can be helpful to look for a college/university that has a strong student-run radio station or TV channel. There are also smaller towns and cities where a local college or tech school has a close relationship with a local TV station, and it can be easier to get your foot in the door because it isn't a huge metro area with lots of other students competing for internships and such.
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Jan 8, 2017 22:01
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Empress Brosephine posted:What would you focus on in school to do these types of jobs? I always just equated it with Acting with it being a case of being lucky / knowing people In the US, it really depends on which part of the industry you want to work. If you want to work on the production side, there's a chance you could just catch a lucky break and get hired on as a production assistant with no experience and work your way on up from there to director or TD or something like that. There are also a of schools with both 2 and 4 year degree programs in Television Production. I did a 2 year program in this field but had little experience when I was first hired in TV but I did have a lot of other live audio/video production experience. There was room for vertical growth if you were good and willing to learn but the pay didn't change very much at my particular station without putting in some serious time. If you want to just do like EFP, I'm guessing it's more about having a degree in photography or video production or something similar but it sounds like there are some people in this thread who do exactly this so you'll have to ask them how they started. If you want to be more on the engineering side of things, again, a 2 or 4 year degree helps with this but most of the chief engineers I knew are old school electrical engineers or something similar because you really need to know your poo poo. If I wanted to get into the hardcore engineering side of broadcast, I would have definitely gone to school for EE with concentrations in RF. You'll also need to be a member of the SBE, the Society of Broadcast Engineers. These guys tend to be grizzled, grumpy and old with a constant hatred for the production staff. Probably because we were always breaking stuff. This is more of what I do now except it's in live audio production and I know where their disdain comes from. Top engineers can make stupid amounts of money and the community is pretty small. If you want to be talent in front of the camera reading stories and reporting, you absolutely have to have a degree in journalism. The only way I can really see around this is for like sporting events or news if you're an athlete or ex athlete or some sort of other expert in your field. They usually don't give these guys their own shows though, they just provide color commentary. Syracuse University up here is well known for churning out on-air talent from their Newhouse School but I'm sure there are bunch of others. Lutha Mahtin posted:In addition to what the OP just said, you might also look into Mass Communication. The college I went to had a film degree that wasn't a true "film school" type of degree, but was a hybrid mass communication and film degree. I also know that in the US, it can be helpful to look for a college/university that has a strong student-run radio station or TV channel. There are also smaller towns and cities where a local college or tech school has a close relationship with a local TV station, and it can be easier to get your foot in the door because it isn't a huge metro area with lots of other students competing for internships and such. photomikey posted:Hello, fellow San Diego newsie! Well, former but HI! i am kiss u now fucked around with this message at 22:24 on Jan 8, 2017 |
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Jan 8, 2017 22:06
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Thanks for the replys guys. I'd mostly be interested in general production maybe not even live, but general, if that even exists. It's a hobby of mine now and i'm at that stage in life where i'm looking at my hobbies and debating if I want to pursue careers in them! 
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Jan 9, 2017 00:12
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