Start your engines!

Today is the first official day of rigging! It's been a busy day, I have been helping unload equipment, and start to set up cables ready for install.

Myself and Howard, the engineer here, had been investigating a wallbox that doesn't seem to be working properly. We used a cable tester, to find that the cables do end somewhere, as they do not work in their place in CAR. Howard is currently checking over the diagrams to see if he can locate the cable numbers, and I will be helping him find them in CAR.

Things are hectic, so it's time to sign off my blog. NB to Marker, there is an 'older post' button at the bottom of the page, unfortunately it is not very clear, and is in black font.

Basic Cable Schedule

This is the basic cable schedule for Rave 2012. There will be smaller ones around, but these are the longer cables that will be needed, so it will be easier for us to keep track of how they are going.

One Week To Go!

Oh my, we only have a week till the actual event, and things aren't going well as a whole. Unfortunately we are unable to broadcast on freeview this year, as it was ambitious to try and do it in HD, and we were unable to procure the equipment needed. This is a shame, but we still need to get on with our respective jobs.

I've heard the tools and equipment should be here tomorrow, so I can't wait to get them, and get ready to test and install everything.

I think my weaknesses during this whole year have been:
- Reliance on cable making skills of students
- Being quite a lax leader - but still getting the job done
- I could have been more efficient in chasing up some of the matters.

However my strengths have been:
- Efficient problem solving
- Commitment to following through on what I promise
- Able to get the bigger picture, very quickly
- Able to lead very well, as well as a great team player.

Here's to a great Degree Show!

Check out http://ravensbourne2012.com/!

Patch Scheduling!

These are the patching schedules for one of my assistants who will be around CAR most of the day, ready to patch these new MUSA cables as the link show moves to its new location. 

The ones in yellow are high priority for looking at/testing.

Sigh

Turns out my tools and equipment (including cable and other things) never got ordered till a few days ago! Now they won't be arriving for a little while! However, I will make the most of what I can.

I have had a meeting with our Engineering Manager, and the guy who's in charge of the link show, to discuss where they can have locations around the uni. I believe I used the word 'basher' at least 2000 times in this meeting. The link show plans to film on pretty much every level. The pictures aren't the problem, but all the cables will need to be made sure they stay safe. They will be going across elevator doors, fire doors and there will be lots of people around. This is the reason I have stressed how important cable bashers will be to the managers. I will do my best to make sure that this message sticks in the mind of the right people!

I will create a patching schedule, and then cable schedule, although things are still changing only a few weeks before the events happen!

Order, order!

So it was time for me to order tools and stuff that we need. However, I was not given a budget as such, and so I was asked to pass on the order forms, and then would be told yes or no. After a week had passed, I chased it up with our Assistant Engineering Manager, Emma, as she was the one who passed on the form to the financial people. She said she'd let me know what's happening with it!

In other news, We've heard about this link show that will happen between all the different things that are going on. Last year they were just on Level 4, with a few sofas. This year they want to film from literally all over uni! Pretty much a logistical nightmare at our uni!

Bring it on!

So now 3D is over, it's time to look forward to the degree show. Details are still sketchy. We know there will be at least 4 fashion shows on Level 4. We've heard rumours that tri-ax points are going to be put on level 4, as they are currently only on level 0. This is fantastic news, but we are all a bit dubious as to whether this will happen before the event. If they are there, they will really help in terms of not having to have such long cables from BNC, and we can just use the triax from the Studio!

Other things I may need to do will include setting up cameras that look over level 4 and 0, like we have done in previous events. This is a great shot to put in the background of slates.

What I learnt

What I learnt from 3D conference and Penrose Market


In June, we will be filming a live broadcast called "The Degree Show". It's a collaboration of all the different degrees at Ravensbourne, including fashion shows and lots of filmed . As the engineers, we are tasked to put the show on freeview, and make sure everything the producers want to do is possible.

My job is line, as that's the role I took on during the 3D conference and Penrose Market I've blogged about before. From doing these, I have learnt a lot I can take forwards.

1) Cables fail.
Over the course of the shows, I have a ridiculous amount of cables fail on me. This has taught me the importance of redundancy. Instead of running around trying to find new cables to replace broken ones, I will make sure I set aside different cables, so I can find and replace cables fast and efficiently.

2) Planning is everything.
Detailed planning is essential. You and your colleagues must be on the same wavelength as part of a team, and to do that, they must fully understand the plan.

