Production and presentation
As tension rises among the editorial staff in the newsroom, at the same time the focus of the entire news operation begins to shift inexorably towards the production and technical teams who will shortly be involved in turning all that journalistic effort into a television broadcast. The keys to this can be found in the studio and its adjacent output suite or control room. Computer terminals link everything. The news journalists must always remind themselves that computers do not make mistakes. They are only tools. Only people make mistakes – even if that includes the people who programmed the computer software in the first place!
Not unlike the bridge of an oil supertanker or the cockpit of a transatlantic jet, the control room of a television studio is a world of its own, dominated by wafer-thin monitors and electronic gadgetry of seemingly overwhelming complexity and luminosity. The main source of light comes from a bank of screens which reflect the seeing eyes of the cameras in the brightly-lit studio nearby. Other small squares of light shine from the illuminated buttons on control panels, at which sit shadowy figures, heads bent over news system screens. Tension and excitement lie close beneath a surface air of calm efficiency.
This, then, is the nerve centre of a television news broadcast, the one and only place where the editorial function, supreme until now, has to take second place. For this is the moment when the production and technical teams hold sway as they set about the intricacies of translating plans into something resembling a living television programme. No matter what the number of sources – live, recorded, visual, oral, static, moving – they have to knit the whole structure together, each dovetailing neatly into the next to produce a continuous, seamless whole, based on split-second timing. No matter what chaos explodes, it is what comes out of the TV sets of the nation, or the world, that matters.
That is not overstating the case. Split seconds make all the difference between a programme which flows from item to item without a hiccup and one which is untidy and ragged, with awkward delays between presenter introduction and the start of a report, clipped sound, momentarily blank screens or missed cues. Yet there is a very slim margin indeed between success and failure. The most ambitious programmes, especially, court disaster day after day, pushing men, women and technology to the limits by the deliberate policy of trying to squeeze in the very latest information. New stories are added, some are dropped and others altered right up to and including the time the news is on the air.
Figure 13.1
As a result, the professionalism and expertise of the control room staff is continuously on trial. One slip, and all the time, effort and money spent by others might be wasted. Fortunately, real disasters are rare, despite the knowledge that one misfortune has the habit of begetting another, and the prickly feeling that, one day, an entire programme is going to collapse on air like a house made of cards.
Responsibility during transmission lies as much with the director as the journalist acting as editor. Back in the days when news bulletins came in short bursts of 10–12 minutes it was reasonable to expect directors to be responsible for several during a single-duty period. Single programmes and continuous news channels have become technically more complicated. Proper preparation is essential, and a director is now more likely to be associated with the same programme every day, at least on a shortterm basis. The aim is to provide continuing production advice to the journalistic team on the ways items might be prepared for the screen and to help maintain the overall continuity in presentation which gives the programme its identity. In modern digital-based news services, which are often testing new ways of working with technology that is constantly evolving, a single technical director can have the facility to do jobs that were previously carried by two or three people.
As ever, the extent of any directoral duty depends on whether he or she is ‘dedicated’ to one news programme or to the news service as a whole. In a less-than-ideal world the director may come cold to a programme shortly before transmission, having already been part of a team involved in other output. In quarters where the journalists have a reputation for being difficult or the news department regarded as the poor relation, unworthy of creative attention, directors may be forgiven for believing they have transgressed in some obscure way and have been rostered to work on the news only as a punishment. In return, the editorial team is likely to greet the efforts and commitment of the director with suspicion and resentment. It is scarcely surprising if programmes broadcast in this atmosphere of mutual animosity show up on screen as dull and unimaginative.
Far better results are usually obtained from the director’s consistent and direct involvement with a programme. Attending the editorial conferences, organizing and supervising graphics sequences or studio interviews are virtually certain to guarantee a familiarity with the content which will enhance production values. Some directors help select headline sequences. The overriding concern is to keep a close watch on the running order, to be ready to sound the warning bells over any potential difficulty, and to keep abreast of changes as they are made. In short, the directors of the most successful programmes are those who act as the focal point for everything to do with its production.
The design and positioning of control rooms are influenced by circumstance and fashion. A trend which has seen programmes broadcast direct from newsrooms rather than from separate studios makes it sensible to construct transmission facilities in a designated area nearby, but perhaps more typically the production team are housed in a separate gallery overlooking the studio or in a room next to it. The director will probably be seated more or less in the centre of a desk running virtually the whole width, using ‘talkback’ to communicate with everyone.
Figure 13.2 Speeding up transmission. Automated computers, centrally controlled, allow digital sounds and images for separate news stories to be selected from codes put into the journalists’ PCs.
The director will operate from a computer screen which has the same information inside it provided by the programme editor: running order, scripts and technical instructions. The director has to turn this into real-time television. Banks of sliding switches and glowing buttons represent the selection of cameras and other sources available to be put on the screen by the director. In bigger news output areas the director may have a vision mixer, sound engineer and a production assistant to help him, but in modern digital-based suites he may have the facilities to do it all himself.
These specialists, then, form the basic studio control room production and technical team, although there might be an additional operator controlling the robotic cameras which move about without human guidance to pre-programmed positions like a mechanical dance.
