In this
blog i will be comparing two contrasting game/quiz shows by their demographic
(audience).
The first show is A League of Their Own, a Sky
production that airs on week nights, hosted by James Cordon. The second show
that is very demographically different is Take Me Out, an
ITV production aired on Saturday nights and hosted by Paddy McGuinness. Both
shows can be seen as similar in a certain aspect, for example they both have an
open audience, along with a panel of guests/celebrities.
What the
shows are about?
A League of Their Own is about sports. On
this show, a number of questions are asked per round and the winner of each
round earns a point. In the final round the guests have to endure a physical
activity that usually turns out to be menacing, making it humorous for the
audience.
Take Me Out is a very cheesy and quirky show that involves
dating. There are 30 women with buzzers, and introduced to them through a
mystery elevator is a man. If they like him, they don't buzz, but if he doesn't
like them on the last round of his 'unveilings', he gets to push their buzzer
for them. As Paddy McGuinness states, "No likey, no lighty".
What type
of audience would the show attract?
A League of Their Own has one genre and that genre mainly represented
in this show is sports, which we can denote from the title. The target audience
for this show would be people who love sports, but the majority being the male
population, as the celebrity panel is mainly famous footballers or any other
famous athlete. This show wouldn't be targeting the demographic of under 16's
as it is usually broadcasted after the watershed, yet has an edited version
that plays before the watershed.
In contrast to this show, Take Me
Out, an ITV studios game show, involves both men and women. The
audience however, would be a mix but possibly more women as the show involves
30 women. Their friends, family would be there and i'm pretty sure it would
appeal to them to watch the 'Happy endings' more than anyone else.
Factual Programming is a
genre of non-fiction television that involves the actual events and stories on
real people. Some examples of these programmes are documentaries, reality
television and quiz shows.
In this Post, will be describing 2 different
contrasting quiz shows from different eras. Different eras can mean very
different shows, they have a lot of different conventions and formats to
eachother other.
The Cube - The Cube is a game show that has
been running for a couple of years. It consists of a big cube that challenges
one person to many different challenges. Every challenge they complete they go
up by a certain amount of money. Until they reach the jackpot. They have 10
lives to complete them. At the start of the show, the presenter introduces the
contestant and their family, he then proceeds to ask them to enter the cube.
They go through a range of challenges, being cheered on by their family. The
contestants run through the show similarly to 'Who want to be a Millionare'.
Every time someone loses and goes out, another is introduced half way through
the show. If they don't finish in the time limit of the show, it rolls on to
the next show.
Catchphrase - Catchphrase is very
simple. 4 people compete against each other by guessing the catchphrase the
quickest. They have to go through about 4 rounds to get to the final and win
the jackpot. It has recently been re made, but is an old show. Firstly, the
presenter, like The Cube, introduces the contestants, however there is more
than one in this show. He ask's them what they do, and where they are from. The
show then rolls on into the rounds. They play until the final player and then
the show ends once the jackpot has/hasn't been won
Difference? - Firstly, The Cube involves
physical challenges, while Catchphrase challenged your mind. This will give the
show different audiences and different times of being aired on TV, catchphrase
usually being aired earlier. They are both from completely different eras, The
Cube is a lot newer than Catchphrase so will bring in a younger audience
because it is newer. The format of each show differs from each other immensely.
There is only one contestant featured in The Cube, while Catchphrase has at
least 3 contestants each show.
The conventions of each show are quite different
from each other. The sets are completely from each other. It shows the
difference in Era as The Cube's set looks a lot more futuristic and modern than
the Catchphrase set. The Camera Shots are also very different, the Catchphrase
cameras are mostly static, while The Cube has a lot of panning cameras around
the studio.
Game Show Eras
In this post, i will be comparing two shows that have been made in a different era to each other. The two shows that i have chosen to use are The X Factor and Stars in their Eyes.
What is Era?
Era is basically a long and distinct part of history. In terms of TV, different Era's have had contrasting shows. This post will explain how shows have changed throughout the years, and why they have changed.
How did the Era effect the show?
