I grew up determined to work in Film and TV, so against my parent’s dreams of me practising law, I went to Salford University where I studied Media Production. Salford had a local channel at the time, Channel M, which gave me the invaluable hands on experience I needed to prepare me for the industry.

That was 15 years ago and since then I’ve been fortunate enough to work across a wide range of programming including, Feature Films, Shiny Floor, Documentaries, Paranormal, Obs Doc, Reality and Comedy.

I’m currently in Production but my role is most essential during the Pre-Production period.  If something is well scheduled, crewed and budgeted realistically, it facilitates a smooth running production and creates a happy team.

It goes without saying in Production things are forever changing editorially. So additional to being flexible, a strong knowledge and understanding of the overall production, is key.

Today is the day I’ve been working towards for weeks. At 08:00 the OB trucks will be arriving at the Hackney Empire Theatre, which is not set up to be a filming location. They’ll be rigging alongside the Sound and Lighting teams who are arriving at 09:00. The Art department are scheduled to arrive at 11:00 with the set, ready to build ahead of filming tomorrow. This is where being organised within an inch of my life will pay off, as everything is timed to the last minute. Most importantly, I need to ensure everyone carries out their jobs safely, as H&S (health and safety) is a huge part of my responsibility.

I don’t recall sitting down much and it’s already the end of the day. We wrapped at 20:00 and I headed home to catch up on emails and such. Everything went as planned today but I found myself on the phone and email to agents for a couple of hours negotiating talent contracts for our future records. I also spent an hour or so sending test footage to our Post-Production house to check everything was up and running to everyone’s specification.

It’s now 00:30 and due to editorial changes that have had a knock on effect to the set, I’ve just finished reassessing and amending our risk assessment before the walk around tomorrow morning with the independent H&S specialist.

Best get some sleep before my alarm rings at 05:45 for the big day. In a mere few hours I’ll be in the theatre filming with an OB, 150+ crew, fire dancers, stunt men, 2,000 members of the public, comedians and pop singers with entourages we can only dream of. Let’s hope the catering truck turns up!

Shanna is a freelance Production Manager, working for a range of productions for ITV, the BBC and more. See her full profile on The Talent Manager.

The post A day in the life of a Video Production Manager appeared first on Blackbird.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaTbycmKiOk

Transcription of the video

First, launch your web browser and then enter “forscene.net” into the address bar.

Browsing to forscene.net takes you to the login page, where you type in your user name and password. Your start page will now open.

Depending on your account setup, your start page may include a variety of different options. You could have access to one or many accounts and, within each, you may be able to perform a variety of functions like logging, editing and review.

Click on the task you would like to perform in the relevant account and the Forscene interface will launch.

Did you find this helpful? If you have any trouble working with Forscene, contact our support team.

The post Signing into a Forscene account appeared first on Blackbird.

Skip forwards a couple of years and I turned my attention to looking for video production jobs. This is still a hard market to crack, but I found a way in to corporate video production. Lucky me… I sound ungrateful, but it’s a long way from my original dream and I faced a lot of hard truths along the way.

It’s tough out there in the real world, but to help those who are starting out looking for post-production jobs, here are my top 5 tips:

1. Go to a dedicated film school / production college. Be friendly to everyone and network with lecturers and teachers – if it’s a good institution then those teaching the course will also be actively working in it, so it pays to take the time to chat with them and learn some valuable advice. You also never know where your peers will end up, so keep in touch with them. Much of this industry is about who you know, not what you know, at least when it comes to getting your foot in the door.

2. Do lots of work experience, even if you’re being a runner for the umpteenth time! You’re not in a position to be picky about work, so take it whether it’s paid or not. I was once asked to stay on for an extra week as a runner in a post house, but I turned it down because I had a social engagement to attend – they looked at me like I was stupid, and I felt like an idiot.

3. Remember that people skills are just as important as technical skills. Of course it’s great if you know how to colour grade, but what good is it if you can’t communicate with other people and get along with them professionally? Most video production jobs require working in a team, even if it’s for a short stint of time if you’re freelancing, so get used to working well with many different people.

4. Take risks, especially if the challenge scares you, as you never know where you can end up if you don’t try. And you might regret it if you don’t. One of the biggest risks I took was deciding not to take the practical modules in my final year at university, instead focusing on the theory of Film – it paid off for me, but could have easily been my demise if I didn’t do well.

