TV Production Process: From Pre-Production to Integration

Posted on Sep 8, 2024 in Other subjects

ITEM 3. PRODUCTION PROCESS TECHNICIAN.

Peculiarities of Television Production

Information on television has some peculiarities in the production process due to:

  1. Complex technical work
  2. The organization of teamwork.

There is a double meaning of the concept of production:

  1. Process production technique (a global approach involving multiple professional categories)
  2. Sector of the work (job category developed by the producer or production team).

Fifteen years ago, there was an extraordinary technical change: incorporating electronic recording, now transitioned to digital technology.

Mediation of the Production Process

Television news requires a technical production process: equipment for gathering, processing, and storing images and sounds. They are managed by the journalist, or a computer specialist alongside the journalist, to properly encode the information. The technical process is subject to financial, technical, and human constraints. According to the potential of the station, it may perform certain coverages, maintaining dependence or independence from outside sources. This is the process of news production.

Technical Mediation

The professional technician is the production mediator, handling equipment, developing certain operations, and providing their input. Some channels reduce the production system for some news: a reporter acts as a journalist, cameraperson, sound recordist, and final editor. But usually, it’s a small team: reporter, cameraman, and soundman. If there is more complexity, mobile units with professional production technicians are used. Information does not change reality; it requires a focus on actions and statements to grasp them as they are produced.

Overlap of Technical Process, Expressive Routines, and Information Stress

The practitioner is under time pressure due to the immediacy of the news and its dissemination, which is why informative routines are created. The complexity of the equipment and the number of people who must harmonize also require a structured process. Routines in the news can be anticipated (several hours of processing) or live/shortly before their release.

  • Newscasts have inexorable schedules and short timeframes.
  • Weekly programs have different temporal dynamics; sometimes, you want to collect the latest information on a topic, so the program remains open until shortly before its broadcast.

Production varies depending on the news:

  • Unforeseen: Develop during the time of issuance or transfer in direct.
  • Long-development: From hours or days.

The situation varies depending on the location:

  • Studio: All teams are ready; there is full control of the setting.
  • Transmission or outdoors: The report is subject to the scenario and circumstances, requiring media mobilization.

The treatment also varies:

  • Live: The director bears the burden of information, image, and ambient sounds. The journalist is a commentator on the images offered by the director.
  • Recordings: The journalist maintains their decision on the selection of reality.

Phases of the Process

The information program can be made on:

  • Film: Less and less often, except in some documentaries.
  • Tape-recording and post-treatment: To correct errors, improve quality, edit maps, and incorporate other elements into the post-production process.
  • Direct broadcast: From a studio or on location with mobile units.

According to Mauro Wolf, the production process has three phases: collection, sorting, and presentation. But it is preferable to distinguish four phases from the viewpoint of the global information procedure:

  1. Pre-Production
  2. Production
  3. Post-Production
  4. Integration of the issue.

Pre-production Process

Conception and determination of the facts that will become news. This decision influences the techniques (economic, technical, and human) that are made available. In the editorial, there is a triple dimension of the components:

  • Information area: Responsible for the content.
  • Technical services area: Available and ready to capture and transmit live.
  • Production area: Responsible for providing technical and human resources, recording permits, travel organization, passports, etc.

Organization of Information Services

In the editorial, decisions are made on selection, approach, and treatment. Stations can be organized into information services or wording. They have a hierarchical structure and dependence of some over others, where authority tempers. There are various models of organization:

  • Centralized: Works for any information, provides continuous information. It has several specialized areas responsible for the continuous monitoring of every fact. Topics are planned, it creates its own agenda, and provides coverage of events. It has a unit that designates the issues, facts, and values classified by sections and assigned to each job. Available information comes from the outside by any means.
  • Decentralized: Increased attention and adaptation to each program, but you lose continuity in monitoring the facts. The writing consists of: Director of Information Services (overall program planning and information, making general decisions on information issues), Assistant Director, Directors of each program (responsible for that program), Heads of thematic areas, editors, and reporters.

Today, there is a tendency towards media concentration and partnerships between various groups, making decisions according to objective and comprehensive approaches to this media consortium or business consortium.

Own Sources

Each station tries to increase its own sources to achieve greater independence. The news has diverse origins:

  • The station itself, after an investigation, obtains valid information that becomes news.
  • The news comes through various channels: agencies, other media, etc.

The sources may be exclusive or shared. These sources may refer to images:

  • Fixed images: Own drawings, maps, graphics, archival photographs, etc.
  • Non-fixed images: Telephoto, photo agency, etc.

But television demands moving pictures:

  • Own moving images: Capturing live events, archival footage, obtained by regional centers, local correspondents and foreign contributors, special envoys.
  • Non-moving images: From agencies and international film archive services.

Sometimes reporters come to the scene, capture images, process them on the editing table, and introduce post-production treatments. In other cases, mobile units are used, and the station acts as an eyewitness to the events. For better coverage, local correspondents, foreign correspondents, and special envoys are available. Their news is reflected in chronicles. If the news is not urgent, images are sent by plane, and the sound comes over the phone. But if it is pressing, a Eurovision unilateral trade or other news channels are used.