The need for meticulous planning
Brian Lewis, talking about the early days at the UK Open University (OU), discusses the course team approach and the necessary interdependencies between different production activities. His major points concern the variety of teaching materials and support, all of which need to be well-structured and synchronized by a cooperative course team effort, both during the production and in the running of the course. These points remain valid today for the UK Open University and most of them have some relevance for other distance teaching institutions.
The important point to bear in mind is that a considerable variety of teaching materials (correspondence texts, radio and television programmes, home experimental kits and the like) have to be produced, and a considerable number of support activities (study centres, summer schools, discussion notes, comments on homework) must also be arranged ...
The foregoing arrangements and activities must all be carefully interrelated and synchronized. For example, the radio and television programmes must relate to those parts of the course which the student should, according to the student timetable, be studying at the time of transmission ...
These points are fairly obvious. But they compel the conclusion that the whole enterprise calls for cooperative team effort. Instead of each academic being able to 'do his own thing', a fairly large team of academics must collectively devise the total set of materials and activities that each of the University's courses demands. This is so because there is manifestly too much for any one academic to do on his own. It requires a dozen or so academic members of staff, actively supported by a variety of expert advisers (BBC producers, educational technologists, graphic designers, copyright experts, trained editors, computer programmers, and so on) to do everything that is required for the successful running of a 9-month course ...
Each course team tries to operate a number of backward-running schedules. These schedules are backward-running in the sense that certain absolute deadlines are fixed (eg latest time for settling copyright problems, or handing over graphics, or completing final draft of correspondence text), and the work is then spread as evenly as possible over the weeks leading up to the deadlines in question.
The question arises as to how tight and strict the schedule should be. On the one hand, there are good reasons why there should be some slack and why strict adherence to deadlines should be relaxed. Authors and TV producers often come to realize that what they originally intended to write is, in some respects, misconceived. Writing (and TV production even more) is partly a voyage of discovery. It brings the writer's thought processes to the surface, making them explicit. Having thus exposed the ideas to critical self-scrutiny, the writer often realizes that substantial modifications are necessary. Hence, the composition may take far longer than predicted.
On the other hand, the production schedule is a good 'pacing mechanism' for busy authors. In fact, it is conceivable that some authors might never complete a creative project if no deadline at all were imposed. So the schedule should not be too slack.
Bidding for electronic media resources: a case study—UK OU Course M203
In some distance teaching organizations, course teams are required to bid for media resources. In the UK Open University, demand has consistently exceeded supply, with the outcome that very few course teams have been offered all that they bid for: in fact, since about 1985 several have received no electronic media resources at all on the grounds that their case was not strong enough! At the other extreme, a few of the other course teams bidding at the same time have been offered all, or almost all, that they requested.
In contrast, many distance teaching institutions around the world, eg the Indira Gandhi National Open University and the Central Chinese Radio and TV Universities, have not needed to do much more, in their early years, than allocate AV media resources on a 'first-come, first-served' basis. In future, if demand starts exceeding supply to any significant extent, such establishments will have to institute a decision mechanism for the allocation of resources. This mechanism should include considerations of essentiality, cost-effectiveness and quality: that is, if one course team needs more resources than another in order to achieve genuine academically respectable course objectives, then that team should take higher priority. This is always provided that the team recognizes and intends to exploit fully each medium's distinctive educational potential (and is capable of doing so, ie the quality will match their good intentions).
Hence, I would recommend a decision mechanism which includes course teams submitting bids for resources, as in the UK OU. The details of the submission procedure and the information required in the bids could differ considerably from the OU model: these are matters that need individual development by each establishment.
Interleaving production schedules for different media
Careful scheduling is particularly important when each medium addresses core content and its contribution to the course is linked as a prerequisite or follow-up to the contributions of other media. In this situation, the production schedules of different media need to be interlinked so that each is produced neither too early nor too late in relation to the other media.
For OU courses in general, a common practice is for the OU to predetermine its print production schedule, on the basis of staff availability, so that individual academics undertake an approximately even work-rate, subject to other major commitments such as attendance as tutors at residential summer schools and work on the electronic media components. Then the BBC allocates sufficient BBC production staff to a course production team to meet the required electronic media production in the time available, each component linked as above with the corresponding print production.
