Multi Camera Set-Up

Multi camera set-ups are very important and useful, especially in news broadcast which is live the majority of the time.

Benefits:

• As it is live you need to act quick upon a mistake. If a mistake or problem occurs (for example a camera battery running out or the camera focussing on the wrong area) the person on the vision mixer can switch to another camera.
• It is quicker to edit with regards to continuity. Everything is captured at once so rather than stopping and filming from a different angle, the continuity will match with the camera from the other angle.
• Scenes can be shot quicker as there is no need to change the light or microphones. This is particularly useful for soaps and series such as Coronation Street or Benidorm.
• Different tones can be conveyed. For example, in Big Brother, you might want to change from a close up to a wide shot to get someone else's reaction in. For the news, you might want to change from a straight on shot to a side angle to get some graphics in.
• Engaging. Different angles would engage the audience, especially in shows such as Strictly Come Dancing and Britain's got Talent. This means you can see things from high up, close up and also the judges reaction.
• You can see more. In football matches you would want to see different players and also a birds-eye view of where the players are.

Disadvantages:

• You can't be as flexible. If you have several cameras focussing on one source the cameras might be looking at a wider background so you would need to keep that background clear of camera cables, lights e.t.c.
• Cost. The cost of purchasing more cameras and having more crew is more expensive than using one person to control one camera.
• Confusion. With a variety of different cameras and screens, it could be confusing for the vision mixer to decide which screen should be broadcast.
• Long set up. For a programme such as the news which is done daily, a multi camera set-up can take a long time to prepare. As news shows are pretty much always based in the same studio, this can actually be reduced.

It depends on what you are filming as to which set-up is best however I would say that a multi camera set-up is the best as you can get a scene filmed once from the different angles rather than several times and by moving the camera. For live shows and the news, this is also easier to cover up mistakes and to act as a backup. This I why I decided to use a multi-camera set up for my news programme. We could switch to another camera if a mistake occurred and it prevented us from moving the camera for when our host changed position.

Example:
Below are some screenshots from Britain's got Talent, a show which uses a multi camera set-up. The screenshots show the different camera angles. As BGT is an entertainment show, the different shot types help to keep the audience engaged.

This shot is used to show how scary it might be for the performer and it's reminding us that he is performing in front of the judges

This is a wide shot to show the performer

A medium shot showing us him doing hand expressions

A MCU of the hosts' reaction

A MCU of one of the judge's reaction

MCU.  - This is the common shot of who is performing along with the wide-angle shot

Wide shot showing the audience

CU of him talking to the camera

A wide show of the judges

Example of a TV Series
I chose Benidorm as the TV series, one that is shot in sunny Benidorm (as the name suggests….) A lot of shots are done in the sun so continuity is important. Benidorm is shot on multi camera however there is not as many as BGT. Shots like these are easier to do without getting cameras in the way.

A wide shot

A close up

Another close up

Filming would be in a set-up like this however with 3 cameras rather than 4