Day 2 - Workplacement 27/9/11

Time Started - 9:30
Time Finish - 5:30
Total Hours - 8

Self Assessment Report -
Uniform: 5
Punctuality: 5
Initiative: 4
Cooperation: 4
Work Standard: 4
Development of Skills: 4

Today was my second day of workplacement at channel 9. Once agin like yesturday I took the train then the bus to Willoughby and once again walked up the really steep hill to the studio. Today I was in the on air tapes section of the complex or the place where the commercials are inserted into the gaps between programs. As well as providing channel 9 Sydney with commercials they also provide commercials for Channel 9 Melbourne, Go in Sydney, Brsibane, Melbourne and Darwin and Gem in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. All the commercials are put together in different studios because different states require different commercials.

My day in on air tapes began in Channel 9 Sydney with Stuart. When I got there there wasn't much to do as it was a very unbusy time of day, it would not be until prime time that it would get busy. Stuart like many of the other employees in the studios communicated using communication boxes. Stuart also used emails to communicate with others in the complex mainly about complaints from manufactures about their commercials going to air. One of these complaints came from a company called marble works who claimed that their ad had not been played. Stuart then checked the tape with the commercial in its line up to see if it had actually been played. Another incident Stuart had to deal with was a complaint from Just Jeans. The manufacturer stated that the blues in the jeans were too dark so they sent another tape to Stuart with the correct colouring. Stuart concluded that the colours may of faded due to how the commerical had been downloaded from the ineternet which is how most ads are obtained. Below is the ad that was complained about.

After a couple of hours with Stuart I was then sent to the Go office where the commercials were put together for Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Darwin. The man I was working with showed me the ad cue were the commercials are cued and listed with their durations next to them. He also infiormed that each ad must have a specific time limit of either 15, 30, 45 or 60 seconds in order to be put into the cue for 3 minutes. Also listed in the ad cue was the graphics that appear on screen during the program like ratings, the channel 9 logo anf promos. He also told me that ads that were cued but not ready in time to be broadcast were replaced with promos and community service announcements. What I noticed when watching all the various state channels going at once was that the program being played was the same but the ads were different yet still ran for the same amount of time. For go in Sydney and Melbourne there were back up networks that could be swapped to manually incase there was a problem with the current network. After a couple of hours in Go I was sent to lunch.

After lunch I went back to Channel 9 Sydney with Stuart. After an hour stuart was replaced by Kate. Kate showed me exactly how tapes are brought to the studio and cut in order to be played on air. Each commercial would begin with a 10 seond count down. From the first vision that appers Kate would have to fast forward two frames usng a analog stick then cut the video using a computer. The tape would then be ejected at put into a large storage system witht the capasity to hold 1000 tapes. While with Kate during prime time I witnessed her taping all the A Current Affair and news promos recorded in studio 3. I also saw Kate looking through and checking what was called black board ads, the promos that say "brought to you by".

Also in the studio behind where Kate was working was a man who checks all the imported programs that were to air that night like two and a half me and charles angels. The man would have to check for things like graphics and subtitles. With these tapes with the actucal program there would also be a back up tape in case there was a problem with the original.

The tapes used by bothe Kate and the man are able to hold up to 20 commercials on them and are blacked out after use and reused  for other commercials. When I say that tapes are being used I mean VHS video tapes. When I first arrived in on air tapes I did not expect there to be such old technology used but rather DVD's or digital technology. While discussing this with Stuart he told me that within 5 years times there would be a new on air tapes studio opening in Frenches Forest which would be entirely digital. Overall today my work experience was not very eventful but I am excited to be working in studio 1 tommorow.