Although the broadcasting industry covers a wide range of video productions, they all share certain basic techniques and require similar craft skills. This Media Manual on television technical operations is written as an introduction for young people entering the broadcast industry. The aim of the manual is to prepare them for working in mainstream television by discussing work attitudes as well as technique and technology, outlining:
- the need to develop a professional approach
- the need to develop the occupational skills needed to meet deadlines, work under pressure, and within budget
- the importance of understanding the potential of broadcast equipment in programme making, and the need to keep up-to-date with technique and technology
- the individual responsibility to ensure continuity of experience and training in all craft skills that technical operators are required to work in
- the need to maintain a critical appraisal of what and who influences their working practices, and how these influences affect production and viewers
- an introduction to the basic skills needed to work as a technical operator in television
- an introduction to broadcast equipment in general production use.
Broadcasting is always in the process of change. New technology, new production techniques, new methods of delivering the programme to the viewer are constantly introduced. Innovation and change have been the lifeblood of an industry created less than seventy years ago. To an understanding of technique and of how technology influences technique must be added the knowledge of programme making formats. A production team will expect each member of the unit to be fully familiar with the customary techniques of the programme format in production. Nobody, for example, will have the time to explain the rules of a sport that is being transmitted live. They will assume that the technical operator knows the standard TV response to different phases of the event.
This manual will concentrate on techniques associated with news and magazine programme production where most technical operators are usually employed, but most techniques are shared across the whole spectrum of television and film making.
There is a great deal of specialized jargon and technical terms used in programme production. Many of these terms are explained at the appropriate point in the text or definitions will be found in the Glossary at the back of the manual. For detailed explanation and more complex description of different aspects of programme production, see Further reading, pages 220 and 221.
Note: Through the manual I use terms such as ‘cameraman’ without wishing to imply that any production craft is restricted to one gender. ‘Cameraman’ for example is the customary title to describe a job practised by both men and women, and ‘he’ where it occurs, should be read as ‘he/she’.