Dissolves

Steve and noggin: thanks for that clarification and apologies for my misunderstanding. I'm not familiar with the way the BBC opt to the regions. It seems a bit of an odd way of doing it to me! Are the regions still given a count and an opt cue from the network, or does the regional opt director just wait for their little red light to disappear?

The little red light disappears when the button is pressed on the regional studio's mixer to cut to a local source

Interesting stuff - thanks for that.

As for:



One can only imagine what it must be like when a major breaking story like Sept 11th disrupts scheduling for the rest of the day, whatever about the coming week. The Pres team might as well move into the news gallery

It must take some very clear lines of communication to work through such difficult times, especially if you don't have a rolling news channel to back you up so you're just relying on the capacity/ability of your station's newsroom, and if you have take commerical breaks every 20-30 mins or so to further complicate things...

I think you are still a bit confused.

The network "red light" is driven by the regional vision mixer - it will only go out when the regional director (or their vision mixer if they have one - it is usual for directors to vision mix their own output in many regions these days) has cut away from network on their local vision mixer.

Whether the studio is 4:3 PAL or 16:9 digital, the network source will be the analogue network (as it is earlier) and the "soft opt" point is when the regional sound and vision mixers (with network sound and vision on their outputs) are routed to the transmjtters. The actual opt-out point on analogue happens when the regional vision mixer cuts away from the network incoming feed to a local source (camera, VTR, VERA, Server etc.) This cutting away happens instantly on analogue, but the digital junction is driven by the red-lights from the regional vision mixer for the network source. The output of the regional studio is delayed, and the red-light triggered switch also delayed, so that the junction happens at the same position in the digital network feed (which is later than the analogue one)

The "red lights for network" aren't remotely controlled from London - they are locally generated by the regional vision mixer.

This causes problems if you want to put a caption over network - as if you soft-opt on analogue and put a key over the analogue network feed, the caption will go out fine on analogue, but because the network red light remains on, there will be no opt-out on digital, so no caption.

To do this you have to route network onto a second input to the vision mixer, and cut to this with the key (as then the normal network red lights will disappear) However in both analogue and digital English regions this will mean that the network feed drops to 14:9 pillarbox (as the analogue network feed will be used)

Some regions can't do this as they don't have incoming network feeds (Channel Islands and BBC London again spring to mind)

This may seem strange compared to an ITV way of doing things, but the BBC and ITV distribution and transmission schemes are very different. ITV have a presentation chain and playout area for each region, so they can cope with ads (in days gone by they would have been in each regional centre, but now are centralised) and local news. Both the analogue and digital chains can be derived constantly from the digital output of these pres areas. ITV as such didn't have "opts" in the same way, as in days gone by there wasn't really a network feed. (Channel were the exception as they DID opt-out of Meridian/TVS/Westward)

The BBC don't have pres-chains for each English region - they just have one BBC One analogue Network feed, which feeds all the analogue transmitters, and a BBC One digital etwork feed which was added later. The opt-out scheme for digital was piggy-backed off the original analogue opt-out scheme.

If you were starting from scratch you'd only distribute a digital feed, and create the analogue feed locally at the transmitter or regional centreI guess, but as the BBC already had a resilient analogue system (albeit digital distributed) the dual chain system was introduced, with kit installed at each region (eventually - previously there were no opts on digital and UK Today filled the regional news gaps) to cope with the delays between analogue and digitla network feeds.

I managed to capture these from N24 tonight if anyone is still interested. Watch the camera on the right.

Before:
http://www.rp-networkservices.com/tvforum/uploads/bbc_n24_red_light_before.jpg

After:
http://www.rp-networkservices.com/tvforum/uploads/bbc_n24_red_light_after.jpg

Yep - that is a red light being triggered by a mix to the camera on the right. There is often a frame or two of delay in the red light processing these days, hence the light comes on just after the mix has started. (For the duration of the mix the red lights on both cameras will be on, as both will be on-air. On the vision mixer desk both source buttons will appear brighter, or red, depending on the mixer in use.)

Brilliant stuff Phen - thanks!

It's as I always expected really anyway - you simply must have any live camera identified, either for presenters, or floor managers and prod crew on other studio productions.
Does anyone know of directors who prompt presenters as to how long a dissolve is going to be, or who prompt live by informing the presenter when they are fully 'clear'?