A place in the control room is usually allocated for the programme editor and perhaps one of his or her colleagues as backup. With all these experts on the spot, answers to any problem which may crop up during transmission can be supplied very quickly.
From about 1980 news was often presented directly from newsrooms with a backdrop that resembled a computer warehouse. News managers thought the public would be impressed by the high-tech look. Designers advised them that a backdrop of computer newsrooms looked chic and efficient. By 1995, when everyone knew what a computer looked like and was no longer impressed, separate studios made a comeback. Then by 2000 television news was back in the warehouse, with a busy newsroom or monitor bank background – this time, because it looked less formal and relaxed. It was also cheap.
The new stage of news studio development is the virtual reality studio where only the news anchor/presenter is real. The problem news managers worry about is that it tends to make the news look like someone with a constant fidget. If the background can be adjusted in less than a second then it is tempting to do just that. The emphasis of the VR studio is simplicity and familiarity. The irony is that the technology can make any change the news organization wants within seconds, but the viewers may not want the look of the news to be persistently changed.
Figure 13.3 The gallery of a television studio ready for transmission. It is like the flight deck of an airliner. Computers control all systems but only people can control computers. Banks of monitors showing location links illuminate faces in the gallery and studio shots. The experienced director will try to cultivate calm in the one single minute before live transmission, no matter what chaos has gone before. (Photo courtesy of and © Sky Television.)
Big television productions still need plenty of space and technical support. Studios exclusively for news tend to be small and basic, the layout and contents often fixed for the long periods between revamps. A close look at almost any news programme will show how little of it is spent in the studio compared with the time devoted to routing video and other sources through it. Even so, as it is largely on the presentation of studio-based items that programme identity is maintained, considerable thought has to go into their production. To do that effectively might require three cameras. One concentrates on a head and shoulders shot of the presenter, one on a wide shot of the whole studio and a third reserved for additional contributors – reporters, correspondents and other interviewees.
Movements are so few and unfussy that some organizations find it just as effective to use the robotic cameras operated from the control room. Each camera is equipped with an electronic memory capable of storing pre-selected shots for use on transmission, thus removing much of the mental strain from the camera-work needed in a fast-moving programme.
Figure 13.4 Common camera layout for a news studio. The ‘high-tech’ look of modern sets is often created by clever use of lighting, electronically generated backgrounds and computerized ‘virtual reality’ images.
Studio sound is fed independently from microphones – large or small, in or out of shot according to taste – which are usually sited in pairs, in case one fails, at each of the reading positions.
Overhead, banks of individually adjustable lights hang down from hoists close to the ceiling, throwing their beams over studio sets designed to enhance the special qualities of the programme. Every customer programme passing through the same studio will have its own needs. ‘One-off’ productions require special attention, but for the frequent occupants new technology is probably on hand to help, here as everywhere. Computer programs ensure optimum lighting plots can be repeated accurately from the control room with the minimum of delay. Lights in studios dedicated to one or a series of similar newscasts will probably need maintenance and only minor adjustments on a regular basis. The main necessity is to ensure even light levels across the set and to reduce the occasions when presenters and contributors appear in unflattering shadow.
The considerable thought and expense which goes into the construction of studio sets for television news hardly seems commensurate with what at bottom amounts to one basic requirement: somewhere for the cast to sit facing the cameras. Yet all news organizations throughout the world constantly revamp their sets, not just because of the need to demonstrate change and innovation but to give their product a fresher look. Cool colours go out. Warm colours come in. Clinical steel gives way to warm wood or cool glass. Straight lines give way to curves. Minimalism today becomes multicoloured variety tomorrow. It is in the end not much different from anyone’s private home. The sofa you bought a few years ago was once admired, but now looks like it needs a new cover.
The BBC’s television news programmes once underwent a complete refit and included the introduction of virtual reality: a computer-generated 3D image created the impression that much of the studio was occupied by the Corporation symbol, etched on a huge piece of glass, which disappeared as the opening story was read. One effect was to make the studio seem bigger and more imposing, especially in the opening and closing sequences which gave the impression of a long shot. Yet practically nothing was real apart from the presenter sitting at a minimal desk equipped with computer. For the designers involved, it emphasized their chief dilemma: how, at a time when the range of news channels and programmes was growing, to establish a unique and interesting ‘look’ the audience would identify immediately without being distracted. The BBC, ITN and Sky all moved away from cold colour schemes to warmer shades: wood panels, terracotta and cream, soft and comfortable shades. The space-ship look was dumped in favour of the Victorian parlour.
Some programmes are content to have a discreet logo on the screen at all times, but it is still possible to find fixed or removable backings made of wood or plastic, and the fashion which once saw newscasters working in studios surrounded by real or simulated bookshelves may also live on somewhere. Placing presenters against ‘windows’ which allow the viewer to look out on familiar views continues to be popular, while some programmes make use of real windows overlooking city landscapes, perhaps with a visible and carefully framed clocktower to add an urgent sense of passing time.
But probably the most popular layout for a modern news studio consists of a desk or desks placed against a plain background. For some years now it has been the vogue to fill part of this with a visual representation of the item being introduced, and it is quite common to see a still picture, a frozen or moving frame of video, or – increasingly – a specially designed graphic positioned over the reader’s shoulder.