3) Test, test and then test again!
Cables must be put through rigorous tests to make sure they are durable for the task.We found that a lot of BNC connections that some of the engineers attached to the coax, weren't crimped properly, meaning when attached to the wallbox, they were easily pulled apart, or enough to make the connection dodgy. We need to make sure any cables we use are up to scratch quality wise.

I've definitely taken a lot more, but these are the main things that stood out for me

This is a screen capture of the Cable Schedule for the 3Dstorytelling, it wasn't so complex on paper, but things didn't quite work out as I had first planned!

3D storytelling conference

On 22nd and 23rd of March, a conference was being held to celebrate the new innovations in 3D technology. This was hosted by our university with some of the tutors being responsible for the event as a whole.

My role was once again Head of Lines, as this was another opportunity for me to practice on a large scale event ready for Rave 2012 at the end of the year.

Lines wasn't easy for this event, there were a few complicated lines run that we had to sort out to try and make look as neat as possible.
There was a camera on the Mezzanine Floor, which doesn't have a wallbox for any connectivity. This meant I had to get inventive and run a cable from the welcome space on the bottom floor, along the floor, up the wall, up the side to the mezz, and into the area that the camera was positioned. I was aided by my 3 lines assistants which meant that the line was in place within 15 minutes.

I had to allocate long coax cable for the run from room 209/210 wallbox to the 3 cameras that were in room 212. This was a vast distance and after testing all the cables beforehand, one still broke during the install. To solve this, I decided just to run a new cable and keep the broken one there, but labelled. We made sure the new cable was working fine before running it. After the cameras were set up and connected, we couldn't get a picture from them on the assigns on our vision mixer. We had patched the signal from the wallbox to CAR straight into the assigns. We figured out that we had hit the digital cliff, and solved the problem by using 3 repeaters to extend the range of our signal.

We we asked to produce a picture of TX on level 1, where there was an overflow space. We decided to run a cable from the wallbox to our connection boxes for the projectors, and convert the HD/SDI signal to one that the projector would work with. However after testing, we discovered the BNC connectors in the wallbox we planned to use weren't working and couldn't be fixed. We had to scramble round to find connectivity in one of the edit suite rooms on level 1, and take a connection from there by over patching it in CAR. we could then run a cable to the projector from there. This took a lot longer than planned, and pretty much tied up the whole evening we had planned for other things.

The other cameras used were ones looking over floors 4 and 0 from high up. These were a simple install, and we had no problems patching the signal in CAR.

NEXT: What I have learnt from the 3D conference for use in Rave2012

Penrose Market 11/2011

Back in November, our Engineering Group was asked to provide coverage of a market event happening at our university. We had already decided our Roles for the big 'Rave-live' project later in the year, where we broadcast of Freeview for a few days. My Role is head of Lines, basically managing the connectivity all around the uni, making sure cabling is up to scratch, and that all cameras have sync.
Having been an assistant to this role last year, I felt comfortable with what I had to accomplish.

I was given a £500 budget to buy cable, tape and any other tools we might need throughout the event.
This was quite a difficult budget to manage, and would have been so easy to go over with, as I had to balance quantity of stuff with quality of stuff! Couldn't just buy the cheapest there is, otherwise it wouldn't have worked!
However I did make a few mistakes when ordering things online. I brought what I believed to be XLR cabling, which is what the picture sure looked like, only it turned out to be very thin balanced microphone cabling, not quite what I thought! I also underestimated how many BNC connectors we would go through, having brought about a hundred, and in the end having to use some I had reserved for Rave-Live!

It was also my job to work out where cameras would be positioned, and how they would connect to the uni's infrastructure. We have wallboxes at various points throughout the uni, unfortunately they never seem to be where you need them most! After some juggling about we worked out where the cameras would go, and how to get the sync and signal to and from them. We have a Black and Burst DA in our CAR, and some of the wallboxes have B&B straight to them, meaning getting sync to the cameras wasn't an issue as long as we had the correct cables of the correct length!

During the event, a few problems ensued.
Even after testing all our cables, some broke between the time they were tested, and event day. This taught me that I need to test a few times, and make sure the connectors aren't too dodgy.

On the ground floor, the management team wanted cameras roaming throughout the market. However in our welcome space, the only wallboxes are in the floor, and most of them were under market stalls. We warned the management team they would need at least 3-4 cable bashers, otherwise it wouldn't be safe, but they turned up with a cameraman and one assistant each. This meant we could only have one roaming camera, as the cables trailing over the floor needed to have people attending them, otherwise innocent market people could easily have fallen over and hurt themselves. Roaming cameras are going to be something we need to watch out for in other events, especially in that area.

All-in-all the market went really well. And after the first day full of teething problems our coverage was excellent.