Project evaluation
Introduction:
This unit, has by far been the most rewarding experience that I have ever undergone. When starting it 13 weeks ago I could have never imaged the creative journey that we were about to undergo, and the amount of skills that I would develop. Admittedly, there were a multitude of moments in which we faced challenges, yet finding solutions and overcoming these hurdles in order to gain knowledge on how to do something better next time, is all part of the production process.
Being a Producer:
Being a Producer has always been my ambition, hence I feel very proud of myself that we get commissioned and got to take on the role. Despite this, it was not at all how I expected it to be. I do feel that before this unit I was under the misconception that Producing was mainly focussed around being organised, yet there is so much more to it than this (Benioff, 2016). It is about being supportive to the team (Kellison, 2008:14), and making sure that everything is explained clearly. As well as this you need to be able to still retain a sense of humour (Kellison, 2008:5) when things get stressful and overwhelming. This experience has ignited me to want to do even more producing, as it really is such a journey; from coming up with an idea and then nurturing it the whole way through the process until the production date. A challenge that I faced with this to begin with is definitely having to let go of the strings and let others take control in areas that they are responsible for, but once we got into the swing of things I felt comfortable with it and was there to offer support and guidance wherever needed.
On the whole I do feel that I successfully fulfilled my role as Producer, and this was due to having not only positive feedback from the production team, but also we managed to make a 30 minute As Live show that we all felt incredibly proud of, hence we succeeded with taking an idea, and then being there through every step of it to help in anyway possible. After this opportunity, I feel nothing but excitement to hopefully one day work in the television industry, as being the Producer of Trending has taught me that you have to have confidence when speaking, and you have to have good communication and know how to collaborate (Kellison, 2008:128) and support others, due to having a duty of care (Brown et al, 2016:64). I also learnt for future that it is okay to be critical of my work, as well as others, as it does not mean that elements are wrong, it just means that they can be taken further to create the best possible show that we could.
Achievements:
The moment that stands out to me the most when thinking of what went well during the As Live unit, was on the production day. We were lucky enough to get to work alongside a PA named Sarah, which was a brilliant opportunity as it meant that we had somebody to monitor the timings and count each item in. It was really important to me that the show should fill the whole broadcast time due to working so hard on the running order for two months to try and get it exactly to thirty minutes, yet due to not having a chance to time a run though until the day before, it meant that it was only then that we realised we were running two minutes under. I did have a moment of panic in which I thought to myself how are we going to fill two minutes on production day, but Jonathan advised us that it would be okay and not to worry. Nevertheless when it came to production day, and we completed dress rehearsals we worked out that we could use the Controversial Question segment to use as buffer time in case we were under, as well as being able to cut it short in the eventuality that we were going to be over time.
Having this buffer time was a peace of mind to know that we would hopefully manage to fill the time slot and during all run throughs we managed to always hit around thirty minutes. However when it came to the actual broadcast, the communication went slightly wrong during the controversial question segment and the presenters ended the item a minute short. This was nobodies fault yet unfortunately the presenters were not wearing ear pieces hence we could not tell them to fill time in anyway, and we were near the end of the show we could not think of any place in which time could be filled. We all started to panic in the gallery as it was so important to us all that we wanted to be on time, but then I thought of a solution. I went to my laptop and I had open the autocue document which was the only way of contacting the hosts. I typed in highlighted and bold capital letters to the presenters that after the dance performance they need to talk to the contestants about it in order to fill time. Low and behold they managed to fill one minute exactly due those in the studio with talkback on realising what had happened, and they were then able to signal when we were back on time. The broadcast ended at exactly 30 minutes and zero seconds, and I felt so pleased and proud. I felt proud of the fact that I had managed to stay calm and come up with a quick solution (Brown et al, 2016:13), but I also felt incredibly proud of the production crew as our team work mean that we were able to overcome a big problem and succeed. This was a huge learning opportunity as I realised that even though it may not always go to plan, there will always be a solution if you just stay calm. After this had happened we were all congratulated and Sarah mentioned that I should feel pleased with my quick thinking.
