The Invention of Abbreviations

One thing you learn very quickly when you work at a live event is that conversations have to be kept short, as time is a precious resource. To that end, things get abbreviated.

Some important ones we've learned here so far:

ENG -- Electronic News Gathering
ENG is essentially the collection of firsthand interviews by small film crews. In this case, it'll be attendee testimonies recorded by three-man teams consisting of a shooter (cameraman), an audio tech and an interviewer-producer.

VO -- Voice-over
This one's fairly simple, but any time we have a video where the voice is spoken by someone who doesn't appear on-screen, it's a VO. For the event, though, we use it to refer specifically to voice-overs outside of video, for sound effects in the drama or the start of the Saturday morning session's "Voices" skit.

PA -- Production Assistant
This is, essentially, the go-to person to get things done. On a video shoot, they're the people who do odd jobs -- holding the bounce card, doing the white balance, running the clap-board. At a live event, they're the ones who run around, insanely busy, because it's up to them to make sure everybody else is getting their jobs done.

DP -- Director of Photography
The DP is the guy who sets up a shot -- the guy who knows how he wants the lighting and the set design and the actor to come together. He heads up the team of shooters, or, on an ENG crew, is the lone shooter.

ATF -- Acquire the Fire
Natch.

Also, while we're here on the live event, we have specific offices for who handles what. Right now, I'm blogging from the P.O.

PO -- Production Office
The Production Office is where CCM staff keeps tabs on our organization and equipment, in conjunction with the TV truck just outside.

EO -- Event Office
Where ATF staffers and supervisors keep tabs on the customer service teams and the schedule.

To that end, we here on the Social Networking end of CCM-ATF Production are proud to declare this corner of this room to be the Electronic Intelligence Event Integration Office.

That's right. We're the EIEIO.