The Composite Effects Generator-Switcher (JVC KM 2500)
For notes on Color bars and timing set up see Remote Camera Controls.
2 M/E Bus
* Multi-input, multi-function, Eight inputs, four buses and two fader levers for a wide range of effects
*Wipe pattern selection
* 13 Wipe patterns with soft wipe, border wipe, and positioner (round, diamond and window) function, for effective wipes.
*Chroma key generator (Make sure this is shut off or the Special effects won't work).
*Auto transition function
*Flip-flop mix circuit
*Colour back ground generator
*DSK (Down stream kayer)
*Non-locked signal input (AUX)
*SSG with Genlock function
The middle green buttons (Buses) are”LIVE”and they are: the cameras, 1,2,3, 4, DVC (5), PowerPoint (6), Editor (7), DVC Pro (8)(Which will be the “JUICE”), Black (10).
Buttons are: Yellow (Top row)
Orange (2nd row)
Green 3rd row (LIVE)
White (Bottom row).
Each row of buttons are labeled the same.
The Effects buttons are on the upper right.
The first effect button on the upper left is the mix button, if you have this pushed, the effect is to mix say camera 1 and camera 2. The others are labeled by their shade. E.g. up/down, side/side, etc. The last three on the lower set are square, diamond, and circle. These three are able to move around if you select the ON button under the little joy-stick. You will see you can move this around on screen, so you can put someone else's head on another's body etc. Why I don't know!!! (Could be used for a sign language person.)
There is a little dial left of the effects buttons that controls the sharpness of the border of the effect. You can also control the width of the line and the color of it should you so desire.
The Chroma Key effect is not used. This is the effect you see on the weather channel in which it appears as if the weather man is looking at the weather map you are seeing.
The Green buttons are the LIVE camera buttons. When these are lit, that is the “camera” that is live. So you can simply switch or “cut” from one camera to the next using just camera 1,2, or 3, or you can set up the shot first using the “pre-set” ability of the white buttons. The Right lever fades the shot, from say, camera 1 (In which the Green button is lit) to camera 2 (From the White buttons), etc. (White to Green). Or back the other way.
The Orange buttons can be used to set up which camera, or usually “Powerpoint” (#6) the special effect acts on.
So, usually you have a speaker that you want to identify on screen, so you can use one of the cameras to keep him on the left side, while you set up the special effect (in this case PowerPoint) on the right.
To accomplish this, you punch the # 6 Yellow button (Which happens to be PowerPoint) this lights up. Then you punch the left hand, effect (Wipe) button. (The little white shaded button on the upper right that is shaded on the Right). The orange button is set to the camera you want the effect to act on. (The same camera that is live on the green section. Now use the middle lever to set up the special effect on the preset monitor. There is a little piece of tape on the monitor that indicates where the line of the shaded effect should be so that all the words are showing up. (“SE” has to be pushed on the “White” buttons.) So if you have camera 1 set up on the Orange buttons, then camera 1's shot is the one used to create the effect.
NOW: When you want to put out that shot LIVE, you use the right hand lever and fade to the shot. You may have had the Green button on camera 2 while all this was going on. So when you move the “fader”, the shot goes to camera 1 and the special effect. Whoops! So, you should have the orange buttons and green buttons on the same camera, so that you have the special effect act on the camera you are currently on. Also it seems that they like to have the “JUICE” running in the background of the full PowerPoint slides, so to do that the Yellow button has to be set on 8 (JUICE), the Orange on 6, then when the slide is put on screen using SE, it has a moving juice background. (If you fool around and reverse these you'll notice that the juice is in front of the PowerPoint, not exactly what you want.) Does this sound complicated??? It is at first, and you need to practice with this a lot.
By the same token, you can set up the side bar to be on the left side. (If you have Yellow on camera 3 and Orange PowerPoint 6). .We mostly use Yellow on 6 and Orange on camera 3 and the effect goes on the right. Play with this till you get it!
The other effects are wipes, and go from one camera to the next in a diagonal or barn-door fashion, which we do not use regularly, I think because people don't have enough practice with it.
When you preset a shot, be sure to look at it, I accidentally hit camera 4 by mistake in the heat of the action, and put up a blank screen.... easy to do when you are getting pressure from the TD. (By the way ..if the TD seems hard on you, don't take it personally he is trying to get the job done, and is under a certain amount of pressure to get things right...... your mind may be thinking of the sound, and you are asking for more control room sound to the sound man, and miss a direction from the TD...so you have to focus.)
You have to read the SCRIPT, that tells you what Henry is saying, and cues you for the slide that is coming next...and coordinate this with the PowerPoint person. This keeps you busy and you need to communicate with the PowerPoint person upstairs to find out when to take off the slide when people have finished writing.
The PowerPoint person should tell you when the “last slide” is coming up, and also if there is a series of slides that he will control from upstairs. Pay attention to the half slides that will need a different special effect.
There is an “Auto” button on the lower Right. For the most part the switch beside it is set to Manual. If this is set to auto, there is a timing control on the right that sets the dissolve time if you should choose to use it for dissolves, instead of the lever itself.... Why this is there is beyond me, you have NO control with this button, and so don't use it.
There is also a “black” button that you can push in an emergency if you suddenly need black...and panic! (Little blue button).
Another Scenario:
PowerPoint is set up for Right handed Special effect.
So....on the preset monitor, you can set up this shot by having Yellow on 6, Orange on camera 1. SE on Right effect.
So, what you do is simply CUT to PP when it is a full slide. CUT to SE when it is a half slide. CUT to camera 3 for the rest. Makes it real easy.
So to recap:
Effect button is set to mix (top left button).
Top yellow row set to 8 (Juice)
Orange row set to 6 (PowerPoint)
This will give you a moving background.
Green row camera 3 (for example) is Live.
White row on “SE” (“TD” says “go to special”)
Check the preset monitor, you should see the full PowerPoint slide, over the juice.
Now to go live with this, move the right hand lever up. This turns the Green SE button on and replaces the camera 3 shot with the PowerPoint with juice shot. Got it?
Another Scenario:
Camera 3 is live. (Green)
PowerPoint person says half slide, or you see it come up on the PowerPoint monitor.
TD Says “Special”, or you have to watch for it and read your script to see when it comes up.
Top yellow button goes to 6. (PowerPoint)
Orange button set to camera 3.
The little white shade button is set to the proper setting, usually the bottom shade.
The bottom White button to “SE”.
Set up the margins of the shade on the preset monitor. You can set the “fuzziness” of the boarder with the little dial that says boarder. We usually keep it a bit fuzzy so as to blend the shot.
Then when Henry goes to speak the words on the slide, put it up using the right lever.
Now this is why you need to have the orange camera button on the same camera as your live shot, because when you put up the slide you just get the effect on the bottom and not a change in camera at the same time. Again.... wait for a while then take it off by moving the lever back. The PowerPoint person upstairs will sometimes tell you if people are still writing.
By the Way.....the rule for little kids choir is:....DO NOT put them on screen because they tend to look around at themselves.
Note: If there is patching done on the video patch panel, this disables the switcher. So if a Satellite production is going on and there is a problem, you put the switcher on PP, then you have to pull out the patch cords to get the PP slide (Technical difficulties) to show on the screen.
Production Note:
If a special orchestra presentation is being done, such as Easter or Christmas, they don't send a video signal out to the projector, (Controlled by upstairs), however, any video that is on the “PROGRAM” monitor IS being sent to the nursery etc.....so you are still in fact “LIVE”....so if you are using the session for “practice”, you should still do it as IF you are going live to the main audience.
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