5. Learn as many video production skills as you can, as you never know when they will come in handy. There are always new technological developments in video, so knowing a range of programs will give you an advantage. Takes classes, workshops, or even use online forums like videocopilot for After Effects tutorials, or creativecow for any question relating to the industry. LinkedIn also has a vast amount of groups dedicated to different programs, and there are always people willing to share their advice (and this can also lead to making new connections, which means you’re networking!).

So there you have it, some friendly advice on how to approach a post-production career. But don’t despair just yet: I now have a pretty cool job working for a leading video technology company who makes amazing products like Forscene, so be patient – you’ll make it one day!

Got another handy tip? Have your say on social media:

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The post 5 top tips when looking for video production jobs appeared first on Blackbird.

Fast forward a couple of decades – roles within creative industries like ours have been accepted as professional careers and hopeful entrants can now learn about “the industry” at just about every educational facility, from top universities to local adult education centres.

I’m guessing that one of the intentions in formalising video production education was to provide work-ready entrants to the job market – perhaps with a broader perspective than apprenticeships could provide. So whereas a school-leaver joining a production company as a runner might learn a lot about producing scripted content but very little about live OB’s, a formal qualification could ensure that students learnt all the different aspects of the industry and were prepared to enter into any part of it.

So why then are so many graduates still starting at the bottom – carrying kit or cups of coffee?

A lot of respected people and organisations have spent a lot of time trying to figure out why – despite investing huge amounts of time and money into developing curriculums, setting up enviable infrastructure and employing industry experts – education providers don’t seem able to provide the industry with capable graduates. One school of thought is that we have merely exchanged one set of problems for another – swapping deep knowledge of a limited sector (apprentices) for a broader but shallower understanding of the overall industry (graduates). Another suggestion is that the pace at which technology is being developed and the effect this has on how we produce content, means that courses are outdated almost as quickly as their curriculums are developed.

But I believe that we’re trying to solve the wrong problem.

Hands-on, practical experience is still the most critical part of your education if you want to work in TV. And experience takes time. Just as doctors, solicitors and countless other professionals have to complete (often extensive) periods of on-site training, so should video production professionals – regardless of whether they’ve had formal training or not. The problem is not that graduates don’t know everything about the industry. It’s that we expect them to.

No matter how comprehensive the course or how much practical experience it includes, students still need to learn how to apply what they’ve learnt at school in the real world. As an industry we need to make sure we’re providing space for them to learn the industry from the inside. Graduates, in turn, need to realise that a degree doesn’t mean they’ll be offered the director’s chair on their first day on the job.

And for those that can’t or don’t want to invest years in academia, you’ll be surprised how many doors open to people armed with nothing more than a positive attitude and eagerness to learn. Because in an industry that changes as quickly as this one – you never know it all.

What’s your opinion? Leave us a comment below.

The post DO YOU NEED A DEGREE TO WORK IN TV? appeared first on Blackbird.

I first started editing in 1981, on a two machine U-matic system – look it up!

Since then I’ve worked on multi machine linear suites, Avid, Lightworks, Premiere, Final Cut, Sony Vegas and Autodesk smoke. I’ve seen non-linear editing evolve from low quality images and limited capability to 4K finishing with grading and effects as standard, but the one thing that hasn’t changed is the fact that the editor is tied to their system, even if all they want to do is view the rushes.

I had heard about Forscene before, they launched their first version in 2004, but I hadn’t really looked at it until this year. Luckily that was exactly when they released their new version, with a slick new interface and some great new features.

So what is Forscene? It’s a Cloud based editing system, where low bandwidth proxies of all your media are stored at data centres in different locations. This means you can access your media from anywhere where you have an Internet connection. It doesn’t have to be that fast, 1.5mb/s is enough, and you don’t need a fast computer. In fact, the Forscene application runs in Java and can run on a PC, Mac, tablet or phone. This sets you free from your edit suite and allows multiple people to access all the media for the project, from anywhere in the world. Your loggers can log the rushes, interviews can be transcribed, as an editor I can take the time to view my rushes and think about how I want to cut them together in the comfort of my living room, on the train or even on the beach.

https://youtu.be/tS7pijR2LVA

With the arrival of cameras that can stream media direct to the cloud you can start working on the edit before the crew have even finished shooting. For sports and news you can edit feeds as they arrive, just seconds behind the event. This makes news reports and highlights a breeze.

