"Truck left, dolly in, tilt up, pan left, ooze out, tongue in, dissolve…." A new square dance call? Not at all. That’s the language a T.V. producer uses as he orders his puppets about in the studio below.

What he was saying was that he wanted the camera to move successively to the left, closer to the scene, swivel upwards, swivel to the left, come back slowly, adjust the boom on which the camera is mounted and change to another scene.

T.V. is taking its jargon from the movies and devising some of its own. Some day, if you work in television, you may end up as a "Vision mixer" or, on the technical side, as a "Camera control unit operator" worrying about your "keystone setting" and the correct use of your "overshoot control".

Those of you who, like many of us, have spent lonely hours in a radio studio playing records and talking to yourself will find the change to T.V. something like being snatched from a deserted isle and dropped into Pitt-street on Christmas Eve. The4 T.V. studio crew may number up to thirty or more. It will seldom be less than thirteen. And they won’’t be behind glass. There’ll be a team right there in the studio with you. A Floorman (the Producer’s representative in the studio), Cameraman (two or three of these), Dollymen (to push the camera about), Mike Boom Operators (to push the mike into position) and others as the particular show may require. There’s more teamwork required than in a football XV.

Stage producers with an eye for colour will have to adjust themselves to the "grey scale" in television. Array your characters in red and blue and they’ll all appear on the screen in very dark grey. Dress your heroine in light grey and mid-green and both shades will appear the same; yellow and light green won’t get you any contrasts either. In television, we were told, there should be some contrast in the greys but the aim is to have a mid-tine picture, not too dark or too light. And, girls, a tip if you’re going in front of the camera. "Make-up" should be a little darker than the natural skin; about two shades on the grey scale. Got it?

It’s comforting to realise that in these dizzy times of H-bombs, space rockets and bubble gum, the old fashioned candle in more or less the basis of lighting in T.V. It happens this way. More often than not you need a good deal of artificial light on the scene to be televised and it’s all worked out and added up from the unit of emission of light, which, as you’ve guessed, is candle power. You might as well know, at the same time, that the unit of quantity of light is the "lumen" and the unit of brightness is the "foot lambert". To make this a little clearer you can carry out a practical experiment right in your home. Light a candle. The light falling on a surface one foot square placed one foot away from the candle is one "lumen". And the intensity over the surface will be one "foot candle". All you need to know now is the number of foot candles required for the particular camera tube you’re using. But as this may make all lighting problems in T.V. appear much too easy, a note of warning. It’s not the amount of light that falls on a subject that counts, it’s the amount of light the subject reflects. So the R.M.T.C. teaches about hard lights, soft lights, diffused lights, base lighting, key lighting, modelling, fills, back lighting and lighting for special effects. Even of broads, strips, floods and spots.

But now let’s look at a less technical side of the course.

Over the last few days we held a workshop when we tried to put into practice some of the things we’d learned in theory. The highlight of the workshop was the production of a magazine programme made up of five separate items. The items included a simple and effective way of telling an aboriginal legend (devised by Kay Kinane assisted by Ron White), a flight to the moon (presented by Ribin Wood and Robert Trumble), farm topics featuring Clarrie Hurst and a prize hen (arranged by Dick Thompson and Graham White), a golf lesson featuring Colin Campbell (arranged by Dick healy and Ray mCDonald), and a comedy spot featuring Kenrick Hudson and telling of the trials of a radio avtor in the ABC’s Showground studio known as the Gold Fish Bowl (for which Ken Watts and Doug McLean were responsible). Continuity production by Peter Mcgregor.

And the highlights? Unquestionably the moment when Ray McDonald beamed at us in close up about to say a few well chosen words at the end of the golf lesson. Unfortunately, instead of Ray being cued to start talking, the sign was given to the narrator (Dr. Munro) who, sticking nobly to his script, said in words of ringing clarity, "Poor little gold fish. How he must hate being stared at!" But Ray just kept on beaming.

The newly appointed Director of Technical Services for the ABC, 32-years-old Lloyd Hadfield, has had a brilliant career in the scholastic, television and sporting fields.

A graduate of Sydney University in Science and Engineering (with honours), Mr. Hadfield spent three years in England with E.M.I. engaged in research and development of television, with emphasis on film channels.

Since his return in 1951, Mr. Hadfield has been working on the electronic development associated with guided missiles at Salisbury, South Australia.

During the war he served as a radar officer in the A.I.F.

