'AS LIVE' PRODUCTION: Project Evaluation - That's A Wrap!

PROJECT EVALUATION
Pre-production
I started this unit very unsure on how to create a 30 minute television show. I've never been very good at the ideas part at the very beginning of the pre-production stage - once the idea has been thought of, I am better at working towards a final product. 

This is why I was happy to be working in pairs for the studio production unit, as two heads are always better than one. This worked out well for me as we ended up going with Katie's idea which had more structure than my stand up show idea. We tried to work on every aspect of the show for the pitch so the panel could see how much work we had put into the idea, I created a model set to showcase our design ideas, other sections we covered in the pitch were the format, style and timings.

I enjoyed working with Katie in the build up to the pitch, I thought we had a good show going which was different to what other years had done before, there was also a market for it on television so I thought we were onto a good start - I must have been correct because Katie and I went on to get the winning pitch. That moment was amazing, to think we were going to create our small idea and make it into a real television show, but that's when the hard work started.

I did a lot of research into different fashion shows which have been around, such as Gok's How To Look Good Naked and I looked through many fashion magazines to get more content ideas - this worked well as I found the '1 buy, 4 ways' article which developed into our Styles of the Season segment, where we take one piece of clothing and dress it two different ways, one for an younger girl and one for a more mature woman.

Our segments changed throughout the pre-production stage:
Styles of the Season - was originally Trends of the Week but we realised trends don't really change week by week. Developed from my research.

Fashion Fails - came about at a production meeting and we all liked the idea of audience participant, after losing the 'hot or not' board in the original pitch.

Old to New - came from our Very Vintage idea, everyone knew more about fashion trends coming back e.g. bum bags than the type of vintage fashion we wanted to include, Katie and I were happy to tweak this segment to fashion through the eras. We got a really successful VT out of this one, we couldn't have got the same style about a vintage fair. We also would have had a presenter walking round a fair, which would have been too similar to the presenter challenge VT

DIY - came about from a production meeting. Developed from our original 'Independent Store' segment. We thought the story of online sellers Vs high street stores was more interesting than independent stores, as online sellers are getting more popular with website such as Etsy and Notonthehighstreet.com.

I am not used to delegating or being a leader of a project so I was unsure on how to approach the producer role at the beginning, without being strict or not working enough with everyone else. Again, this is where I was happy to have a joint role with Katie so we could work together with everyone else. From the start, we worked closely with the directors, Gavin and George L, and the production assistant, Victoria and the production Manager, Jemma. We were lucky to have them to work with because they thought of ideas that we hadn't. 

Being one of the producers, I knew my role was mainly pre-production. I had to work with everyone so they could help make our ideas come alive. While I was working with the different groups, I was very thankful to Jemma who was creating paperwork for me to sign, creating the running orders, and controlling the budget. 

Scriptwriting was the main role for me, I only had to write one half of the script (the second half) but this was very difficult. I knew from our first ever unit (storytelling) that I didn't want to be a script writer - I also didn't realise this would be the biggest role for the producer before the pitch. However, throughout the unit, I think I developed each script well, especially once we got the presenters in and I was able to hear their feedback, as they would be the ones reading it on the live show. I did a lot of research into other chat shows to see how they link and change gears into new segments to keep the audience interested. I believe I took this research on board and applied it within the script well. Each version got better and better, and we were able to picture the content within the show well. 

The set design was an important part of the pre-production stage as we wanted the set to give off a high end show rather than a student production. We met with the set design team twice, once to pitch the idea to them at the beginning and they came to the studios once. We also met again with two people from the team at the studios where they showed us final ideas - Shanice and Alex. I always have been interested in set design / interior design, which is why I was up for creating a model set for the pitch. Once we heard the final ideas from the team we were happy with what they created. They had taken our ideas on board from the pitch which we were very happy with.

I was very thankful for Jack (casting) and Laura (locations) as we just had to tell them the sort of people and places we thought would be best for the show, and they were then able to advertise the show on casting websites, and contact different charity shops and high street councils. We really wanted one female and one male presenter, we wanted four models, two older and two younger, and we wanted to work with a few charity shops for the presenter challenge - they were able to get all of these to which I am very grateful. 

The whole idea of the production groups feeding back to their producers, then onto the PA and PM, and then onto us worked really well. We were in constant contact with Victoria and Jemma with questions, ideas and issues from the rest of the production team. Communication was very strong from everyone involved with the show. Our production meetings also helped with this as it was a good opportunity for people to talk to us about the show. These also included Helen and Jo, which was very useful incase we forgot about something, they were able to bring it up and we could discuss it.  

We came across a few problems within the pre-production stage, such as the first drag act dropping out and nearly having to cut the segment, and loosing one of the models, but we overcame these as a team and still produced a successful show. 


Production
During the rehearsals, I mainly had to keep track of the content, made sure nothing inappropriate was said and to decide what was cut or extended in relation to the timings with the PA and PM. In rehearsals, I mainly either stayed quiet in the gallery, letting the director take over, or was out on the studio floor making sure the guests and presenters were happy, and helping Jack to get them into the right clothes and the correct positions on and around the set.