Another element that I feel proud of was the level of detail that myself put into with the health and safety. As Producers we had a duty of care (Brown et al, 2016:64), and sometimes this meant making decisions in order to protect the production crew(Small, 2000:4). We put in place as many precautions as we could, such as making sure that the set was as safe as possible by creating a miniature one, and by putting lots of controls measures in place to reduce the risk of coronavirus. As well as this, I feel that we were very good at being supportive, and we always kept track of how many tasks each member of the class had to do at each time as we never wanted to overload them as their mental health was really important to us. I feel we succeeded here as we really were as supportive as we possibly could have been (Kellison, 2008:14). I also now know how important this is for the future because if you make sure that the production team are always okay and supported, it will created a positive atmosphere on set.
Finally, I feel really proud of the amount of work that I managed to due in the amount of time that we had. My role of Producer came with multiple responsibilities, which meant that I had to be cautious with ensuring that our time management was impeccable. As we had to juggle drafting scripts and running orders, with holding meetings, creating briefs, giving feedback, planning the set, supporting the team, managing the budget, and many more. Thus the fact that we managed this and then created the show that we did is something that I feel so very pleased about.
Challenges:
When it came to challenges, there were a few however we were quick thinkers as producers and always managed to overcome them. The first challenge that was ongoing throughout the whole unit was dealing with members of the class being absent. Obviously myself and George were there to offer support, however when somebody as absent from a rehearsal, a meeting, or a shoot, we did not have the time in the schedule to just put everything to a halt. Furthermore if a member of the class was absent it then created a domino effect as say a camera operator was absent, someone else on the team that was confident with camera would have to take on that role meaning that someone else may have to cover their role. We were lucky in the fact that we have a class with a multitude of skills as we had people that could cover so that we could still move forwards with the production. Despite it being a challenge, this was a great learning experience as we could see how vital it was for everyone to be there and I think after a while the whole class saw this too. Myself and George were also quite flexible and for the first three days of rehearsal and blocking we acted as stand ins as our class was not large enough to have people to fill these roles. Therefore this taught me that even though you have a certain job role, it is so important to be flexible and to be able to take on different roles in production and this is a lesson that I will definitely take forward with me into future productions.
Another challenge that we faced was with the fact that we were creating the show during a pandemic. We were in a lockdown for majority of the pre production stage meaning that we only had a two week window for shooting VT's as restrictions were lifted, and we only had six days in the studio space before production day. This meant that it was a massive leap for everyone from when we went from planning everything from home everyday, to then going into the studio. We were fortunate that we got to have a production day and film it in person, however being in the lockdown and a pandemic did add an element of challenge. We did overcome this by holding multiple virtual meetings, and when we got into the studio we all worked extremely hard, with myself and George staying late everyday so that we could make the necessary changes for the next day and we did not loose any time. Creating an As Live show in normal conditions is a huge achievement, but I do think that doing it during a pandemic multiplies it and everyone in our class should be really proud of themselves.
Finally a challenge that we faced was with the budget. The budget is such a crucial element to production as having one opens multiple opportunities for the show. When we realised how much money we would need to raise to be able to cover the costs, I did feel very worried that we would manage to raise it. Furthermore once we had raised it I felt concerned as it was such a large amount of money and we were responsible for it and we had to always make sure that we were keeping to budget (Brown et al, 2016:70). In order to help with our worries we created a system; we would thoroughly research to find the best and cheapest deals for all that we needed, and then once we had found them we would keep every receipt in a folder and could then keep track of it easily. Upon reflection I feel very happy with how we did with the budget, because I did doubt that we were going to raise enough (Brown et al, 2016:70) yet I was proven wrong, and I did have concerns that we would not manage to keep to it, but we did and at the end of production we had less than a pound left. Hence even though the budget seemed a big and overwhelming challenge to begin with, I have now learnt a crucial skill for when working in television, and that is being able to budget.
