Post Event Evaluation

Overall the event had its major ups and downs. During the few days leading up to the event, i think i felt quite confident with what we would be doing. I had a decent grasp on the lighting kits and some detailed notes, which i felt confident about using. We came across some software the day before the event that we decided would look more professional and was easier to use for the actual event, so we had to reshuffle the work we'd already done, to accommodate the new program. But on the morning of the event, disaster struck and we had some major technical difficulties. Due to all of us trying to fix these problems, we were unable to prepare fully for when they arrived, which left us a bit stunned when they walked in 15 minutes early.

We got off to a good start and i think the demonstrations went quite well, but it was the practical part that we struggled with. Because we hadn't really saved ourselves enough time to rehearse our pieces and do a full on rehearsal with the software and hardware, we didn't realise how little there would be for the group to participate in. This and the fact that the group were very unwilling to get involved made the practical part quite hard work. The fact that they had arrived early also threw us slightly and we struggled with making up the time difference.

I think if we were to do this event again, i would make several changes. For a start, i would change the size of the group, because it was hard work for 5 of us to spend time talking to all of the pupils individually. I would also have multiple run throughs of the event to make sure i knew how everything was going to work and the timing of everything.

Photos

The group arrives


The Gatehouse


Ved, Balve and Lance met the group


Mike begins his talk in the gatehouse


Jake carries on with the talks


The students are entertained by the career talks


Ved gives his career talk on the Bath Film Office


Lance demo's the green screen set up


Lance sits in the chair annd acts out the news program item


Chris explains the lighting set up for a chromakey demonstration


Reuben demonstrates to the student the BoinxTV software


Myself and Reuben chat with some of the students


Rob discusses cameras with two of the students


The group prepares to depart the gatehouse for the tour of the university

The Event!

We were able to set up the lighting and the green screen the evening before the event to save time on the day. Which, it would turn out we needed. We were in on event day bright and early and very eager to get set up. We let ourselves into the room and began running the equipment down from the floor above and getting it set up.

We got set up fairly efficiently, before beginning to wire everything up, taping them down as we went. Its then we struck a problem, the monitor we were planning to use for the students to be able to see what was happening couldnt be connecting to Reubens Mac, which the software was installed on. We then noticed the large projector screen to our right and the projector hanging behind us. We had to move the green screen set up around, but it was well worth it, as we now had everything the students needed to see on a large projector screen!

We were almost set up and ready to go when we had a call saying the students were here and that we had 15 minutes to get ready, 15 minutes should be fine we thought. 5 minutes later, the students walked in the door. We were nearing the end of preperation, so we decided to get them sat down and just go with it.

The preliminary introductions and the demonstrations went well, without hiccup. Due to the students arriving 15 minutes earlier than expected, our schedule had gone out of the window, so we had to call a 10 minute break in the middle to make up the remaining time.

A few of the students were quite responsive and were eager to come up and talk to us about the equipment, but unfortunately most were not and it was quite hard to get them to come forward and take part in the green screen demo. None of them would come and take the position of the news presenter, so myself and Lance had to stand in.

We had to hand out a short questionnaire at the end of the session so we could find out what they thought of the event as a whole. Results were quite varied as to what people thought, but it mostly came up good, with the green screen room recieving about 30-40% of the vote and the gatehouse career talks between 60-70%. We also recieved some good feedback about the presesntation and organisation.

The Lead Up To The Event

The few days previous to the event were quite a stressful time as we tried to make all the last minute preperations for the event. We had a rehearsal two days before the event, in the gatehouse with the green screen set up, which featured a few problems. We had chosen to use Final Cut Pro to chromakey the scene, but were having problems with the visuals, so Reuben set about looking for a different software we could use.

Reuben managed to find BoinxTV, which allowed us to create a better quality live feed and also came with integrated scene backdrops and lower third graphics. The software was perfect for what we wanted to do, but with such little time left, Reuben had to get to grips with the software quickly. We had previosly planned to use a vision mixer, but the Boinx software had rendered this useless and as Lance had a demo prepared for it, he had to change his to a short talk on chromakey.

The BoinxTV software in use

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Scheduling

We began trying to structure the event, by creating a basic rough schedule. They would be scheduled to arrive at 10.45am and would be leaving at 2pm.

10:45 - 11:00 - Collection & Ice Breaker
11:00 - 11:55 - First Hour
11:55 - 12:05 - Break
12:05 - 13:00 - Second Hour & Evaluation
13:00 - 14:00 - University Tour

We discussed the idea of t-shirts and name badges as identification for ourselves and the City of Bath College students, and decided that Leslie would speak with the Head of Creative Studies and arrange to have Bath Spa t-shirts ordered for each of us.

We decided that a hour tour of the University would be useful for the students following the event and discussed main areas of interest. We also decided that myself, Chris and Rob would stay back and de-rig the green screen set up, whilst the rest of the team would take them on the guided tour.

What areas to tour?
SU Bar
SU Gym
Gatehouse
Theatre
Dance Studio
Music Dept.
Dairy
Library
Main House
Refectory (Moreton)
End at bus stop at 14:00

We also discovered that we would need a total of 4 CRB checked individuals for the event, with two being in each room, so balve contacted Helen Goldsworthy, Aim Higher Co-ordinator at Bath Spa University about hiring them.

Leading upto the event

We decided upon who was going to be designated to each room and the jobs they would be taking on:

Work Experience Room
Ved Gobin
Mike Bishop
Balvinder Bains
Jacob Martin

Green Screen Room
Rob Miles - Floor Manager
Reuben Bakker-Dyos - Camera
Lance Turton - Vision Mixer
William Wynn - Lighting Engineer
Chris Johnson - Sound Engineer (later changed to Lighting Engineer)

Booking Equipment - Rob Miles & Reuben Bakker-Dyos

With these decisions made, we could begin talking about the details of the chromakey demo. We made the decision that we would give a short presentation on each segment of the demo, before splitting them up and letting them get hands on with some of the equipment. Myself, Mike, Jake and Reuben had created and scripted 2 short pieces for use with the greenscreen: a weather report and a news piece. We also had the idea early on, to capture the footage from the demo and send a copy to the City Of Bath College, so that they could watch and possibly edit it.

In the beginning..

THERE WAS MEDIA!

In the planning stages we came up with multiple ideas, but decided upon halving the group and having one half viewing and taking part in a green screen demonstration, while the rest would stay in the gatehouse and be given presentations about some of our students work experience. Then after about an hour, the two groups would switch over and spend an hour in the other room.
The invitation we sent to the students at Bath College