I recently got a job as a Production Manager for a new Channel 31 program called The F-Word. The F-Word is an hour long show about feminism that includes panel discussions, sex education, book and media reviews and comedy bits and sketches. This job has introduced me to the institution of community television, and more broadly, broadcast television, which is the industry that I want to work in in the future.
Before getting the job, I did not know a lot about Channel 31 and how it worked, and I did not have any experience shooting a multicam program for television. Channel 31 is affiliated with organisations that produce programs, and The F-Word is being backed by RMITV (who represents students). I got this job through a crew call on RMITV’s facebook page from the producer. We met up and she told me about what my role is as a production manager, what her role is as the producer, and what everyone else involved is supposed to do. Meeting with her and talking to her has been very educational, and working in the studio and at home on this show has broadened my understanding of how a tv program works.
I mentioned that I got the job through facebook, which I was reminded of when I read this weeks reading (J. Van Dijck and T. Poell, ‘Making Public Television Social? Public Service Broadcasting and the Challenges of Social Media’, Television & New Media, 2015, Vol.16(2), pp.148-164). Van Dijck and Poell explore Public Service Broadcasting and its developing relationship and engagement with social media. The study talks about how social media affects the social practice of watching television and how it disrupts conventional production and distribution of television.
The aim of PSB is to engage its viewers to create citizens, which is similar to the principles of social media and Web 2.0 in its aim to create active audiences. PSB has been using social media to encourage the co-creation of content, online participation and sharing. This has resulted in new forms of engagement between institutions and audiences, such as citizen journalism.
In terms of my own experience, social media plays a large part in the development of The F-Word. I received my job through social media, and I also look for more crew members on RMITV. The F-Word has its own facebook page, website and blog, which cast and crew share with their networks. Cast and crew are encouraged to also share content that is posted on these various online platforms, and to engage in discussion in comment sections. The F-Word is also hosting a launch party with an early screening of the first episode, and the invitations and information for the launch party are in a facebook event. Because the program has not yet been released, I cannot predict how audiences will interact with the show’s online presence and other viewers, but I know that our audience is a lot larger than it would have been without it, and if they aren’t watching the show on television, they are watching our short form content online.
On a related note, I went to a St Kilda Film Festival forum about breaking into the film industry, and the panel and facilitators talked about crowdfunding, social media, personal branding and expanding audience. They discussed how important it is to know how to crowdfund a project, which is something I want to do before I finish this degree. It’s very interesting to think about how institutions are changing and how power relationships between big companies and the individual are changing.
The forum was recorded by Draft Zero, a podcast about writing screenplays.
