Workstation 1: Technical Director

Owned by Adam Barrett
Last updated: Oct 02, 2020 by Murray Basham
3 min read

The Role

The role of the Technical Director is to oversee the technical quality of the required resources for the production.

The technical setup of the Control Room is to ensure that all the video and audio sources are available and routed to the Vision mixer as well as the Audio mixer for the production.

This can start with switching on the Studio cameras, connecting the video cable from one of the 4 wall boxes located on the studio floor to the return vision monitor on the floor and that its getting the correct feed from the Tricaster, that is Program output.

Ensure that the microphones required are patched through the wall boxes and that the mic output is available through the Audio Mixer. Check Phantom power is On from the mixer, if required? This operation can be passed to the Audio operator if one is available.

Check that the Tricaster is selected  to the correct session. This ensures that the correct inputs are available and showing on the multi-view screen for the Vision Switcher / Director of the production. If  some vision inputs are not showing, then correct it by adding them to the TC-1 inputs.

Your role also helps workflow, of how the various inputs reach the Tricaster. This enables you to have a better overall understanding in the case of signal not reaching the desired destination. 

  • To the left is the CCU (Camera Control Panel) panel for the 4K Panasonic Studio cameras.

  • The 3 Studio cameras are setup in front of the Grey scale chart with studio lighting at 3200*K. Set the iris of the camera appropriately on each camera to be the same. Ensure the 3 R,G,B knobs are brought back to their detente position.  Then press the Black button at the top right of panel. This allows the camera to go through its Black Balance.

  • Once this completes and iris levels are stabilised, then press the White button, next to Black. This allows the White Balance to be done.
  • This panel allows the Technical Director or T.D to set the colour balance of each camera and the iris to ensure that each camera is 'matched', that is that each camera is producing an identical output in the way the colour response of each camera and there interpretation of how it processes colour through the camera. This can then be corrected; if needed, by "painting" each camera by adjusting the Red and Blue - White control of the CCU. DO not use the Green control. This must remain left in the detent position as our reference.
  • This matching is then done by you the T.D to see that each camera matches the other. 

Green Controls for CCU

The Green paint and the Green Black controls are not to be touched, but to remain in the detent position!

Also other controls through the "Menu" options must not be touched unless you have received adequate training in the camera itself.

The colour filter as well as the amount of ND filter can be selected. For Studio use the operational status for the camera is 2  A,

Gain is left at 00- for Studio use and the Shutter selection is at 50- preferably to Off.

The Iris and Black level of the camera is controlled by the 'mono knob' at the bottom right of the panel. Up/Down movement is for Iris, the rotation of the lower control on the column is for Black Level (or Contrast).

The Menu System for the camera

Do not touch the Menu system of each panel as changes in here may affect the cameras performance and output signal quality for other students!