Multi-Camera Blog

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Multi-camera Set-up and Sources Used in Blog

This is what a multi-camera set up looks like. This is effective because it allows the cameras to cover all the important areas around the table, so while recording nothing important is going to be missed from these two character’s conversations. The cameras are also positioned perfectly so that they provide a few interesting and varied camera angels. For example, camera A places the woman on the right hand side, and camera C places the man on the left hand side. This makes it look more like a conversation, since the space left in the frame is supposed to be where the table is. Showing the distance between these two as they are talking. Cameras A & C are also close enough that you can read the character’s expressions – like in camera C where the man is looking smug. But most importantly, none of the cameras are in the way of each other. For example, in shot B, you can’t see camera A & C popping into view. It’s important that this doesn’t happen, since it can ruin the immersion and look unprofessional. To make sure this doesn’t happen, someone (like the floor manager), could have a headset that talks to each of the cameramen. Giving them cues on when to move or when to wait and let the other cameramen move.

These are the sources I used throughout all my blog posts:

http://morganbolton.blogspot.com/2012/05/job-roles-of-multi-camera-production.html

http://serife-multicamera.blogspot.com/2013/05/job-roles-of-multi-camera-production.html

https://www.thecrewingcompany.com/industry-roles-studio-crew/

https://billypaultucker.weebly.com/job-roles-in-a-multi-camera-production.html

http://clairemulticamera.blogspot.com/2012/03/multi-camera-roles.html

https://prezi.com/wayaaut_kuwi/unit-23-multi-camera-production/

http://cbrandmedia.blogspot.com/2016/10/unit-23-multi-camera-production.html

http://jamalcwc.blogspot.com/2012/09/advantage-and-disadvantage-of-multi.html

https://shenikaprincess.wordpress.com/multi-camera-techniques/

https://smallbusiness.chron.com/multicamera-shoot-36838.html

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Roles in a Multi-camera Production (Gallery examples)

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These are people who work in the gallery and are away from the set. They need a wide view of the whole of the floor, so that they can do their job effectively. The main job roles in this section include lighting desk and vision mixer.

Lighting Desk – This person manages the where the lights should go and what colour they should emit. He discusses their position with the set designer and director, and they need to be set up and tested before filming. Without the lighting desk, it the set would be too dark for the cameras to pick up. So by using lights, the multi-camera production is more professional and visible. Skills for this role include being able to work under pressure, since while filming live a light might stop working. The man at the lighting desk needs to have a backup plan, like telling the floor manager that the lights have gone down, and that one of the actors has to move somewhere else (where the light is).

An example of the lighting desk being used best, is the non-narrative stage show of Radiohead in Glastonbury (clip shown below). When the song gets intense, the colours match this by using harsher shades of blue. You can also say that the colour blue has connotations of sadness, which is the feeling the song gives off. It’s important that the man at the lighting desk gives of the relevant emotions at the right times, so that the film is more entertaining to watch. Without the lights, these emotions would struggle to be achieved. Furthermore, another skill for a lighting desk is that they have a creative attitude on what colours to use and at what moments.

The two images and the video are from Radiohead in Glastonbury 2017. They are playing the song “Exit Music (For a Film)”. The first image is during the slow parts, while the second image is at the climax. 

Vision Mixer – The vision mixer cuts from camera to camera, sometimes include transitions. He works alongside the director, which makes the vision mixer’s job very difficult since he needs to multi-task between listening to the director’s orders and editing. Furthermore, the vision mixer might be editing the exact second it’s being distributed live. So he needs to pay close attention to what’s going on. Skills for this field include a lot of experience of doing this sort of thing, since a simple mistake from the vision mixer could ruin the whole production. 

For example, this live clip above from ABC news in filmed live. As you can see it includes many shots, some of which are overlaid next to the presenter (like in the screenshot below). It’s the vision mixer’s job to put them there, and make sure that the presentation is professional (which it is). 

Below is an example where the vision mixer crossfades from the presenter, to a clip from the protestors against Donald Trump. This transition was both smooth, quick and relevant. It needs to be smooth and quick so that it’s not noticeable and not too distracting for the audience. And it was relevant because as the presenter said “We’re also following the protestors” as it transitioned - so the timing was perfect. This proves my point to how focused you have to be as a vision mixer, since if he was 8 seconds too late, it might have thrown off the presenter. Perhaps causing him to stress out and give a worse performance. Therefore, the vision mixer’s job is very essential to a multi-camera production.