First of all, i will start with the X Factor. This show is obviously very popular in this generation of TV lovers. It is one of the most viewed live shows of all time and has been going since 2004. Stars in their eyes is a very similar show, being about singing. This show was also a huge hit back in the 90's until about the early 2000's. It stopped at around the same time as the X Factor started. This already shows that the different Era's of the show helped how popular they were/are in their peaks.
Modern Remakes?
Star's in their eyes was recently re-made with Harry Hill as the presenter. The show only lasted one season because it was the end of an Era. The show's format is too old for these days, as different shows have come up with new ideas. One of these shows being The X Factor. A bunch of people can see The X Factor coming to the end of it's Era, as it has been going for 12 years now. The producers have been trying their hardest to modernize the format, the judges and the set, but it just isn't working out for them. Viewing figure's have decreased over the last few years.
In the first week, the class decided on doing a quickly set Aerobics show. For this show, I had the pleasure of commanding from the studio room as Director. As a student, I see directing as a potential career path especially as its my biggest interest in film. This means I was right in my comfort-zone. Before, I have had the role 4 or 5 times before so it felt fairly familiar, and I knew where to start and finish the equipment organisation (i.e. blocking, audio set, cameras checked for batteries and composed and then finally lighting.)
The show, as stated above, was aerobics which required a certainly amount of blocking required for the talent to be able to put on a decent 5 minute show that wasn't seen to be completely disorganised. The show has 3 people, 1 aerobic instructor and 2 random guests that attended the instructor in various physical activities.
For a aerobics show there are certain conventions, and I will be studying in split categories depending on the research taken. These are; Primary or Secondary research.
Week 2: Casting in News show - News
The second week was a vast change from the directing I had done on the previous week. This time, I was playing the guest for a news-styled show. Being centred as the cast isn't my strongest play to make, which is why I decided to do it for the 2nd week in. The role is fairly simple though, it only involved sitting down and talking about the relevant information that was either in front of us or from memory. The hardest part was probably attempting to endure the burning light that was almost blinding.
The production was quite slow, this meant my experience as the cast was quite tedious. The majority of the time, it was just sitting there waiting for cameras to be wired, microphones to be set, etc and by the time we had to give our performance we had become slightly bored.
Week 3: Vision Mixing in a Quiz show
In this week, I was offered the opportunity to be a vision mixer in the studio. It was great having a headset whilst the rest of the team got all sorted and I gave feedback to the camera crew on composition, exposure and other requirements. Though, this was the week when one of the cameras mysteriously became grainy and no one knew why, so that as a technicality was an annoyance as it had a massive effect on the overall show.
Furthermore, I learned alot from my experience, even how to chroma key which was good, though with the fault in the lights the end result wasn't great so we ditched it for the next week. Week 4: Vision Mixing and Light operation - Quiz show
One week later, I was stuck on vision mixing again but saw the opportunity to also do lights as no one seemed to be doing them. So I took the initiative and set all the lights and even some cameras up because they was framed wrong, and off centre. So after all the lights were set and the gels were placed, we decided to give chroma key another chance with a tester background, and though it wasn't perfect, for a second attempt it wasn't too bad at all. One of the problems we had was the cast were wearing blue, and blue on a blue screen doesn't work well. You just result with a floating head and a pair of legs.
Though the lights were all functional, we managed to get a light operational but manually and wasn't controllable from the studio its self, so we just went with the flow. This week was productive for some of us, but eventually became a pain because people weren't doing their jobs properly and began to procrastinate. Eventually the very few that were doing stuff, including myself, got very tiresome and just went for rehearsals as it was visually as best as we were able to achieve (given the time).