Figure 13.5 Smaller news studios may make do with two cameras and they are often robotic. This means they can move across the studio floor without a camera operator and instead can be positioned by a director from a gallery. A variety of shots can be stored and selected. For safety in the studio a Floor Manager is usually present.
With careful thought and used sparingly, these devices, often known by the term ‘inset’, can be helpful signposts for audiences viewing multi-subject newscasts. This is often created by an electronic process known as chromakey or colour separation overlay (CSO). The secret lies in the colour chosen for the studio backcloth, frequently blue, of which there is very little in human flesh tones. At the touch of a switch in the studio the electronic camera locks on to it, filling it with a picture coming from a second source, perhaps another studio, a camera, stills store or video, effectively merging the two images into one. What is created for the viewer is an electronic illusion. The presenter in the foreground sees nothing except the plain studio backcloth, which can sometimes make two-way interviewing a tricky matter while this device is being used.
At one time when chromakey was used the foreground subject would occasionally take on a curious, blue-tinged outline, particularly round the hair, and zooming movements by the camera had the effect of making the foreground leap forward by itself. Most of the minor flaws in the system have been overcome, but performers still need to select clothing colours for the studio with considerable care, as the device is extremely sensitive. It will be triggered by any strong foreground colour which matches the background, punching an ‘electronic’ hole through anything in the way, human bodies included, and replacing it with the background picture.
Apart from the desks and the cameras, the rest of the floor space in the studio is taken up by coils of cables and portable monitors which enable the presenters to keep a discreet eye on both themselves and the output. Then there is the problem of communication between programme editor and presenter. Some programme editors like to be able to give instructions directly into their presenters’ earpieces during transmission and are equipped with a link which is activated by the touch of a button in the gallery.
An hour or so before a newscast (the exact timing depends on the duration and complexity of each programme) the production team assemble in the newsroom for a script conference. At this stage in the proceedings the director has had the running order for some time, at least some idea of the alterations which have inevitably been made since it was compiled, and advance warning of what other changes may occur before the programme goes on air.
Now the director is able to begin issuing detailed instructions, referring to the items on the running order in sequence, page by page. Everyone with a part to play in the newscast has to become familiar with the camera shots, the machine-by-machine allocation of videotape inserts, and the order of graphics and stills, for which a separate technical running order might have been prepared. Instructions are marked on whatever pages of script have been distributed at that time. Whatever details are known about pages yet to come are written on a skeleton, a sheet which is left completely blank apart from the corresponding page number of the script. When the completed page eventually turns up, the skeleton will be discarded, although as a last resort the director could work from the blank.
If we were able to eavesdrop 45 minutes before The Five O’Clock Report is scheduled to be broadcast, we would hear the dialogue for part of the script conference go something like this:
(Director speaking) ‘… so it’s page 22 next – Damages. That’ll be camera two with an inset of the car the woman driver was injured in, and a map of where the accident happened. That’s followed by page 23, Damages Interview – speaks for itself, I think – video on Line Two. OK? From there we go to the OB outside the court. It isn’t in position yet, but should be within the next five minutes or so. Mustn’t forget the “live” super this time. Page 25, Damages Background, is still in for now – video on Line One – but I’m told that’s a very strong candidate for the drop. If it does go we’ll still keep page 26, Damages Trail – and the car inset again. Hang on … by rights we should be going back to Camera Two: I’ll check. Right. Nothing then until page 30, Halfway. Camera One. Pages 31, 32 and 33 are the video inserts, which I’d like to record after the script conference if we get the chance, otherwise we’ll keep them separate. Line Two for Farming, One for Orphans and Two for the Cricket Record in that order. Page 34, Crime Figures. Camera Two and inset of the report, into page 35, Crime North West, video on Line One and super of the reporter’s name. Now a possible big change on page 37, Crime Chief. They’re actually hoping for a live interview. John will be doing it down the line if it happens, but that’ll have to be confirmed …’
The conference continues briskly in the same vein, with pauses for the director to answer queries from other members of the production staff. Eventually every page on the running order has been covered, and allowance made for those items about which very little is known so far. Everybody concerned with the production is now fully aware of the part he or she is expected to play, while being quite prepared to accommodate any sudden change of plan. It is a fairly routine day for news, however, and with the favoured editorial shift on duty, the production and technical teams are hoping for a smooth, good-looking programme.
Rehearsals for television news programmes tend to be sketchy affairs because so much of the material to be used on transmission is unavailable until the last few minutes before airtime. Scripts are still being written, video edited and graphics completed. In fact the assembly of items goes on so late that programme editors are often heard to grumble that they scarcely have any time to see some of them to make editorial judgements, let alone expect the luxury of being able to rehearse.
Just the same, the director must take the opportunity to go through whatever material is ready, and the one responsible for our Five O’Clock Report is no different. Until now the northern report on the crime figures and Delia Ward’s Topfield Farm item have been seen only by the editorial staff, so the availability of both means the production team can have a preview. A halfway headline sequence is also ready: the script is still being written back in the newsroom. At least the script to accompany pictures of the post-by-election scenes is finished and the presenter canters through it to see whether the words will match. The live link between the studio and the unit outside the ‘Damages’ court has been established by now, although all the camera shows is a shot of a paving stone covered with television cables.
