Watford Hornets Show

My uni has a very strong relationship with Watford Football Club. For the past 2 years, the students (including me) from the Sports and Events module of the Film and TV Production course have travelled to Vicarage Road, Watford's home ground, every other Saturday to film their matches using an Outside Broadcasting unit, with multi-cam. However, we are unable to continue filming their games, ever since the club was promoted to the Premiere League at the end of last season. All clubs in the top division have their games filmed by Sky, and there isn't enough room for two film crews to be there.

However, we still get to film football matches every other Saturday, only this year it's for Reading FC and the Madejski Stadium. In ways, this is a good thing because it prepares you for the real world of OB because you won't be filming in the same football stadium every week - you need to learn to rig and set up all kinds of different stadia.

I'm getting off track here - the point of this blog post is to talk about how Bucks New Uni still have a strong relationship with Watford FC. Even though we do not film their matches anymore, we help them put together a monthly magazine show, called The Hornet Show, which they put online for their paying subscribers. This show is hosted by Jon Marks and Emma Saunders, and is roughly 30 minutes long. It features short VT packages which include player challenges and fan meet and greets, as well as interviews with a current player and it talks about the club have been doing over the past month with regular guest, and former Watford player, Derek Payne. I would recommend anyone who is a fan of football, or especially a fan of Watford, to watch this show.

We shoot this using a green screen, and then edit the show in post to make it seem like they are in a studio at Vicarage Road...when my dad watched the show, he actually thought we went all the way to Watford to film it there, he didn't believe me until I showed him these photos...

We use 6 cameras for the shoot, which are patched to our uni's OB truck, where we can cut the shots for the show in real time. The crew is usually made up of around 15 students, all taking on different roles each month. Those roles are; director, producer, vision mixer, racks engineer, OB camera(s), lighting, floor manager, autocue operator, editor, and compositor. There are also roles for audio but they are taken over by students from the audio department. This shoot is run like an actual television show shoot where we have production meetings to prepare and go over any queries. Also, if you do not turn up to these meetings, you will be 'fired' from the shoot – at first I thought this was quite harsh but it's simply preparing us for real shoots outside of university.

Aside from the production meetings, the whole process of the shoot is very long. It starts on a Tuesday evening, where the crew meet in the TV Studio for something called a 'pre-light.' This is where we set up the green screen, lights and furniture for the shoot which will take place on Wednesday, and this usually lasts a few hours. At around 9am on Wednesday, everyone goes back to the TV Studio where we begin to set up the tripods and cameras, and we rig the truck to the studio. Then we undergo the FACs check, which is short for facilities. This is where the director, vision mixer, and rack engineer, who are in the truck, make sure that all the cameras are functionally operating. The things that are checked during this time are; the tally lights, communication from the studio to the truck, the white balance, as well as the focus.

At 12pm is when the presenters and guests usually arrive, and once the audio students have done a quick sound check, we start shooting. The aim is for the shoot to end at 4pm, and if nothing too major goes wrong, we sometimes achieve this target! The de-rig begins once the filming has wrapped. We have about half an hour to do this and it is essentially everything we have done to set up, but instead packing it all away. The process does not end here because once the studio is clean and the equipment has been put away, the editors must copy all of the footage from the P2 cards, to a hard drive. Once the show has been cut perfectly, and the previously recored VT's have been added in, it is then sent to the compositors, who alter the green screen to turn it into a high-tech studio.

It is a very long and hard process but seeing the final product makes it all worth it. It is a great feeling to know that you've made something that a lot of people will find joy in.

Unfortunately, last Wednesday was the very last time I'll be able to work on a Hornet's Show, since the second years will now be taking over the responsibilities of running the shoot. I'm happy to have had the experience of working with Watford FC and this show, and I hope to work on projects similar to this in the future.

For more information on this, look at this blog post by lecturer Rob Kelly, who is in charge of organising these shoots - http://bucksanimation.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/bucks-new-uni-and-hornets-show-by-rob.html

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