Not his first time presenting the programme but the first one to air. He'd been doing rehearsal versions for a couple of weeks - I remember him being interviewed on Wogan where he said there had been a fire in the studio - and the "burnt umber desk was actually burnt".
My recollection is that the Six fell off air because they were evacuated due to a fire in that part of TVC, and Nick Witchell, who had been presenting, appeared on Wogan (which was on later than usual because of the interruption) that evening to discuss what had gone on.
Or am I mixing up two separate incidents?
Might have been the same incident referred to, but it wasn't Nick Witchell on Wogan, I remember that much.
They showed a clip of the One's opening titles - which was hugely exciting to see, as they hadn't launched the programme yet.
I seem to have a version of the titles with a voiceover excluding newsreaders name.
Bloody hell! How can anyone concentrate with all that commotion going on in your ear, when you're trying to read to time and to the nation?
News presenters are real pros, IMO.
There's a one Jake Humphry put up on the F1 blog the other year too. He said as an ex-CBBC presenter he always preferred open talkback as it was what he was used to.
Martyn Lewis was a Friday evening guest on Wogan. He was promoting the launch of the new News at One the following Monday, as you correctly point out, Gavin.
The Six which aired just before Wogan had some sort of fire incident. As a carryover, Nicholas Witchell hot footed it to Wogan, script in hand, pretending to come over to finish the bulletin. It all worked out quite nicely, given that Lewis was the other guest that evening.
Philip Hayton was, up until that point, an occasional co presenter on the Six. Perhaps the clip overleaf was his first solo edition of the One?
Bloody hell! How can anyone concentrate with all that commotion going on in your ear, when you're trying to read to time and to the nation?
News presenters are real pros, IMO.
There's a one Jake Humphry put up on the F1 blog the other year too. He said as an ex-CBBC presenter he always preferred open talkback as it was what he was used to.
http://videosift.com/video/What-a-Newscaster-Hears-During-a-Broadcast
Bloody hell! How can anyone concentrate with all that commotion going on in your ear, when you're trying to read to time and to the nation?
News presenters are real pros, IMO.
There's a one Jake Humphry put up on the F1 blog the other year too. He said as an ex-CBBC presenter he always preferred open talkback as it was what he was used to.
As a rule, the vast majority of UK presenters (certainly in news) much prefer open talkback. Almost without exception the reverse is true in the US, where switched is preferred. American journos and anchors often find it difficult to understand how we work like this in the UK...
We were chuntering away over on Twitter about this. So, ITN (and others) will have an onsite studio outside Buckingham Palace (or wherever) for the jubilee celebrations, and a number of other cameras dotted around London. For arguments sake, let's assume it's the same set-up as last year's Royal Wedding.
So, ITN has twenty cameras dotted around, and a control room which decides what output from which camera is shown on TV at a given moment in time. Someone (an editor? producer? director?) makes the decision which shot is shown on ITV.
If CNN (or others) are also selecting access to ITN's pictures, is it purely a case of them just having to make do with exactly the same pictures which are being shown concurrently on ITN's output on ITV, or can they select to have a different mix of pictures from the same twenty cameras? If yes to the latter, how? Would the CNN (or others, for example) gallery be able to pick and choose from a menu somewhere which is linked also to ITN's gallery?
Cameramen wear headphones: who are the listening to?
Sorry for sounding like a t!t, just curious as to how it all works. Thanks in advance for indulging me.
Camera headphones are usually listening to open production talkback - i.e. the director and the PA, sometimes a few others. Other people often can switch into production talkback as required. The Camera Supervisor will usually also be able to talk to the cameras all at once without other people listening to ptb hearing.
As for who decides which camera is on air at any given time, that's usually the director's job, though there are times when a vision mixer will make their own judgements (during interviews for example) though this is under the guidance of the director who will have told the cameras what shots to get and may cue specific shots, moves etc. The producer generally dictates when a director goes to certain sequence and what to do if things are live, unpredictable and changing around.