You can easily collaborate with your director or producer, sending them copies for review and approval and you can chat with anyone in real time, even support if you have a problem.

The Forscene application doesn’t do everything that I can do in Avid or Final Cut, but I can view my rushes and make my cut without having to go to the suite. The responsiveness of the material is like it’s on my system so I don’t feel like I’m editing remotely. When I’m finished cutting in Forscene I can export an AAF or XML and conform the original media for the finishing touches, or I can publish my edit to a server or streaming service. Forscene will conform my edit from the original material at the quality I choose.

For me that freedom and the ability to collaborate easily makes Forscene the perfect tool and I want to help develop the capabilities to make it the easiest and most accessible editing application there is. As technology continues to advance I’m sure one day we’ll be able to do everything in the cloud and I want to help make that possible.

Neil

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The post WHAT IS FORSCENE? AN EDITOR’S PERSPECTIVE appeared first on Blackbird.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9whuZ8AVZbs

Transcription of the video

The left hand side panel of the Forscene interface contains various buttons that are essential for media management, publishing, reporting and support. Expand the panel to show the button’s names, or hover over the buttons for a tooltip.

These first series of buttons relate to the media you are working with

• Click the file button to access your media.
• Use the upload button to upload media into your account.
• Drag media onto the recycle bin to delete it.
• Click the recovery button to find automatically saved versions of your work
• And use the tasks button to send files for review and approval.

Underneath these are the publishing buttons. If you have many publishing applications then your panel may include a scroll bar in this section.

Once you are finished editing your video you can export it in a variety of formats, or publish directly to a range of applications by dragging and dropping your edited video onto one of these publishing buttons. Depending on your account setup you may only have some of these publishing options.

This is the shortcuts button. Left click to program function keys to type text and set automatic expansion of your chosen abbreviations. Right click to access and define keyboard shortcuts.

The analytics button gives information about your account activity. The settings button is for accessing session settings including interface layouts, tooltips and more.

These two buttons are for help and communication. The help button links you to the online user guide and tutorial videos, and the chat button allows you to send instant messages to other users of Forscene.

The post How to use the panel appeared first on Blackbird.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kTburk_-Pk

Transcription of the video

The Forscene play window, indicated in blue, is used to view your clips, for logging, or to select the shots you want to use in your edit.

To put media into this window you open your file window and double click the clip that you want. Alternatively you can just drag your media from the file window and drop it into the play window.

There are three buttons on the top right hand side of the play window’s title bar. The first is to control audio volume for playback in this window. The second button is to resize your window – left click to increase and right click to decrease the size of your play window. The third button clears the media in your play window.

If you open multiple play windows, these tabs help you keep track of your media, and, if you stack the windows on top of each other, easily swap between them. You’ll notice that the clear button will change to a cross to close all but your last play window.

This is the navigation bar and it’s made up of the video track on top and the audio track underneath. Click the video and audio icons to control playback in the play window.

This white line in the centre of the navigation bar represents your position within the clip. When you load media into the play window, the clip will be displayed here.

This button allows you to zoom in and out of this view and as you zoom in you’ll see that the individual frames of your video track are actually shown in your navigation bar. Similarly, the audio track displays gradients between black and white to represent low to high audio levels in the clip.

In between your video and audio tracks, you’ll notice a strip that changes from red, in shades, to light green. This represents the progress of your media loading from the cloud onto your machine. A light green strip means your media is available to play at full frame rate or normal speed.

This blue horizontal scroll bar underneath the audio track is the absolute ruler. It shows what percentage of media you can see in your navigation bar and gives you a sense of orientation. It can also be used to navigate through the clip – just click to jump or drag to scroll.

These buttons are for navigating around your media within the play window. You can step through frame-by-frame, go to the next clip, or jump to the end of your source.

To play your media, just click in the play window. When your media is playing, the navigation buttons in the play window change. Left click here to play at twice or four times the normal speed, or here to play backwards at twice or four times the normal speed.

This time code refers to your current position in the play window. If you want to select a piece of your clip, you use these to mark the in and out points represented by these time codes. This middle time code shows the duration of your selection. Left click the arrows again to clear the in and out points.

The post How to use the Play Window appeared first on Blackbird.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XUYp-k9X_s

Transcription of the video

When you load a file or clip into the play window or a sequence into the record window, this window will automatically open.

Right clicking on the button in the top right corner of this window allows you to choose between storyboard, logging or timeline views for your edited sequence, indicated with an orange ‘R’, or your source media, indicated with a blue number. This number refers to the play window number.

