Producing for TV

On the work done by TV news producers, watch the video linked here which follows a day in the life of Magnus McGrandle, a rather harried producer on the main BBC newscast. He walks us through the process of putting together an on-the-day package with the diplomatic correspondent. A couple of vocab terms: at the BBC, a SOT stands for sound-on-tape or a clip, and an animate is an animated head. Elvis and Jupiter are various different computer systems, and an aston is a super, or the slide identifying the speaker. I should say that in all my time as a TV correspondent, I never had a producer typing up my script as I thought out loud, so not all that you see in that video may be as it is in reality.

Above is a glimpse into the job of a daily TV newscast producer in a local American newsroom, all narrated in Olde Worlde style. Nowadays, producer roles cover a whole variety of skills, as can be seen in this most recent ABC ad for a Digital Video Producer/Journalist based in Canberra. The program description spells out the skillset, which is basically to know how to shoot, edit and create viral video for mobile, which — as you’ll realise — is a completely different set of qualifications than those possessed by the BBC news producer.