TV Studio Task Link 

This task involved working in the television studio to create a magazine chat-show style programme similar to the popular BBC prime time show ‘The One Show’, that gives a light-hearted array of human interest stories across the nation. The show we created as a team aimed to act as a local York-based version of this, including segments that we felt would be of interest to students at university in the area. Each member of the team was assigned a role in the studio. I undertook the role of director. I volunteered for the role as it requires skills I feel I need to work on, such as leadership and organisation (Bamford 2012). This pushed me out of my comfort zone and allowed me to develop these skills and work as the leader of a team, which is something I often avoid doing. I found this task challenging as it is a high-pressure situation with a high number of different things occurring simultaneously. I was also working with a team of people that I had not worked alongside before, so it was challenging working with an unknown group, yet interesting to discover the skill sets of new people. We encountered several difficulties during this task. We had difficulty aligning our false background to our props in a way that looked professional and ‘real’, which caused additional confusion and stress within the group. In addition to this, the guest we had originally organised to feature on the show was running late and therefore unable to attend, so myself and another member of the team had to source an entirely new guest that would be appropriate to interview in the same context. Fortunately, we were able to acquire an interviewee at the last minute. Communication is a key aspect of all group work, however in this context it is vital to a smooth end product. Our team were mostly new to working with one another which made communicating slightly more difficult as people were unsure of their new peers. Additionally, the structure of a TV studio makes communication somewhat reliant on technology. The divide between studio and gallery means that when the studio is live, the gallery are only able to communicate with the studio floor manager via a microphone and headpiece. This means that if the technology malfunctions it can become very difficult to communicate, leading to misunderstandings and as a result errors in the programme. I also found the timing aspect of this task to be quite challenging, and even frustrating; in rehearsals the time can seem exactly correct, however with a guest interviewee it can be easy to run over time or be short by several seconds. It is also evident how vital good timing is, as just a few seconds that one may think are unimportant can prove disastrous in the final outcome. Cutting several seconds off the show makes it seem unfinished, and an additional few seconds can feel awkward and strained. Either way can create an unprofessional-looking end product.