Not sure if the director wasn't focusing because it was just a demo or if she really struggles with keeping an eye on all the moving parts. Anyway, great presentation and i'd love to see the real deal.
And there are a lot of moving parts to manage. Not sure if the additional / slightly lengthy verbal instructions to audio and graphics were part of the requirement - most control room teams i’ve worked with use much shorter commands. News looks easy to produce when you see the final output but often a number of things going wrong that nbody sees.
Yes, it's actually overly wordy. Designed as a demo for students (of any type/grade) that want to know how this type of content is produced/directed, and may find themselves on an all-rookie crew having never worked together before. The more experienced, the more "automatic" things seem to be and absolutely there is an economy of words at higher levels of operations.
Ross Blackstorm. That product is discontinued and it's now Ross Xpression Clips (or something to that effect). We nickname our server channels colors for easy reference... "RED" and "BLUE" are so much easier than saying "BLACKSTORM SERVER CHANNEL A" - and labeling by color is much easier too.
This model of production is outdated. Only the largest productions will have a crew manning all the positions, cameras, TD, floor crew etc, such as sports or other field productions where you can't do without manpower. Ten years ago all the mid-level news markets began moving to automated production control with HD news rollouts; robo cams, integrated control panels for audio and video all operated by one individual with sever playback. Using systems like Grass Valley Ignite, or Ross Overdrive automation system. Starting five years ago markets 100 and smaller have been replacing all their legacy SD equipment with HD, and when they did they went with the automation route as well. Local news is not the place to learn production positions, no ones hiring for them anymore. Maybe one position that does prompting (since talent think it's beneath them)/ live shot control (acquisitions), and random studio setup stuff like lights before the show and putting fresh batteries in the mics and IFB, and that's about it. No one's actually on the floor except for the talent during the show. Local stations have effectively eliminated all these small production positions because they could with technology, and it finally got cheap enough for the smallest markets in the last five or so years. The only production position worth teaching these students is the directors position, i.e. a director/TD position that runs a production automation system. The rest of those positions are redundant. Local stations hiring for production positions will only be looking for director/TDs who can run automation, and one other position that pays barely above minimum wage to turn on the studio lights, put fresh batteries in all the mics/IFB"s, and 'tune' in the live shots that are now on bonded cellular backpacks that just need you to point and click, along with prompting during the show. That's it, a skilled position(TD), and an unskilled position that can be trained in a week. That's all production needs now. These kids will leave collage thinking they have some skills, but no ones hiring for those skills anymore, at least not on the local level where they only produce news and nothing else other than 'Lifestyle' shows which are glorified infomercials using the same automated production system as the newsroom uses.. For those skills to be useful they have to go to much larger markets that have more variety of predictions, but that usually means unions, so you can't just walk into a job there, you have to somehow get into the union. And that's entirely depended on if the production houses need more skilled workers on shows, or new productions that the pool of already available union staff can't handle. The only other production I can think that is not news and doesn't require a much larger market is sports production, but that's hit or miss in each market. Plus you usually start out as a grip pulling cables, 12hr days, weekends only, slowly getting more experience over the years. Maybe work up to the sideline sound guy, or playback. But no ones going to start right away as a camera man, or audio, or TD, or director, that's years of experience. Even a lot of these positions are never hired locally. Local TV isn't where it's at anymore in terms of getting any kind of real production experience these days. Where you might run audio one day, then camera the next, and work into a TD position, and do sideline work on sports productions doing similar tasks. Nope not anymore. 