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Roles in a Multi-camera Production (Floor examples)

These are the people who are down on the set creating the multi-camera production. The main job roles in this section, include the camera operator, set designer and floor manager.

Camera operator – In a multi-camera production you will have more than one of these people holding the camera. Their job is to record the film in ways that suit the director’s needs. To do this they must have an understanding on how to work the camera –by making sure the shot is in focus, the camera is steady and that the record button has been pressed. These people determine the framing and camera movement, even though most of the time these creative inputs are from the director telling them what to do, rather than the camera operator coming up with his own ideas. These people are important to the production because without them, they would be no film. And even if the cameras were already set up, without an operator, there wouldn’t be any camera movement and if something went wrong with the camera, it would take longer for it to be reported. Below is a picture of three cameras and three camera operators controlling each one. 

Set designer – These people decorate the background of the scene, so that it adds more immersion for the audience. Instead of using a green screen, the set will be 3 dimensional. So the actors will be able interact with it more (which can give them a better performance since their character is in the correct setting). This is especially important for a narrative, where they are trying to tailor the production to a genre. For example, in my narrative blog post I mentioned Coronation Street. This set needs to have a realistic, English-style and working-class feel to it. This is done so through the style of the café, which looks very typical of a café you would see in England. Being a set designer is very important since it can engross the audience in its narrative by having a believable setting. Without the set designer, these messages would struggle to be achieved. Skills for this profession include, being able to design the set itself and knowing what set should suit which scene.

Floor Manager – They receive directions from the director, which the floor manager uses to tell everybody working on the floor what to do. He also ensures everything is set up and safe to use before filming, so that there are no accidents that might ruin the production. They make sure the whole production is going smoothly so that the director’s needs are met. The floor manager also uses cards during the filming so he can communicate with the presenter. This is to give him cues on when to start, when to wrap up and what to do when something goes wrong. Skills for this field include: good communication skills and experience in the process of a multi-camera production. Without the floor manager, this puts more strain on the director who already has a big enough job as it is. And it allows him to see everything that’s going on from above rather than having a limited view down on the floor. Below is an example of a floor manager doing his job. I can assume that he’s giving the signal that everything’s ready, the headset is connected to speaker so everyone can hear him, and that the headset has an earpiece so that he can hear the orders from the director.

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Narrative Programming that Uses Multi-camera

The example above is from the UK television narrative “Coronation Street”. It uses multi-camera to produce episodes quickly. This because there are six 30 minute new episodes every week. Taking into account that each episode needs to be written, edited and any new sets need to be designed. They might only have 4 hours to film 30 minutes of footage. There also might be problems like people being sick, busy, or giving bad performances. So to meet the deadlines, they need to record quickly, and multi-camera achieves that. In the clip below, there is a conversation between two people. There are lots of cameras covering the whole set, which reduces the risk of accidentally cutting someone out of shot. Therefore, leading to less retakes. These are all the shots that I noticed.

Some of these camera might be used more than once. Meaning that while camera number 1 is playing on screen, this gives camera number 2 time to get into position. This can help save time in setting up the cameras, since you have less to set up.

Furthermore, these shots are effective at showing the character expressions, their movements and the background. So the quality isn’t dropped by deciding to use multi-camera. These shots also flow very smoothly into each other, because if you were to only use one camera, the positioning of the characters might have changed slightly. In single camera productions, they’ll fix this issue by using cutaways. But since Coronation Street is on a tight schedule, they can’t afford to waste time. Therefore, multi-camera prevents such an issue, since it allows the recording to be done in one take.

Another example of a multi-camera narrative is from Family Matters. The clip above has a live audience, so while watching it feels like your laughing along with a crowd. This crowd is experiencing the humor at the same pace you are, all of which makes the experience funnier. This is achieved through the clever use of multi-camera, so that the visuals sync up with live audience, to produce an entertaining sit-com.