We decided not to do rehearsals due to lack of time. Week 5: Camera Operator
This was the next rehearsal for James' quiz show. In this show, I volunteered myself to go on camera, as its one of the fewer places I haven't been but I'm also quite confident with them just a tad rusty. After a couple of minutes with familiarising myself with the set up, I went onto framing, and ensured everyone had nice composition. Then went white balance, in which I decided to set manually by zooming in on a white crew card with the tungsten lights to ensure I got the right colour temperature and this was a pain due to communication issues with the light people as they were also testing. Eventually, I got an accurate colour temperature of 3100 kelvin on 2 cameras and 3000 on the 3rd (which didn't make a difference at all). So, once they had all been white balanced, and ensured everyone had their framing, I got the other operators to set an aperture of f/2.8 and then I added the 1 ND filter on top to bring exposure down.
Whilst the cameras were set, I went to into the studio to explain that its bad to blast too much last a people, especially when it hasn't been diffused at all. The skin tones, especially on paler people becomes way too light due to harsh lighting and looks horrid on cameras.
For my final quiz show, I will be bringing in diffusion to place on certain lights.
Week 6: Camera Operator - Brenan's Quiz show
In this week, I took the position of Camera Operator once more. When we began setting up, I straight away pulled each camera into position, wired them up, and then checked batteries. Each week, we have a continuous issue with battery power. They are never charged and its a very tedious process to do when battling that of battery power. One by one, we set each camera's composition, exposure, white balance and then focus. This isnt a very long task, through-out the lesson, I do have to keep checking on them because people like to touch cameras for some reason, meaning they slightly move. Other then that, to ensure I have work to do, I continue to concentrate on lighting. Luckily, I set all the cameras exposure, and I study a lot of cinematography, so I have an idea of where each light should go.
A common mistake students make with lighting is that they blast it to 100%. With diffusion it would be okay because it would soften the light on making skin tones glare less but they don't have any diffusion so our only resort would be to set lights from 20-50%.
Week 7: Camera Operator - Social Swap
My role in this week was exactly the same as the week before. But, to spice it up, I decided to use the dolly. The dolly was fairly easy to set up, taking only two of us to set in 5 minutes. When using the dolly, it would hard to keep re-framing with cast movements when shooting at a low angle.
Week 8: Chroma Key
During this lesson, we sat down and got taught how to use chroma key as an effective tool, and how to implement digital studios into our work. We got told the benefits and the draw backs, how to light the blue screen and what to consider when planning for this kind of effect (i.e. any individual wearing blue in front of the screen, will become invisible and how to light the screen properly.
This has been a major benefit to use, as with out the use of blue screen, the studio only has a white and black background which is visually boring and looks horrid on camera (especially Blacks). This is because the studio cameras, their sensors get starved with light and despite exposure settings the footage becomes grainy. As a potential technique, blue screen was always a massive choice for me and the group I work with as we want to implement backgrounds.
Comparisons: Ours Shows vs. Professional Shows
In this section, I will be selecting two different types of shows (e.g. Quiz Show) and comparing it to a real life counterpart. In terms of comparisons, the topic of discussions will be based around that of; Format, Conventions and Multi camera or Single camera. In order to stop any confusion, I will be doing 2 comparisons based on the different types of research; Primary & Secondary.
Primary
For my examples, I will be using all 3 groups examples and then individually talking about the relevant topics as stated above.
Social swap:
The first group was our group called Social Swap. As a brief summary, the show is about two people who answer a series of questions. The winner of each round gets to pick out a card which will have a sentence on it. As a format, the idea is at the end of this show person with the most rounds wins the game and will get two choices. They can either; stick with the selection of sentences they have or they can make their own up. Once they have decided, the other contender must then post it on their social media. We chose this because social media is a huge market and is continuing to grow. Its got an easy target audience to appeal too and the idea of celebrities putting embarrassing tweets out there to public and the announcing the response on the show with live examples is that of a minor nightmare. But viewers love watching celebrities get embarrassed, look at I'm a Celebrity, get me out of here! and its success.
So this show is a quiz show with a couple of game show elements. At its core, it has a series of questions that are based on recent news with a game show element at the end to give somewhat of climax to the show. As concerns to conventions, each question will be relevant towards the target audience of our show, which is young adults to middle age. So, the news questions will have to be about something that age group would know. Seeing as its a competitive show as well, there would be teams so as an example we would have blue vs red and thats the colour they would be lit in to give a visual aid to those who have disabilities. Other conventions are, having a presenter and cast members, a set whether its practical or digital is a creative decision a Producer and Director would discuss.