20 years ago, yes, but not now. Plus all the sports has been regionalized and consolidated onto cable networks that have deals with the schools; no one is producing local sports anymore. They just bring in their own truck and crew, the only people they hire local are the cable pullers if that. To be honest, what I see here are mostly young women who want to be reporters, with three guys who may also be aspiring reporters. It seems 75%-80% of Journalism/English majors are women these days. Our newsroom has 10 reporters, with only two guys as reporters, along with 8 anchors and again 2 guys as anchors. The more even ratio of guys to gals has changed completely in the last 20+ years since I've been around news. I'm not sure why that has happened. Heck it seems every liberal arts school either has a journalism commination's program (and now adding multimedia departments) or is gearing one up. I don't understand it, why are these schools pumping out Journalism/English majors? These schools are flooding the market with journalism majors where there are not enough jobs openings to the number of new graduates entering this field. These schools are not doing these students a favor by accepting so many students into the journalism programs. This is really a disservice to these students who go into major debt only to find they can't find a opening right away, or if they get one in a small market, it pays barely above minimum wage. I remember being in a small market where every one of the journalists had a second job on their weekends to pay the bills.. If they stuck it out to mid-level market over the course of 5-7 years, they often take the first Public Information Officer (PIO) position they get offered at a institution or government and get out of broadcasting all together. I'm assuming just about everyone in this production is in the journalism or English major program? They rotate around to each position each week or each production day? At least that's how I remember it being done 20 years ago. So each person got experience at editing, sound, camera, CG, etc.. When such skills were good things to put down on your first resume out of collage and your trying out for a small market position. Useless in this day and age. Just have them concentrate on not looking so green on their resume tape. What these students need is a ton of is on-air experience to get decent. If that's what they are aspiring to do. All you really need are three positions to teach these journalism students; producer, reporter and or anchor depending on day. For reporter position show them how to shoot to edit, and understand sequencing and nat pops to make their stories more engaging when they edit it. They don't need to be or ever will be required to be a TD or director, or sound person. It's a skill they will never ever use unless they are interested in production. But if that's the case why even get a bachelors degree in journalism then, you don't need it for production? Anyway, I guarantee all these students will get their first, second, third, maybe fourth or 5th job as a "multimedia journalist". i.e. they shot, write, edit and present their stories on camera all on their own. No photog with them, no editor back at the studio, they won't be having either available to them until they get into much larger markets. Buy the way, I'm just an engineer at a local mid-level market, and this is what I have seen over the years. So take it with a grain of salt. The sad news is, this automation route from the production side is now impacting master control as well, most are being hubbed to operations out of the market that run master control for dozens and dozens and dozens of stations, i.e. on-air switching is being done multiple states away in a huge facility that only requires a dozen or so operators on staff at one time to monitor all the remote facilities. Where ever companies can automate, they have and they will; leaving the source for local experience to dwindle away. So there are fewer and fewer production and operations positions available every year, it's a skill set no one is looking to fill anymore. The only positions these stations are hiring are multimedia reporters, digital community reporters, digital producers, and live on air producers, i.e. someone who goes onto their website live, but is also a producer of news shows.. Yay, everyone gets to multi-task and multicast at the same time for the same pay as someone ten years ago only doing one position, with fewer people on staff than ten years ago but pumping out three times as much content. Sounds like fun.. No wonder I see so many reporters bolt for PIO jobs when the opportunity presents itself. Holidays off, weekends off, work M-F 9-5pm? Get paid twice to three times as much for one single responsibility, no more multitasking, where do I sign up? Again, this is what I have seen over the years, and I don't understand why schools just keep on offering and expanding these programs when the prospects for jobs out of college is hard to get and pay is pitifully low through much of the career unless you get lucky. Why don't universities and collages concentrate on expanding programs where we actually need more skilled workers? Such as nursing programs? Oddly nursing programs purposely restrict the number of students admitted to the program each year to a very small class, yet there is huge demand for them. Nursing pays good wages if your willing to do the work, plus you have the flexibility to work any place you want because of demand, but we as a society have artificial barriers to those programs. Why not expand healthcare programs instead? We need a ton more doctors too! But again, super small class sizes, while journalism programs balloon. We really don't need more journalists, maybe if we had a few less journalism majors, they might actually get a bit better wages in the coming years. There is no demand for them at the moment, only a glut of journalism majors every year.. Oh well, at least these students are having fun for now. Reality will come later.