Sometimes this necessitates an uneven electronic media production schedule in which extra staff are coopted at various times to a core full-time BBC production team. Conversely, there may be slack production periods in which 'Members of the full-time team are temporarily seconded to other courses.
Different professionals undertaking parallel activities
In production centres all over the world, many activities that should be carried out in parallel are instead carried out one after the other. To achieve parallel working, producers need to delegate appropriate tasks to assistants, designers and technical staff and then let them get on with the job. When producers do this, their support staff develop a stronger sense of status, responsibility and initiative. Moreover, many of the tasks are so specialized that the producer lacks the skill to undertake them. Hence, in these cases, it is not a question of delegation but of briefing concerning overall goals and of consultation about implementing the goals.
When such questions are resolved satisfactorily, parallel working practices can be instituted with confidence. Figure 1 gives a schedule of production activities showing parallel working for a single TV studio programme.
Having initiated parallel activities for producing a single programme, even different programmes can be produced in parallel (ie interleaved) by a single producer, as in Figure 2.
Figures 1 and 2 have dealt only with studio programmes. However, for location programmes the planning is similar, although some activities and their timing are different. For example, the studio technical planning meeting is largely replaced by 'location reconnaissance' and the script is not finalized until the editing period, which is considerably extended.
The principle of parallel activities for efficiency holds for both styles of programme. Moreover, production in parallel of different media in the multimedia package is even more essential for both efficiency and coordination.
Controlling quality, quantity and cost
One major activity in management is Control. Figure 3 is adapted from the UK OU Course P670 OU (1983).
| Figure 2. Staggered TV programme production |
| Weeks before Studio for TV 1 |
| | 14 | Education outlined |
| | 13 | Draft 1 script agreed |
| | 12 | Research, consult designers, costing |
| | 11 | Draft 2 script agreed |
| | 10 | Consult designers |
| TV 2 | 9 | Draft 3 script agreed |
| | 8 | First full design planning meeting |
| as 14 above | 7 | Start 1-week process for TV 2 Studio |
| as 13 above | 6 | Draft 4 script (includes detailed design) |
| as 12 above | 5 | Detailed design planned |
| as 11 above | 4 | |
| as 10 above | 3 | Draft 5 script. Final script conference |
| TV 3 | as 9 above | 2 | Technical planning meeting |
| as 8 above | 1 | Camera script rehearsal |
| as 14 above | as 7 above | 0 | Record. Start 17-week process for TV 3 |
| as 13 above | as 6 above | +1 | Begin post-production paperwork |
| as 12 above | as 5 above | +2 | Animations arrive. Edit. |
| as 11 above | as 4 above | | |
| etc. | | |
| (The week numbers are the same as those in Figure 1.) |
The three aspects—quality, quantity and cost—will be addressed one by one below, in terms of the control loop. Their interrelationships will emerge as we progress.
Quality: distinctive media attributes utilized optimally to meet specified educational objectives
The specification of objectives, and indeed the rationale for using a particular medium to meet those objectives, should be set down by each media producer before completion of each media lesson. That lesson should then be judged against these specified objectives and rationales. This is the most important 'measurement of performance' in the control loop.
The measurement should be carried out in the first instance by the 'expert witnesses' in the institution; namely, the producer's colleagues, the manager of the production department and the academic course team. If the performance does not match the standards of optimal utilization or achievement of educational objectives, action to be taken might require re- recording parts of the lesson. More often in practice, the 'action' is merely to note for future reference that the lesson did not work perfectly in certain respects.
An aspect of the control loop which may be surprising is the possibility of 'revising standards' when it is seen that they have not been met. Such an admission of failure would be severely frowned on in some institutions, but slavishly clinging to unrealistic targets can be destructive. How realistic the targets are depends on many factors. For example, the educational objectives may turn out to be unrealistic once further research is carried out into the subject matter, or the attempt to achieve optimal utilization of the medium's distinctive attributes may turn out to be too expensive or time-consuming once it is costed in detail.
Quantity within a specified time-scale
Having agreed on a target number of media lessons (programmes), to be completed within, say, a year, it is no good waiting until the end of the year to check on performance, because it is then too late to do anything about it except postpone incomplete programmes, squashing them into the following year's production load. This will lead to disaster within a few years. Instead, it is essential that each programme is scheduled a specific production period and completion date. Producers and their managers can then monitor their own or subordinates' productivity at frequent intervals, hence enabling remedial action in good time.
