ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines a producer’s view of working with HD. It aims to give engineers an insight into the production process and help producers and directors working for the first time in the high-definition medium. The author shares his experience of producing different genres of high-definition programmes – musical events, sports, drama and documentary – and identifies some of the most common pitfalls. The old definition of a producer’s responsibility was to create
programmes that educate, entertain and inform. Few professionals would deny that is still the aim, though giving excitement, delight and securing a good audience share are also requirements in a competitive world. The starting point in whatever genre – drama, light entertainment, documentary, music, news – will always be a narrative of some kind, whether factual of fictitious. Production decisions, artistic, commercial and technical, will be made to serve the needs of that story. Those needs will condition the choice of writers, actors, musicians, designers, camera, sound and post-production teams. They will certainly be factors in determining the level of budget that has to be raised, and the channel to broadcast it. Last, but not least, they will determine the acquisition format. Today, a major choice is increasingly whether to record in standard or high definition. A producer may be attracted towards using high definition for
aesthetic reasons, but the real motive will almost certainly be because the subject of the programme is especially suited to HD treatment. That insight will need to be recognised by a broadcaster who has decided to commission – and pay for – the programme in that format. Having made the decision to take the high-definition route, it is the producer’s job to pull together the many strands, creative, technical, legal and commercial, and make sure that ‘everyone is making the same programme’.