As the minutes tick away the flow of completed scripts coming into the control room begins to quicken. The corresponding skeletons are thrown out to accommodate the new pages, everybody remembering to transfer the marks they made so carefully at the script conference earlier.
Editors who for no apparent reason make wholesale changes to their programme running orders at the last moment are not popular with even the most experienced production teams, and acquire reputations for being indecisive. Inevitably, though, the duration of some items will turn out to be longer than planned and others will have to be adjusted or omitted to fit them in. Minor alterations are unavoidable.
Director: ‘Page 34, everyone. There’s an extra chart on graphics. All right?’
Sometimes there are deletions, ordered by the editor sending information from the newsroom on the news computer message system.
Editor: ‘Don’t want the Damages Background, thanks.’
Director: ‘Just to confirm: page 25, Damages Background, is dropped. That affects you, Line One, thank you.’
In between Michael, the economics correspondent, wanders into the studio and is motioned into a seat opposite camera three. The director’s voice booms into the control room.
Director: ‘Can you try the voice level for Michael now, please? He’s got to get back to check up on a couple of things before the programme. Sound?’ (He presses a button on the desk so the correspondent in the studio can hear.) ‘Just a few words then, Michael.’ (After no more than a sentence the sound engineer in the control room has adjusted the fader and given the thumbs up.) ‘OK. Thanks.’
With not much more than 15 minutes to go, the editor in the newsroom is confronted with the sort of dilemma he has nightmares about. The regional reporter covering the joyriders’ story has called the editor to say four people have been killed and seven, possibly eight more seriously injured in the traffic pile-up on the motorway. This has only become known since rescue services got through the chaos and found the dead and injured in two cars and a mini-bus in a ditch. He’s offering an interview he has just carried out with a local police spokesman, and separate, unedited rushes of activity at ground level, shot by another crew. He hasn’t seen these pictures, but understands they contain unpleasant detail. To cap it all, it seems the injured joyriders had absconded from a juvenile detention centre two days earlier, but no one other than the local police had been made aware of it.
The editor’s instinct tells him this has all the makings of a serious issue. By themselves, deaths on the motorway – regrettable though they are – do not always cause public outrage. The circumstances of this accident are entirely different and the ramifications considerable. There is still time to switch the lead, but it would mean wholesale changes to the running order and destroying much of the planned structure of the programme. Other thoughts occur: there are obvious links with the ‘damages’ story lower down.
How did the joyriders abscond? Was there a security lapse? Have official guidelines been breached? A specialist correspondent should be finding out which government department is responsible for policy.
The editor also wonders whether there is time to throw together a brief background on current methods of dealing with juvenile offenders. One more question needs to be resolved:
Editor (to the newsroom team): ‘What’s the word on our report author – would she make it into the top half of the programme?’
Newsroom (looking at the newsroom clock): ‘Should be on the doorstep any minute now.’
The editor makes up his mind.
Editor (to his no. 2): ‘I’m going to switch the lead. We’ll move the joyriders up to page two with the intro, map and helicopter videotape, and follow it with the ground level pictures. I’ll see if we can get the local reporter’s voice over them. A reporter is chasing someone from the detention centre where these boys were supposed to have been held. If they don’t manage it in time for page three we’ll try and slot them in later. I’m also going to move up the crime story. There isn’t room for it all on page four … Just warn the control room what’s likely to happen. I’m just going to have another word with the newsroom, then I’ll go and talk to the director. In the meantime, you’d better get the headlines rewritten. We’ll drop the Crime North West now.’ (He consults the running order.)
In the semi-darkness of the control room along the corridor, the director is still in the process of catching up with earlier changes.
Director: ‘There’s a new story, Transfer, which they’re calling page 47a, after the Picasso and before the cricket. Camera two in close-up for Val, plus a still of Jamie Jamieson. And page 35, Crime North West, is out, so we won’t need the VT on Line One, thank you. Tell John it means we go straight to his down-the-line interview with the report author. Camera Two, I think we’d better make that a close-up on page 36 then. OK? Right. Script check in five minutes everybody …’
By now the final scripts are being rushed in. Everybody is writing furiously into the computers, adjusting scripts and technical instructions. The main presenter is reading the lead story quietly to himself. Everyone is complaining about problems with the way script and technical instructions have been put in. When it gets tense every mouse is being treated like a hammer pushing in a nail.
The editor has arrived in the control room, out of breath after confirming that the regional reporter covering the joyriders’ story has sent a separate voice track to cover the pictures of the helicopter and the scenes on the ground. These are now being edited together and should be ready in no more than five minutes’ time. The shift reporter is trying for the head of the detention centre, which by chance is in Oxfordshire, forty miles from Topfield Farm. The camera crew and links vehicle which covered that story have been diverted and should be there before the end of the programme. So far, though, the government department responsible for juvenile detention centres hasn’t agreed to let the chief executive talk.
