Woodstock 2014

Produced by Grace Winpenny and Ellen Dunbavin, with David Heaton as Technical Producer, Woodstock 2014 was held on Saturday week 9 Summer 2014. It was challenging, stressful but so much fun, and all of the producers found it to be a rewarding experience.

There were 3 Stages for the event, and YSTV broadcast all of them throughout the day on woodstock.ystv.co.uk

Main Stage Using similar plans to previous years, minus the jib and roaming camera, the Main Stage ran 12pm-midnight.

Indoor Stage 2 cameras on either side of the stage, halfway down Vanbrugh Dining Hall. Occasionally the cameras were moved and operated. In future, the producer would suggest that one camera is a static at the back of the hall on stage deck, whilst one camera is placed to the left of the stage, on the side of the window half-way down the room, because exposure.

Acoustic Stage V-bar, in normal 'Vanbrugh Jazz' location. Organised fairly last minute, Lloyd Wallis found a way of placing the single camera on a short wall, surrounded by Hazard Tape. NB: camera in V-Bar is hard. Avoid.

The Good

• Tech Helpdesk - always manned by at least one techie, if there was an issue you could phone and that techie would send someone to help.
• Co-ordinating with URY. Radio are cool and this show seems to have strengthened our broadcast-media-bond.
• Finally being told when and where the Woodstock committee meetings were.
• It's so pretty! (The main stage especially)
• The VTs - Grace painstakingly created 20 VTs of interviews with Sabbs, RAG Officers and many of the acts. This meant the presenters had guidance on what to talk about if they wanted to use it, helping to focus comments. Acts' background information was also provided to the presenters.
• Editing the Indoor (by Sam Nicholson) and Acoustic (by Grace Winpenny) Stages by Christmas 2014.
• Grace was ever-so-slightly stressed throughout.
• Better communication between Tech and Production could have been implemented on both sides. Perhaps someone who understands both aspects could be assigned for future big OBs to keep both sides happy.
• Streaming three stages at once.
• Greg Ebdon's return - the producer was incredibly grateful for his impeccable wisdom.
• Producers shared responsibility on the day, Grace prepared all the pre-production things, whilst Ellen oversaw the day's events.
• Peter Eskdale and his beautiful graphics.
• Chris Wall's 'spooling' expertise.
• We had a trailer! (https://ystv.co.uk/watch/woodstock/2014/Promo/)

The Almost-Good

• Severe lack of Crew, could have social-media'd in advance to get more almumni. Indoor stage was un-manned for most of the day.
• Could have better organised and communicated between producers.
• The de-rig, whilst efficient, was impacted by the lack of crew. It was daylight when we finished. Sleep was much-needed.
• Producers could have communicated better with porters and other staff.
• Last minute room cancellations meaning one of our much needed rooms was taken to store exam papers. We didn't get an email informing us of the cancellation. It just happened.
• Nearly having wireless camera running, then well-meaning crew abandoning manning the indoor stage to attempt a fix.
• NaSTA Best Music 2015 (entry can be found here: https://ystv.co.uk/watch/nasta-2015/music/) feedback (actually this was pretty good, very constructive!) Because efforts were focused on main stage, indoor stage looked less pretty and cameras need to be balanced every now and then. However, the edit was 'musical' and the producer wanted to tell the story and show the huge scale of the event, rather than focusing on just the main stage.
• Techie bugs with sound - editing for NaSTA was a nightmare because main stage recording was 20 mins out of sync by the end. It took until march when Grace Winpenny retried the files from David Heaton's newly acquired Salford base and eventually copied them to Pending Edits before Main Stage could be begun.
• Next time, perhaps do a time-lapse of rigging, it would look cool as part of a VT or in the NaSTA entry!
• Outdoor stage may or may not be edited by Woodstock 2015. Files can be located on Pending Edits. Go wild.