Digital Television Production

DIGITAL

TELEVISION

PRODUCTION

A handbook

Jeremy Orlebar

A member of the Hodder Headline Group

LONDON

Co-published in the United States of America by

Oxford University Press Inc., New York

First published in Great Britain in 2002

by Arnold, a member of the Hodder Headline Group,

338 Euston Road, London NWI 3BH

http://www.arnoldpublishers.com

Co-published in the United States of America by

Oxford University Press Inc.,

198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016

© Jeremy Orlebar 2002

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any

form or by any means, electronically or mechanically, including photocopying, recording

or any information storage or retrieval system, without either prior permission in

writing from the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying. In the United

Kingdom such licences are issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency: 90 Tottenham

Court Road, London WIT 4LP.

The advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the

date of going to press, but neither the author nor the publisher can accept any legal

responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

ISBN 0 340 76322 I (HB)

ISBN 0 340 76323 X (PB)

I 2345678 9 10

Production Editor: Wendy Rooke

Production Controller: Martin Kerans

Cover Design:Terry Griffiths

Typeset in 10.5 on 14 pt Gill Sans by Cambrian Typesetters, Frimley, Surrey

Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books

What do you think about this book? Or any other Arnold title?

Please send your comments to [email protected]

This book is dedicated to Amanda and Tessa for

their love and support.

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Contents

Acknowledgements ix

Introduction I

Part One f Preproduction 5

/ An idea 7

Your idea 7

Finding an idea 8

Ideas wall 10

2 Treatment 12

Idea to screen 12

Preproduction 12

Treatment 13

Treatment budget 14

Treatment example 16

3 Creating a programme / 9

Story 19

Characters 20

Access 21

4 Factual research 22

How to get whom you want 22

Where to find people 24

Your research book 25

Working as a researcher in

broadcasting 25

Useful web sites 27

5 The programme budget 29

Mini budget production 30

Maxi budget production 31

6 Production roles 35

Producer 35

Director 36

Assistant producer 36

First AD 36

Production manager 37

Production assistant 37

Researchers 37

The crew 37

People to be nice to at all times 38

What would you do? 39

7 The recce 40

Doing a recce 40

Exterior locations 41

Interior locations 42

8 Health and safety 44

Responsibility for health and

safety 44

Risk assessment 44

Hazard Risk Assessment form 45

9 The schedule 50

The Working River schedule 50

The Night Bus schedule 52

10 Storyboard 56

Story board example 56

/ / Becoming an interviewer 60

The role of the television

interviewer 60

Do your own interviews 61

How to be a good interviewer 61

Interviewing: post-research

checklist 62

Completing preproduct/on 64

Part Two f Production 65

/ 2 Factual programme

production 67

The production team 67

Contents

13 Preparing for interviews 69

Key interview techniques 69

Sensitive interview scenario 73

14 Shooting interviews 75

Setting up 75

Shot size matters 76

Cutaways 79

Bluescreen 85

15 Lighting and sound for

interviews 86

Lighting for interviews 86

Location sound for interviews 90

16 Interviewing with a

presenter 95

Preparation 95

Presenter in vision with

contributor 95

Presenter out of vision 96

Noddies 96

Shooting reverse questions 97

17 Vox pops 99

Setting up 99

Filming 99

Broadcasting 101

18 Three-point lighting 102

The key light 102

The fill light 104

The back light 104

19 Magazine programmes 107

Student television magazine

programme 107

Programme guests and

contributors 107

Magazine programme production

10-point master plan I 10

Magazine programme running

order I 12

20 Shooting script 113

What is a shooting script? I13

Shooting script example I 15

2 / Locations for filming 119

What you are looking for 119

Location permissions 121

Cost 123

Insurance 124

22 Production forms 125

Contributor's Release Form 125

Using the production forms 126

Actor's agreement 127

Accepting contracts and

agreements 127

23 The filming day 134

Factual productions preparation 134

Shooting 135

Working with a presenter 136

The filming day 136

At home or base 139

24 Production equipment 140

You and your camera 140

Sound 146

25 Broadcasting ethics 150

Utilitarianism 150

What has Aristotle got to do

with it? 151

Cultural ethics 152

Broadcasting 152

Situationalism 152

Back to the fast food 152

Practical ethics 153

A code of conduct 154

The future 155

Contents VII

Something about libel 156

When a court case is active 157

26 Script writing 159

Tell the world 159

Theme 159

Story 160

Characters 161

Setting 162

The treatment 162

Script layout 163

Writing a screenplay 166

Improve your script writing 173

The 10-minute short 175

27 Drama production 177

The drama production team 177

Script breakdown 182

Drama production budget 185

Programme budget 185

Shooting days 185

Location scheduling 188

Marked-up editing script 189

Dealing with people 197

28 Mise-en-scene 198

29 Directing drama 201

Cast contracts 201

Read-through 201

Rehearsal 202

Being the director 203

30 Three-way shooting 208

The cafe scene 208

The wide shot 209

Reset for the next scene 210

The single shots 211

Crossing the line 213

Getting the message 214

Steadycam 216

Cinematic framing 217

3 / Lighting for drama 219

32 The 10-minute short 225

Phase one 225

Phase two 226

Phase three 227

Part Three f Postproduction 229

33 Desktop digital

postproduction 23 /

A moment of history 231

Understand the editing process 232

Digital editing kit 233

Computer storage 235

Time code 235

Video editing 236

The professional route 238

Postproduction budget 238

34 The editing process 24 /

Editing film 241

From rushes to fine cut 243

35 Editing interviews 248

Log the rushes 248

The paper edit 250

Music 251

Final cutting order 252

Commentary — final version 252

36 Creative editing 255

Where to cut 255

Jump cut 256

Music 257

The sound dub 259

Titles and credits 263

Bluescreen postproduction 264

Working with an editor 265

Desktop system 266

Editing drama 266

Contents

37 Copyright issues

What is copyright?