The director listens, unperturbed, to the catalogue of changes being made. He has been through all this, and worse, many times before. Now he speaks calmly into the talkback microphone.
Director: ‘Change of lead coming up. There are knock-on effects, too. Tell you about them all in a moment, during the script check.’
The writer responsible for the lead story rushes into the gallery. ‘You’d better come and have a look at the crash pictures,’ he tells the editor. They’re pretty gruesome and I’m not sure what we should show.’
‘I’ll have to leave it to you,’ says the editor. ‘We’re about to change the running order. Just make sure there are no lingering close-ups.’ The editor is telling his journalist to use his initiative. ‘Do my best,’ says the writer. ‘But there’s a lot and it’ll take time to edit them out. I hope we’ll be ready.’
The final changes are written into the running order. The editor is still busily using the computer to do his calculations. The joyriders’ crash, the damages story and the crime figures sequence have suddenly made the programme very top-heavy with crime and cars, more so if he has to drop material to make way for another interview. He’s now a good three minutes overset. The easy way would be to drop Topfield Farm, which alone would save three minutes. He could keep the European element, which is a story in its own right. The trouble is he doesn’t relish facing Delia Ward afterwards. He looks around the control room, seeking inspiration, and notices the preview monitor on the stills store, which is just lining up on its subject of the Transfer story.
Editor: ‘Is that the Jamie Jamieson still? I thought he played for Barcelona. That’s a Juventus shirt.’
The stills assistant hurries off to check with the writer back in the newsroom. Five minutes to go. ‘Script check,’ orders the director. This is the final check before transmission, and everyone is expected to pay full attention. Loss of concentration here could result in disaster later on. Again, the director is in command, going through the complete running order, page by page, in rapid confirmation of all that has gone on before and since the first script conference nearly an hour earlier:
Director: ‘Here we go then. We start with the Five O’Clock titles and signature tune on Cart One. Then there’s a rewrite of page one, Heads, on its way. That’s John’s voice over Cart Two of the motorway, Graphics One of the Crime Figures report, Cart One of the election scenes and Cart Two of the cricketer. Into the new lead, Joyriders, which is now renumbered page two. John and inset of the crash, map on Graphics Two, vt package on Cart Two, which is going to be very very late. Page four: Crime Figures. Val on Camera Two with an inset of the report, charts on Graphics One and then straight into a down the line with the author of the report. To confirm, it’s Val doing the interview, not John as originally planned …’ (To the editor) ‘Your author’s going to make it in time, is she?’
Editor: ‘Definitely.’ (No one has dared tell him the regional studio in which the author is due to appear will be occupied by a children’s programme until approximately 90 seconds before the news begins.)
Director: ‘… then fourteen, Election Political, the OB in Downing Street. Mustn’t forget the “live” caption. Don will end with a handback to the studio. John picks up on page fifteen, the economy …’
The director continues to rattle through it all, remembering to remind everyone page 25, Damages Background, is out; Crime Figures, originally between pages 34 and 37, has been moved and renumbered; and Joyriders, previously at page 40 and 41, is now at page two. The few queries take only a few seconds to answer.
Red flashing lights outside the studio and control-room doors indicate impending transmission. The studio begins to settle down. The prompter operator is at the keyboard of the computer which allows the presenters to read their scripts while looking directly into the cameras. Val glances down at the notes she scribbled during a quick conversation with John, hoping she will be able to decipher them when the time comes to carry out her interview. Music filters into the studio, signifying the approaching end of the preceding programme. (Pictures from the regional studio where the report author should be appear in the control room on a monitor to the director’s left. Several teams of children are engrossed in some elaborate quiz game.)
One minute. A writer races into the control room with the rewritten headline page. The known death toll in the joyriders’ crash has now gone up to eight. At the back of the control room a fierce argument is going on about the Jamie Jamieson picture. Voices rise.
Thirty seconds. The director reluctantly tears his attention from the monitor bank.
Director: ‘Quiet please! Stand by everyone.’
Station announcements are coming to an end in the brief break between programmes. A square dot appears in the top right-hand corner of the screen, which is now showing station identification and a clock.
Fifteen seconds. The dot disappears.
Ten seconds. Nine. Eight. Seven …
Announcer: ‘… that’s at seven-thirty. But now, at five o’clock …’
Director: ‘Stand by Titles.’
Announcer: ‘… it’s time for the news.’
Production assistant: ‘… four, three …’
Director: ‘Run vt. Coming to studio and voice over …’
Production assistant: ‘Counting into opening headline … two … one …’
The titles and signature tune come to an end.
Director: ‘Cue him.’
Presenter: ‘Eight people are dead and four seriously injured …’
Director: ‘Graphics One next …’
Production assistant: ‘… counting out of vt – four, three …’
Presenter: ‘… after joyriders crash on a motorway …’
Director: ‘Cut. Standby Vt One.’
Presenter: ‘Unemployment among the young …’
Director: ‘Run vt.’
Production assistant: ‘… two, one …’
Presenter: ‘After last night’s two by-election defeats …’
Lead story writer (to editor): ‘All done – the vt’s ready. And not too much blood.’
Editor: ‘Better not be. Any sign of our author lady? We’ll need her in a couple of minutes.’