I appreciate your take on the current state of the industry and many of your observations are accurate to control room automation. This example of production is the first exposure students have to multicamera studio production in something that is 100% scripted, as a facilitation of exploration of production roles and responsibilities in the "live" setting. We are very clear with students that the typical newsroom nowadays is almost fully automated and these positions in news production really don't exist... but the "news" is just a content type, what we're really pushing towards is the mindset of live production in this particular exercise, and our program is actually very strong in the sports and live events coverage disciplines, where there is zero automation. College is also an opportunity to explore roles and positions; we are not "training" students for specific jobs but rather educating them in multiple avenues and pursuits so they can make an informed decision about what they want to pursue (or don't). Our Journalism program gets students going as multimedia journalists in several courses, with emphasis on writing; news anchoring isn't emphasized as a path as no one becomes a studio anchor day after graduating from a journalism program. But to have a newscast presentation, you need anchors (that's definitely still the current model) and a production process that creates content. Our degree programs are rigorous and ultimately prepare students for media-related careers in which communication, responsibility and calmness under pressure are desired skills. In order to demonstrate and hone those job skills, production experiences of multiple types are necessary. We aren't trying to produce a daily news program; we aren't trying to get students to be experts in any one area... though when it comes to it, if your control room (or truck, or flypack, or closet of gear) isn't automated in any way, knowing about TD'ing, audio mixing, camera operation (manned & remote PTZ), directing, teleprompting, etc., is absolutely necessary and if you have any hope of having a quality production, the people in those positions need some basic skills, training and experience. Yes, very few are hired into skilled broadcast positions immediately - the grip/PA/grunt route is typical in major broadcast avenues for technical roles - but we have a lot of students that pursue non-broadcast work and are immediately thrust into jack-of-all-trades roles at times, where a comprehensive understanding of the basics of audio, camera, TD'ing, telepromter, etc., go a very long way. What was true 20 years ago is still true today - you can "specialize" in knowing a lot about one thing, or know a little bit about a lot of things - different employers need each of those types of people depending on the role and situation. And that method of operation suits some students better than others, especially the ones who are incoming to college as teenagers and have no idea what they really want to do for the next 40+ years of their life... and knowing that their path could change at any point, by their actions or through no fault/choice of their own. Our programs exist because there is a demand, and while the traditional roles and methods may change over time, there will always be a need for effective communicators that understand messaging and content delivery for an audience. But also, there will always be a need for someone to know how to package that content and get it out to the audiences in the technical production sense. In some avenues it can simply take a one-man-band to do it all, and that's effective, but in other areas it still takes a team of people to get the show on the air.
good thoughts - and spot on - thanks for sharing your perspective with the folks. I starting running tape at a brand new small non-union station in the 1980s - we had the latest and greatest of everything. I eventually moved to CG - and then to TD (which of course covered director and producer functions in the control room) - those were the days. What I would not give to go back for just one night.
two years late to this but i read through your entire comment and i have to say... this is all very sobering stuff as a student hoping to get involved with the industry at some point... if tv's going this badly, how much worse do you think it might be for something like radio? i'm curious to hear about your thoughts if you're still looking at replies to this comment, or to anyone with experience who can share their thoughts on this. for context i do not live in the US, i live in a third world country where radio stations still have some relevance, though i'm not sure exactly how much.
![Video Production Switchers [Understanding the basics]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/V4FsO1vVtC8/mqdefault.jpg)
Wow really intresting job.... didn't feel bored at all
Not sure if the director wasn't focusing because it was just a demo or if she really struggles with keeping an eye on all the moving parts. Anyway, great presentation and i'd love to see the real deal.
And there are a lot of moving parts to manage. Not sure if the additional / slightly lengthy verbal instructions to audio and graphics were part of the requirement - most control room teams i’ve worked with use much shorter commands. News looks easy to produce when you see the final output but often a number of things going wrong that nbody sees.
Yes, it's actually overly wordy. Designed as a demo for students (of any type/grade) that want to know how this type of content is produced/directed, and may find themselves on an all-rookie crew having never worked together before. The more experienced, the more "automatic" things seem to be and absolutely there is an economy of words at higher levels of operations.
No video out put in multiview
This footage is not for broadcast
what video server was used in the video?
Ross Blackstorm. That product is discontinued and it's now Ross Xpression Clips (or something to that effect). We nickname our server channels colors for easy reference... "RED" and "BLUE" are so much easier than saying "BLACKSTORM SERVER CHANNEL A" - and labeling by color is much easier too.
What video switcher is used in the video?
Ross Carbonite Black, 2 M/E (2016 model)
Hello we have studio production but i encountered oir camera 4 sundenly no video output
Youre not talking in Russian 😌
This model of production is outdated. Only the largest productions will have a crew manning all the positions, cameras, TD, floor crew etc, such as sports or other field productions where you can't do without manpower. Ten years ago all the mid-level news markets began moving to automated production control with HD news rollouts; robo cams, integrated control panels for audio and video all operated by one individual with sever playback. Using systems like Grass Valley Ignite, or Ross Overdrive automation system. Starting five years ago markets 100 and smaller have been replacing all their legacy SD equipment with HD, and when they did they went with the automation route as well.
Local news is not the place to learn production positions, no ones hiring for them anymore. Maybe one position that does prompting (since talent think it's beneath them)/ live shot control (acquisitions), and random studio setup stuff like lights before the show and putting fresh batteries in the mics and IFB, and that's about it. No one's actually on the floor except for the talent during the show. Local stations have effectively eliminated all these small production positions because they could with technology, and it finally got cheap enough for the smallest markets in the last five or so years.
