Week 3

27th Feb-3rd March

I went into the office on Tuesday and met the lovely graphic design intern! She was extremely friendly and was valuable to me as another design student to bounce ideas off of. I began discussions for the storyboard with my colleagues that I will be beginning work on over the next two weeks. I did not work much on it this week due to the Annual Summit event happening on Thursday being everyone's top priority.

The Annual Summit event is an occasion where a number of representatives from all of CfM's partner organisations come together to discuss and plan towards making improvements in Melbourne, both within the CBD and Greater Melbourne Area. It involves insight into Melbourne from both a philanthropic and environmental point of view, with a particular focus on how to best represent Melbourne nationally and internationally for the next two years as both a brand and as a
comfortable place to live.

On Thursday, I arrived at the office at 10am to meet with everyone before heading across to the Sofitel at 11am. At the Sofitel I met Dan, the videographer for the day, who was incredibly kind to
me and launched into explanations of the camera equipment he was using he began to set up in all the meeting rooms. Dan had three cameras he would be using for the day to record the main meetings and also some of the discussions and Q&A's occurring in the breakout rooms. In between these times, he would also be capturing some b-roll of the afternoon and evening breaks.

I was hesitant to even touch this equipment due to how costly it would be to replace, but Dan wasn't having any of that. He encouraged me to actively try filming some of the first speeches alongside him, with two cameras being set up; one to capture a still wide shot of the stage, the other a closer shot moving to actively track the speaker as they moved across the space. Dan and I would take turns to use the tracking camera and to adjust the zoom and focus where needed- something Dan had shown me how to do during setup. I felt comfortable knowing Dan was there to help if something went wrong, and further comforted by the fact there was a separate team monitoring the recorded audio of the microphones so that was not something I had to be concerned with (though we did have a pair of headphones to listen in on the audio quality to make sure the video lined up with it).

After the initial speeches and meeting we had our first break, during which Dan handed me one of the very expensive and easily breakable cameras to film some b-roll on. He said this was a good opportunity for me to experiment with working a professional camera and testing out different angles and shots, as the b-roll was not as essential with only around 2 minutes of footage being needed. Dan was also filming some b-roll during this period, so the both of us could capture different content which Dan could then select footage from and edit accordingly. This was an amazing experience, I've never really had the opportunity to just freely shoot with a professional
camera- I tried out a number of angles, shot types, focus levels, and adjusting settings like the ISO. Doing this practically really helped to improve my understanding of cameras and their functions, which even for someone with a post-production focus, this is good knowledge to have.

Heading back into the meetings we now had breakout sessions occurring. Dan had to set up all 3 cameras in separate rooms, with him monitoring 2 of the cameras downstairs in rooms directly next to each other while I would monitor and adjust the camera in the upstairs room myself. This was the same camera I had used for the b-roll so by this stage I was fairly comfortable in navigating it's functions on a basic level. Dan came to check in on me to make sure everything was running smoothly, but while my tracking was somewhat shaky, I was able to successfully capture the breakout meeting and the subsequent Q&A panel with a mixture of still and moving
shots.

We finished up the day with capturing the final meetings in the main room again, then recording some b-roll of the evening break where everyone was talking and finishing up casually before heading home. Genevieve, who had been checking in with me throughout the day, came to meet with Dan and I at the end to see how everything went. Dan was wonderful, and even offered to give me his contact details should I have any questions about editing or filming in the future.

Overall, this experience was invaluable to me and I am so appreciative to have had the opportunity to work with Dan for the day. Dan will also be providing me with some of the footage from the first summit meeting to edit down for use on the CfM's socials, per Genevieve's suggestion. Though not directly linked to my main project, this gives me the opportunity to follow production through from start to finish which is an
exciting prospect.