EPIC STUDIOS

Today we visited Epic studios which is situated in Magdalen street Norwich. The trip was relevant as the topic we are looking at, at the moment, is record and Epic studio is used to record TV shows and other programs/videos which require a studio space. At the moment we are are looking at the recording of music videos and Epic studios has been used to shoot some music videos and to record artist's songs. The studio is most famous for recording The Trisha Show, a chat show which people can go on to complain about their lives.

     Whilst we were at the studios we looked around all the different areas of the complex. The first area we went to was the main studio area. It is a massive room which has seats for live shows with the capacity to hold up to 300 people. The area was rigged with over 360 lights and the studio possesses 4 large HD cameras which are capable of capturing footage of a very high quality. I was very surprised when the production manager, who was giving us the tour, told us that there were only 3 members of staff who were employed to work in the studio full time. He told us that when a show is being recorded most of the people working on the floor are freelance. This would be something to keep in mind if i was planning on trying to follow a career in this industry as freelance work is very competitive and you would have to work very hard to ensure you always have a job lined up.

    The next area we went to was the production managers and directors suite where they record the programs. This a room with around 6 chairs and a wall of TVs. Some of the TVs were large plasmas and others were smaller HD TVs. There were also a few smaller old glass screened TVs. These were there because when the production team are recording a TV program they have to ensure that people with older TVs will still be able to watch it in a good quality. In this room graphics are also added to the program. For example if you are watching a TV program and a telephone number comes up for a competition this is where they are added. Although everything is often compiled as it is being recorded (especially if it is live) they do still record all the separate feeds individually as well. They do this so if there is a mistake or they want to compile a edited repeat they can go back and use the footage. Another thing that surprised me, when i was looking around the studio, was the fact that everything that is recorded there is stored on video rather than hard-drive. When I asked they said it was because even when a file they film is compressed it is still Terabytes large. Hard-drives at this capacity are therefor too expensive for them to buy and it is far more economical for them to continue using video to store data.

         After looking around for a good half hour we were taken to a smaller studio where we were told we were going to film a short 'Norfolk Now' news program. We were asked to choose roles within either the news reading team or production/floor team. I was given the role of the news reader and I had to read the news from an auto-cue. I found this experience quite daunting as I had never done anything like it before. I was most worried about missing a cue or miss-reading something from the auto-cue. In the end it wasn't too bad and I enjoyed the experience. After this we exchanged roles and I started working on one of the large cameras. I had to learn how to work it and ensure all my shots were clean and there was no obvious jogging of the camera. As well as having to make sure the camera is in the right place and has good head-room you also wear a head piece and are being given instructions from the director. I found this quite stressful as there were many voices going through my headphone at once and I found it hard to hear when I was being called.

      It was very rewarding at the end when we were able to look back at the product of our work and to see how all the different elements of the production had fit together. I found the trip to EPIC very useful and educational as it showed me ho competitive the television industry is and all the different jobs there are within a television studio. All the techniques will also hopefully be helpful when I am filming my own video.





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In a short time they will send us the programs we filmed and I will put them on my blog.