What will I take with me:
There are multiple factors and skills from completing this unit that I am going to take with me, and firstly it is working in a team. The communication between everyone that worked on Trending was brilliant, and it helped us so much throughout the process. There were moments in which someone may have been absent and instead of leaving them in the dark, we would take notes for them and send it to them to make sure that they were filled in on what they missed. After getting the hang of the etiquette of using the talk back (BBC Academy, 2017), it was a great system and I now have the skills moving forwards to be able to walk into a studio, pick up a talk back and begin working as a member of a team.
Not only this, but woking well together creates a positive atmosphere on set and this is shown through the quality of work that comes from production. Before this unit I really had not properly considered the importance of team work, but this unit has taught me going forwards it really should be one of the biggest focusses.
During this unit I have learnt so much industry knowledge such as how to create certain documents, how to structure a programme, and even the code of conduct in a television studio through being taught by Jonathan, being in the studio, and through extended research. I have developed so many skills and i really do feel proud of the confidence that completing this unit has given me for future productions.
Finally, and probably most importantly, something I will now always take forward with me into future projects is to never doubt myself. I feel I began this unit really hoping to be get commissioned and be the producer yet I had a slight amount of doubt in the back of my mind that I would not be able to fulfil the role. I then was so happy when we were commissioned but as the production moved forwards and our tasks were piling up, I worried and felt really concerned that we would not complete it all to a standard that everyone would feel proud of. As Producers we carried a big responsibility with us; we planned and guided the whole production (Kellison, 2008:128), hence I did not want to let anyone down. In retrospect, I now see that I did not need to have this concern, but also in a way it was an element of motivation. There were other areas where I doubted my abilities such as with vision mixing; to begin with I felt worried to even try it in case I did it wrong, but looking back I now feel it is impossible to do something wrong in these scenarios, as they are all learning experiences. By the end of the unit I was using the stream deck to control the graphics during a segment of the programme, thus again I never needed to doubt my abilities. Furthermore in future I will never think that I cannot do something in production as it is always worth giving it a try, and if I feel worried about getting tasks done I will use it as an ignition to do them to the best of my abilities.
In conclusion, this has been the most challenging, yet rewarding unit I have completed, and it is definitely one I will never forget. I have developed skills that I did not even know about and have overcome lots of obstacles during the process. Most of all, I feel sad to see this unit draw to an end, but it has given me the motivation to work hard so that I can hopefully be getting to do this everyday in the future.
Bibliography:
David Benioff and D.B Weiss interview on Game of Thrones (2016) [short video] At: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqBsFgeEH-0&t=1252s (Accessed 12/04/2021)
BBC Academy. (2017) Guide to Studio Talkback At: https://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/en/articles/art20130702112135564 (Accessed 22/04/2021)
Small, R. (2000) Production Safety for Film, Television, and Video Oxford: Focal Press. At: https://myuca.uca.ac.uk/webapps/blackboard/content/contentWrapper.jsp?course_id=_70230_1&displayName=Reading%20List&href=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Fblti%2FlaunchPlacement%3Fblti_placement_id%3D_300_1%26course_id%3D_70230_1%26mode%3Dview%26wrapped%3Dtrue (Accessed 16/04/2021)
Kellison, C. (2008) Producing for TV and a New Media: a Real World Approach Oxford: Focal. At: https://myuca.uca.ac.uk/webapps/blackboard/content/contentWrapper.jsp?course_id=_70230_1&displayName=Reading%20List&href=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Fblti%2FlaunchPlacement%3Fblti_placement_id%3D_300_1%26course_id%3D_70230_1%26mode%3Dview%26wrapped%3Dtrue (Accessed 15/04/2021)
List of Illustrations:
Fig. 1 Emmerson, S. (2021) The production team
Fig. 2 Emmerson, S. (2021) The gallery
Fig. 3 Emmerson, S. (2021) The finished
Comments
Post a Comment