Unit 7 TV Studio Production

TV Studio Production

What is a Studio Production? A Studio Production is a piece of media created in the controlled environment of a studio.

examples of Studio Production: the Grand Tour, Stranger Things, House of Fools, Power Rangers, Batman, Friends, Gordon, X-Factor.

Live: X-Factor, SNL, This Morning

Live-to-Tape: the Grand Tour, the Chase

Pre-Produced: House of Fools, Stranger Things, Power Rangers, Batman, Gordon

Live studio productions are filmed and sent out at exactly the same time, this means there is no time for post production and only live editing is available.

Live-to-Tape studio productions are very similar to live productions in terms of how they "feel". Most mistakes will make it to air but some segments may still be cut as there is a small window for post-production work. Talk shows are the most popular form of live-to-tape productions. 

Advantages of a studio location: controlled environment, set location.

Disadvantages: can be very creatively restricting.

Research:

Our production will mimic the style and format of late night talk shows. The colours mostly consist of dark blues, purple and black to evoke a "night out" feeling in the audience. The lighting is harsh and a live studio audience is used to make it seem authentic. Usually, there is a big name guest and a zany host who trade humorous anecdotes and slight promotions of recent works of the guest (be it film, book, TV, music etc.). Our group is going to satirise this formula both visually and in terms of writing. Charlie Sheen was a great source of inspiration for our group as in interviews he is very erratic and rude and had a very notable sex scandal which is coming out about a lot of celebrities today, making it a great source of black humour. Another notable source of black humour in our work is celebrity "tell all" memoirs, these are often framed as depressing, self aggrandising which again make them easy targets. 

Planning:

THE [CENSORED] SHOW - LIGHT PLAN - Google Docs

THE [CENSORED] SHOW - PROPS - Google Docs

THE [CENSORED] SHOW - SCRIPT

THE [CENSORED] SHOW - CAST LIST 

THE [CENSORED] SHOW - SCHEDULE

My group consists of  me, Kenzie Day and Alex Temperley.

Production:

Production was supposed to commence on either Wednesday the 22nd or Friday the 24th of March. However, pon seeing the scheduling of other groups we decided to film on Thursday instead as it was the least busy day. On the Wednesday, I acted in another group's project as they were short of actors, this went well. After this, we fully assembled our props and costume from the costume room and left them organised so that we wouldn't have to waste anytime on the day of filming. The same day, we fully built the set for the same reasoning and left it overnight so that we could devote all of our time to filming. On the Thursday morning however we were faced with an obstacle. Another group had, unbeknownst to us, decided to use the space. This meant that we had to take the set down and wait for them to finish before we could begin filming. In the end, this group decided not to film at all anyway so we quickly put the set back together and got into costume. Our crew were quickly positioned and ready. Most of our production was shot in chronological order which made the process a lot easier and allowed it to flow much better. The only time we did not film in chronological order was for one scene with our "audience member" Aiden Hope as he was only available for an hour. Filming only took us just over an hour. The biggest challenge proved to be tidying away our set and props. After this, myself, Kenz Day and Jack Herriott left college to retrieve Kenz's laptop and begin editing. This took about 4-5 hours and was finished within the same day. The editing is overall good besides a few choppy bits and the volume control on the sound bytes wasn't the greatest but gave us an idea of what to do in future.

Our finished poster.

Evaluation:

Everything went well, it was a very productive shoot and was wrapped quickly. Everybody knew what was what and this allowed things to go much more smoothly. The set was great and captured the feel that was intended of a purposely low budget talk show, the lighting was great and we all performed well. I wish that we managed to have a screen as was originally planned for the logo and a tablecloth for the desk but these are minor things. The biggest issues are with the editing which we have since learned from after working on other projects. Ultimately this was fun, allowed us to express our unique sense of humour and served as a learning opportunity for all of us.