Dan's Quiz show:
This was the other quiz show in our Group C class. The shows format was that of asking questions about news that has recently occurred. Each group will gain a point per correct answer - like ours. At the end, the losing contestant has to participate in a physical activity that is based around one of the topics discussed earlier.
The connotations for this show were very similar to that of our show, Social Swap. We have 3 angles, 1 for each person, the presenter shot being wider then both others (which were typically zoomed mid-shots). We have lighting filling all angles, foreground and back. Each person had their own section, indicated by tables to diverge teams. Each show is shot on tripods, this is to avoid the annoying shaky cam that you seen in films. Other conventions matched that of our Social Swap, with having a presenter, contestants, lighting, camera work, live cuts, security (to an extent) & floor manager.
Brenan's Game Show:
Unlike the last two shows, this one was different. Where as the other two were quiz shows with a game show twist towards the end, this is a pure game show with wacky activities to keep the audience entertained. The format of the show was that it incorporated different trends from youtube. For example, if someone did a popular prank, then that would incorporated into the show in some sort of technical way.
Conventionally, for game shows they have some sort of aid to help reach their target. This can be handicaps, props (i.e. padded weaponry) and other equipment. In this show, they had props to enhance the entertainment so on the Chubby bunny section they had actual marshmallows to give a live reaction - as you would.
For each of these shows, we all chose to shoot multi-camera (3 Canon XF305 to be specific). This is literally because theres 3 people on a live set doing unscripted activities. So captured this to a professional standard on a single camera would be way to hard since each person is doing their own thing that is close to random. This means if something entertaining was to happen, then there's a high chance the single camera would miss it. It so speeds up production, having 3 cameras creating coverage can give the vision mixer and director the chance to create some sort of pacing.
Equipment relevant to my jobs (What are they, what do they do, pros and cons):
Canon XF305:
This the cameras we have in the studio. There is currently 3 of them that we use, and we connect them directly to the Trickster (explained below).
The main cons about this camera is that we only ever used auto white balance. This proofed to be a hardship as custom white balance is faster, and doesn't restrict you on creativity (as some people like different colour temperatures). Another con is the batteries. Though this is not about the cameras, and more to do with whoever is responsible for the battery charge, its still a point to be brought up. There hasn't been a week where we haven't fought against the battery power, putting batteries in with 2 or 1 bar and then trying to conserve battery through the lesson whilst other departments are set up. Its a small problem, but a tedious one at that.
Though there are a couple of cons, there are more pros but I'll only talk about the most important ones. The cameras are great, the lens give a sharp image and the cameras have a 3 stop ND filter built in which is handle for using low f-stops.
Tricaster:
The Tricaster is a vision mixing software and hardware that we use in the studio. When I mentioned about live feeds, this is what I was relating too. To make it work, we put video leads into the inputs of both the camera and the tricaster and its projected onto the screen as options to change too. The tricaster is great, its easy to use, and its fast. When you put the cable in, its almost an instant response. There isn't actually any major cons, its exports in RAW 1080i which is always a preference when available because RAW is uncompressed.
The Tricaster is easy to use, but also has many other inbuilt mechanics that are great. Seeing as everything is live, its extremely important not to make any mistakes. By using a couple of buttons (which takes a couple of seconds) you can set up the next camera (in which you can preview before you select it) and you can even do live transitions such as fade-to-black and lots more. As well, you can build 3D environments for digital sets. You can implement these straight into the image, setting up overlays and linking them to the videos so now you can have live graphics! Even chroma key is avaliable to use, which is extremely important when you light the screen properly and then modify the settings to sort out the colour problems with the finer things such as hair.
For the creation process of my ident, I will be using after effects. The styles I am considering are both 2D and 3D both with the theme of science-fiction. To plan for this, I will be drawing up storyboards, mindmaps, sketching drafts and creating drafts proving trail and ever. The software avaliable for me is AE, Photoshop, Premiere and some external plugins that should help with my theme.