On the other hand, adhering strictly to productivity targets may be impossible: the target may turn out to be unrealistic due to unforeseen circumstances, such as illness or the unpredictability of the event being recorded on location. Hence, the completion dates for individual programmes may need to be reset and even the date for completion of the whole-year's production may need slight modification.
Control in management is the process of:
- setting standards of quality, quantity and costs; in an educational media centre standards of quality involve optimal utilization of each medium's distinctive attributes to meet educational objectives for each production; standards of quantity and cost are production targets, within a particular time-scale, and within budget targets;
- measuring performance;
- comparing performance with the standards;
- deciding if any corrective action is required and, if so, what; note that the corrective action might be aimed at improving the performance or it could be an adjustment of unrealistic objectives;
- ensuring that corrective action is taken;
- if the task is not complete, repeating the procedure of measuring performance, and so on.
The above process can be visualized as a 'control loop'.
Within budget
In a media production department, the total cash budget, after internal salaries are accounted for, is usually subdivided between departments such as Production, Design, Engineering, each of which may have units at successively lower 'levels'.
Focusing on Production as an example, the lowest level of 'budget centre' is the level of the individual media programme/lesson. The next level might be the course budget, the next the faculty budget and finally the total production budget.
At the lowest (programme) level, each producer 'spends' internal resources and may also spend real cash to buy outside resources. In many production centres around the world, the 'real cash' spent is a small proportion of the total cost of each programme, usually less than 10 per cent, sometimes as low as 1 per cent. For these and other reasons, in many centres budget estimates are not drawn up by individual producers.
However, drawing up an itemized budget of intended spending of cash and, most importantly, of internal resources, is a valuable control mechanism. The budget estimate for each individual media lesson (once agreed between the producers and their managers) sets a target for cash and resource use, which can then form the base of cost control.
This control can be exercised, as in Figure 3, by the individual producer as the production proceeds and also at the next higher level (course or faculty budget) by the manager in charge of that budget, and so on up.
For example, if one media lesson looks as if it will be overspent, corrective action may be possible by the individual producer (eg by dropping a future item of cost) before production is complete. Alternatively, the faculty manager might feel that the lesson is well worth the extra resources and compensate for the overspending by a downward revision of the budget estimate for the next media lesson.
General
One point that applies to all the above areas of control is the necessity for speedy information retrieval; control cannot be exercised if information about status is unavailable or comes too late to enable corrective action. Hence, appropriate reporting procedures and schedules need to be drawn up.
Finally, it must be stressed that the objective of the budgetary control system should be kept in mind so that operation of the system does not become an end in itself: the objective is not to 'play offices' or to exert one's authority, but to co-ordinate the production of quality media materials, on schedule and on budget but with some flexibility.
Co-ordination of activities
For any endeavour, once the activities have been identified and divided up among different people, those activities need coordinating. This is a difficult task, even for the producer of a single TV programme, as can be imagined from the Studio Programme Planning chart in Figure 1. It becomes even more difficult when several programmes are in 'staggered production' as in Figure 2, and even more so for the production of the whole multimedia course.
Finally, at department level, where many multimedia courses are being produced in parallel, the complications are enormous. For example, it is no easy task to schedule resources (such as editing) to be shared by producers through the year without too many gaps in which the resource is idle. In the case of the BBC OU Production Centre, at the beginning of the year the 50 producers independently request certain (approximate) dates for editing. The resource planners then respond with offers of editing at slightly modified dates in order to relieve the inevitable bunching of independently requested dates.
But this procedure entails numerous negotiations with producers and also some compromises. When this is combined with the bids for all the other limited resources, such as camera crews, graphics design, the task of scheduling resources becomes extremely complex and time-consuming, requiring many staff for its administration.
In general, a major requirement for successful coordination is the processing of relevant information by decision makers. Hence, efficient methods of communication and information processing are essential (eg resource schedulers need producers' advance planning requests as soon as possible).