Some Impressions of Television

By Neil Hutchison

Just what is involved in TV transmissions when one gets down to practicalities? Neil Hutchison, Director of Drama and Features, who is overseas looking into this question, details BBC procedure in televising a play – and hints at ulcers.

Already about 30 members of the Victorian staff and a few of the N.S.W. staff have completed a TV course at the Melbourne Technical College.

The aim of the Introductory Courses is to give selected staff members who have applied for TV training a brief experience of the medium, and sufficient background to enable more advanced training to be undertaken next year. Most of those present at the First Course were from New South Wales; but there will be increased representation from the other States in the next and following courses. There will also be representatives of the PMG’s Department, the Meteorological Bureau, the Broadcasting Control Board and the N.S.W. and Victorian Police Forces.

The course was open by the G.M. who not only got things moving immediately, but also stayed to answer a barrage of questions on all aspects of the ABC’s plans for TV – when it is hoped to start transmissions, studio and OB equipment, staffing, programmes and so on. From then on there wasn’t a spare moment – in or out of official hours. Some displayed unexpected talent as handymen, others found the talk in TV a vastly different proposition from what it is on sound. OB teams scoured the city in search of copy, which turned up in theatres and boys’ clubs, cargo ships and swimming pools. Surprised police were questioned about parking facilities for OB vans, and startled property owners tried to cope with requests for microwave dishes to be erected on their buildings.

As much as possible, straight talk was interspersed with practical activities, and there was interested discussion on TV for special groups: for women, children and the man-on-the-land. Problems relating to the camera, lenses, film and lighting were handled by the ABC’s technical staff who, with the assistance of two Melbourne PMG officers, Bob Forster and Leo Fowler, earned the gratitude of all by their endeavors to get the one camera into action and keep it there. Stan Hawes and his colleagues in the Film Division of the Department of the Interior explained the intricacies of film shooting and editing, and Harry Pringle spent an afternoon discussing the techniques of light entertainment production.

The greater part of the instruction was handled by Kay Kinane, Neil Hutchinson, Mungo MacCallum and Frank Watts. After passing on the basic information they have gathered overseas on the nature of TV and the tasks facing producers, on OB’s and talks, magazine and unscripted programmes, drama and features, they formulated series of exercises which gradually led the students to the point where they were able to plan and produce their own programmes. Probably the outstanding feature of the Course was the active enthusiasm of those taking part – all of whom are now making plans to continue study and exercises until workshop training begins.

But all agreed that the producer was right who, after his first experience in control, staggered out murmuring "But it all seems so easy when you read about it….."

The Sydney TV camera went into action for the first time on the evening of Wednesday, November 23, in studio 228, when the Sydney TV Discussion Group presented a live magazine programme to an audience of senior officers and TV School members. The Group has been meeting weekly since the Melbourne schools ended early this year.

It was a highly varied programme. Individual members of the group were responsible for planning the various sections, and the programme was wielded together by Peter MacGregor, who proved a very energetic compere.

For weeks before the show the group worked with floor plans of St. Peter’s Hall, with Bretz plotters marking out lens angles and camera movements. Members could be seen, too, stalking round the lunch room at Market Street each Thursday evening, with Bretz boxes to their right eyes. Even with the limitation of one camera, and very little live rehearsal, a very interesting evening’s entertainment resulted. The audience first saw the camera pan all round the set, framing different members of the group at work. It came to rest on Owen Weingott, who gave a demonstration of TV makeup. Ida Jenkins then introduced a psycho-drama, with professionals acting out a mother-in-law problem, which Dr. McGeorge discussed. Miss Roy, a charming, flower-haloed, sari-costumed Indian dancer, accompanied by turbaned musicians, danced a welcome to the TV audience. That item was owed to Rick Aspinall, who made many friends on his recent trip across the Asian Continent. Bruce Webber commented on the weather, with two-week old maps that luckily fitted remarkably well with the current temperature and rainfall.

Then the G.M. was led before the lights and interviewed by Dick Healy about the progress of ABC TV plans.

The audience seemed thoroughly to enjoy the show, which went very smoothly. It was a credit to the co-operative effort of the group and showed what can be done by thorough planning outside the studio.

Kay Kinane produced the show, and Betty Parsons floor-managed: the rest of the group of ten were all diving around like busy ants, changing lights, moving furniture, adding and subtracting props, or kicking cables out of the way. Dick Healy had the heavy job of trundling the camera dolly. Wait till you have to do that among the hills and dales of a floor like that in Sydney Studio 228!