ALT-1 A Career in TV Broadcasting behind the Scenes
Television is a worldwide media that gives viewers a lot of enjoyment, although many forget the jobs in the background that make television work. A career in these fields can be a very rewarding one, and areas worth considering include these.
News and documentary
Behind the scenes of news and documentary lie teams of workers who explore, research, and ensure that the TV company have the facts right. Working in a news team suits journalistic people, and there are many areas here that fit into the category of research. Working on anything from weather to lifestyle, the research team are those people that can work to deadlines, produce good and effective program facts, and teamwork in this area is essential. If you are a team worker with journalistic tendencies, then this is probably a good area to look for work.
Cameramen
The cameramen that work for television have to make snap decisions. At any one time, there may be a dozen cameras in action, and each camera man has to be ready for the prompt that the producer wants to move to his camera. It's a very specialized kind of work and requires not only camera skill, but the ability to use initiative and interaction with others.
Sound
Sound recording is especially important in the field of television, since filming may take place in any kind of environment, and the sound recordist has the job of producing good sound quality. Audiences will not settle for less than the best, and those devoted to sound work are extremely important in a television company.
Prompting
This is an area of particular stress. Working in prompting is not just a matter of typing script onto a screen. It is important that the script scrolls in time with the presenter themselves. It's a stressful job and those of a nervous disposition would do well to avoid this area of TV work, since it involves snap of the moment decisions and a cool head. For example, you listen to the presenters, you scroll their words for them, but whilst doing this you are also listening to instructions from the control room, and may be asked to take an item out of a program script without having time to query it, and without delay, since a program may be running over its allotted time. This really is a hard job to do, and would require someone with infinite patience, and a calm temperament.
Costume and Make-up
Here, the skills of presenting are the be all and end all. The make up artist has to learn the difference between the normal skills of make-up and producing make up that works with the TV filming which has to take into account light, location, and indeed the effects the producers want to produce. For example, special make up skills are needed to age characters or to make them look younger, and the make up artist is asked to be on the set during filming ready to touch in make-up as the filming progresses.
Costume is a great area to work in, and here the kind of people that would be employed are those that are not only skilled in sewing, but those that are imaginative enough to come up with designs within budgets that fit the program being made. It is essential to have a working knowledge of fashion from all different eras of history, and to be able to produce costumes that work. The public would certainly notice if the costume department made mistakes.
These are the back-room boys of television, and of course there are many more jobs available within the television industry, though the jobs outlined above are a good cross section of work which is available in the TV industry.
When you think of television, these are the unsung heroes of television, although their role is every bit as essential as those artists that appear on the television screen.
