A television production is the performance of a television show, either live or taped. In another sense, a TV production is the actual making of the program, which involves pre- and post-production activities such as scriptwriting, set design, and videotape editing.

Television production is loosely divided into broadcast and nonbroadcast. Broadcast television is generally produced by the commercial TV stations and professional production companies that make the dramas, comedy series, newscasts, documentaries, game shows, and advertisements familiar to television viewers. Nonbroadcast production is not intended for showing on the usual broadcast channels. Educational TV stations, private production companies, and some college TV studios specialize in creating educational and industrial programming used in schools or for on-the-job training. Much of today's TV production is produced on a small scale in hospitals, churches, businesses, and schools for demonstration or training purposes, for recording speeches, or for documenting events. Some of this production may appear on the public channels made available to communities by their cable-system operators.

THE PRODUCTION STAFF

In small educational, cable, and industrial TV studios, all phases of a TV production might be handled by one or two people. In larger commercial studios and broadcast TV stations, teleproduction activities are assigned to a number of specialists. They include the executive producer, who manages budget and coordinates advertising and other financial support. He or she is often in charge of several programs or series. The producer hires personnel for an individual production and coordinates technical and nontechnical production elements. The director directs talent during production, selects shots, and coordinates the production crew. In effect, the director transforms the script into the final TV production. TV writers range from those who create dramas and other staged fiction to the staff people who script news reports and other verbal material that accompanies TV pictures. A TV script usually includes rough visual and sound directions. "Talent" includes actor, reporters, hosts, guests, off-camera narrators--anyone who appears before the camera, or whose voice is heard.

The camera operator aims and moves the camera and composes shots. The audio engineer mixes sound from the several microphones--either hung at various points around the set or worn by the talent--with recorded music and sound effects. Mixing produces the final sound that will be broadcast or recorded. The technical director operates the camera switcher, switching from camera to camera upon command from the director. The lighting director aims and balances studio lighting. The video engineer adjusts electronic camera controls for optimal TV picture, and may also operate the videotape recorders. The floor manager supervises studio activities, relays the director's cues to the talent, handles cue cards, and coordinates the work of the stagehands who set up and move sets, props, and equipment.

Finally, the editor takes the original tapes, which contain both video and audio tracks, and melds all the segments together using a professional editing VIDEOCASSETTE \Trecorder\t and other electronic instruments.

VIDEO EQUIPMENT SYSTEMS

In a TV studio the cameras send their pictures (video) into the control room, where the signals are passed to a switcher/special effects generator and to a bank of control-room monitors. The director chooses the desired shot from these camera monitors and calls it out to the technical director. The technical director then pushes the corresponding button on the switcher, selecting that particular shot to be recorded or broadcast. Switching instantly from one picture to another is called a cut. Other controls on the switcher permit pictures to be mixed together in various ways, which are collectively called special effects. They resemble the basic effects used in movie editing and include the fade, where the picture becomes dim and goes to black ("fade out") or appears from black ("fade up"); the dissolve, where one picture fades out while another simultaneously fades in as if one picture were melting into another; the split screen, where two pictures are shown on the screen simultaneously; the wipe, a split screen where the border moves, replacing one picture with another; the key, where text, graphics, or perhaps parts of another scene appear to be laid over the original TV image; and the chroma key. The last is a special key effect in which a performer or prop is displayed before a blue (or some other preselected color) background. The background is then electronically removed from the picture and replaced with another camera's picture--a weather map, for example. The weathercaster must observe a TV studio monitor in order to know where to point out areas on the map.

The more elaborate digital video effects--whereby a picture can be bent, rotated, wrapped into a cylinder, or molded into a ball-- require digital frame store devices, which divide the picture into thousands of picture elements (pixels) and convert these elements into numbers. These numbers are algebraically manipulated by computer and then converted back into a modified picture. For instance, doubling all the horizontal pixels would create a picture stretched to twice its normal width (see PAINTBOX).

Electronically generated titles and graphics, video from another videotape, movie film, slides, or a signal received from a satellite or from a portable microwave transmitter several miles away may provide other visual elements that will by mixed with the camera shots. Photographic slides and films are translated into video images in a machine called a telecine.

