Digital News Production - Filming the 'Live' RSPB Interview

Today we filmed our "Live" piece on Lodge Hill. We went to Lodge Hill, and met up with Rolf Williams the communications officer for the RSPB, he was very helpful with our interview and answered all of our questions and handled it in a very professional manner, he also gave us the answers which we were looking for.

The problems that occurred was with the sound element of the shoot. We were using the Fostex and 2 clip mic for Charlie and Rolf the mice were working fine, however the foster was the issue. As I have very little experience with working with the fostex I didn't know all the functions properly. Every time we tried to feed the sound from the clip mice to the fostex, it would drain all it's battery life away. This made it impossible to use it as it was phantom powering the clip mic which meant it sent all it's battery life to the mics, which wasn't needed as they had their own battery support. In the end we had to use the sound from the Canon, this is something I wasn't happy with as the sound element from the Canon isn't very good and all the wind that passes will be picked us and ruin the sound and shot.

After returning the fostex to Ferg, I told him our problem and he told me that it was the phantom powering that was on. He then went on to tell me that it could have been turned off in the menu settings.

Overall from this experience I have learnt to always know the equipment that I book out and know it's important function which could come in handy on a shoot. Also to check if all the equipment has battery, a simple but yet effective tip.