Real-Life Decision Making
You're the host and producer of a television show about marine life.
You came up with the basic idea for the show, and sold it to an educational
network based on one pilot episode.
Aired weekly, it is shot live before a studio audience and simultaneously
broadcast in over 100 high schools. The format consists of six pre-recorded
segments about various marine animals and a question-and-answer segment that
is shot live. As host, your job is to narrate the pre-recorded segments and
answer questions from the studio audience and the students who are viewing
the show via satellite.
The problem is the studio set. There's not enough space at the television
station to store a different set for each television series. As a result,
your set consists of various multifaceted shaped things that would function
equally well on a show about the weather or even gardening.
But that's just the beginning. Since each episode has a different
theme, you want to design a unique set for each show. But that simply isn't
practical. For one thing, it would cost an enormous amount in both time and
dollars to design, build, pay for, light and shoot a new set each week. The
nature of your show means you already require a large budget for location
shooting and underwater photography.
Also, you need a number of technical gadgets such as chromakeying (where
the host or announcer points to a blank blue screen but the audience sees
something on the television) that are expensive, not to mention teaching props
such as whiteboards and overheads.
Requesting more money from the network isn't an option. At this point
you have a viewing audience of about 10,000 people. This is a smaller target
audience than the network had anticipated when they bought your show.
And money isn't the only problem. After tossing the idea around in
production meetings, you know the crew isn't willing to consider putting
together and dismantling a new set each week.
You've already attempted a few solutions. For example, you've
built cardboard sea creatures that can be attached to the existing props.
The production crew doesn't mind since you take them off as soon as you've
finished filming that week's episode. But it isn't enough.
You want to demonstrate that you are capable of producing a high-quality
show that will turn students on to the wonders of the undersea world. Also,
satellite learning is in its infancy, and you want to help demonstrate that
it can work. A dynamic set would make it easier to hold the students'
interest. But you can tell from the reactions of the studio audience that
people recognize the set components from each show.
What do you do?
Option One
Instead of airing the show in a television station before a live audience,
shoot from a different remote location each week.
Option Two
Assemble a temporary set and bring the cast and crew in for a marathon
session of shooting short segments that will be broadcast throughout the series.