During transmission, I stayed quiet in the gallery, and spoke to the PA on every VT to ask how the timing was. Our live show was a success and I was so pleased with everyones work. A few days after transmission, the show was available for us to watch. I watched the full 30 minutes and noticed a few minor mistakes:

- During one of the interviews there is a small bang, we think this is a clipboard getting dropped.
- There were a few times when the cameras adjusted while we were live.
- There is a very brief moment during the drag performance where the shot cuts to black. This is not very visible so shouldn't take peoples attention away from the show.
- Adeline says Sofia's mesh top was from Boohoo, when the graphic said PLT. Again, this is so minor in amongst all the other information, it shouldn't take any attention away from the show.

Post production

The show was filmed 'as live', meaning we were able to edit minor things if needed. We did three near-perfect rehearsals the day before transmission which we have to fall back on if we want, however the mistakes are so minor we didn't feel we needed to edit the show.

The last thing for me to do will be to make sure a copy of the show is sent over to the presenters and guests to say thank you for participating. 

CRITICAL REFLECTIONS 
Strengths 
- I think my communication skills were good from the beginning, I made sure the rest of the production team knew I was always available to contact for them to ask any questions. I also directly messaged people if I wanted to find something out myself. 

- The final scripted worked really well. It ended very conversational and brought a bit of personality by the presenters ad-libbing and talking to the models about how they feel in the clothes in relation to what they usually wear. These were the main things Helen told me and Katie to work on so I am very happy we were successful in this.

- I worked with many professional people and people from outside the university, such as the lighting team, the studio technicians, presenters, guests and contributors, and I feel that I was professional towards them. We were receiving feedback from contributors that we were all very professional and organised throughout the rehearsals and lead up to the show. As producer, I made it my priority to constantly check up on the presenters, guests and contributors to make sure they were happy and comfortable. After each rehearsal I made it clear how well everyone was doing on set, and that we were all very pleased with how it was going.

- We liaised with the PA well as we hit dead on 30 minutes for the live show. We were communicating a lot and amending the script and running order up until the week before.

Weaknesses
- I think I lacked team leading skills, I was able to communicate with people well but actually leading them and telling them what to do, I wasn't as strong. 

- Delegation wasn't a strong skill of mine, I believe I got better throughout the months leading up until the show, but I should have been stronger at the beginning and got my ideas across better to avoid re-shoots or people being unsure with what we wanted to produce. I have never had to delegate anything before and wasn't sure how much work I should be doing or delegating it to other people. I did a lot of research which was good because I had a clearer idea of what we wanted - content wise, which I could then help explain to other people. 

- We thought the script was final at Final Script 4 but then we received more feedback so we created a Final Studio Script (5). Annoyingly, most of the production team thought script 4 was final and didn't realise we did another - this was a communication error on our part. Ideally, we should have finished the script earlier as it wasn't fair on the production team to keep printing more scripts a week before the live show.

- I feel as if sometimes people didn't listen to me, I had doubts about the first drag being able to get time off school so easily, and then she was unavailable for the transmission. We then got another drag on board who was a lot more suited for the show and we really got on well with her, but we could have done without the extra stress. 

- There were a lot of things I didn't even realise I needed to think about until people told me or had done it themselves, e.g. Gavin was more in contact with the set design team because he knew someone from the team, and he was telling me their ideas rather than them contacting me directly - I wasn't sure if this was meant to be my job or it was ok that the director was more in contact with them. Another example, would be buying the outfits, Jemma did this, I wasn't sure whether it should have been me to do this or her as she had access to the budget, but I offered to help where I could. 


What did I learn?
If I was to produce another television show, I would know for next time to:
- Get my ideas across well from the beginning, as a few weeks in to the project some people were still unsure of what we expected from them - as producing was new to Katie and I, sometimes we weren't even sure on what we wanted.

- Stick to deadlines more, e.g. getting the script done on time or before to allow people more time to revise it.

- Team work is so important within the pre-production stage as well as during the live environment on the filming day. The director couldn't call the shots if the camera operators weren't focused, and us producers couldn't have our content delivered during the show if the floor managers hadn't had the contributors in the correct places ready to make their appearance on set.

- Spend even more time with the different production groups, graphics, VT and promo, e.g. we didn't have a set logo until a good couple of weeks before the live show, this may be because I should have spent more time with Simon to get across what exactly we wanted for the colour scheme and logo, which he could then create the lower thirds and stings with. We were very pleased with the VTs but we didn't see much of their planning before shooting them, we just saw them once they had been filmed, again if we spent more time with them before shooting we could have given more input and feedback. 


Conclusion
I have found out how much work goes into one episode of a live show over these past few months. I never realised how many people it took to research and think of ideas to create an interesting show for a live audience. I also learnt about the work a producer does for a television show, and all the things they have to green light and tick off to make sure their ideas are getting across appropriately. The content for the show developed significantly from our original pitch, I wasn't sure if this was a good thing as we wanted to keep parts of the original idea, but as we were writing the script I realised how much more content we received by getting everyone else to think of ideas also as I now don't think our original idea would have made a worthy 30 minute show - it definitely wouldn't have been as interesting without the drag.

Katie and I liaised with everyone as much as we could, we were able to look at rough cuts and be apart of the production of the VT's with our feedback, and we were able to see promos ideas for the trailers and title sequences and again, gave our feedback on them. We were very picky with graphics and made sure we had the logo we wanted as this would be posted everywhere to advertise the show - it was essential that we liked the final logo.

The transmission was successful, everyone was professional and we even got feedback about this from contributors, and we pulled off a great first ever show.