This is the first of our new series ‘A Day in the Life of a CCAD Student’! Throughout the next few weeks, students from different University Level courses will take you through their day at CCAD. Kicking off, we have Sarah Maher studying Creative Film and Moving Image Design

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Hi! My name is Sarah Maher and I am a Level 5 (second year) Creative Film and Moving Image Design student. Very long title, I know, but it does sound impressive, got to admit. We are split into two different pathways which involve different modules and projects; on my pathway (Digital Production), we had to organise and stream a live show, in a ‘multicam’ set up. I will be taking you through our final day of production on this blog post and how our live show went!

This is me! Working hard!

My role for the show was main producer (to organise everything!) and directing the second half of the show (telling people when to cut and cue). It was very challenging but rewarding. I really enjoyed producing as you have total control over the show, and directing was fun!

A shot of my notes from directing!

Our live stream is very ambitious that had a few very firsts for this course, such as using the smoke machine during a live show, having a live vote so viewers could choose the endings they want to see, and postponing the stream (stay tuned for more details!)

We were planned to go live at 3pm, so we got the actors and crew in at 1pm and did a few read throughs. However, not long before we went live, our main actor dropped out! My advice is to always have a backup! Luckily, we managed to postpone the stream for an hour (we went live at 4pm instead) so our new actor to read through the script and get used to blocking (where each actor will be stood and when).

Having different endings meant that the actors and crew had to learn what they were doing for each ending, just in case. The actors also needed to be fine with improvising if we went under time (we had to hit 15 minutes exactly!) Despite a few hiccups, our live stream went well! The link to our live stream can be found here; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQ8RdiejDQY

The full final cast!

Overall, this was a very fun and challenging module. Luckily, we had a great final cast and crew which made it flow easily, with very small technical issues, when we went live. We were very professional when issues did happen, and we all enjoyed ourselves. It was a huge learning experience! I recommend this module to any willing film student.

More about the course (BA Hons Creative Film) here https://hartlepool.ccad.ac.uk/creative-film-moving-image-production/

And check out the course Instagram below [wdi_feed id=”5″]