The only production position worth teaching these students is the directors position, i.e. a director/TD position that runs a production automation system. The rest of those positions are redundant. Local stations hiring for production positions will only be looking for director/TDs who can run automation, and one other position that pays barely above minimum wage to turn on the studio lights, put fresh batteries in all the mics/IFB"s, and 'tune' in the live shots that are now on bonded cellular backpacks that just need you to point and click, along with prompting during the show. That's it, a skilled position(TD), and an unskilled position that can be trained in a week. That's all production needs now.
These kids will leave collage thinking they have some skills, but no ones hiring for those skills anymore, at least not on the local level where they only produce news and nothing else other than 'Lifestyle' shows which are glorified infomercials using the same automated production system as the newsroom uses.. For those skills to be useful they have to go to much larger markets that have more variety of predictions, but that usually means unions, so you can't just walk into a job there, you have to somehow get into the union. And that's entirely depended on if the production houses need more skilled workers on shows, or new productions that the pool of already available union staff can't handle.
The only other production I can think that is not news and doesn't require a much larger market is sports production, but that's hit or miss in each market. Plus you usually start out as a grip pulling cables, 12hr days, weekends only, slowly getting more experience over the years. Maybe work up to the sideline sound guy, or playback. But no ones going to start right away as a camera man, or audio, or TD, or director, that's years of experience. Even a lot of these positions are never hired locally.
Local TV isn't where it's at anymore in terms of getting any kind of real production experience these days. Where you might run audio one day, then camera the next, and work into a TD position, and do sideline work on sports productions doing similar tasks. Nope not anymore. 20 years ago, yes, but not now. Plus all the sports has been regionalized and consolidated onto cable networks that have deals with the schools; no one is producing local sports anymore. They just bring in their own truck and crew, the only people they hire local are the cable pullers if that.
To be honest, what I see here are mostly young women who want to be reporters, with three guys who may also be aspiring reporters. It seems 75%-80% of Journalism/English majors are women these days. Our newsroom has 10 reporters, with only two guys as reporters, along with 8 anchors and again 2 guys as anchors. The more even ratio of guys to gals has changed completely in the last 20+ years since I've been around news. I'm not sure why that has happened. Heck it seems every liberal arts school either has a journalism commination's program (and now adding multimedia departments) or is gearing one up. I don't understand it, why are these schools pumping out Journalism/English majors? These schools are flooding the market with journalism majors where there are not enough jobs openings to the number of new graduates entering this field. These schools are not doing these students a favor by accepting so many students into the journalism programs. This is really a disservice to these students who go into major debt only to find they can't find a opening right away, or if they get one in a small market, it pays barely above minimum wage.
I remember being in a small market where every one of the journalists had a second job on their weekends to pay the bills.. If they stuck it out to mid-level market over the course of 5-7 years, they often take the first Public Information Officer (PIO) position they get offered at a institution or government and get out of broadcasting all together.
I'm assuming just about everyone in this production is in the journalism or English major program? They rotate around to each position each week or each production day? At least that's how I remember it being done 20 years ago. So each person got experience at editing, sound, camera, CG, etc.. When such skills were good things to put down on your first resume out of collage and your trying out for a small market position. Useless in this day and age. Just have them concentrate on not looking so green on their resume tape.
What these students need is a ton of is on-air experience to get decent. If that's what they are aspiring to do. All you really need are three positions to teach these journalism students; producer, reporter and or anchor depending on day. For reporter position show them how to shoot to edit, and understand sequencing and nat pops to make their stories more engaging when they edit it. They don't need to be or ever will be required to be a TD or director, or sound person. It's a skill they will never ever use unless they are interested in production. But if that's the case why even get a bachelors degree in journalism then, you don't need it for production? Anyway, I guarantee all these students will get their first, second, third, maybe fourth or 5th job as a "multimedia journalist". i.e. they shot, write, edit and present their stories on camera all on their own. No photog with them, no editor back at the studio, they won't be having either available to them until they get into much larger markets.
Buy the way, I'm just an engineer at a local mid-level market, and this is what I have seen over the years. So take it with a grain of salt. The sad news is, this automation route from the production side is now impacting master control as well, most are being hubbed to operations out of the market that run master control for dozens and dozens and dozens of stations, i.e. on-air switching is being done multiple states away in a huge facility that only requires a dozen or so operators on staff at one time to monitor all the remote facilities.
Where ever companies can automate, they have and they will; leaving the source for local experience to dwindle away. So there are fewer and fewer production and operations positions available every year, it's a skill set no one is looking to fill anymore. The only positions these stations are hiring are multimedia reporters, digital community reporters, digital producers, and live on air producers, i.e. someone who goes onto their website live, but is also a producer of news shows..