For the creation process of my ident, I will be using after effects. For the logo, I am going to photoshop as shape of a square and manipulate its shape. To get an idea of how an ident works, I will analysis their structure (i.e. their pacing and motion). Once, I have analysed idents so that I am confident with how they're structured, and I have a logo that I am happy with, I will proceed onto making my ident.
First of all, I will open Adobe After Effects (AE) and set my composition to 1920x1080 and 23.976fps. After, its a simple drag and drop with the logo into the Project section and then the timeline. So from now on, its all about following the plans, target audience and conventions of the theme I am trying to convey. I begin with key frames on the logo (later on, with the 3D version, I used a camera layer as I wanted to use a lot more pans and rotations to cause some parallax for realism). Once motion is done, I will begin experimentation with optical flares (which give direct connotations to science fiction and on the 3D and final draft of 2D, I plan my own flares using Optical Flares plugin by Video Copilot.)
On the 3D version, the plan is to use the plug in, Element 3D (again by Video Copilot) to extrude the logo png using auto trace and the ability of Element 3D. I plan to make it similar but different, making it its own ident but still recognisable with its 2D counter part. In the story board, you can see that the first 10 seconds of the ident is the same, but the 3D version has an extended 5 second movement. This will be done because the 3D version is to see how far I can push my ability, where as the 2D version was more of a safe bet.
To export the video, from previous experience, I will be avoiding the default "Loseless" AVI format that AE has as a preference, and instead use the low lossy format of Quicktime H.264 (or .mov). The reason for using .mov is because of its reliability and its low compression file export. Lossless is known for its inconsistent export quality (in terms of frame rate, because it'll come out all jittery) and its ludicrous render time.
Why are you going to do it?
I am going for this style because its the most appealing for me (there for I feel like I'd excel in it more then if I were to do stop motion), because its got a clear target audience with clear conventions and simply because I am better at this method than any of the others, therefore logically I would use it to get the most production value.
As mentioned before, one of the key reasons to why I am using AE is because I find it easier but also another key feature is target audience. Target audience should be one of the most important, if not the most important factor when designing your ident. So, when I'm planning, I'll be considering the age group, whether its serious or sided towards immature, colour scheme, and even the motion. Because obviously, I'm making the ident to appeal to a specific target audience, so planning it round that would be illogical and just wouldn't work.
Mindmap:
Storyboards:
Sketches:
Idents:
AE settings:
IDENT Screengrabs:
Example of 3D extrusion within Element3D
Screengrab of 3D ident after major development
Screengrab of 3D ident before major development
Screengrab of 2D ident before major development
Screengrab of 2D ident after major development
Screengrab of Optical Flares settings
Example of Optical Flares plugin with real settings
Both shows have different lay outs, but use multi-camera for the same reason and that reason stays the same for even the smaller productions we make at college. Its all about convenience and its both most convenient for the Viewer and Vision mixer & Director. As mentioned before, these are shot live, onto a live feed and then mixed live. Its all live, unlike film where you can stop, change angle, reset, and go again. If there was a way to get the cinematic perfection of cinema, into live TV, they would have it because its more atheistically pleasing but they have worked out that making it look presentable, but managed to control the flow of information going into the feed, they can get higher ratings and thus, a better show.
Format:
All Star Family Fortune: They ask 100 people a question, and when each team answers, they have to try and guess the most common answer. The more common the answer, the more points they score.
Top Gear: A special guest is brought into the studio and given a small interview. After the interview is done, they then watch their pre-recorded lap around the Top Gear track and once they finish their record is placed on a board against over special guest celebrities.
These two shows are seem very contrasting,
through their set up to their format, but this doesn’t hinder the conventions
too much. Each show is basically the same, except one is to give information
(Top Gear – but in a comedic way) where as All Star Family Fortunes is just a
quiz show. This is interesting because everything about a show is based around
the target audience and the format and built from there yet these two shows
don’t have them in common at all. Top Gears target audience is male, middle
age. All Star Family Fortune is Family entertainment.Of course, in ways the conventions differ. In
Family Fortunes they have contestants, but Top gear has special guests instead.
