Week 9
Day 1 (15/12/2014)
Today we had another 2 school events. But before that, we packed up the trailer and moved some of the stuff that we do not need to storage in Matthew and we wrapped some sandbags with garbage bags to prevent the sand from leaking out. For the afternoon show, I was the... (Can't remember). For the evening show, I was working in the Sanctuary as the sound mixer. As this is the first time as sound mixer in the Sanctuary, I was guided by Harry on what to do and how to operate the mixer.

Day 2 (16/12/2014)
Today, we started out by helping out in the fixing of the hitch onto the trailer for the truck to tow it on Friday. After that, we had another 2 school events that was postponed from last week. For the first event, I was the technical director (TD), A.K.A switcher. For the second event, I was one of the camera operators.

Day 3 (17/12/2014)
We started by packing Matthew and moving the stuff that belongs to mass media to either the studio or the trailer. We also packed whatever's needed for the English ChristmaSing event this coming Saturday and Sunday from the studio to the trailer. 

In the afternoon, we had the final school event which I would dub as "Murphy's Law." Every station in the trailer had huge problems. For me, I was on sound and the issue that I had was the strange audio input that I had. There was a music track that was not playing on DVD when it was not supposed to which confused me and the levels of the vocal track coming in was so low that even at maximum, I was barely able to hit the minimum level.

After "Murphy's Law", we started to move the stuff that we needed for the weekend to the Sanctuary as our temporary holding area to check if we have the stuff we need. Some of the stuff we loaded it onto Alex's car and the other stuff we set it aside for the truck to transport. Some of the items also went into the trailer and was securely strapped. We completed the work at about 1 am.

Day 4 (18/12/2014)
We started out the day by loading up the stuff which included 6 cameras that we needed for the ChristmaSing into Harry's car. As 4 of the cameras had no bag or casing for them, we had to hold onto them while driving. After arriving at Scottish Rite where the event was to be held, we set up the tripods,cameras and Fibre optic cables as well as helping to set up the large background painting. After that, I went with Phil and Ira back to the Church to pick up some items such as the piano, cable ties and walkie talkies which we brought to Scottish Rite. Finally, we set up the 2 projector screens and called it a day.

Day 5 (19/12/2014)
We started out early today to prepare the trailer for towing. After securing the stuff inside the trailer and attaching the hitch, we gingerly pulled out the trailer and drove to Scottish Rite. We managed to park the trailer safely although we had several issues such as parts of the trailer hitch breaking, the bottom of the trailer scrapping on the ground, trying to park the trailer at Scottish Rite and the discomfort of the cold and wet weather.

The rest of the day for me was basically running and terminating cables all over the Scottish Rite. (And I am still unable to successfully terminate an RJ45 connector)

Day 6 (20/12/2014)
Today was the first day for the English ChristmaSing event. But before the event started, we had to finish the set up. I ran and terminated a coax cable from the trailer to one of the cameras as the cable we laid the previous day is not able to handle HD video over long distances. After that, I did a check on the wireless intercom system and discovered that the sound quality through the wireless intercom was defective. The side tone was way too sensitive and the incoming audio from the trailer was too soft. After I fiddled around with the intercom base station, there was some improvement in the audio quality. 

Unfortunately, we discovered during the afternoon rehearsal that the audio quality was still not good enough for communication. We decided to replace the cable running from the wireless base station to the trailer and the problem was more or less solved. 

For the actual ChristmaSing event in the evening, I was the video engineer. It was somewhat of a challenge to control the exposures of 4 cameras at once as the lighting of the scene kept changing which forced me to change the irises once every 2 seconds, sometimes using both hands to change 2 cameras at once. Also, many of the scenes were too dark as the smartscope that I used to judge exposure was too bright.

Day 7 (21/12/2014)
Today was the second day of the ChristmaSing event. Before that however, we have the usual Sunday service this time held in Scottish Rite instead of the Church. I was the sound mixer for this service which caused me to be somewhat uneasy as the sound system changed when we moved to Scottish Rite.  However, after some practice, I got used to it and I took advantage of the headphones with the 1/4" jack that we brought to assist me in mixing the sound. I preferred the headphones for monitoring rather than the speakers as it was easier to judge the levels and the audio quality.

After the service, we had a rest before engaging in the rehearsal for the event at night. After the rehearsal, we fixed a couple of problems including changing out a distribution amplifier as the previous one lacked a gain control to boost the signal which caused some problems with the projector.

Just as the previous day, I was the video engineer for today's event. It was easier and less intense for me as I already know what is going to happen and when the lighting conditions will change which allowed me to set the exposure beforehand. Also, I learnt a few tricks with the master black controls such as using it to increase contrast in a shot when there is fog causing the image to look washed out. Also, it can improve contrast and crush some of the noise when the gain is extremely high during a low light shot.

After the shoot, we packed up the stuff quickly and moved them into the various transports. We returned to the Church, parked the trailer and moved the mass media stuff up into the studio which now looked like a jumbled mess. We finished work at around 3.30am in the morning