Let’s begin by looking at the logging information for the media in our play window. The logging window displays the logging entries for the media in your play window.

As you can see, our media has already been logged – with descriptions of the content at specific time codes. Watch our logging tutorial videos for a step-by-step demonstration of this process.

Once media is logged, you can use this window to help search for and view specific shots. Right click on any open column header to choose what columns are displayed. Right click to choose multiple columns, left click to choose one column and close.

You can double click on a time code to view that specific shot in the play window or simply drag the entire clip into your record window to add it to your sequence.

Print or export your logs and search for words that you have associated with specific time codes during logging.

If we right click on the logging button and choose storyboard view for this same media, you are shown a more graphic or visual representation of the media currently loaded in the play window. Each thumbnail here represents a logged clip, and the text is from your shot description logging column.

You can also search for logging descriptions in storyboard view and then either double click on the thumbnail to play that shot in the play window or drag it into your record window to add it to your sequence.

If we click on the storyboard button now it will switch between the last two views we’ve worked with – in this case logging and storyboard. Right click shows all the options.

If we now choose timeline view, your source media is shown as video and audio tracks on the timeline.

You can use this button to zoom in or out of the timeline. Use the sync display button to view and hide the white boxes that represent sync – the sync display track underneath the timeline always shows synced tracks. And use the navigation ruler to go to different points in the clip.

As you’ve seen, the logging, storyboard and timeline view for the play window provide you with different ways of viewing and working with your source. Similarly the logging, storyboard and timeline view for the record window provide you with different ways of viewing and working with your edited sequence.

Let’s start with the logging window. Here you can see the three clips that we added to our sequence from the blue logging, storyboard and timeline views.

The orange logging view is similar to the blue logging view, in that it is a searchable written log of your clips, but it differs slightly – showing clip icons instead of time codes and only displaying some of the logging information.

Logs that effect the whole sequence, or an entire clip within that sequence, are indicated in orange – these can be edited and any changes made here will update in the original source logs and vice versa.

You can also add new logs to clips within the sequence in this view. Logs that only relate to part of a clip within the sequence are indicated in blue – as a safety measure these cannot be edited, as the orange logging view doesn’t show time code in and out points. You will need to go back to the blue logging view to amend the log.

You might use the orange logging view to find specific clips in your sequence or to edit your logging metadata for online publishing.

The orange storyboard view is a good place to start editing your sequence. It has all the same functionality as the blue storyboard view, but also allows you to change the sequence of your clips by simply dragging and dropping them into new locations. So it’s a great place to get your sequence of events right before using the timeline view to fine tune your edit.

You can see our three clips from earlier over here. These are the tracks that display by default in timeline view – a video track, four audio tracks and a title track. Right clicking on any of these reveals sub tracks.

Right click on the video track for colour correction or pan and zoom; on any of the audio tracks to adjust audio levels or audio panning; and on the title track for pan and zoom.

Add or remove additional video and audio tracks by left and right clicking on these buttons. Click on the tracks button to choose the tracks you want displayed on your timeline.

This is the patch panel – where you can patch source video and audio to different tracks in your sequence. You can also disable tracks if you only want to insert video or some audio from the clip into your sequence. The patch panel only appears in the orange timeline when you have a clip open in the play window. Closing the source clip removes the patch panel.

The timeline title bar displays your sequence’s name and duration and provides some editing tools, including:

• The audio record button – to record audio directly onto the timeline you need to launch Forscene in ‘Edit – voiceover’ mode.
• The sync display button – to choose whether to visually depict sync on the timeline.
• The edit point button – to insert or remove a cut at your navigation ruler’s position.
• The transition button – Left click to add a dissolve to the video track, right click to add a dissolve to the audio track. And then edit the transition on the timeline.
• The gaps button – left click to open up a gap at your navigation ruler’s position or right click to close the gap.
• The sync button – to lock or unlock sync on video and audio tracks
• And the navigation zoom button – left click to zoom in, right click to zoom out.

Forscene tracks how many edits you have performed in the current session. To undo your latest edit left click here, and right click to redo.

Underneath the timeline is the absolute ruler – it shows what percentage of media you can see in the timeline and gives you a sense of orientation. Lastly, use the grabber in the corner of the timeline to adjust the size of the window.

The post How to use storyboard, logging & timeline views appeared first on Blackbird.