Emma Casey
I always loved television and multi-camera productions – sitcoms, dramas, talk shows, live music events, all of it! It was a big part of my decision to apply for Film and Television at IADT.
When I got here and we started blocks of multi-camera studio productions I was very nervous about multi-camera directing. As a multi-camera director, you have a seat in the gallery that you direct from and I was always itching every time I wasn’t up and doing something and helping other people.
In third year when it came time for me to direct, I spoke to my lecturers about still feeling too nervous, but still wanting to be heavily involved in studio. They were really understanding and we came up with the plan for me to work in other Head of Department roles beside the directors so I could continue learning about multi-camera direction until I was confident enough to direct myself.
That year I was Broadcast Coordinator for the Finbar Furey multi-camera video, as well as the television grad show that year which was heavily steeped in music and live performances. After all the paperwork, production and experience that went into these roles, I finally felt ready to direct for 4th year when I would be specialising in multi-camera as my support craft.
I had the idea of getting my favourite band into Studio One at the NFS and creating a music video for them in a day. I got in contact with my multi-camera/television lecturers and they encouraged me to go for it and to start planning early.
When September of my 4th year came around it was up to me to book the studio for two days – one day of building and rigging, one day rehearsal and shoot. With many e-mails and proposals and the help of my lecturers, we secured The Coronas to come in for a day and shoot the video. They had a song from their newest album that they wanted to release as a single and needed a video for and they put it in our hands.
The song was ‘Gut Feeling’ and now the time came for camera scripting, building our set, lighting design, ordering the lunch, securing all the crew and every bit of paperwork that gets handed to all the roles across a multi-camera crew. This production had a crew of 33 IADT students as well as lecturers, technical staff, Coronas’ crew and many supporters on top of that. The students were from four different courses and across all four undergrad years as well as MA level.
Shoot day was the 18th of December 2017. There were a couple of stand-out moments for me from the production. When The Coronas’ instruments arrived on the rig day – the bass drum with their logo sat ready to go in our very own studio and I couldn’t believe that after all these months it was happening. When our set of lights and curtains was first hoisted up and the house lights were turned off – the magic of something you drew up months ago coming to life. When we had our first camera rehearsal that went without a hitch and I knew we were ready.
It all came together. The band were fantastic – very involved and so lovely to everyone. Everyone on the crew worked so hard, helping out in every way that they could and always with the best attitudes and professional demeanours. The rig day, shoot day and clean-up day were some of my happiest days at IADT because of the dedication and high spirits of the students and lecturers. It was a team effort from start to finish and I am very grateful to everyone who got involved.
After it was all done, the video was edited and colour-graded, the sound mixed, and the behind the scenes content was put together. On the week that everything is released to the public, I hope everybody involved feels very proud of their work and what we made together.