Roses 2015

Roses 2015 was held in York and Produced by Kenric Yuen and Sarah Mesterton-Gibbons. This year YUSU expanded the scale of Roses to turn it into a campus wide event, put up quite a lot of promotional material well before the weekend. Most of the budget and Planning seemed to be focused on the opening ceremony, which was very successful.

The coverage for YSTV was mostly collaborated with LA1 - Chris Osborn and Jess Beard were the technical and production contacts respectively. LA1 rented a truck to bring along 2 O.B. Kits along with many cameras and other pieces of equipment - but one of the O.B. kits and most of the extra kit (such as a stedicam) ended up not being used at all.

Room booking and show planning

Sport fixture

Forward scouting had been done to secure the storage room next to Main Hall, which Kenobi would be moved into on Thursday evening and stay for the whole weekend. The sport village agreed to us using the part of the audience area in the Hes East swimming pool and allowed us to move in on the early morning of Saturday where the pool event happen. We also visited RKC with Chris to sort out entrance/setting during darting. There was also a final scouting with LA1 on the Thursday before the actual weekend.

In regards to 22 Acres, YUSU was only able to pin down where the fixtures were going to be the Thursday the week before, when they agreed to provide power line and network for the events that we are going to cover, and failed to (where LA1 brought enough cable to run it). It had also not been decided where the closing ceremony would be (22 acres or RKC), and we could only pin YUSU down on an answer on the morning of the ceremony.

Room booking

Room booking was made a term before, with G/045a booked for editing and G/020 for tech support, servers and equipment for equipment in the studio. Unfortunately, the booking only started at 16:00 on Friday, which wasn't much use for the shows on Friday. YUSU had instead lend us G/045b, where we moved our servers in it for only a while, before deciding URY stores could provide a better home. After moving the servers out, it become the edit room and studio storage instead. G/020 stayed true to the plan and become a master control room, where Robert Walker, Tom Cheyney, and Lloyd Wallis spent most of the weekend providing technical support to all the shows and fixing the stream/player.

Crew problem

In the planning there was up to 3 O.B. units and a studio show operating each day. In practice, due to lack of crew and LA1 "didn't think how to set it up", we only had 2 O.B. units and the Studio show. All the Studio shows were produced by YSTV, except for the evening shows that were produced by LA:1. Crew planning had been a huge problem due to YSTV sign-up system and LA1 have insufficient people. One of the reason why LA1 cancel so many of their show and we cancel/change our VT is due to lack of crew. Instead we have to confirm the time of everyone and slot them in everyday evening and let them know their position.

Show schedule

Friday:

• Studio Show 13:00-14:00
• O.B.1: Opening Ceremony - Central Hall 18:00-21:00 (Set up from morning)
• O.B.2: American Football Open - 22 acres 11:30-17:00 (Change to Rugby 7 12:30-14:00, then cancelled)
• Kenobe: Sitting Volleyball - Main Hall
• VT: Fencing, Karete (missed due to early finish)

Saturday:

• Studio show: 10:30 - 11:00, 14:30 - 15:00 (delay and recorded instead as we "crash the network of the building")
• O.B.1: Football Men 1st - 22 acres 10:00 - 13:30 (Cancel, become VT) Darts men and women 16:00 - 22:30 (delay to 20:00 *in the middle of the dart event)
• O.B.2: Swimming pool for Swimming, Octopush and water-polo all afternoon (cancelled, VT instead)
• Kenobe: Badminton mix, Volleyball women and men, Trampolining mixed 9:00 - 20:00
• VT: Mountain Biking, Ballroom dancing (cancel?), Dance, Kendo (cancel) Rowing, Pole exercises, Hockey (cancel)

Sunday:

• Studio show: 9:30 - 10:00, 14:30 - 15:00
• O.B.1: Rugby Men 1st - 22 acres 15:30 - 17:30
• O.B.2: Tennis 9:30 - 15:30 (cancelled), Closing ceremony (move to O.B.1)
• Kenobe: Badminton - Main Hall 9:00-17:00
• VT: Table tennis, Archery, Cricket (unplanned) Cheerleading (unplanned)

Opening ceremony

The Openning ceremony was one of the most planned event in Roses 2015 - It was a boxing match in central hall followed by a discussion between Greg Dyke and Roy Hodgson about football and other things, and ended with a firework display in the middle of the campus. They also set up a stage in Vanbrugh Paradise with a screen to show the boxing match live as well.

Presenter

Our coverage had 5 presenters: 2 at the back of central hall block 6 as main presenter, 2 presenter (Jess Courtney,Grace Winpenny) for Twitter and interviews, and a single presenter in Vanbrugh paradise to link the in door to outdoor firework. During the boxing match Joe Butterfield is the on stage host (arranged by YUSU) and Commentary during matches is linked to URY where they reside in the Gallery above us.

Camera and Vision Mixing

In terms of Vision mixing, LA1 have brought their ATEM 2ME, which able to Mix 2 separate output. One of the output is for our live steam and other one is to the screen inside central Hall and the stage on Vanbrugh Paradise. In additional to 5Unverified or incomplete information fixed camera, we also make use of 3Unverified or incomplete information remote unit including Bolt from LA1 and YSTV wireless kit. They mostly serve as cameras for Ringside presenter, close up camera during boxing match and Vanbrugh paradise Camera after the action move out of Central Hall. There is also a single camera that made use of IT services Fibers across the lake to film the firework as well, however the fiber is limited in where it come out as well as specialize fiber converter that LA1 haveUnverified or incomplete information.

Others

We also provide with Spotlight to track the boxing walking out the dressing room to the stage as special effect, and provide VT playback with the screen mix for the opening video. AV provide wireless mic and help setting them up along with the Com system provide by LA1. AV have staff during event for gallery access for URY as well as tech support.

Paper plates

To honour some of the events that happened during Roses 2015, a series of Paper Plate awards were put together by Robert Walker, Lloyd Wallis, Tom Cheyney and Helen Hobin.

For the full list, see Paper Plates award

Notes

The weekend went really well!!! We generated lots of lovely content including 5 half-hour daytime studio shows, 3 two-hour evening shows (OB), lots of VoD content and two sports coverage OBs each morning/afternoon.

Things that went well

• Studio shows: the guests all showed up on time, scripts were ready on time, VTs were ready on time most of the time

As usual, everyone chipped in to get everything done on time, and worked really hard!

• OBs: We had some new people we put in charge, and they did really well, set up and break down was good

Things that we could have done better

• A suggestion for all future big productions: Put up a big white board in the studio and list the crew call on it for each day, and tell people that they have to check it at the end of the day for the next day. Maybe do crew call the week before, and get people to commit ahead of time?
• Don’t plan to cover content that we don’t have the crew for. In other words, don’t be overly ambitious
• Communicate with LA1: TV regarding how we work, maybe have a meeting in person in the future
• Make sure that people eat/sleep enough/at decent times…
• Create a central contact spreadsheet with everyone’s names and phone numbers on (for LA1: TV and YSTV)