4 ings Film School Dsn t Teach You About TV Production ...

--

Matt Foster is currently studying Film and History at the University of Huddersfield. This summer he is taking part in a series of short-term work placements in various organisations in the UK film and TV sector. Here he summarises the main lessons he's learnt.

One of the first things I realised when starting my degree is how theoretical the course is. Whilst still very interesting, I felt I needed more technical knowledge to have a more informed view of the industry. As a result, I went out and looked for work experience in TV and media production. In my relatively brief time at several companies, I found there are a few important things you might not learn at university about this industry.

1. The Editor's Dilemma

The relationship between editor and producer is based on a struggle. A struggle between the producer's vision for the project and what the editor deems to be actually achievable in post-production.

Editors face the dilemma that doing an excellent job encourages the idea that everything can be fixed in post. They are left with the difficult decision of doing good work, which can result in unreasonable expectations in the future, or doing average work in order to stay under the radar and avoid having to tell the producer no.

2. Casting Is Complicated

I can sum up the casting process in a few words: time consuming and frustrating. Obviously, members of the public don't have agents that the casting crew can contact, so trying to find participants consists of sending out letters, distributing flyers and posting advertisements in the hope that the right kind of people will respond. When someone does respond they go through a screening process, which determines whether they appear on the show or not.

On the show I was helping cast, one guy applied who had a great personality and wasn't camera-shy, but the background check revealed he had a serious criminal record, not the sort of person that can be used for TV, Danny Dyer aside!

I certainly learned that the challenge of finding willing and suitable participants is made even more difficult when the premise of the show is one that shows them in a negative light. All this means that even if you get hundreds of applicants only a few of them will be the kind of people you're looking for.

3. Good Communications Are Key To Good VFX

As with editing, the process of VFX and CGI is one that requires a large amount of communication between producer and developer, in order to make sure that everyone is happy with the final result. This means the producer wants to be involved at each stage of the production's creation, so edits have to be sent back and forth constantly between the two parties.

Much of the time I spent with a VFX team consisted of listening to the studio head explaining to clients how he had already sent the video to them and was waiting for feedback. There are probably studios that don't have this kind of problem, but it felt like quite a common occurrence for those who don't have an easy way to share their videos with clients.

4. Technology Can Help Creativity

The problem with just studying film and TV is that you don't really fully grasp the human side of the industry. There are people everywhere. Huge teams of people worrying about cameras, lighting, sound and endless more people worrying about the people doing those things! The significance of human error can seriously slow the speed of production, so by reducing this risk you accelerate productions, which in turn gives people the opportunity to be more creative, which is surely a good thing, right?

Learning about the technology that is used to cut out the mundane tasks associated with the production process was especially enlightening. They employ a whole range of apps, widgets and programmes to help them monitor progress, keep to budget and collaborate with colleagues. Seeing Aframe in action obviously gave me a glimpse of a whole new side of timesaving technology, of course!

The main thing that I gathered from experience is that communication is key to making the process of TV and media production a smooth one. By speeding up the communication between different parties, you speed up the production itself. And they definitely don't teach you that at Film School!

Related posts:

5 Things Your Producer Will Never Understand 1. Three letter acronyms I bet you the Greek national debt there isn't a Producer on the planet that understands the three letter acronym, particularly the technical ones. Partly because they are delivered by engineers, whose...

Managing Technology on a Video Production Thanks to budget constraints and the rapid advance of technology change, the job of the modern day television producer or production manager (PM) is not what it once was. Today, alongside their many other responsibilities,...

8 Reasons to Forget the Good Old Days' of TV Production I once remember sitting in a meeting at BBC Entertainment with all of the production managers. It was all a long time ago when things were very, very different. Even then, they were bemoaning the...

Keeping Your Content Safe - FACT! Every time you go to the cinema you will see an advert before the film from the Federation Against Copyright Theft. Or more snappily, FACT. These adverts warn you about being on the lookout for people trying to...

-- -- --

LINK:	http://aframe.com/blog/2014/06/4-things-film-school-doesnt-teach-you-a...
	See more stories from aframe

Most recent headlines