Here we go again!

Hello again!

It's time to continue my travelling blog! This time I'm going a bit farther than before, this time destination is Shanghai, China! That is not the only thing, that has changed, my travelling friend has changed also, this time I'm travelling with Mikko, who is my classmate.

How am I feeling at the moment? Better than ever, after all I can get out of grey Finland and travel a new exciting place, that I have only heard of and seen some pictures of. At the moment we are on a train to Helsinki, where we jump on our plane to Shanghai.

Journey this far has been fun and we've only just left Outokumpu, so I can't even imagine how fun it'll be when we get there.



Shanghai has 23 MILLION inhabitants, which is more than all the people in finland. That is crazy... It will be a big culture shock after Outokumpu, which has about 7000 people, so I guess that'll make about 3 285 people per one person in Outokumpu. That would be almost half of the people living in Outokumpu.

Well I'm extremely excited, to get to a whole new world. I'll update this blog about 3 times a week about my travels, so keep reading and adios!                         Coffee and egg and bacon bread, such tasty!

Last breath (by Severi)

After the Easter holidays we began our last week at work and I had pretty much given up on the hope of getting to properly work with the cameras. Therefore I was really surprised when I came to work on tuesday and the camera-men came to me, saying that they needed our help, there was a camera without an operator on a childrens quiz-show. Seeing that we would shoot two episodes of the show at the same day, we took turns with Miko - he did the first episode and I did the second. The work itself wasn’t that challenging though. We were to keep a half shot of the host, until the end, when one of the kids would come up to the host with a piece of paper - then we should change into a two-shot. Even though the work wasn’t that difficult, I was pleased to actually getting to do something.

Set for childrens quiz show

Quiz!!!

On wednesday we got back to the basics as we filmed an episode of Dobra Ura, the daily afternoon-show. Once again we took turns with Mike, one of us following from the side while the other was working. Could’ve been worse, could’ve been better. And the came thursday. Finally we got an interesting gig ahead of us. In Kino Šiška, a great local venue that hosts a lot of impressive concerts, there would be a memorial concert for Tomaž Pengov, a well known and loved Slovenian singer/songwriter who had passed away a month earlier. We were to work on the FoH, or safety-camera in the back. The director gave us a really simple instructions for our work - we should always find a shot that could be in a cover of a magazine - keep at it ‘till he had used it and then search for another one. Simple and effective. We were even given the freedom to be as artistic as we wanted. I think it’s useless to say that it was the most enjoyable day with Slovenian RTV.

 Picture from camera

Another picture from camera

During our last day at work we did 2 episodes of Midnight Club, once again taking turns on the camera, just taking a half-shot of the host. It might not have been much, but at least on the final week we were working everyday with cameras. So even though our internship has already come to an end, I’m satisfied. I feel I’ve learned a lot on this trip - maybe not the professionals aspects that I came here to learn, but instead lessons about the world, the life and about myself. While being here, I might have even found myself a project that will keep me busy for years to come. And that’s more than I ever dared to expect from this journey.

Sports and stuff (by Miko)

Hey! Heres the next post which will cover last half weeks! Wednesday morning started out with us being with the chief editor of Slovenia RTV learning about different things about editing. They were editing some kind of documentary about theater acting, they edited it with some program I have never seen before, I can really remember what the name of the program was, we sat there for a while talking with the editor and director of the program they were editing. Then we were brought to room meant for only color correction. It was really fascinating. Then we had few hours off before we went to basketball game with the camera crew. We were taken there by bus, it took an hour to get there. We didn't get to work on a camera, so we just had to observe, when other people were working.The game itself was really exciting and tight!

 Picture from editing room

Thursday we went to virtual studios to see how blue screen worked. It was very interesting! I learned a lot about how blue screen functions. It was fun to learn what all kinds of things you can use it for, but they couldn't show us all things, because they were starting to do a program.

Picture from gymnastics hall

Friday we went to rehearsal shooting for a gymnastics world finals at Tivoli. We followed cameramen as they showed us positions of the cameras and what camera has what kind of job. We still didn't get to work on any cameras and were forced to just observe from sidelines. Today was the actual shootings and I was watching from the control room for the most of the time. It was nothing special. One more week at Slovenia left and It has been really fun, but I really hope we get to work a lot for the last week.

Picture from the control room

Getting busy (by Severi)

Last sunday we had a chance to follow the filming of RTV Slovenias most popular show, Moja Slovenia! It was a quiz-show, in which slovenian celebrities completed tasks and answered questions concerning Slovenia. As I still can’t understand more than handful of words in Slovenian, I couldn’t get that much out of the show - but the audience seemed to enjoy it thoroughly. 











And then came monday. Finally. In one day we spent more time with cameras than we had during the previous month. We filmed a children show with puppets in an neatly detailed set. Doing so, we got a taste of what it means to be a cameraman in a studio. In 10 hours we filmed 3 episodes - pretty much in one go. I don’t mind though - we finally got to do something we came here for.