Furthermore, the use of multi-camera allows you to see character’s reactions from different angles in the frame. For example, in the shots below:

In this part, Steve tells Waldo to state his name. Waldo mishears this and says “Illinois”. Steve corrects Waldo and says “State your name, not name your state.” After Steve thinks Waldo has understood what he was saying, you can see Steve walking away proud that he got the defendant to understand the message. And in the next shot:

Waldo says “Waldo Faldo… from Illinois”. When “Illinois” is said, Steve turns around in frustration like in the picture below. These two shots manage to capture Steve’s expression change perfectly, since at the start of this second shot Steve retains the proud feeling from the previous shot. And these two shots allow you to see Steve’s reaction from both angles from using two cameras one behind Steve and one to the side of Steve.

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Non Narrative Programming that Uses Multi-camera

The example above is a clip from a chat show with Jimmy Fallon and Mike Tyson. In this clip you see Mike Tyson and Jimmy Fallon talking about the video game “Mike Tyson’s Punch Out”, then Mike Tyson goes up to the big screen to fight himself in the video game. There are lots of different cameras set up throughout the video’s run time, so it allows these two to walk around the whole set without the worry of going off camera. Furthermore, since you can see that there’s a live audience in the background, using muli-camera is very helpful in this situation. This is because stopping and starting the camera whenever you want to might bore the audience. So instead by recording the footage in the background, allows both the audience and the people watching at home, to experience the video as if it’s a real conversation between Jimmy and Mike. Furthermore, I’d assume that Mike Tyson isn’t familiar with how a film production works (since his profession is in boxing), so he might accidentally continue talking while the cameras aren’t rolling. So the cameras might not pick up some of Mike’s best moments. Therefore, multi-camera allows you to see the conversation in its entirety, without any mistakes.

Moreover, these are all the different shot types I noticed throughout this clip:

As you can see from these clips, the lighting is consistent throughout, this is because throughout this entire clip, the lighting is in a fixed position. This can both save time, and reduce the risk of continuity errors. And from these screenshots, the lighting is perfect, since you can clearly Mike’s and Jimmy’s face and body movements. As you can see from Camera 5, there’s not a lot of lighting on the audience, so from the looks of it, the lights are above the audience looking down and pointing towards the set that Jimmy and Mike are on. Probably from all directions, since you can see no shadows and from every position they both turn, there is enough light on their face.

Furthermore, by having so many cameras, this gives the possibility to swap between different shots in the editing. Since some angles might portray the joke better than other shots. Or in a rare instance that one of the cameras becomes faulty or runs out of charge. Having multiple cameras reduces this risk, and causes less of a panic on set. Since Jimmy and Mike are only going to realize the error once there’s a break. Therefore, leading to a lot of good performances lost that can never be seen again. 

Another example of non-narrative multi-camera is this live Glastonbury event of Muse playing the song “Map of the Problematique”. The use of multi-camera here is great, since there is a camera positioned on every band member using their instrument. This makes their playing more meaningful, since it shows them working together to create a song. And thus, more immersive for the viewers watching. It also tries to portray the event as if you’re actually there, by showing the over bombastic light show. Which is done through lots of shots showing the huge contrast in colours between the build up at towards the beginning (first shot below) and the freak out at 2:15 (second shot below). For these two shots, a stand for the camera to rest on must have been used.

Furthermore, since the band is working hard to create this song, it would be too much to ask them to perform it again, to get another shot angle. So by setting up lots of different cameras it allows the watcher to immerse themselves in the experience more.  The two shots below, shows the singer Matthew Bellamy and drummer Dominic Howard. The first one cuts to Matt when he’s singing, and the second one cuts to Dominic when he’s giving he’s best drum performance. For these two shots, Matt is at the front of set, so there must have been a camera pointing up at him from below. And for Dominic, there must have been hidden a camera on the stage. It’s important that these cameras are out of the way and are not blocking the band member, since it could cause a bad performance. So a lot of these shots are probably zoomed in.

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Introduction to Multi-camera Blog

This blog is about the different types of multi-camera productions. Multi-camera means using more than one camera when filming, and these are usually split up into two categories: non-narrative and narrative. The first meaning a production that doesn’t revolve around a story. This includes the news, events, interviews and game shows. The second meaning the opposite. Like soap operas and sitcoms.

I will also be talking about the crew who works together to create these. This includes their role, why their position is helpful, what skills people in this profession have and how all of these people fit together to create a professional multi-camera production.

Furthermore, I will also mention the benefits of multi-camera and I’ll explain how each of my chosen examples (both narrative and non-narrative), achieve these in order to improve their product.

Below is an example of a multi-camera set up: