2 to go...

Paul Smith and Carolina where art thou ?????

Your signatures to this blog will make this much more unified as RVTV as it will mean all 6 team leaders are contributors!

I want to hear all about what's happening in teams 2 and 5 !!

The time is now my friends !

HB

Characteristics of great camera operators.

Hello, Harry Boy here.

Well after being on the film crew at church for just on 4 years now, i've done alot of camera work, both on static and handheld but mainly handheld in the last few years.. I've also been directing for about a year too which i think has helped me take my camera work to the next level as it's given me better understanding of what shots to give at what times.

So anyway, through my experience as both a camera man and a director.. here's my tips on what makes a great camera op. In no particular order of importance.....


1. Great camera operators always listen to the music. And the music will influence the shots they offer to the director. They listen to what the song actually sounds like musically... Which basically means if there's a guitar solo and they're in a good position to get a shot of it, they'll get it, or if the choir kick in nice and loud in a worship song, they'll offer a choir shot.. It's nice as a director when you don't need to spend extra time telling camera operators to pick up certain featuring shots. (Eg. an electric guitar solo, or a shot of the drums when the drummer is really going for it.)

2. Great camera operators can alter the tempo/movement of their shot in accordance with the song. If a song is very fast and jumpy, they'll make their shot zoom or track at a similar upbeat pace..... Or if the song is soft and intimate, their shot will also be soft, with perhaps a gentle zoom in or a nice close up. It can muck up a directors tempo and structure if the song is fast but the zoom tempo from a camera op is too slow or if the song is quite slow and the shot is much too fast...

3. Great camera operators can offer a variety of different shot types to keep things fresh and interesting. Seeing the excact same shot from the same angle can be quite boring once you see it 45 times in a row... Good camera operators look to get new angles and film a variety of things to keep it a viewer engaged whilst at the same time remembering what their "Core shot" is. For example, if your on camera 1 your main shot is going to be the drums.. and thats what the director will want 65-70% of the time.. however it's important to get different angles of the drums and to use that other 30 - 35% to shoot other things such as Bass guitar, accoustic guitar, or maybe even Profile shots of singers if you can come to the front of the stage and get a good angle. Or if your on camera 3, your main shot is the Midshot of the worship leader.. However a pan across the stage or a pull focus or an occasional shot of a backing vocalist is also a nice change...

4. Great camera ops are fast at getting their shots, fast at setting their focus and are very switched on and alert to what the director is saying. They will offer one shot, and once it gets taken it's only another few seconds until they have another shot ready to go. It's a beautiful feeling as a director to know you can pretty much cut to a camera operators shot at anytime and they'll always have something there waiting. Having to wait an extra few seconds for a camera op to get their focus in can make it much harder on the directors structure.

5. Great camera operators check their preview buttons reguarly.. at least once every minute they will check out their preview button and look at what the other camera operators are doing. A shoot flows much better when each person is looking at their preview button and offering shots that will complement the shots their other team members are giving.

6. Great camera operators understand good framing and keep all their shots framed correctly. There's nothing worse than seeing a drummer or guitar player when all you can see is his neck, shoulders and body with no head in the shot..

7. Great camera operators understand it's a 5-camera shoot.. not a 1 camera shoot. they know their role within the team and have the discipline to stick to it.

8. Great camera operators will often practice key shots before they offer it so the director get's a glimpse of what they're doing and so they're comfortable they can pull it off smoothly..

9. Great camera ops are strong and comfortable with the use of their focus reel. They understand how focus works.... (clockwise = closer to you, anti clockwise = further away from you) and they're good at utilising the focus effectively within their shots.. this is more for handhelds however..

10. Great camera operators watch the shoots back later and analyze their performance. The 5 best camera operators on our crew are all people that regularly review the DVD's and watch the shoots back to see what they did well and what they can work on.. By doing this they also gain insight into the bigger picture of how a shoot comes together when they see what all the camera are doing and how the director is piecing it together.


Anyway, that's all i can think of. I hope that helps some people in some way. Not that being technically skilled is the most important thing by any means... Not everyone is going to be brilliantly skilled, and the main thing we're looking for in crew members is heart and attitude and passion and commitment......however there is still a place for focusing on our technical skill and how we grow in that area.

HB

Pirate party pics

Well Heres a bunch of pics of film crew people that attended our pirate party celebration.

It was a fun night with some great inspiration from Phil about next year and the future of riverview. And of course the word "ARRRRRRRRRRRRR" was being said a fair bit.

it was nice to see a variety of different fim crew members attend, there was plenty more that came that i wasn't able to get photos of unfortunately...

Enjoy the pics!

HB

Superstar Highlight #2

This weeks superstar is one of my legendary team 4 members, Sam Wong.

Sam was born in Malaysia on 7th Jan - 1979, and grew up in a town of 200,000 people called Stbu, which is located in Sarawak, the largest state of the country.

He came to Australia several years ago to complete studies and now works in real estate buying old properties, doing them up and then selling them.

When he returned to Stbu for christmas 2 years ago he met the girl of his dreams, Anna, a gifted singer and local of the town. The fell in love over the several months he spent home, but alas Sam had to return to Perth.. He missed her so much he returned in June to see her.. and proposed! They were married after 1 year and Anna has now transferred her studies to Perth so they can be together.

In Malaysian culture it is tradition for couples to sign the marriage register first, but do not have a ceremony straight away.. So I've chosen to highlight Sam because this week he flies home with his wife to have their official marriage ceremony! CONGRATULATIONS!

Sam is a dedicated volunteer on the crew who is rapidly improving in skill and experience, but most importantly he loves God and has a great heart for the team and the church... Thanks for everything Sam, and good luck with your speech!! :)

You're a Superstar!@#

control room video

took this little clip with my camera on sunday night just gone of Pol directing during the message. i was luckily enough to capture a funny segment of Phil's message.

have a watch.

Harry Boy.

RVTV Team 1

Hello eveyone, Joelle here. This is my first ever post on the RVTV blog. Just thought I'd post a couple of pictures of the wonderful team of people I have the honour and privilege of serving with each week on the video crew. The first photo was taken on a Saturday night back in June and is really special because every team 1 member was there that night. Since then there has been a few changes to the team. My awesome apprentice leader Carolina is now the new leader of team 2 and we have great new member Micky who has recently joined our team. The second photo includes our new member Micky and some of the team at the very first Riverview South service in Jandakot.

Love Joelle

Frank PoL's Apology

Hello, i'd like to take this time to publicly say sorry to my team and the new basic trainees on the crew.. Sunday morning came and went and i'm afraid i did the unthinkable... yes its true, i did a 'no-show' on my own team!!!

I was double booked and supposed to organise a replacement team leader for sunday morning, but in my busyness did not plan it out properly, and so there were a team of very confused looking people waiting in the green room for a FrankPoL which was still sleeping happily in bed~!!

Sorry to everyone who was disrupted by my error.. i feel awful about it still, so if any readers would like to criticise and abuse me i'm quite happy to be bombarded by critics and disgruntled rvtv members..

To make up for it i'm planning on buying a coke machine for the green room and organising massages for all camera ops during praise & worship... (not really)

Thanks to those who covered for me on the day, you're a team of lifesavers!!

Love PoL.

Sleep Please

After a long and tiring morning sleeping in bed.. what better place to come to for some rest than the riverview auditorium..

Can you spot how many sleepers we have in this shot?? I can see 2 and possibly a 3rd.

I think its the comfy chairs.. we need to go back to hard, uncomfortable ones to keep our fine congregation awake..

Some Team 6 champions

Here's 2 photos featuring 4 of the champions contained within my team.

Sandra, Nassim, Albert and Theresa.

The crew is built upon and functions purely because of wonderful people like this... We would struggle alot if we didn't have committed legends like these guys.

They love film crew, they are passionate about it... they are all there basically every single week without fail (and if they ever can't make it or run late they will let you know with plenty of time) and they all love to serve God with everything and anything they've got. It's a pleasure having these guys in my team!

Superstar Highlight #1

Here's a short tribute to the longest serving member in the history of RVTV.. Peter Toczyski.. or more affectionately titled.. 'Polish Pete'

Born in Poland on 29-Jun-1954, Peter became a christian at a young age when a high school friend invited him to a pentecostal youth rally in his home town, this was quite against the ordinary for him as 90% of Poland is of Catholic religion.

Peter immigrated to Australia 26 years ago with his wife Grazyna, and here they had 2 children.. Dominic and Julia. Peter began attending Riverview in the late 1980's, when it was situated on Stirling Street and titled Rhema. He signed up to serve on the RVTV crew and has been going solid for the last 15 straight years... The legacy is also set continue through his son, who will be joining the crew in the not too distant future.

Peter has been a faithful & loyal volunteer to the crew for a sensational number of years now, and when i asked him recently how long he planned to continue, he simply replied.. "for life."

He's a many of few words, but his dedication over the longhaul speaks volumes for him! So thanks Peter for your commitment..

You're a Superstar!!

Church together wrap

Well the big weekend and church together are all over and done with.. and all of it was just absolutely fantastic and such a thrill to be a part of!

Well done to everyone of you who volunteered your time to serve God on the day... you all played a key part in many lives being saved for God!!! And that's what it's essentially all about, so well done and thankyou for the hours all of you put in!

What's more, the shoots all looked pretty amazing.. The highlight for me would have to come at church together when United Live did a praise session at the end. Our tech men did a few tricks with the shutter speed on all the cameras and played with the colours and saturation levels and came up with one of the best visual looks i've ever seen for a live concert. Throw that in with absolutely hot lighting, great sound, edgy camera ops going off and a director letting rip in the control room.. And it all made for a spectacular video shoot. It really is nice to watch. Get a copy..

The team atmosphere was really good across the whole weekend and i was just thrilled to see so many people happily serving with a smile on their face even if all they did was pull cable..

Special thanks also goes out to all the tech guys that spent several hours on sunday moving the control room over to the supreme court gardens and then back again to pack it all away again late at night once everything had finished at midnight. So Nat, Andy, Ben, Mikky D, Jim ... you guys are absolutely champions and thankyou for your efforts.

Looking foward to next years event already!

Enjoy a few of these piccies!

HB.

random friday night pics @ the big weekend

Name That Director

A few weeks ago, I was derelict in my duties as a tech so as to surreptitiously take this photo.
Can you "Name That Director?" (Bonus points for also naming the ghostly floating head)

Team 3

What a spunky team this one is!!

This pic is special for more than one reason.. 1st and most signifcantly it features Tyson Bruff actually attending training!! which is a rarity these days thanks to our fine friends at the downtown duty free.. (keep up the great work)

But secondly this was the night that i proposed to my beautiful girl Joelle Malone.. soon to be called Chippy O'D or Mrs PoL!

Needless to say it all made for a fine afternoons training. ole'