Collection and dissemination of information
It has already been noted how important is the collection of information for the activities of control and coordination. Procedures for such collection, such as regular reporting by staff of progress and spending, take up valuable staff time but are essential. Conversely, it is essential for managers to disseminate information to their staff through frequent departmental meetings regarding performance, policy and procedural changes.
There are many specialized categories of essential information flow in educational media production, both at departmental and at project level. Starting with the departmental level, a fundamental category of information is what each type of job entails.
Job descriptions
In many institutions, the duties and responsibilities of various job titles are ill-defined.
If staff are not fully cognizant of their duties and responsibilities, the work of the institution cannot run smoothly; time will be wasted, misunderstandings will occur and quality will suffer. Moreover, difficult relationships will ensue, with people blaming others for their mistakes.
To take an example, the job of Production Assistant is ill-defined in many media production centres. The BBC perhaps goes to the other extreme: its job descriptions are extremely detailed, probably to excess. However, below is an abbreviated, informal outline of the duties of a BBC TV Production Assistant.
Outline of Duties undertaken by BBC TV Production Assistants
A Production Assistant (PA) is involved from beginning to end in the process of making television programmes, working closely with the programme Producer.
Budget
The PA is responsible for accurate costing of a production, keeping a running total throughout and, on the completion of production, submitting a statement of monies and resources spent.
Script
The PA would possibly be involved in script discussions with the producer, academic or programme consultants. Library footage may need to be called up, stills and background research done and any copyright clearances negotiated.
Contracts
The PA would arrange for contracts for any contributors or consultants to be negotiated with the Artists Contracts department.
Location reconnaissance
Prior to shooting, the PA accompanies the producer on the 'reconnaissance' of the location, taking appropriate notes so as to communicate any special requirements to camera crew, presenters. Prior knowledge of shooting locations enables the PA to deal with any potential logistical problems in advance.
Location shooting
The PA finalizes the scheduling of the shoot, books the crew, organizes facility payments, books artists, hires cars, gains permissions to record, arranges refreshments etc.
On location the PA is the main coordinator keeping everyone informed of what is happening regarding inevitable changes in schedule and (the most time-consuming job) writing an ongoing shot list for editing purposes.
After-location shooting
Payments to contributors authorized and thank-you letters are sent to all concerned. Shot list and sound transcripts are typed on the word processor: essential documents for enabling the producer to plan the editing and finalize the commentary.
Post-production
Final Statement of account
Programme as completed (shows content of programme)
Shot-listed transcript of programme
Transmission form.
Studio recording
Organization as for location shooting except that reconnaissance activities are replaced by a technical planning meeting. On the studio day the PA ensures that anything needed in the studio is there. Captions collected from graphics, film and VT inserts ready to be played in, camera script typed, camera cards typed and placed on the cameras, teleprompt booked and any hospitality for tea or lunch organized. In the control gallery the PA is responsible for keeping accurate timings, cueing in film and VT inserts, calling out the current shot and the source of the next shot, making editing notes, keeping track of recording progress.
The duties of the PA in radio production are similar to the above, although less numerous.
There is no good reason why this particular job description should be adopted outside the BBC. However, it does seem useful that more than one person should undertake the full range of duties of the BBC producer/PA team. If the BBC producers were to undertake the above PA duties as well as their own, both efficiency and quality could suffer. Efficiency could suffer because many duties can be carried out in parallel—hence avoiding gaps in the work schedules of technical and design staff, who are waiting for decisions. Quality could suffer because continual digressions into PA work by the producer will reduce the depth of uninterrupted thinking that the producer can apply to the creation of an educationally effective programme.
This, by the way, is my personal opinion. Many production departments parcel out the duties differently. Some BBC production teams include more than two people: for example, a separate researcher might be included. On the other hand, the Indira Gandhi National Open University almost always includes a scriptwriter. At the other extreme, Chinese Television Universities do not have a PA job-title at all, and the leader of the production team, called the 'director', plays little part in the scripting. This is also true of the 'TV directors' in the Education Department of RTHK (Radio and Television, Hong Kong).
Discussion of productions, problems and solutions
In most educational media production departments (including the BBC OU Production Centre) there is little getting together of producers for purposes of discussing each other's programmes, problems and solutions. This lack of information interchange is clearly short-sighted. Frequent get-togethers could be the single most effective procedure for improving both quality and efficiency.
