Planning

Every year, Q30 Television’s entertainment department puts on a live event. In years past, the event was “Holiday Hottie,” a male beauty pageant. Going into 2021, I wanted to revamp the event and make it more of a competition rather than a pageant. I worked with six entertainment producers and came up with “Student Media Showdown.” The idea of the event was to have each student media organization at Quinnipiac University compete in different rounds to see who would take home the title of best student media organization.

Once we had the general concept, it was time to create a rundown and get ready for the event. I worked closely with the two hosts of the event to write out a script that would be put into the teleprompter. I also worked with all of the contestants that would be representing the different organizations. Each team needed a talent and something to wear for “best dressed.” I planned for a rehearsal leading up to the event to run through everything and work through different problems that might arise.

Going Live

On the day of the show, there were a lot of moving parts. Quinnipiac’s facilities department helped me set up for an outdoor show on the quad, and the student programming board leant me an inflatable jumbo screen so that pre-taped segments could be seen by an audience. I worked with Q30’s head engineer to set up all of the equipment that was needed, and although there were some issues, the show went really well. As we prepared to go live, there were problems with some of the wireless mics. I was able to switch the mics out and used XLR cables which made it a lot easier in the control room.

I had a production assistant who relayed information from the control room to the the talent outside. And, I also had a large crew working with me on different equipment. Overall, there was a three-camera setup outside with two cameras on the main stage and one camera panning between the three judges and audience. Additionally there was a camera setup inside where we conducted an exit interview for the teams that got eliminated after each round.

Takeaways

Producing and directing “Student Media Showdown” taught me a lot about what goes into creating a live event. Although I prepared and practiced, there’s no way to know what might go wrong while going live. I was able to work quickly in the moment and collaborated with others to troubleshoot issues.

Following the event, I can say that I…

• managed producers, talent and additional crew members to choreograph and capture my original vision

• headed the creation of packages, commercials and graphics for the event using various video production techniques

• operated studio cameras and trained others in camera operations, production procedures, proper video equipment usage, and camera composition

• lead the production crew in the control room to make sure Student Media Showdown was executed cleanly on air