Temp-ting

So, I’ve not been working this week, which of course gives rise to some worry in this economy. Like everyone else I’m looking at what I can do to keep going through these lean times – which I imagine will be for the next 9-12 months at least. Fortunately I survived the aftermath of the dot com boom and continental relocation so I have no doubt that as long as I remember to leave my ego at the door I’ll be able to get through this one too.

I’m doing what a lot of people do, falling back on my other skills to make ends meet. My other skills include budgeting, helping people out with their smaller projects, in fact I’ve been working with a guy down in Virginia who wants to put together a reality show and somehow I’m moving into a development role trying to shape the idea into something that we can pitch to MTV. That would never have happened ordinarily. Fortunately my recent experience on the MTV reality show taught me quite a lot about how the networks like their shows packaged.  

But my one big fall back skill is dare I admit it, temping. Yes the dreaded T word that no one in TV ever wants to do. It amazes me how many people prefer to live on the breadline, take shockingly badly paid work rather than be seen as a ‘temp’. But temping is a great opportunity, not only does it keep money flowing in, but I get the chance to dip into the ‘other world’ the world where people go to work at 9am and leave at 5pm not 10pm, or 2am. The world where office politics involves trying to work out who cooked broccoli in the communal kitchen, not who’s to blame when the show goes over budget. The world in which I walk out the door at the end of the day without having a head full of worry about the budget, schedule and shoot arrangements for the next five day.

Fine the pay isn’t as high but then when my usual work is broken down into an hourly rate I barely make minimum wage anyway. I get less money but more life; I can see people after work, go to the gym I can even take those evening classes I’ve been so keen to do (interactive digital media courses in case you were wondering).  Sure I am the anonymous ‘temp’ and get given work to do that a donkey could do but so what? It’s a living and it can be really nice to remind myself what kind of other career I could have had and you’d be surprised what kind of new skills you can pick up. I remember once several years ago picking up an assignment at a construction company in their finance department which came in very handy when I started developing build budgets for our DIY show.

So that’s what I’m going to be doing to make ends meet between projects during these lean and slightly crazy times. What are you guys out there doing to get by?

I predict I’ll be temping just long enough that when the next big project finally does come in that eats up all my time, energy and headspace, I’ll welcome it with open arms.

TV without advertisers

Ok, so this is not strictly about what I do in TV but I saw this piece via my usual media news aggregation and thought it raised some pretty interesting questions.

In essence it’s an article about how people are no longer paying for television because they can get most of their favorite shows for free online. Now while this isn’t particularly new or newsworthy this article in particular struck me, not because the people interviewed in it didn’t want to pay for the television that they watch but because the people interviewed actually work in the media. This not only struck me as particularly short sighted but for the first time made me worry a little bit as someone who works in TV. If even people within our own industry aren’t willing to pay to watch television, what hope is there for its future?

Here in the US everyone and their mother are looking for ways to ensure content is still paid for on the net; the newspapers didn’t and are suffering dearly for it now. Some of the networks are being smart and putting episodes online complete with adverts, while Netflix has done some sweet deals with CBS and NBC to show prime time shows to their paying customers. Even hulu.com slips a bit of advertising in to their online content and why shouldn’t they?

The truth is, it costs money to make television and that money has to come from somewhere. Advertisers have a long and successful relationship with the television industry. Advertisers provide the money, broadcasters provide the audience for adverts alongside the programming. If you take advertisers out of the equation, who’s going to fund the program? Netflix is a great model for subscription based viewing but most people won’t want to pay for what used to be free. Under the current model of network television you can watch whatever shows you’d like and the only cost is minutes of your time to see an advertisement for a product you may or may not wish to buy.

Maybe if networks hadn’t sold as many adverts people wouldn’t be suffering from overexposure. Perhaps the US can take a leaf from the UKs book and limit commercial breaks to every 15 minutes for no more than 3 minutes. But that’s a digression.

A show I made last year allowed some level of product placement in the show and it worked tremendously well. There were guideline such as no specific product endorsement by the host and any visual credit would need to be introduced organically into the show. In our case we used packaging and T-shirt wearing delivery people to advertise in exchange for products we couldn’t have afforded nor done the show without.