Sound (audio) is picked up by microphones in the studio and routed to an audio mixing console, where the sound engineer, under command of the director, selects which mikes are to be heard and what sound level will be reached. Recorded music, sound effects, or the sound from other videotapes or films can also be mixed with the microphone sound.

The final audio and video signals are then recorded on a videotape recorder or are sent to a transmission facility to be broadcast "live."

TV cameras must have their electronic signals synchronized with one another in order to have their pictures mixable by the switcher. This task is performed by a master sync generator. Before a show, the sync generator may also be used to create test signals like color bars, which are used by the video engineer to calibrate and adjust the color video signals in the system.

The most important video test equipment is the waveform monitor and the vectorscope. The waveform monitor graphically displays the video signal's intensity. The strengths of the various components of this signal are compared to a standard marked on the waveform monitor's screen. The engineer then adjusts the signal to match the standard. The vectorscope measures the phase of color video test signals, and displays this information as dots on the vectorscope screen. When the color is adjusted correctly, the dots fall exactly within little boxes etched on its screen.

Portable TV systems may have only one camera connected to one videotape recorder, bypassing many of the studio devices mentioned above; or as in many news-reporting systems, they may have several cameras controlled from a miniature control room in a van or trailer. The camera signals can be monitored for quality, switched or mixed, and recorded; or they can be transmitted via microwave back to the main studio to be combined with other elements of the show.

Post-production is the editing of a videotape to include scenes shot out of sequence, or to select the best scenes from several days of shooting. Special effects may be added, along with titles or graphics. Audio may be "sweetened" by the use of sound filters, the addition of echo, or the inclusion of sound effects. Most complex TV productions are assembled in a post-production setting because it is nearly impossible to coordinate live--without error--the myriad shots, decisions, and details that go into such productions.

THE MAKING OF A TV SERIES

Each television network has a president in charge of the entertainment division; he or she receives proposals for TV series from film companies and independent producers. Networks tend to contract more work to a small circle of respected producers who have previously supplied quality programming on time and within budget.

The process begins with a concept proposal that outlines the general content and thrust of the series and may suggest locale or star talent. If the proposal is accepted the program's producer prepares a budget for a pilot episode and selects a TV director, who may have 2 to 20 weeks to pull the show's elements together. The director studies the script, sometimes changing locales, characters, or the script's length to fit within artistic, budget, and time constraints. When scenes are complex, or shot angles are crucial, the director will create a storyboard--rough sketches of each shot--to better describe how scenes will look. The storyboard may be presented to the president for approval before large sums of money are committed for production.

During the ensuing weeks, various components of the production team are hired: location scouts; casting directors; wardrobe, makeup, set-design, special-effects and music personnel; graphic artists; on-location production crews; talent; and extras.

The pilot may be produced on a sound stage before a live audience, or it may be shot on-location over several weeks and edited together later. The pilot is then shown to the network entertainment president, who may cancel the project, suggest changes, or schedule the program for broadcast. Often a program will be test-marketed to a small audience in order to discover the show's strengths and weaknesses. If the pilot is successful, the network may contract for further episodes.

Non-network programs are sold to individual stations or station groups by independent distributors and production companies. Much of this commerce takes place at the yearly National Association of Television Program Executives (NATPE) convention. Here, program series, pilots for series, and written proposals for series are shown to station executives, who may finance their production or buy the already-produced programs (which are often reruns) for broadcast by their stations.

THE PRODUCTION OF A NEWS PROGRAM

An evening network newscast begins to take shape at the noon rundown meeting between the executive producer and the production staff, where--from a large number of news events--25 or so stories are chosen to pursue. Also in attendance, via a conference phone call, will be news bureau chiefs, both foreign and domestic, offering stories that are being followed by their reporters. The executive producer decides how long each story should be and whether a particular angle should be emphasized.

Each bureau then begins writing, recording, and editing the videotape for its particular story. The bureaus sometimes request the head office to research background information, or to transmit to them, via satellite, network file footage that they will edit into their stories. The bureaus generally produce several, different-length versions of a story, and--via courier or satellite--transmit the stories back to the head office at around 5:00 PM Eastern Standard Time. Except for long feature stories, the reports filed by the bureaus are completely finished, needing only a live introduction by the news anchorperson before the tape is played.