Can an idea be copyrighted?

What is covered by the 1988

Copyright, Designs and

Patents Act

What is not covered by

copyright

268 Music copyright

268 Music details

268 So who are the copyright

companies?

Moral rights - what are they?

269

271

38 Useful books

Index

274

276

278

287

289

291

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Melissa,James, Simon, Sarah, Fiona, Claire, Todd, Mark, Ollie, Ursula,

Amy the juggler and Mark Thomas, as well as to Amanda, Andy, Sam, Sophie,

Kate, Billy, Nadia and Katie, and to all the other students who kindly agreed

to appear in the photographs. Thanks also to Mike Turner and Godfrey

Johnson for professional advice. The author would like to thank

Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication and Farnborough

College of Technology for permission to photograph students.

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Introduction

From initial tentative ideas to full-scale dramas and magazine programmes,

this book covers the complete television production process and gives you

the tools to be part of the digital revolution.

If you own, or have access to, a camcorder and computer editing equip￾ment, then this is the book to help you get the most out of your camera and

your editing software.

If you are on a media course at a college or university, this book will be an

invaluable companion to your practical television studies. It concentrates on

showing you how to realize your ideas and turn them into desirable, broad￾cast-standard productions using low-cost digital equipment.

In this book you will find:

4 a full explanation of the practical aspects of television preproduction in

Part One;

4 an easily followed practical guide to the techniques of television

production in Part Two;

4 a full explanation of the postproduction process in Part Three;

4 related theoretical knowledge underpinning the television production

process, in all three parts;

4 many practical examples;

4 lists of production essentials, handy tips and useful advice, throughout.

What digital can do for you

The digital revolution has democratized television production. Anyone with

exciting ideas and modest video equipment can make programmes of inter￾est to broadcasters, digital channel companies and web-site producers.

Affordable shooting and editing equipment offers anyone the opportunity to

create high-quality video drama, factual programming, corporate or promo￾tional videos. As higher-quality Internet services become more available,

'streamed' video will become a must-have component of any web site worth

visiting.

The buzzwords are 'broadband' and 'convergence'.

Broadband applies to the Internet. It involves updating the modem in your

computer and the telephone line for much faster access to the Internet and

web content. The connection is more reliable and there is easier access to

multimedia content. With reference to video, broadband means that better,

higher-quality moving images will be able to be accessed quickly and easily via

2 I Introduction

the Internet. With broadband it is possible to view on a computer monitor

a movie with high-quality, full-frame picture definition.

Convergence describes the coming-together of computer-generated

graphics, interactive pictures and sound and conventional television tech￾niques.This leads to interactive television, which has many possible and as yet

unexplored uses. One particular use is in the TV coverage of a football

match, where the viewer can choose any particular camera angle from the

selection offered by the broadcaster, rather than rely on the director's

choice.

Your digital TV set linked to a broadband telephone or cable system

becomes a two-way communication command module. It allows you to play

interactive games, e-mail, use digital graphics communications as well as view

the large number of broadcast digital television channels. There is, of course,

a cost in subscribing to all this additional digital material.

Convergence is gaining a growing audience because it offers the chance for

graphic designers, artists and architects to work with filmmakers and video

artists. Once you are in the digital domain, there are many ways of express￾ing your creativity. All sorts of alliances are being forged, bringing with them

many new opportunities for film and television programme-makers.

The Light Surgeons, a group of UK filmmakers, graphic designers and DJs,

entertain and surprise audiences with their live digital audio-visual show.The

Light Surgeons mix images from video, computer graphics and digital photog￾raphy with music, in the same way that DJs mix dance music.

There are digital film festivals springing up all over the globe actively seek￾ing new and distinctive, digitally created video material. Then there is the 'fam'-

film' scene. Independent filmmakers using digital equipment make films for

the Internet based on popular series and characters such as Star Wars and

the X Files. These films take copyright characters and put them in their own

stories, which fall into a murky legal area between parody and fan fiction -

both legal in US law. But they are popular and the big players are taking note.

The official web site for Star Trek movies has agreed to partner the Star

Trek fan-film network to feature fan-made films. Good news for Trekkies.

Some fans think there could be over 50 Star Trek fan films on the Internet

by 2002.

What this book can do for you

This book gives you all the practical and theoretical tools you need to real￾ize your ideas into broadcast-standard video productions. It helps you under￾stand the possibilities of the digital video camera, and the process of low-cost

Introduction

Box 0.1 Using a digital camera

production and video editing. It leads you to explore ideas and develop video

concepts that could interest broadcasters and new media providers.

In the digital world, acquisition of video material is easier than ever, but

good television programmes and films with exciting ideas are as difficult to

achieve as they ever were. Equipment has changed, but the basis of quality

programme making remains the same: a good story and high-quality produc￾tion skills and techniques.

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