As for CNN taking a feed of someone else's cameras (if I understand the question right) they might have duplicate feeds of some of the cameras (known as pooled resources) and can choose their own shots, or might take a clean (I.e. no astons & other on-screen clutter) mixed feed of shots as chosen by the host broadcaster. It varies as I understand it from event to event.
So they would be able to choose their own shots? Thanks for that. I guess that's really what I was trying to ask, Deejay. LOL.
I won't even begin to ask how it technically works. That would be right over my head.
The concept of clean feed pictures without the onscreen clutter, I fully understand. Interestingly, I don't know if you've ever caught some Breaking News captures from some Indian and Pakistani News Channels? They've taken to actually 'watermarking' the pictures, quite evidently splashed across the middle of the picture. I guess they do this because they don't want other outlets poaching their pictures and potentially hiding their logos or exclusive markings by overlaying the 'poachers' own ticker and logos?
For want of a better question: if the BBC or ITN or whomever wanted to show those Indian or Pakistani pictures, would they simply just record it off the telly and cut out the bits they don't want to show? Or is there a behind the scenes series of protocols which must be followed?
For most big events, the host broadcaster will produce a domestic and international / clean feed. Generally they'll be much the same, but the clean won't contain any graphics (or will, but minus any logos), and won't cut away to any presentation. The soundtrack will probably have commentary, but no presenters, and a 'clean effects' audio track might be made available too.
Sometimes this will be generated by just a different bus on the main vision mixer; sometimes it'll be so complicated as to require a second scanner. (This is often the case at big football matches, for example.)
Normally it's just not practical to send all your camera shots on to another broadcaster - either due to the limitations of being able to send full-quality video, or not wanting to swamp the cameramen with information about whether their shot is currently being used.
There are some interesting exceptions which spring to mind, though:
In the past, as well as a domestic and international feed of the London Marathon, a Japanese sports channel hired a whole other gallery in TV Centre: they'd take in the international feeds from each of the 4 or 5 OB sites across the course, and the aerial/bike shots, and would produce their own programme from each of these.
at General Elections, each of the OBs (essentially one camera shot each) are downlinked in TV Centre, and all monitored in a hub area. Here, a selection of editors would look out for interesting things going on, and switch them up the line to each of the galleries (TC1, Glasgow, Cardiff, Belfast). Last time round, there was also an editor from RTE, and I think there was a a 'rest of world' desk looking out for interesting things for the EBU.
Normally it's just not practical to send all your camera shots on to another broadcaster - either due to the limitations of being able to send full-quality video, or not wanting to swamp the cameramen with information about whether their shot is currently being used.
Talking recently to a UK OB unit supervisor, at such events the cameramen simply they assume they are 'live' continuously, so they try to always apply 'smooth' motion outside the periods they are being directed for the main feed, and tallied as such.
Some broadcasters use Green Tally (in addition to Red) for ISO feed work, but that's normally to indicate the camera's output is being fed to a VTR etc.
Some broadcasters use Green Tally (in addition to Red) for ISO feed work, but that's normally to indicate the camera's output is being fed to a VTR etc.
Green 'cues' are often also used when cameras are sub-mixed into in-vision screens - so that operators know that their shots are in-vision even if they aren't cut up on the main mix.
For big events it isn't unheard of for cameras to have their talkback switched between multiple OB trucks - particularly if a camera can be used for both presentation and event coverage (and if different trucks - or areas in the same truck these days - are doing each)
I think I may have asked this before, but does anyone know where I can find a real photograph of the BBC News virtual glass set of the mid to late nineties? The virtual set was configured to make the studio appear immense, when we all know it was actually quite small. Does anyone know where I can get to see an image of the real set (all green screen, I would imagine)?
I've seen one somewhere, but can't remember where. However this newspaper cutting (which someone uploaded to the MHP files section) shows it fairly well. Apparently the panels behind the presenter were changed according to the bulletin
Yes, that was me! Sorry the newspaper was in poor condition when I scanned it.