Director: ‘We’ll be coming to Camera One for page two. I said one!’
Production assistant: ‘Thirty seconds, Vt One.’ (Buzz)
Duty transmission manager: ‘Can’t see her.’ (He indicates the preview monitor. The children have gone, but the studio is now ominously empty.)
The director, following his script, waits until the presenter in the studio gets to within nine words of the end of the introduction to the joyriders’ story. Then:
Director: ‘Run vt!’
Production assistant: ‘… three, two …’
Presenter: ‘… just received this report from Tom Dixon.’
Director: ‘Cut to vt.’ (He relaxes) ‘A little more headroom on your presenter shot, please Camera Two. She’s looking a bit squashed. Has our interviewee turned up yet?’
Duty transmission manager: ‘Doesn’t look like it.’
Director (grumpily): ‘What am I to do if she doesn’t make it. Show an empty chair or go on to the next story? We’ve got under two minutes.’ (Wearily) ‘Will they never learn?’
Editor (reassuringly): ‘She’ll be there.’
Production assistant: ‘Thirty seconds left on this vt.’
Director: ‘Standby studio. Standby Camera Two.’ (To editor:) ‘Are you happy with the Jamie Jamieson still yet?’
Editor: ‘We’re working on it.’
Production assistant: ‘Ten to go.’
Director (seeing movement on the monitor showing the regional studio): ‘Aha … methinks I detect signs of life out there. Coming to Camera Two …’
Editor (sounding smug as he wipes sweat-damp hands on his handkerchief): ‘Told you she’d be there, didn’t I?’
Now the interviewee has arrived it seems certain Topfield Farm will have to go after all. It will mean a change to the halfway heads. Delia Ward will need a big drink after the programme. So will he.
Production assistant: ‘… three, two, one …’
Director: ‘Cue her and cut!’
Although they are unlikely to admit it in public, hardened newspeople still manage to marvel at the way production staff throw an almost entirely unrehearsed programme on the air without so much as a tiny hitch. The occasions when minor errors do occur – the director running a videotape too soon, the vision mixer pressing the wrong button, the sound operator fading up the words of an interview a second late, the graphics designer misspelling the place name on a map – are usually the subject of lengthy and heated inquests. Audiences probably do not notice until the mistakes are glaring, and then they seem to take a perverse pleasure from the knowledge that their favourite news programme is peopled by fallible humans like themselves. Perhaps that accounts for the enormous popularity of those television programmes composed entirely of scenes which have gone wrong.
There is a serious side to it. The reputation of television news rests above all on its editorial credibility (witness all that mail and those telephone calls from viewers) and if programmes become so riddled with production errors as to make technical ‘cleanliness’ impossible to maintain, there is a real prospect of the journalism itself eventually becoming undermined.
Most of the mistakes which do occur could be avoided, but that would mean setting strict deadlines to ensure full rehearsals. It is not a realistic proposition for most news programmes. Television newspeople are acutely aware of the ‘now or never’ nature of their work. That is why editors are prepared to jeopardize an entire production for the sake of including a late story breaking halfway through a programme. By dropping one on-camera item, taking the option of an ‘early out’ on a video tape insert and striking out all but one of the closing headlines, there is suddenly enough room to squeeze in something which may already be too late for most editions of tomorrow morning’s newspapers. And that, television journalists will say with satisfaction, is a large part of what it’s all about.
What has gone before has been principally to do with programmes which bring news to national audiences. But these programmes, despite their prestige and the large audiences they command, are easily outstripped in total numbers and popularity by those concentrating on regional or local matters. At its best, regional television journalism is able to offer a more accurate mirror of society than its network counterpart can ever hope to reflect, and sensible politicians anxious to keep a finger on the public pulse often consider the programmes essential to see and be seen on.
Content, in programmes sometimes longer in duration than the ‘national’ news, is often a broad mixture of the serious and lighter issues, the contentious matters either purely local or national ones given a local twist. The ‘news’ section, sometimes read by a separate presenter, comes in the shape of mini-bulletins containing graphics and fast moving video inserts. On the ‘magazine’ side the daily reporter packages and studio discussions are supplemented by regular feature items which might include consumer matters, comprehensive sport, arts and entertainment news. The trick with programmes scheduled on the fringes of evening peak viewing time is to devise a combination appealing enough to stop viewers switching to another channel immediately afterwards.
Figure 13.6 The running order of The Five O’Clock Report, as broadcast after taking account of all the developments during the few hours leading to transmission. ‘R’ denotes a rewritten page. Now compare with Figures 12.2 and 12.4.
The pace in a typical local newsroom is bound to be more leisurely, and some of the issues less immediate, but for the aspiring television journalist, work on a regional programme may be far more stimulating than one nationally-based. Staff numbers are invariably smaller and individuals harder pressed, opening the way for those with ambition to turn their hands to many different tasks. As a result, a number who start out as local newswriters, producers or reporters soon find themselves being tempted by offers to join the bigger city or national programmes. In recent years, though, the professional satisfaction to be gained from working locally – to say nothing of the advantages of a better quality of life – has made it easier for many to resist, and the flow is by no means all one way
There is also something immensely satisfying about being so close to the grass roots. Many of the subjects handled by national newswriters and producers cannot be anything but remote from the vast audiences they serve. Local television journalists live with the knowledge that what they report and write about directly touches the lives of their viewers. It helps make them more careful. Instead of writing rude letters, complaining members of the public are liable to come round to the office and hammer on the door for an answer face-to-face, or accost any programme personality they recognize doing their weekend shopping.
