For the production of the Television Segment Task, I fulfilled the role of Producer. We initially pitched ideas and as the idea my team pitched, a panel quiz show like Big Fat Quiz of the Year, was chosen; our group was encouraged to take the lead. During the early discussion periods, we also took a Belbin self-perception test to determine the kind of roles we would fit well, my personality types were “shaper” suggesting I was driven, motivated and can handle confrontation and “co-ordinator” meaning I am self-confident, controlled and could welcome input from other contributors without losing sight of the main objective. I understood communication, organisation and drive was an important factor for the production as we needed to do as good of a job as possible within the constraints we had and therefore did some research into the role and found these characteristics were very important (Kellison, Morrow & Morrow, 2013, p. 164). Pairing these two ‘personality types’ and my research into the role of a producer, made me believe me I could work well as a producer, I would be able to negotiate and facilitate discussions between the groups whilst ensuring everyone stayed on topic.
Throughout the pre-production stages I organised meetings: between the whole group, script meetings with writers, panellists and presenters as well as creative meetings with our lighting crew and production designer. Through my research, I learnt it was a crucial part of my role as producer to progress the artefact through the development stage and ensure the creativity and opinions of everyone was discussed and tried whilst still sticking to the constraints we had (Collie, C. 2012. p, 95.) The pre-production stages were successful as myself and Becky acting as director regularly conversed to ensure we stayed on schedule and met the targets we had set. After doing research we found it was essential to the kind of show we did to do “technical rehearsals” in order to gather an idea of possible shots rather than fully exhaust the discussion the cast would be having in order to complete a full rehearsal (Morrow, Morrow and Kellison, 2013, p.146). By doing this, we ensured we were fully prepared when it came to the production but the jokes and discussion of the cast had not been fully exhausted and bored, so there was still energy in the production.
In my role, ensuring health and safety checks had been thoroughly completed was essential. In order to ensure the safety of the cast and crew, I carried out multiple risk assessments and checks, these included, for the VT’s, a full risk assessment for the actual production and completing a BBC standard Studio Inspection Checklist, which covered everything from first aid to ensuring equipment was all PAT tested. Another key element considered was communication failure, as for the first time we were all working in a large group and if something had been miscommunicated things could have quickly gone wrong.
References:
Collie, C. (2007) The Business of TV Production [Internet] Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Available from https://www-cambridge-org.yorksj.idm.oclc.org/core/books/business-of-tv-production/8B785BB4B0E84391D5D6BD6C11ABE047 [Accessed 16th March 2017]
Kellison, C. Morrow, K. and Morrow, D. (2013) Producing for TV and new media. 3rd ed. [Internet] New York, Focal Press. Available from https://www.dawsonera.com/readonline/9780240819136 [Accessed 14th March 2017]