I'm pretty sure she's calling out cue numbers.

@@JasonKurtz1992 It's both. She called the camera, then the number of beats until their cue. In between she was counting beats and measures.

Electrat I’m totally lost. What’s up with all the counting?

Jon Campos she’s counting the measures in the song(the cues are on certain beats of the song)

She's counting measures. She'll say how many bars (sets of 4...1, 2, 3, 4 / 2, 2, 3, 4 / 3, 2, 3 4 / 4, 2, 3, 4) until a camera change. Then she'll call out that number or letter for the camera, then how many bars until the next shot change or camera move (ie whip, etc).

+Martin Bell Oh please. And tag me. :-)

Post it!

+Martin Bell Agree - would love to see that post - it gives us small time directors inspiration to get better at our craft!

+Martin Bell Please post. I'm a media arts student currently taking TV Production. I'd LOVE to see a pro in action.

Sorry at this moment I do not have time to do this.....evenually

nice catch, i wondered how they did that!

I first read this and laughed cause my name Is Carrie.. Blonde moment lol

+Patrick Wumbo No kidding! Doing it in Premiere Pro would be a cake walk compared to this. Wow. Live to tape is scary territory!

except this was live to air!!! even scarier!!!!!! ;P

They practice for for it, but even so I imagine it be like playing DDR and Guitar Hero at the same time.

Scary :O

@@tekvax01 I remember watching this live and the sound cutting out during the school dance competition scene

As someone who spent just over 5 decade3s working "backstage" in the world of tech our job was to remain noticed. The audience isn't paying all that money to see us, they are coming to see the talent and the results of the hours of work the stage crew puts into the show to make everyone and everything look and sound good. If you want to see what it's like find your locat Community Theater and see if you can volunteer for the stage crew. It takes no experience as all of your training will be OJT and, it where many directors, actors, designers, craftsmen, technicians, and artisians got their start.

Actually, it was Alex Rudzinski who won an Emmy for directing Grease Live (and beating *Beyoncé* , of all people).

Watch the opening of Grease is the Word. All one tracking shot. Cameraman was the real MVP in the opening!

Indeed and that was one of the stars of the show.

+Jimmy Slaughter It was raining on the night of the live broadcast so the final scene was moved inside at the last moment. Live TV!

Barbara BogaRosh It was live to air, not tape.

ikr. better than hospital shit career

+SnickersDoodle5 I'm no music technical but I do understand that most of the number is the beats of the music while the numbers higher than 8 are usually camera cues.

@@ArvinTorrente Actually I am pretty sure the numbers higher than 5 are the bar numbers. If you watch, the numbers increase every time she comes to them, then she starts at either 1 or 2 to count the beat in the bar.

+Javarie Lewis Its all camera cues.

+Javarie Lewis Mostly she's counting the bars and beats of music between camera moves or shot switches. Each bar (or measure) in this song has 4 beats. When she's counting slowly, it's bars; counting quickly, it's beats. Other numbers, letters, and commands are the shot numbers and camera moves. Sometimes she makes a hand gesture when the camera cuts to a different angle. For instance, at 1:08 she says "Five bars, two beats. Two... three... four... doors two three four one two WHIP." That breaks down like this: - "Five bars, two beats." She calls out how long before the next camera move. - "Two... three... four... doors" Counting out those five bars. The 1st bar finishes while she speaks, and "doors" is a command that coincides with bar 5. - "two three four one two WHIP." She switches to counting beats, increasing her rhythm. First she counts the 5th bar's beats ("two three four"), then the next two beats of the next bar ("one two"), then she issues the command "Whip" and you can see the camera whip pan over to the revealed car. Simple! Right?

+Javarie Lewis I think it's the decimals of pi, not sure though...

You can actually see them do some of it if you look at the screens on the right. I'd assumed they swapped the whole car but it looks like they're just putting red panels over the top of the white ones

Me too :)

+James Bynum She appears to be calling shot numbers, not camera numbers. In the teens, the sequence goes: 12, 13, A, 14, A, B, 16, 17. Perhaps they used letters for last-minute changes rather than re-number all the rehearsed shots. Or the letters could be camera designations, and they just call the camera designation rather than the shot number for last-minute changes.

+senigalliaprod This is my interpretation as well.

+senigalliaprod Watch the TD's fingers and the Preset and Program monitors, you can see him manually switching both.

+Simon Fox Oh yes, it does look that way. I didn't look closely. He is also following along with Carrie in the log. They rehearsed that a few dozen times I imagine.

Laurence Noble This was live, each cue had to be precise. She was counting down the beats between shots to cue the switcher and the actors.

@@visaman That's what I'm saying. She can't be cueing the switcher because by the time he hears her cue and he presses the button it would be too late. I've never done anything quite like this but I call lighting cues for theatre which is similar. In my work it's crucial to call the cue slightly before the beat. It's the only way to be precise. If you call it on the beat all the cues will be late. I understand that this is different and the switcher obviously has to know his cues as well but I'm trying to understand the exact purpose of her roll. Is it just for the camera ops' benefit?

@@laurencenoble3629 She said she was teaching a class in TV direction, and the orginal video was for her students, and it was leaked online, this is an enhanced video that someone made at home. Yes, it would be for the camera operator, if the had them, most camera work is done in the control room now. 20 years ago I took a workshop in studio camera work for a community tv station, and the director would be in my ear telling me to sweep, just like she does.

Squint and watch when the camera switches on the director's monitor (right side) instead of the program view on the left side. The split screen video here isn't in perfect sync, and the left side is just a hair ahead of the control room video. You can see it more clearly if you run the video in 1/4 speed. Everything's right in line with the director's calls if you focus on the control room only.

She calls the live camera cuts.