Yay, everyone gets to multi-task and multicast at the same time for the same pay as someone ten years ago only doing one position, with fewer people on staff than ten years ago but pumping out three times as much content. Sounds like fun.. No wonder I see so many reporters bolt for PIO jobs when the opportunity presents itself. Holidays off, weekends off, work M-F 9-5pm? Get paid twice to three times as much for one single responsibility, no more multitasking, where do I sign up?
Again, this is what I have seen over the years, and I don't understand why schools just keep on offering and expanding these programs when the prospects for jobs out of college is hard to get and pay is pitifully low through much of the career unless you get lucky. Why don't universities and collages concentrate on expanding programs where we actually need more skilled workers? Such as nursing programs? Oddly nursing programs purposely restrict the number of students admitted to the program each year to a very small class, yet there is huge demand for them. Nursing pays good wages if your willing to do the work, plus you have the flexibility to work any place you want because of demand, but we as a society have artificial barriers to those programs. Why not expand healthcare programs instead? We need a ton more doctors too! But again, super small class sizes, while journalism programs balloon. We really don't need more journalists, maybe if we had a few less journalism majors, they might actually get a bit better wages in the coming years. There is no demand for them at the moment, only a glut of journalism majors every year..
Oh well, at least these students are having fun for now. Reality will come later.
I appreciate your take on the current state of the industry and many of your observations are accurate to control room automation. This example of production is the first exposure students have to multicamera studio production in something that is 100% scripted, as a facilitation of exploration of production roles and responsibilities in the "live" setting. We are very clear with students that the typical newsroom nowadays is almost fully automated and these positions in news production really don't exist... but the "news" is just a content type, what we're really pushing towards is the mindset of live production in this particular exercise, and our program is actually very strong in the sports and live events coverage disciplines, where there is zero automation. College is also an opportunity to explore roles and positions; we are not "training" students for specific jobs but rather educating them in multiple avenues and pursuits so they can make an informed decision about what they want to pursue (or don't). Our Journalism program gets students going as multimedia journalists in several courses, with emphasis on writing; news anchoring isn't emphasized as a path as no one becomes a studio anchor day after graduating from a journalism program. But to have a newscast presentation, you need anchors (that's definitely still the current model) and a production process that creates content. Our degree programs are rigorous and ultimately prepare students for media-related careers in which communication, responsibility and calmness under pressure are desired skills. In order to demonstrate and hone those job skills, production experiences of multiple types are necessary. We aren't trying to produce a daily news program; we aren't trying to get students to be experts in any one area... though when it comes to it, if your control room (or truck, or flypack, or closet of gear) isn't automated in any way, knowing about TD'ing, audio mixing, camera operation (manned & remote PTZ), directing, teleprompting, etc., is absolutely necessary and if you have any hope of having a quality production, the people in those positions need some basic skills, training and experience. Yes, very few are hired into skilled broadcast positions immediately - the grip/PA/grunt route is typical in major broadcast avenues for technical roles - but we have a lot of students that pursue non-broadcast work and are immediately thrust into jack-of-all-trades roles at times, where a comprehensive understanding of the basics of audio, camera, TD'ing, telepromter, etc., go a very long way. What was true 20 years ago is still true today - you can "specialize" in knowing a lot about one thing, or know a little bit about a lot of things - different employers need each of those types of people depending on the role and situation. And that method of operation suits some students better than others, especially the ones who are incoming to college as teenagers and have no idea what they really want to do for the next 40+ years of their life... and knowing that their path could change at any point, by their actions or through no fault/choice of their own. Our programs exist because there is a demand, and while the traditional roles and methods may change over time, there will always be a need for effective communicators that understand messaging and content delivery for an audience. But also, there will always be a need for someone to know how to package that content and get it out to the audiences in the technical production sense. In some avenues it can simply take a one-man-band to do it all, and that's effective, but in other areas it still takes a team of people to get the show on the air.
good thoughts - and spot on - thanks for sharing your perspective with the folks. I starting running tape at a brand new small non-union station in the 1980s - we had the latest and greatest of everything. I eventually moved to CG - and then to TD (which of course covered director and producer functions in the control room) - those were the days. What I would not give to go back for just one night.
two years late to this but i read through your entire comment and i have to say... this is all very sobering stuff as a student hoping to get involved with the industry at some point...
if tv's going this badly, how much worse do you think it might be for something like radio? i'm curious to hear about your thoughts if you're still looking at replies to this comment, or to anyone with experience who can share their thoughts on this.
for context i do not live in the US, i live in a third world country where radio stations still have some relevance, though i'm not sure exactly how much.
Ok