Another method being discussed are timely commercials that relate to the action in the show just prior to the commercial break and in other instances companies are contributing to keeping a show alive such as the recent deal between NBC and Subway for ‘Chuck’.

Whichever way you look at it, we’re not going to be getting television for free any more than movies will be made for the love of making movies. Whether we pay for it or the advertisers pay for it somebody needs to because without a source of income, there will be no money to make television with and a whole lot more of us will be out of a job.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/14/AR2009051404522.html?wprss=rss_technology

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/20/business/media/20adco.html?_r=1&ref=media

 

What’s wrong with Television

I used to love my job. I loved the buzz, the excitement, the collaboration. I didn’t mind the long hours, being away from home, the tension and the sometime unbearable pressure because I enjoyed being part of something that contributed positively to the world. True, I worked in documentary back then but it didn’t change when I moved into entertainment because we were producing a great product, always either something I was proud of or enjoyed making and occasionally I’d be lucky enough to get both.

 But lately I’ve started to become disillusioned with working in television and with the television that we’re making.

Maybe it’s because I started out in the UK where the emphasis is on educating and entertaining audiences, where subject matters are handled with sensitivity rather than exploitation. A show like The Hills in the UK is pure fiction and called Hollyoaks where it’s relegated to the hangover TV slot rather than used as a marketing tool to sell music and an aspirational lifestyle to impressionable teenagers and young people.

Nowadays in this country networks seem reluctant to take any kind of risk and commission interesting shows. They commission series that will further cement the brand identity of the channel or that allow for multi platform cross promotion and text generated revenue. Thank goodness for subscription based channels like HBO and Showtime that due to their nature are able to entertain and engage the audiences brains so they are not watching a show passively but actually learn from what they are watching.

I read recently in the New York Times that MTV is looking to commission positive social programming, and while that’s a step in the right direction the likelihood is that it won’t lead to a better quality of television. No doubt it will be handled in the same way as all their other shows, with manipulative storytelling devices, close ups of people acting totally natural, with the emphasis on acting and some sort of pseudo ethical resolution. I know that’s high on the priority list for our show.

There seems to be something really big missing from US television and that’s a heart. People speculate whether the television on the internet will be the death of television. I can only hope that having a bigger choice of programming will lead networks to realize that instead of narrowing the field of programming to regurgitated shows with minutely varying topics (sound familiar Bravo, VH1, MTV?) they can broaden out to commission challenging one off documentaries, unique and gritty series made by non seasoned (read: cynical) production people that will give people a dose of real reality without all the glitz, glam and hair pulling.

If not television has a real serious danger of disappearing up its own bleached anus.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/business/media/19mtv.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=MTV&st=cse

 

Water Into Wine

It’s very interesting getting to see how a reality show is put together. I don’t mean the production side of things because we haven’t started filming yet. I mean the story side because of course a reality show would have a story department…

Now I can’t say too much because I’ve signed a confidentiality agreement so I’ll try to choose my words carefully.

In the course of telling my friends and family about the reality show I’m working on, the first question I get asked is ‘what kind of reality show is it?’ And I realize that the term reality now seems to apply more appropriately to competition based shows where people are put in a situation where they have to compete for some prize whether it is a lock of Bret Michaels hair, a pile of cash or the golden prize; the cover of People.

 In theory they are meant to be acting naturally in their situation but in reality they are expertly guided by story producers, who feed them their lines and action to get the most entertaining footage.

Fortunately this is not one of those shows!

This is the other kind, where we put people into situations, guide them expertly to get the most entertaining footage but there’s no competition involved. Ha ha

But seriously, it does beg the greater question, what’s the draw for the show? What’s the hook, the angle, the reason to keep watching?

I think this is where the challenge really lies for the story team in that not only do they need to ensure that the story is interesting in each episode but there really needs to be an overarching storyline that pushes the series. The cast need to be likeable and happy so they are actually able to act naturally in the wacky situations they find themselves in, which isn’t as easy as it may sound when you have 3 cameras pointing at you.

Reality is really a lot harder to make good than it looks, you can’t control the action, you can’t predict how the cast will behave and begrudgingly, I have to applaud these poor people who have to turn water into MTV viewer grade wine!