Some local programmes are superbly resourced, with enough talent, equipment and facilities to put many a national newscast to shame. Modern links vehicles and satellite news-gathering has also given editors the opportunity to do more ‘live’ inserts, adding to the immediacy which, knowingly or not, viewers have now come to accept. Live links by reporters, linking in and out of videotape reports and following them up with live interviews, have become more common in both BBC and commercial television regional programmes.
For the editor of an under-financed programme, the biggest headache is usually how to fill an allotted 10, 20 or 60 minutes every afternoon. There may not be enough staff to allow for a continuously high level of planning, so much of each programme may have to be assembled from scratch a matter of hours before that day’s transmission.
That leaves little room for manoeuvre, and should the already meagre ration of stories be reduced for some reason, the alternative to the unthinkable – leaving a hole – is to pad out what remains. The result is not attractive. The live studio interview may have to be stretched by an extra minute even though the subject has been exhausted long before. The ‘news’ slot may be so crammed with on-camera stories that it appears to be a convenient dustbin for dumping the oddments unwanted anywhere else instead of being a brief, crisply written round-up of matters of genuine interest.
The arrival of the lightweight digital camera has not provided a complete answer. The speed and flexibility it adds to coverage has, in some places, led to more trivialization of the news, with almost every minor traffic event, every fire, every petty crime hyped to a level of treatment it may not deserve, simply because pictures are available or easy to obtain quickly. In the edit suites, the picture editor may be encouraged to lengthen shots or include those better discarded.
Before long, if these conditions are allowed to persist, standards slip, fundamentals including proper shot-listing are ignored, and the whole programme becomes flabby and over-written. The journalist’s ancient battle-cry of ‘What’s it worth?’ is replaced by the anxious inquiry ‘How long can you make it?’ This may be an understandable attitude, but it is one which does disservice to the viewer. Almost every story has its own ‘natural’ length, in whatever context it may be found. Going beyond it does nothing except debase the coinage.
The style of many news programmes now incorporates opening ‘headlines’, words and pictures representing in brief each of the main or most interesting stories, the purpose being to attract and keep viewers’ attentions from the top of the newscast onwards.
As a rule these headlines are preceded or followed by a generic title sequence and stirring signature tune. Title variants include real or abstract impressions of the general geographical locations or scope of subjects covered by the programme and shots of members of its reporting team, and of the studio. The tempo of the music and design and intricacy of the title sequence might also govern the duration of the headlines, a restriction not necessarily appropriate for each occasion.
For all programmes, the headlines present the perfect outlet from which to ‘set out their stall’ for the viewing audience. Headlines work best with pictures with movement and action from the selected stories, preferably stories which will hold the audience through the entire programme. Editors who appreciate it make the task a priority, assigning their leading writers (or in some cases the presenters) to select the pictures and words with proper care.
In most cases it ought to be possible to identify potential headline stories early enough in the planning cycle to brief the reporters and camera teams assigned to them to be on the look-out for an especially telling picture or two. Many of the most effective are those headlines which have been shot specifically for the purpose and are not repeated in the body of a report. This does not mean losing out on the best pictures: a slightly different camera angle or framing is often quite enough.
Guidelines for headline pictures
• Be brief – one shot should suffice.
• Keep camera movement to a minimum – it can be distracting.
• People make the best pictures – buildings are boring.
Ideally, every headline phrase to accompany the pictures should be short, clear and strictly relevant. In five or six seconds – fifteen or eighteen words – it should be possible to get across the essence of most stories. Brevity is preferable to headlines which virtually tell everything, and clarity – one thought is better than two or more. Cleverly teasing headlines, however well written in their own way, may leave the viewer wondering … and distracted.
Good headline writing can enliven even the least exciting day. As ever, of course, it is entirely subjective. For some tastes ‘Eight British climbers were rescued after being trapped for a week …’ would not sound nearly as strong as ‘Eight British climbers have been rescued after being trapped for a week …’ or as urgent as ‘Eight British climbers are rescued after being trapped for a week’, while ‘Eight British climbers rescued: trapped for week’ might be considered too much like a newspaper headline.
The present tense probably works best in many circumstances, adding an immediacy which no other can match, but headlines should be in the present tense only when the event is happening. Things that have already happened belong in the past tense.1
Therefore, even immediately after an explosion for example, one of the following would be correct:
• ‘A bomb explosion in the centre of Cape Town – three people are thought to have died.’
• ‘The new South African Government has imposed immediate new laws of arrest and detention after a bomb exploded in central Cape Town.’
• This is the scene in Cape Town tonight as efforts continue to reach three people trapped following an explosion.’