They both have a live audience on set, but again, Family Fortunes has theirs
behind the camera and Top Gear has them amongst the Presenters.
Both shows have some sort of voice over, so
explain something. For example, Top Gear had Jeremy Clarkson do a voice over
about the analysis on the Mono car, and Family Fortunes had a voice over
introduce Vernon Kay to the stage. One obviously does more then the other but
they are both used to convey information. The reason they use a voice over is
because its feels like a commanding voice over us, almost like an omnipotent
being. So, psychologically we tune it to the voice and absorb the information
given.
Each convention is there for a reason,
graphics to give a professional feel and to sometimes organize the show so that
the audience doesn’t get confused – also known as a transition. Interviews are
again, there to give information across from a new person. Sometimes a
professional in a specific field of study – normally found on formal news shows,
such as: Sky, BBC, ITV.
Presenters main job is entertain and in
some ways extract and breakdown information for the viewer to digest. For
example, in Sky News, they will have a split screen and they will ask a
question to the interviewee and if the answer isn’t clear the presenter will
repeat the answer back in a formal and unobvious way. They tend to be the face
of the show, with their usual charismatic characters and great humour – which both
Vernon Kay and Clarkson seem to have.
Comparison between 2 professional shows (Top Gear & All Star Family Fortunes) and our College shows (Social Swap and Dan's Group):
Our of the 4 set designs, there was only one unconventional, and that was the Top Gear set. This is only because usually the audience is set seated behind the camera, where as Top Gear has the set in the middle of the studio and cameras set all around, with the audience in frame. In our shows, we one show placed against a curtain background and the other placed against a blue green (for chroma key). The supposed audience was placed behind the camera, with only the set visible in frame. This is the same with All Stars Family Fortune, they have a built set (not a digital because they have the budget for a real one), with the exact same set up as Social Swap except they had an extra camera at the back of the studio to capture a high angle reaction shot of the audience. Even for a show, I pulled out the rail system for the dolly and gave it ago for the main shot of the Presenter and for a back up of the contenders when they are speaking. Though it didn't come out great, and All Star Family Fortunes does it to a professional standard, its expected from a professional show but we still managed to achieve the same system without meaning too.
Each of the chosen shows had a Presenter. Its needed, they help the show progress through its stages and up to the conclusion whilst keeping the audience engaged. Top Gear is well known for their presenters, Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond, with their constant witty comedic bickering. Obviously, the professional shows would have a better presenter as the presenters there would know exactly what to say, how to say and when to say it making the show have a seemless progression. One thing we didn't have in college was a link between the presenter and the studio room. Professional shows have this, to keep constant updates and to give any information about how the show looks on camera. For our shows, we do have a lot of information being pasted back and forward, and whilst the Presenters don't 100% know what they're doing, this only makes the communication between the Presenter and Studio more vital.
Graphics is a huge part of shows, they make it look stylistic and give another method of communicating information then just the Presenter announcing it. Both the chosen professional shows use Graphics, from opening credits, to forwarding identities of people. Where as our shows didn't include any, but this isn't because we can't, the overlay options are there and its easy enough to port graphics over to the Tricaster, no one ended up doing it. So, though it never happened, there is nothing stopping us from achieving it.
As the last convention I will be comparing, voice overs are also another common thing that our college projects are missing. Now, keep in consideration all the voice overs are either pre-recorded or post-recorded. With Top Gear, because its not actually aired live, all the voice overs are done in post to match exactly what is shown the screen. An example of this is when they do their car review, you'll get some stylistic shots of the cars with a chunk of ADR dialogue put over the top from Jeremy Clarkson explaining what it is, where it came from, and what it can do. Now, All Stars Family Fortune uses voice overs slightly different. For example, when Vernon Kay walks onto the stage, there is a voice over announcing him and then he comes on. This would be pre-recorded, as its something that is scheduled for every show and thus easier to be done before then live just in case the Voice actor makes a mistake.
