Creating “The Buzz”

The Buzz was the first live studio project I had directed. It was a collaborative module between the Television and Journalism departments at the University. The broadcast was Thirty minutes long which is a long time to direct a live broadcast when you’re new to that kind of filming. The end result is something that I am incredibly proud of.

The key thing I learned from the experience is the importance of rehearsal time. Our production put in more rehearsal time than any other group. This allowed us to be more ambitious with the project. We rehearsed three different demonstration segments in studio throughout the broadcast, two of which we filmed live on the day. Due to these being demonstrations they involved a lot of complex camera movement and direction. However, by the time of the assessment day we had spent so much time rehearsing them that they wound up being squeaky clean.

Some of the pre-recorded packages could have used more time but unfortunately they were led by the journalists rather than us so we didn’t have any control over them. I did push to be in charge of the music performance which we made collaboratively with students form the music department. The visuals for that performance I was extra proud of. Unfortunately the music department did not deliver on their original promises on audio quality so the sound doesn’t quite live up to what was hoped.