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A Guide to Working in the Production Office

Circulation
Please read our circulation policy. We only accept reservations from CAMS students currently in a production class, we do not service the campus at large. CAMS 111: Digital Foundations students get an NX-100, a standard tripod, Tascam and Rode mic for the whole term. Everyone in any production class, including CAMS 111, gets whatever else they’re authorized to use two days at a time. These authorizations are already pre-set in Web Checkout (WCO). Patrons should request equipment reservations by calling (507) 222-5434, stopping in person when we’re open, or online through Patron Portal.

Web Checkout
We use Web Checkout for equipment reservations and circulations. Please log into WCO and watch these videos, then ask me or the Educational Associate for more info.) Only give people equipment for two days. (If we’re closed on what would be the return date, pick the next day.)

MAKE SURE THE EQUIPMENT GOING OUT MATCHES THE EQUIPMENT RESERVED ON WEB CHECKOUT. If a piece of equipment is missing and you have to replace it with a different piece of equipment, edit the reservation to include this change you made. Do not just send out a piece of equipment without documenting it in WCO. If we don’t track where our equipment is going, this will create a trail of problems and Gisell will be very sad 🙁

If for any reason WCO won’t let you make or edit a reservation, or mark a reservation as picked up or returned, send camsprodn@ a detailed email with patron’s full name, desired pickup and return dates and times, and the complete list of what they want/have/are returning, with CCIDs where relevant.

When prepping and returning an order, follow the checklist for each piece of equipment in the order. If one doesn’t exist yet, test the equipment to make sure it works and email camsprodn@.

Before giving gear to a production class student, please make sure we have a release form on file from them. Digital Foundations will have already signed their form after they pick up their camera kit. If they signed it before March 2020 or you can’t find it in the file drawer underneath the mailboxes, please ask them to sign a new one. Please search for the form before the person is scheduled to arrive.

Space Checks
Please turn in a form for every space on the form each day you’re assigned to do space checks.
Once a week on Mondays, please do a quick projector check. Check the Production Office Workers calendar for who’s assigned space checks when.

-If for any reason you can’t come to the Weitz to do space checks, please email in advance another person on duty during or near your shift and cc: me.
-If anything else prevents you from turning in a space check form, please email me.

General Instructions to stay ready for the term


Step 1. Get to know the equipment each production class uses.

Digital Foundations: NX100 camcorder, Tascam audio recorder, Rode microphone

Advanced production classes: C100 mk II


Step 2. I can request a free license of Adobe Creative Cloud (CC) from ITS for anyone in the office. If you have a computer you think can run the current version of CC, please do–the most frequently used programs in it include Adobe Premiere, Audition, and Media Encoder. Read this page including the links on it to ITS’ how-to-install instructions. After you’ve done that, if you’re still having trouble, please contact the ITS Help Desk for more information.

Step 3. Read the Production Office FAQs patiently and thoroughly. Follow the links. Download, log in, and practice. Shoot actual footage. If you’re not in a production class this term, arrange a time with me to come into 139 and use gear to do so. Edit actual footage with Premiere so you start building experience with what people are working with.

Step 4. Again, make sure every reservation is as accurate as possible. If we don’t have the piece of equipment a student has reserved, change the order and give them the next available resource.

Step 5. Know what we do and don’t support:

What do we support?
-CAMS’ production equipment;
-Adobe Premiere, Audition, and Media Encoder; and
-streaming movies assigned to watch in a CAMS class. These will be available through a college-level licensing agreement on one of several streaming platforms, including: Kanopy, Swank Pictures, Criterion Pictures (which is different from The Criterion Collection) and others. If someone tells you the link to something assigned as class viewing is broken, please email kbrooks@ and cc: camsprodn@.

Step 6. Take the Weitz Cinema projectionist orientation (watch the video and read the accompanying materials), take the quiz about it, and schedule a time to demonstrate proficiency as a projectionist in-person. As soon as you have demonstrated proficiency, I’ll add you to the OneCard group of people authorized to access the booth.

Step 7. Watch the Weitz Audio Recording Studio orientation video, read the QuickStart guide and take the quiz. Take special note of the special instructions for when the USB Interface is erroneously looking for clock source from an external ADAT device (that isn’t present), instead of using its own internal clock.

Step 8. Watch the video about wireless audio and pass the quiz about it.

Step 9. Learn everything you can about each of the main tools students use:
Canon C-100 mkII camcorder
Cineroid L10C-VCE LED light
Manfrotto 502+535 (standard tripod)
Sony NX-100 camcorder
Tascam DR-100 mkIII audio recorder

by doing the following:
-take Cinématechs,
-watch video tutorials,
-shoot footage/record audio,
-edit it,
-re-read FAQs,
-refer to the owner’s manual.

Step 10. Model self-reliance.

When students ask for help and we don’t know the answer, not only is it okay, it’s important, to say so: “I don’t know, but I can help you find out,” followed by looking with them in the manufacturer’s instruction manual or our quick start guides turns out to be a powerful thing to do and, therefore, an empowering thing to model.

Show the person how to find the manual online. If you know the make and model number of a piece of equipment, or the version number of a piece of software, you can use them as search terms. like this or this. It’s best to get it from the manufacturer’s own website. Here’s one I use a lot, for instance: the Adobe Premiere user guide.

When you’ve got the manual, make your best guess as to what feature the trouble is related to–“shutter speed,” “paste attributes,” or the like. Then search in the manual for that, parse through the results, and try what seems most likely. This might sound trivial but it’s a life skill. If you can’t get a handle on the problem this way, please email me.

Step 11. Take the tools quiz.

Step 12. life skills
Don’t share passwords. Log out of computers. Don’t leave propped doors unattended. If there’s a problem, email camsprodn@. If you don’t know, ask.