Before You Book Team Training: A Checklist for Studio Managers

Start with the problem the crew actually has

Before anyone picks a date, write down in a sentence or two what is going wrong or what is about to change. A new gallery, a vision mixer the crew has never used, a freelance pool that keeps asking the same questions about talkback: each of these calls for a different session. In my experience the requests that go badly are the vague ones, where a manager asks for general training because it feels like the responsible thing to do.

A useful test is whether you could observe the difference afterwards. If the answer is that the camera operators will stop asking the gallery for cue confirmation twice, or that a new starter can trace a signal from lens to transmission without help, you have something a session can aim at. If the answer is only that everyone will feel more confident, keep refining the brief until it names a behaviour.

• One written sentence describing the problem or change
• A behaviour you could observe after the session
• Whether the issue is knowledge, habit or equipment

Be honest about who is in the room

List the people who will attend and what each of them does on a normal production day. Mixed groups are where sessions struggle most: a floor manager, a sound assistant and a junior engineer do not need the same depth on clocking or on colour temperature, and a session pitched at the average serves nobody well.

If the group is genuinely mixed, say so up front. It is often better to run a shared opening on signal flow and then split into shorter strands by role than to force one pace on everyone. Also note anyone who is nervous about being tested in front of colleagues. Sessions we run explain and demonstrate rather than quiz, but the person booking knows the room better than we do.

• Names or roles of every attendee
• Rough experience level of each group
• Anyone who joins late or leaves early

Decide between remote and on-site

Both formats work, and neither is the cheaper option in every case. Remote sessions suit conceptual material: how a signal moves from camera to control room, why timing drifts between audio and video, what a run sheet is meant to protect. They are easy to repeat for staff on different shifts and need only a decent connection and a shared screen.

On-site sessions earn their place when the explanation depends on your own kit and your own room. Walking the cable path, standing at the actual desk and pointing at the actual patch bay answers questions that a diagram cannot. Check whether the studio can be released for the time, whether live equipment will be powered, and whether a quiet corner exists for the discussion part. Where the answer to any of these is doubtful, a remote session is the safer first step.

• Is the studio free for the whole session?
• Can the group hear each other in the room?
• Is a stable connection available if remote?

Check what you can share beforehand

The more we know about your chain, the less of the session is spent on the wrong things. A simple signal flow sketch, even a hand-drawn one, tells us whether you run embedded audio or separate feeds, how many sources reach the vision mixer and where the monitoring sits. Existing run sheets or operating notes show how the crew currently talks about its own work, and we try to use that vocabulary rather than replace it.

Also tell us about recent incidents that people still remember. A lost feed during a rehearsal or a sync complaint from a client makes a far better teaching example than anything generic, because the crew already knows how it felt. Share what you are comfortable sharing; we treat it as working material for the session and nothing more.

• A signal flow sketch or equipment list
• Current run sheets or procedures, if any
• One or two recent problems worth walking through

Agree what happens after the session

A session on its own fades within a few weeks unless something carries it forward. Decide before booking who owns the follow-up: whether the crew will update an operating procedure, whether a short written summary of the main points is useful, and who answers questions that surface a fortnight later. Written summaries are part of how we like to work, since people tend to remember the diagram but not the sentence that went with it.

Think too about timing in the production calendar. Mid autumn is often busy with scheduled shows and the lead-up to winter programming, so a session squeezed between rehearsals can leave people distracted. Choosing a quieter stretch, even if it means waiting a little, usually gives better attention and fewer interruptions from the gallery.

• Who owns the follow-up actions
• Whether a written summary is wanted
• A date that avoids rehearsal and transmission pressure

Compare what you were quoted for, not just the price

When you weigh up providers, set the quotations side by side and ask what is actually included: preparation time, the length of the session, any written notes, and whether travel is charged separately for on-site work. Two figures that look close can describe quite different amounts of work, and the cheaper one may leave the preparation to you.

Ask also who will lead the session and what they have done in a studio. A trainer who has sat in a gallery during a live show explains cue timing differently from someone who has only read about it. Our prices page lists what each service costs and what changes the figure, which gives you a fixed point to compare against.