Beyond Pix Studios

Last Thursday, February 10th, the DSA juniors had their career exploration fieldtrips! Our class got split up into 3 different places and I just happened to go to Beyond Pix Studios located in the lovely city of San Francisco. We took a rather short BART ride to the Embarcadero station and headed off the rest of the way on foot. We finally found our destination, and we were first greeted by their glass doors with the colorful Beyond Pix Studios logo elegantly imprinted on it. We were then greeted by two of their staff members named Laura Hart and Sean Karlin. Laura is the production coordinator and Sean is the director of photography. We happened to catch them at a time where they had clients working in one of their studios, so we got to see the green screen, the lights, the teleprompter, and the cameras all set up and ready for the shoot that was about to take place in that magical little room. After that, Laura and Sean took us up to the next floor and showed us their control room where they do broadcasts and live shootings. This was the most interesting part of the fieldtrip for me. Seeing all the little monitors, the cameras, the knobs, the colorfully lit buttons that were everywhere would definately catch anyone ones attention. In that room we met another guy and he talked more about what they did in that room and how they broadcast and record people right there and send it immediately out to the news for everyone to see. I also thought it was very interesting that the background that you see when most people get interviewed on the news is just a big screen tv with a moving picture on it.

After this we explored some more of the buliding. We even watched some creative and funny videos that Beyond Pix had actually made for some of their clients. We also got the opportunity to split up in to littler groups and talk to a senior editor, junior editor, and the post-production coordinator. It was nice hearing and seeing a little of what each of them do in their job. One take away I rememebr was when the post-production coordinator said, “If you are an editor you have to be a 51% listener and a 41% editor.” I thought that was interesting, and I definately agree. It is all about listening to what your client wants and producing your utmost impressive work in order to please them.

Overall, I thought this trip was good. I’m not sure if it was any more or less helpful or interesting than last years fieldtrip to KQED, but I still had a good experience. It was nice hearing the staff share their wise words and experiences with us because it really helps me to figure out if I really am interested in going into this type of career in the future. I had fun and I hope that we get to have even more fieldtrips like these, maybe next time where they do some media for sports and sporting events! Haaa. (=

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