Clearly in some cases the present tense is inappropriate – e.g. when referring to a time which is forthcoming:
• In the next hour, the government in Sierra Leone falls …’
• In the next hour, as three bombs go off in Cape Town we ask – who still wants to stop South Africa’s search for harmony and peace?’
How many headlines? There is no set rule. Logic suggests the longer the programme the more headlines can be accommodated, but avoid a lengthy list containing other than selections which represent the outstanding items. Three, perhaps four – five at most.
A great deal of production effort often goes into creating the insets which appear over the presenter’s shoulder in the studio in some news channels. Some combine graphics and video most imaginatively. The least effective are those which are too abstract for immediate identification by the viewer, or are out of proportion with the main subject – often a picture of a face – dominating rather than complementing the reader. At times, too, the writing does not always make a sufficient link to an inset, leaving the audience to guess the connection between what they are seeing and what they are being told. One reason for this could be lack of communication between writer and designer. There may not be a need in every case for a direct reference, but some positive link between the two ought to be established within the opening few seconds.
As with the headlines, the best illustrations are often those which have been designed especially for the purpose, although some designers – or more likely the producers who instruct them – sometimes seem to be uncertain whether their efforts speak for themselves and feel the need to add a written word or two by way of extra explanation. All but a few are irritating and unnecessary, coming across as patronizing to the viewers who may feel they are being told they lack the intelligence to understand a purely visual concept.
No doubt the fashionable ‘halfway headlines’ or ‘still-to-come’ sequences will disappear as quickly as they arrived, but for the time being they represent useful devices for changing the pace of a programme or linking sections separated by a break for advertising.
‘Halfway heads’ present writers with a particular problem when all they offer the viewer is essentially no more than a repetition of the opening headlines. At this later stage of the proceedings, it could be argued, the emphasis ought to be different and room found for a subtle change in the words used perhaps only 15 minutes earlier to illustrate the top stories. The trick is to find another way of saying the same thing without losing the original impact in case members of the audience have missed the top of the programme. This is especially true in the early evening, when the switch-on factor is probably highest among viewers returning home from work.
‘Still to come’ offers two main promotional opportunities – for headline stories which do not make it into the first half of the newscast, and ‘secondary’ headlines for other attractive, perhaps less newsy items lower down the running order. But here words and pictures have to work hard to keep viewers watching, for the assumption is that a story which does not appear high up signifies its lack of importance.
Closing sequences which include a recap of the main opening headlines, with or without pictures, ought not to be just a lazy duplicate of what has gone before. Running headline stories which have moved on should be updated and others reworded to change tense.
Where there is news, expect there to be weather. Or, to be more specific, a forecast transmitted before, during, or after a newscast. Weather conditions provide a fascinating talking point not confined to audiences in those countries in which information about climate is regarded more seriously than almost anything else. Is it a rule of nature that everyone is interested in the weather forecast.
For every television newscast the obvious importance of weather coverage as a service throws up a number of questions, the most crucial of which is whether it is part of and controlled by the news service, or an adjunct to and provided independently from it. The answer in many cases is both. Weather information, commonly placed around newscasts, may come within the remit of those who organize an entire programme schedule, while more localized forecasts are an integral and vital part of regional news.
Many years ago newscasts might have been content to let a presenter read out a short forecast as the last item – with or without an accompanying map or two – or hand the task to a not necessarily telegenic employee of the Met Office. Today, the daily weather slot lasting a minute or two is more likely to be one of the main ingredients by which the success of a news programme is measured. With it has come the creation of a breed of ‘weather-casters’, many of whom have become public figures in their own right, whether they are trained meteorologists or television professionals. The extent to which idiosyncratic weather-casters are allowed the freedom to dress or behave in ways which match the conditions they happen to be describing depends both on the style of the programme they serve and the editorial control exercised over them.
For the most part, though, newscasts benefit from offering forecasters who provide the weather outlook without too many frills. In either case the more scientific but rather dull recitation of information has tended to give way to easily assimilated summaries in a variety of styles and length against a background of maps and symbols from a separate studio or from within the same news setting.
Much of the raw data is provided by state-owned meteorological centres which gather it through a combination of satellites, ships, aircraft, rainfall stations and other sources, and have the scientists to analyse it. Increasing accuracy has allowed forecasts covering weekend and four-day periods to become a popular addition to programme weather-slots.
Figure 13.7 Weather forecasts, enhanced by advanced meteorological techniques and brought to life by computer graphics, are an essential ingredient of television programmes all over the world, sometimes as an integral part of the news, rarely far from it. (a) Sian Lloyd presenting ITV National UK weather on channel 3; (b) Andrea Mclean presenting GMTV morning weather for an outside broadcast in Australia. (Photos courtesy of International Weather Productions.)
Illustration of the weather has been revolutionized since the introduction of computer graphics systems (not all of which are as expensive as their sophistication might suggest). On-screen animation simulates the movement of weather fronts and cloud formations clearly and effectively.
With the improved presentation has come the need to introduce the weather more imaginatively. ‘Finally, the weather’ scarcely does it justice. Surveys by news organizations provided the evidence they needed to show that the weather forecast was a critical part of a news service. The on-air time period provided for the weather has grown considerably, and it probably deserves it.
1. Style Guide (2000). BBC News.