Tuesday we spent again in studio 2, filming the live broadcast of the daily afternoon show. I also got a personal lesson into using the crane in between the shots, which was truly fascinating. Got to get myself one of those, when I suddenly get filthy rich.

Student project... (by Miko)

Hey! I really don't have much to tell so this update will probably be quite short. For last three days we haven't been able to even touch a camera, we've only watched others work for few days now. Being useless makes me feel a little bit frustrated, but next week seems interesting and full of action. I hope we get to film something interesting!

Anyways for last few days we were with local student's short film project, it seemed interesting, but we didn't get to do anything at all. First we were told, that we could operate one camera, but then that offer was withdrawn, because director couldn't or didn't want to speak English. For last few days we've just enjoyed a weather, which is really good here.

This week dampened my spirit a little bit, but today when we planned for next weeks schedule, it got me fired up again!

 I say it's summer here and locals just laugh at my face...

Shooting!!!

Sorry for a short update... 

Calm Before the Storm! (by Severi)

The last 3 of our workdays haven’t contained too much action. Friday we spent observing action in the control room. While filled with top notch electronics and slightly Star Trekky interior, it wasn’t all that educational. What was being filmed was a TV-show for youngsters, though for my eyes it didn’t have too much of an appeal. That episode being the first for the director, she refused from speaking english in the command stream and so forbid us from being on the cameras. So we settled in following the proceedings in both the control room and the set itself.

Control room

Monday wasn’t much different, as we got to follow the filming of a childrens Christmas Special. Again, forbidden from the cameras we settled in sitting on the edge of the studio and watching the process. Without possessing the command of Slovenian language, there is only so much following from the sides can teach you. But I did have a few interesting conversations with the makers, such as the director who had been working in the TV since 1951, when he first appeared as a child actor.

Set of a Slovenian childrens show christmas special episode

*Swush* Behind the Scenes!

On tuesday we followed the filming of a sketch for a local sketch-show, and a very stereotypical Doctor sketch at that. 4 patients come to see the doctor one at a time. The first one has a head tingler ( you know, one of those weird metallic things that are used on your head, makes you feel all tingly and ecstatic) stuck on his head - no problem, the doctor takes care of it. The second is a young beautiful woman with a piece of dental floss stuck in her teeth - no problem, the doctor takes care of it. The third is a big man who is troubled by the fact that even though he had washed his hands with soap, they are still dirty - no problem, the doctor applies the water and it has been taken care of. The fourth patient then comes in, bloodied and holding his torn hand in his other one, moaning painfully as he goes. The doctor looks at him for a moment and then commands him to leave, as the clinic is only for serious cases. Huehue.

 Doctor scetch was filmed in the location arrow points to. (ps. pro paint skills!)

We didn't even get to see this set in use, but they said it's was for a news broadcast parody scetch

At the end of the day, we were able to change to studio 2, where we were allowed to operate one of the cameras in an afternoon talk-show, similar to what we were filming the first day at the job. Thrilling as it was, I’m far more thrilled about the days to come - tomorrow we are to work with local students on a film project. At this points that is all I can tell, but you can expect more info in the days to come.

Talk-show set... and studio camera!!

Soccer and talk-shows! (by Miko)

Hello! Past days have been really interesting! Working at the Slovenia RTV is really fun and teaching. Not to mention the atmosphere the place has. Everyone working there, that we have been in touch with, has been really awesome and have answered whatever questions we might have.

Yesterday we were at biggest stadium in Ljubljana watching a soccer match... from a control room! It was a portable control room which was built inside car of a truck. Soccer was shot with 8 cameras from various angles and some of the cameras were slowmotion cameras, so that they could replay some events as slowmotion. The equipment they had was impressive. We didn't get to shoot any of the shots, because they only had a limited amount of cameras, so we only observed the process from the control room, which was really interesting! I realized, that filming of a soccer match, or any sport is much harder than it seems. You'd have to know the rules and focus all the time on a job, that you're given. 

(Sorry no pictures from the soccer match, because i'm really bad at remembering things...)

Today we went to Tv-station early in the morning to film a talk-show called Midnight Club. It wasn't a live show. The show will be shown at midnight on Fridays. We got to film with only one camera. We shot two episodes of it. First I was on the camera for the first episode and then Severi filmed the second one. We were given a camera, that only takes a close-up on a host, so we didn't get to do anything special, only panning the camera so the host has room at the line of sight. Length of one episode was 70 minutes, so that makes it over an hour. It was actually pretty numbing to take only close-up for over an hour, but I'm not complaining. It was fun nevertheless.

And then... Pictures! (Yes I remembered to take couple of pictures from the studio)

Wide shot of the studio where we shot the Midnight Club Talk-show

Camera, that we used (This is a bad picture)

I... I don't even know what this is... but everyone loves cats right?

(I did not take this picture)