However, the implication of more frequent get togethers is increased staffing. For example, the increase might need to be around 10 per cent for a department that produces 200 Radio/TV half-hour programmes per year, because if all producers devoted one hour for listening/viewing and discussing each programme, this would require four hours per 40-hour week!
Flow of information at the project level (eg the TV programme production level)
In every media production department I have visited and worked in, I have encountered a sad lack of clear, comprehensive communication between members of the TV production team. (Needless to say, I have been guilty of the same thing myself.) People do not tell others on their production team precisely what they are intending to do. This is exacerbated by the frequent practice of chopping and changing plans at the last minute without telling others.
The situation can be worse still in multilingual countries, if some members of staff do not speak the working language well enough. This can cause severe misunderstandings and frustrations. The point is that the radio and TV media are themselves types of languages, and in order to talk about another 'language' your own verbal language needs to be of an especially high standard. Management needs to give guidance regarding the necessity for clear communication in the above respects. It also needs to institute various standardized procedures. For example, technical terms need to be standardized-the glossary of technical terms used by BBC OUPC is 45 pages long.
Also, during camera crew direction, the sequence of verbal instructions should be standardized. Various standardized procedures of written information are also recommended-including written records of the meticulous planning that should occur. For example, for clear communication to academic and support staff, there should be a written shooting schedule as well as a 'storyboard' consisting of descriptions of pictures in programme order on one side of the page and an outline of narration/interview topics on the other side.
Standardized requisition forms are also a very good idea. For example, for technical requirements during recording, a form submitted in advance should contain all conceivable requirements (from the resources available), and these can be collected and ticked off by a responsible person. Another example concerns graphics requirements for a studio day. For these, there should be a verbal briefing followed by a written requisition, with the verbal briefing being in advance of the producer's estimate of how long it will take-ie there are certain lead-times which must be accommodated.
Teamwork: acknowledging and utilizing professional expertise and avoiding conflicts
Good professional relationships are essential in any organization. But in a production department for electronic media, which necessitates many interdependent craft skills working together, relationships are crucial, and due acknowledgment must be paid to the skilled craftsperson in the form of delegating work, rather than 'commissioning' it. It is counterproductive to 'give strict, specific instructions' to such people. When such acknowledgment is not paid to such professionals, their expertise will be underutilized. Moreover, such omissions can lead to conflict.
Conflicts between personnel
Conflicts between personnel occur in any organization. In an electronic media production department, it could be argued that conflicts should happen if different people of a production team feel a strong sense of ownership regarding their contribution. However, such conflicts should not be so acrimonious that they become destructive.
Some causes of conflict are as below.
- The feeling that one's ego is being threatened or that one's status (as a human being or worker) is being undervalued or not respected. This is a major cause.
- Another cause is when two people want something and each believes that it can be achieved only by preventing the other from getting what he or she wants. Such conflict exists whenever, in the perception of the protagonists, mutually exclusive goals, resources or rewards are being sought simultaneously.
- Perceived territorial violation: 'This is my job, not yours'.
- Objectives and ideologies being different.
The relationship between an educational media producer and the teacher on the production team is one in which tension and conflict could arise. In fact, all four of the above factors could act simultaneously: teachers sometimes accuse producers of not being sufficiently concerned about the academic content and pedagogic structure of programmes, while producers accuse teachers of being obsessed by content and insensitive to the demands of the medium in terms of effective communication. It should be observed that 'pedagogic structure' and 'effective communication' are not easy to differentiate, which is one reason why it is difficult to resolve such conflicts.
Conclusion
It will be seen then, from this short article, that there are many essential needs for co-producing between different media, which are every bit as important as those needs which arise when co-production is taking place between different organizations. Basically it is team-work of a very high order.
References
Lewis, B. (1971). OU Press, Milton Keynes, UK.
Open University Course P670 (1983) The Effective Manager. OU Press, Milton Keynes, UK.
Biographical notes
Jack Koumi has degrees in Mathematics and Psychology. For six years he was a mathematics lecturer, then, since 1970, he has worked as a Producer for the BBC Open University Production Centre. In addition, since 1981, half his time has been spent training overseas producers of educational TV.
Address for correspondence: OUPC, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AG, UK.
| 
