Mobile production lab is hub for
capturing festival performances
MANCHESTER,
Tenn. — For MTSU electronic media communications professor Robert Gordon, his
role in coaching students working here is all about capturing the essence of
“the Roo.”
“The
major difference with producing Bonnaroo performances for TV from that of an
individual artist TV concert is that the festival is the star,” said Gordon, an
assistant professor in the Department of Electronic Media Communication who has
almost 40 years of experience in broadcast, cable and network programming.
“Bonnaroo
is an experience. Stage to stage, hour to hour, day to day, year to year, the
performers change. Bonnaroo is the focus.”
Gordon
is key member among a group of Middle Tennessee State University faculty and
staff supporting about 40 College of Media and Entertainment students working
at the 2016 Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival under the third year of a unique
partnership between the university and festival organizers Superfly Presents
and AC Entertainment.
At the
heart of MTSU’s presence here is its 40-foot, $1.7 million Mobile Production
Lab, known as “The Truck,” which is working the Who Stage at the event for the
second straight year.
This
year, MTSU will produce 20 different acts over four days for television, said
Gordon, who’s overseeing electronic media communication students capturing
footage of the 15th anniversary edition of one of the world’s
biggest music festivals, with 80,000 music lovers expected to descend on the
700-acre site.
Stocked
with world-class video and audio production equipment, The Truck serves as
Gordon’s behind-the-scenes operational headquarters where he orchestrates the
show as a “player-coach.” His role is “to provide a fun, safe atmosphere and a
creative structure in which people can do their best work and benefit from
the experience.”
A
student production manager coordinates transportation in and out of the
festival, and for each act, students rotate between all the
camera and truck positions.
“The students will
have to present totally different artists, live, with no rehearsal,
in one take and show the essence of each act, as well as
the atmosphere which is Bonnaroo,” Gordon said. “I will be directing the
first part of each performance, with a student assisting me. Midway through each
act, I will give the reins to the student and be their assistant.”
Students
with expertise in audio, video, photography and journalism are again working at
the four-day event to produce a variety of multimedia content.
“Our students are learning about working in live
events and entertainment — and this week, Bonnaroo is their classroom,” said Billy Pittard, chair of
the Department of Electronic Media Communication. “Live events present great career opportunities for our students.”
Sean
Byrne, a sophomore video production major from Memphis, Tennessee, was among
students handling camera duties Friday
“We just
ran handheld for a band called Henry Wagons, an up and coming band from
Australia, and it was really cool to get in really close and shoot over the
shoulder and get all kinds of shots and be creative with it,” Byrne said.
“I
volunteered to do this because it’s a great experience. Bonnaroo is
so unique and the fact that MTSU is partnering with such a great music
festival is a really great experience for all the kids involved.”
Gordon
noted that while last year’s crop of students included “several dozen audio and
video student volunteers,” this year’s group also includes an audio production
class as well as video and photography students that he recruited to join in on
the action.
“This
year we are bringing three photography majors, guided by assistant professor
Johnathan Trundle. They will be producing photo essays on various
aspects of the festival experience as well as behind-the-scenes essays on
the television production,” Gordon said.
The
audio class has several recording industry graduate students who attended last
summer's Bonnaroo production and will be mentoring the undergraduate recording
industry students, supervised by audio professor Michael Fleming.
Fleming
is using MTSU’s previous Bonnaroo experience to teach a graduate and
undergraduate audio production course this summer focused on live
location music recording and subsequent post-production of
performances on the Who Stage captured by The Truck.
According to Pittard, MTSU provides its students
with opportunities to cover a variety of live events ranging including
entertainment, sports, government and politics, and commercial events. Highly
skilled students are assigned to work at EMC Productions, which is
MTSU’s student-staffed varsity team for live TV production of events such as
MTSU football and basketball games plus a variety of other events.
Meanwhile, CME alumni and occasionally a few
current students work events such major concert tours; Super Bowl halftime
shows; the Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and CMA broadcasts; the Olympics; major
sports broadcasts; and more.
MTSU’s
College of Media and Entertainment, which is the fifth largest communication
program in the nation, offers degree concentrations in 14 major areas — ranging
from the recording industry to journalism to filmmaking and animation— and is
accredited by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass
Communication.
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