Work placement (Real Life) week 2

Week two at Real Life Production, For my second week I was a part of their research and develop team and was task to research and develop ideas for the BBC’s the One Show impractically develop and research new ideas for the  VT’s, Real Life Productions already creates for the One Show these include “Glimsed at Speed” in which Phil Tufnell explores those weird and wonderful things such as buildings we may drive past every once in a while and wonder what it is but never do find out, and “Mile from a Masterpiece” in which again Phil Tufnell dives into history to find out about the masterpieces of art been displayed or created in strange and wonderful ways. for this I sourced a huge amount of data from the internet, books and magazines high lighting and reading though lots of articles on the art work and architecture and history of the buildings in UK and annotating where and why I thought it would be relevant to the format of the show this again helped to improved my research skills because I was researching for a set format rather than a practically subject to look at impractically for the “Glimsed at Speed” VT as this could be pretty much anything as long as it could be seen from the road and had a interesting back story so researching for such a broad subject is difficult as I found out on this task but once I had narrowed down my search to old buildings, painting and sculptures you can see from the road was when I found some quite interesting results.

Programme development was one task in which I to come up with new ideas for a television programme I decided to stick with a factual based programme and came up with a few ideas for shows and did allot of research into them though not all were good there was one they did like which I am going to continue to work on the ones he liked and send him a final pitch this a research portfolio I found was very good and did learn quite allot in our discussions about television based programme and discussed some of channel 4’s ground breaking television programmes impractically “Animal Autopsy” in which the audience are invited to look inside the inner workings of the giants of the animal kingdom and how this was pushing bounders in terms of nature programmes we also discussed channel 4’s idea to go though the mummification process with a recently diseased body and how they are currently looking for terminally-ill volunteers we discussed whether this would be unethical to broadcast in my honest opinion I am not too sure because I find mummies and the history of Egypt a interesting subject and it is probably something I would watch out of curiosity but I do find the idea that the person so alive like you and I slightly disturbing but please let me know what you think in the comments below i am very interested in your opinion on this subject or if you are interested in reading more about the programme and there search I have found this article from the Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6965033/Terminally-ill-volunteer-sought-for-mummification-on-Channel-4.html) again channel 4 pushing bounders in terms of what is ethical and unethical to show on television is a radical science series which will show people taken class A drugs live which will take place in strict clinical conditions the idea behind the show as we discussed was that it allows people to have an unedited and in depth look into the side effects of class A, also for a further information on this programme I found this article from the Guardian. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/may/11/channel-4-live-drug-taking) All of these programmes are pushing bounders in terms of television programming but the key question is who would watch them and will they stay watching also will companies pay to have their advertisements shown alongside these programmes. Personally the only one I am more than likely would sit down watch is the human mummification programme but again I am not too sure I could watch all knowing this person was alive like you and I.

Prop finding was another task I was set towards the end of my two week placement, I was given a list of props for a One Show VT at as little as cost as possible so I begun by doing a much research as I could on the items they requested so I knew exactly what I was asking for when I begun scouring companies to ring such as antique shops, auction houses and even pubs in which where up for sale any where I thought I might be able to find these items once I had done my research and sauced twenty or so numbers in the local area I could ring I began ringing them and I simply introduced myself and explained a little about what it was for and most where more than happy to help and one even sent me images of the item to check it was right one now it was not all that easy to find some items were incredibly difficult but most were happy enough to kindly point me in the right direction and I managed to sauce a little under half the list before my placement sadly came to end and my two weeks were up but this task alone showed me how best to negotiate with people and just by asking if they have any idea where I could get these items, most people are willing to help you out and point you in the right direction.

Evaluation, looking back at what I did during my placement I feel I did achieve and learn allot and gave me a great insight into how producers work and what they do and how they are a fundamental part of the production team researching the contents of a show they want to create in great detail and sourcing materials such as prop, locations and people in which they feel should be interviewed on the subject at hand. This really showed be how important research actually is not just in terms of content it can give you but also the way it can help an idea develop and evolve. Research is not something to take as lightly as I may have done before, because I felt if you had a good idea visual you should focus on completing that and the research really coming second. The placement also showed the best way to get the answers you are looking for from a interview and how not to get stuck in a loop and going back to the same storey because that is what the interviewee is more comfortable talking about, and that is by discussing the questions and simply talking to the interviewee about what they should talk about perhaps a storey they told you in the many conversations you had leading up this interview.

Placement Week One at Real Life Productions

Week one at Real Life Productions, I did honestly really enjoy myself on this placement the first thing I did upon arriving was to be assigned my own work station for the next two weeks and was asked to join in one of their meetings that morning although where they discussed what need to be completed and ready to go out to broadcasting house at the BBC and also what finishing an reviewing now at this point I had not actually been given a job so I did just sit there quietly and took notes, during the meeting however I was given the job to log footage shot for Social Care TV  on the subject of Safeguarding in a care home the footage consisted of various interviews with staff, relatives of residents and residents themselves now at first I thought this job was slightly strange at because I always thought shots were logged during the filming process with the time stamped down and small review of what had been said and whether it was good or bad and the camera never stopped rolling even when the producer was talking to the interviewee about the next question and what kind of answer he was looking for, now these bits really did interest me listening to the producer actually talking to the interviewee about the answer they should give because I have never actually seen this been done before but I can see why because the questions are all based around one subject the producer and the audience will not want to come back to the same point over and over so the producer is trying to control the answers in order to keep the subject moving forward and not getting stuck in a loop as it were, but the other advantages to this that I saw were that it relaxed the interviewee allot more because they knew what the next question was going to be and how they were going to say because the producer talked to them about their answer rather than they just been given a question. Now logging footage at the production office was a very new concept to me like I said earlier was I had an idea of what I needed to do but I am told each production office has their own format for log sheets in this practically production office I had to transcribe the questions and answers between interviewer and interviewee and logging all the time codes (Hours, Minutes, Seconds, Frames) not exactly word for word but I had to stick close to. also that week at Real Life Production I asked to do some development research for a uncommissioned BBC inside sport programme, Real Life Productions were putting together to pitch to the BBC where I had to find out various facts about this subject impractically the history of the subject for this I sourced a huge amount of data from the internet, books and magazines high lighting and reading though lots of articles on the subject and annotating where and why I thought it would be relevant to the subject this really improved my research skills I felt by organizing all the data I had collected into importance and how it was relevant. Although I can’t say anything about the idea all I can say it was I found really interesting and I really liked finding interesting things out about the subject for the development of an idea and help in way for the idea to evolve.

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