(http://www.eventdv.net/images/default.aspx?imageid=3451) | Are you a gypsy with a wanderlust heart? If adventure, travel, broadcast media, video production, and never-the-same routine appeal to you, then a job as a cruise ship videographer just might be for you. Is the job really as fun as it sounds? I wondered the same thing myself. So when my family took a 12-day Mediterranean cruise on the Carnival Fun Ship, Freedom, earlier this year, I asked for a behind-the-scenes tour of the editing and media room and spent some time with the video crew on board. Before we left for our cruise, which departed from Civitavecchia, Italy, I spoke with Andy Wickes, the audio-visual media supervisor of the entire Carnival Cruise Fun Ship fleet. Wickes works in the corporate office located in Miami. "The videographers on board are responsible for all the audio-visual needs of the cruise ship," he said. "There are currently 22 cruise ships in the fleet. Most ships have three or four videographers on board, though the Carnival Freedom (which had its maiden voyage in March 2007) has five videographers due to [its] large size and the new technology on the ship." What makes the Freedom—the newest ship in the Carnival fleet—different from other Carnival ships is its new, weatherproof Barco LCD screen. It measures 22' x 12' and overlooks the pool area. Comprising 4" square module pieces with 48 controllers, the LCD screen has 12 million pixels and is connected to a computer so you can see the grid. From 11 a.m. until midnight, the screen was continually showing movies and concerts to the swimmers and sunbathers on deck. The footage was amazingly bright and clear, even on a sunny day. This LCD screen is similar to the technology used in Times Square with its waterproof structure (although it’s much smaller, of course). The same crew that does video production on the ship is also responsible for operating and programming the content shown on the LCD screen during its 13 hours of daily broadcasting. Funship Films Part of the videographer’s job is making Funship Films DVDs for guests to purchase at the end of their cruise. The videographers will document the different tours based on the number of people who have prebooked. There is a rotation among the videographers regarding who goes on the tours. |