As Live Production Unit - First Rehearsal

As the script was complete in its first draft, today we did our first rehearsal. Going off of set design we knew a rough layout of what areas we were shooting with the soft area to the left, hard area in the middle and the catwalk area to the right. We had the presenters and stand in's so we could run through the show as if it was the real people there. I was first up in the gallery and since this was my first proper time doing anything like this Del walked me through what I should be doing. Everyone had talk back on and I was able to communicate to the camera operators where they should all be.

Once everything was ready to go we practiced the first section of the show which was the introduction and steals of the season. Over the course of the whole day I didn't make it much further than these two sections as I kept making errors and mistakes throughout the whole thing. I missed stings, camera shots were not directed very well, everything was all over the place. By the end of my turn in the morning I started to get the hang of it a bit better. I was using the right terminology and was understanding how the process works. Although I have done a lot of research into the role, putting it into practice was a lot more challenging. The biggest problem for me was being able to multi task. As a director you have to be focusing on more than one thing at a time and this I found very difficult. I was looking at the monitors for my shots as well as listening to the P.A. and working out what was coming up next on the script. I would often lose my place on the script and not know where I was and what I was doing. Although Del assured me this was normal and that I was improving more and more each time, I still found it very frustrating that I couldn't get to grips with it as quickly as I wanted to.

This rehearsal has been one of the biggest learning curves I have ever come across. Although I feel I improved throughout my rehearsal time, I am no where near ready to direct the show and will need a lot of practice before I get to the standard I want to be. I am ready for the challenge and will try 100% to get to the level I want to be before the show transmissions.