Especially on News 24 or other rolling channels where rotas of presenters can change fairly easily, and the presentation is never quite identical every time - as opposed to the Ten or Six where the dissolves are generally always the same length and the presenter is familiar with the routine - in such instances do directors prompt or does the presenter simply glance at the floor monitor in the corner of their eye?

Some BBC dissolves can be very long.

I remember seeing Louise Minchin on N24 and as the dissolve to head-on shot finished she glanced to the floor monitor. I'd say it depends on the presenter. Each probably has his/her own way of telling when the dissolve is finished.

Not unusual for a director to say whethe they are mixing or cutting out of a VT report - though this is as much for the vision mixer (if they have one mixing for them) as the presenter.

When mixing TO a presenter, most presenters will take their cue from the director rather than the cue light, you can tell presenters who don't as they will start talking early. (This is specially true on non-news shows which use things like CSO reveals at the end of a package. In this case the camera cue light will be useless, as it will be raised as soon as the CSO effect set-up is cut to air, even if the camera is fully masked by the VT)

Some directors might say - slow mix out of this, or coming out of this on a quick mix - but for things like programme ends (especially on something like World) they may well be too busy counting to the end of the show to talk to the presenter to tell them when their main MCU camera is off-air. However the presenter would see when they are clear of their main MCU, but say still in-vision on the wide, by looking at their floor monitor or in-desk monitor once the red light has cleared.

BTW - in UK live production I don't know ANYONE who says Dissolve (they do in the US). In the UK it is Mix, Mix, Mix. Shorter, easier to say, and also what the button on the mixer says.

Also most vision mixers or directors who are vision mixing manually wouldn't use a fixed duration "Auto Trans" mix, they would "feel" it with the T-bar on the mixer. (AUTO TRANS is used more for keys and wipes) Automatic vision mixing, say under automation control, would use the Auto Trans for mixes, and in this case the director would have to decide the mix speed prior to seeing the end of the report.

How about fade? Is that term used?

Would that not be used as shorthand for 'fade to black' rather than mix/dissolve?

Thanks for that information noggin - yes the manual T-bar is much more effective for dissolves I think - you really get the feel for it that's just not there with Auto: you just relax the hand over it and let it take you where it wants to go - always results in the most appropriate speed for the cut. Rather spookily, when watching any news dissolves, my hand at times tends to be a bit tempted just to move lightly with what's happening on screen!

When you speak of the presenter waiting to be cut off, one newsreader that is terrible at this is Huw Edwards. He lingers on for at times an embarrassingly long time after the MCU has cut to the wide, so you often see him sitting there staring at the MCU camera for over two seconds!
I don't know why he does this - surely he can see the mix in the corner of his eye on the floor monitor, or the tally light going off, or even have a decent judgement as to when the camera will be fully cut off-line.

From watching this practice for a very long time on many news programmes , I think the best thing for a newsreader to do is continue to smile at the camera for about 2/3 of the dissolve (or about 1 second after they finish their last word) and then turn down to their pages just before it has completely phased out, so that the movement of the presenter is partially concealed in the cut, and at the same time looks natural and effortless

Not for mixing between vision sources - mix is the universal phrase in the UK. Fade is restricted to "Fade to Black".

The common phrases used are :

CUT for a CUT (Some Americans say "TAKE" or "TAKE IT" or "TAKE 4")
MIX for a MIX (Americans sometimes say "Dissolve" - not common over here")
WIPE for a WIPE
DVE, ANIMATE, CHARISMA, ABEKAS or QUANTEL for a DVE effect
ASTON, SUPER for a caption key
CHANGE or ANIMATE for a graphic or caption to change in-vision. (Have to be careful if ANIMATE is being used also to direct a DVE operator...)
FADE, or FADE VISION or FADE TO BLACK for a FADE TO BLACK

STANDBY is the universal command to warn the next source you are coming to. (In the US they sometimes say "READY") If you are coming to a camera that is still moving you might say "Steady" rather than "Standby"


You will also hear a lot of directors just calling sources by shorthand (which is why cameras have numbers and VT machines usually have letters - so you can just say 1 for Cam 1 or W for VTW). You might say, coming out of this to 2 next on a mix, but you can call the mix with either "MIX" or "2". The latter is sometimes more helpful for presenters.
Similary if you just call a camera or VT machine with no MIX or CUT instruction you may be leaving the decision to the vision mixer, or just expect a cut.
On interviews you might would normally expect cuts-only, so would be more likely to say "Coming to 4... 4" And the repetition of the number is the cut instruction or you might say "Watching 3, watching 2.... And 2."