Careers in Television and Video: Pre-Production Part 1

As I have said, a career in the television and video industry requires a variety of skills. Depending on where you live, most steady work in your local media market will probably be in the studio. There are also small professional video companies in just about every city. They compete for the better paying local venues, and have invested in high-end pro equipment, sometimes even remote vehicles. These companies hire out for a wide range of productions; commercials, safety videos, local sporting events, public service announcements (PSA's), government contracts, fundraising videos, and more.

Occasionally a large production company may even come into town to do a film or television shoot. Much of this employment will involve working on location. For the most part, location productions employ the same technical basics and equipment. It even has the same discipline and split second timing of a newscast. The difference lies in that a location production appears more disjointed on the surface, and more like filmmaking.

Although it varies, in a studio everything is done live (for the most part) in order, from beginning to end. What you have is a finished product when the work is complete. The difference with a location shoot is that you shoot out of order to edit (or finish) later. There is also much more preparation involved before the cameras are even set up. In fact, the shoot is actually the shortest process. Depending on the project, this might comprise of up to a hundred people, or may just be a few key personnel taking on many roles. To get a better understanding about this let us start at the beginning. There are three phases to a production; pre, prod and post. In these three phases are many career opportunities for a variety of tastes. Some positions may interest and lead you in a different career direction than anticipated, you never know. Just remember, nothing in this business is set in stone. Everyone does everything different, and positions vary or assume other roles. You have to adapt to different situations.

Let us begin with pre-production, and imagine you are the producer. The producer is the administrative 'manager' of the project. So how does a production begin? It starts with an idea. "I have a great concept for a television pilot! We'll shoot it on location and employ locals to keep costs down." OK, so you have a great idea. Next, you will need money for this fantastic endeavor. Sometimes producers will seek out revenue from investors. This means you will really have to hustle and get funding from different sources to cover the costs. Income sources may include private and commercial investors, or a combination of the two. Another source is private and federal grants, but you will have to be working with a non-profit organization, government or educational project.

This will require time and a lot of grant writing, because most grants will not fully fund the entire cost of productions. In most instances, grants will only provide funds for either: scriptwriting, staff salaries, local employment, equipment rentals, copyright acquisitions, post production, or marketing among others. Each one of these areas will require an individually written grant, tailored for each source. You will need to document how much of your own money is involved, as well as a business plan, budget, other funding sources already raised, plus much more. One thing grants will not cover is capitol investments. Grants will never give you money to purchase equipment. In any event, these income sources are sometimes best known as executive producers or underwriters. An executive producer puts up the money, and maybe idea, but usually does not have anything else to do with the actual production.

Other times a producer may have to reach into their bank accounts, or run up their credit cards to fund it themselves. Be wary of this approach. If you decide to do this, you better be organized, have a solid business plan and reliable income sources when the project is finally complete. OK so you have the money, now what? Your great idea will first need a script, or maybe the script was how you found funding in the first place. In either case, writing a script will usually take up a great amount of time. It is also one of the longest stages of the process. I once directed, and helped to produce a jury orientation video. It took a little over a year to complete the final script and even then, we made script changes (mostly dialogue) during the shoot. In comparison, it took only a total of two or three days to shoot the video we needed. One reason the script took so long was that it had to written around the client's (metro judge) work schedule. The first draft came to me and I rewrote and modified it for video. The changes were mostly structure, verbiage and transitions, but never content. Then the draft sent back for approval. This process took several months of going back and forth, attending several content meetings as well, until we had a workable final script.

Are we ready to move on? Are you kidding? There are no visuals, only a script with words and content. A screenplay has to be adapted. We will discuss writing scripts and screenplays for video later on. For now, we will only cover the main points of a screenplay. Every sentence in the script is broken down, and assigned a camera shot and angle. What actors will do, props and action sequences are written-in at this point if not already written into the script. Then every location, scene and camera shot receives a corresponding reference number. After that, you will need a storyboard created from this as a reference for visual composition and action. Are we there yet? Yeah, right. The script will then be broken down, outlined and separated by location, actors (talent), and scene. This is very crucial. It is an important framework, which will guide you when production starts. It is called a production schedule and contains which day time and location will be used, what scenes will be shot, what talent will be needed, crew call (assignments), and more. Influencing the schedule is (in the jury video's case) location availability, which days crew, talent and equipment are available, and logistics. This process may take several weeks to coordinate.

In the meantime, the producer is busy with other responsibilities to get the pre-production phase complete. There is so much more to do. In the next installment, we will examine the additional responsibilities and considerations of a producer.