As the stories come in, the executive producer begins to organize the final rundown of stories, selecting the 14 to 20 stories that will air that evening. The associate director calculates the timing and duration of the stories so that the newscast lasts exactly 22 1/2 minutes out a 30 minute program that includes commercials. The associate director also arranges for names, titles, and graphics to be prepared to accompany the live parts of the newscast or to introduce taped segments. Meanwhile, staff writers are preparing the newscasters' scripts, which include lead-ins to each story. The on-screen newscasters also participate in the script preparation and exercise some executive control over the content of stories.

Late-breaking stories may be filed only minutes before air time, and some appear live, making it necessary to constantly juggle the remaining stories before and during the newscast. It is common for a 30-second videotaped news report to be reduced to one or two lines read by the anchorperson, or eliminated altogether, if the newscast is running too long.

During the production the TV director selects the camera shots and calls for the videotapes to be played on cue. Meanwhile, the entire broadcast is being recorded for delayed playback to the West Coast one-half hour later. Often, late-breaking news events or technical difficulties make it necessary to perform the newscast live a second time rather than use the recorded newscast.

Foresight is the virtue that makes it possible for a news team to produce such complicated shows on a daily basis. Background information and video segments are collected days in advance for stories that may occur. ENG (Electronic NewsGathering) crews are sent to locations where a newsworthy event may take place. Reporters will often follow numerous quiet stories, anticipating that when one erupts into a solid news story, they will be ready with background facts, contacts, and sources to interview.

Local news is produced live primarily, with prerecorded segments played during the newscast. The news content is under more local control, with newscasters writing much of their own scripts, reporting some of the events directly, and editing the videotape for their own feature stories. Local TV news gets most of its news leads from radio news, police-band radio, and its own reporters. The assignment editor decides whether the story should be transmitted back live via microwave or brought back on tape.

Sportscasting.

Sportscasts are usually performed live with multiple cameras positioned to provide different views of the action. A temporary control room, usually in a van or trailer, houses the TV monitors, switcher, audio, and other production equipment. The director sits in the control room, selecting the camera shots and calling for titles, graphic inserts, or prerecorded segments.

An announcing booth houses the sports commentators and their guests. The TV director communicates with the announcers via an earphone intercom, informing them of commercial or taped interviews coming up. The announcers also are supplied with one or more TV monitors, allowing them to comment on replays or sideline shots.

Although most cameras are wired directly to the van's control room, some cameras are totally portable, transmitting their pictures via microwave to nearby repeaters, which boost the signal and beam it back to the control room. Time base correctors synchronize these signals with the other camera signals, ensuring smooth transitions from shot to shot.

Several cameras may send their signals directly to videotape recorders, making it possible for the director to call for an instant replay from one of them.

Preparations for major events, such as the Olympics, begin months before their occurrence. Miles of trenches may be dug to hold TV and power cables. Camera platforms are built at strategic lookout points. Independent power supplies and back-up supplies are built to assure uninterrupted power. A complex telephone and intercom system is constructed to enable instructions or reports to reach every point in the production area. \TPeter\t UTZ


Bibliography: Gianakos, Larry J., Television Drama Series Programming: A Comprehensive Chronicle (1980); Hilliard, Robert, Television Broadcasting: An Introduction, 2d ed. (1978); Hunter, Julius, and Gross, Lynne S., Broadcast News: The Inside Out (1980); Litman, Barry R., Vertical Structure of the Television Broadcasting Industry (1979); Long, Stewart, The Development of the Television Network Oligopoly (1979); Matusow, Barbara, The Evening Stars: The Making of a Network News Anchor (1984); Rader, Benjamin G., In Its Own Image: How Television Has Transformed Sports (1984); Stephens, Mitchell, Broadcast News: Radio Journalism and and Introduction to Television (1980); Utz, Peter, Video User's Handbook, 2d ed. (1982); Verna, Tony, and Bode, William T., Live TV: An Inside Look at Directing and Producing (1986); Wurtzel, Alan, Television Production, 2d ed. (1983); Zettl, Herbert, Television Production Handbook, 4th ed. (1984).