In this interview Valentina
explains what audiovisual production involves and how
algorithms and decisions play an important role in her production activities.
>> Hi Valentina, thanks for agreeing to give us this interview.
Tell us, what are your main tasks as an audiovisual
producer?
>> Well, an audiovisual product is something
that has image and sound.
It can be a TV commercial, a film that we watch in the cinema,
a TV program, it could be a commercial video, distance learning
videos, it can be many things, as long as they contain image and sound.
Even though there are different audiovisual products, there are specific roles,
specific people that always work to provide them.
For instance, in my case I'm a producer.
What do I do as a producer?
Well, I have to make sure to get certain people,
like the director, the photography director, the art director,
the sound producer, I have to obtain the resources, like different teams,
the cameras, the resources for creating the set,
if we need period costumes, to get all this.
And then to find the place where we’re going to be presenting,
where we’re going to be shooting and make sure that all this works like a machine.
>> What are the most important projects that you've worked on?
Can you give us an example?
>> I think that all projects that I've been involved in
have been special in some sense.
Now I remember one, for instance, a program for kids that was for television
where we were lucky to be filming a daily program,
which had parts that were live, others that were filmed and
we had the opportunity to go to the centre of the country with the kids that
were in the program and to meet kids that watched the program.
So we watched the program together, they commented on what they thought
about the program, they told us what bored them, we saw what bored them and what not,
so it was like the circle was closed because we saw,
well, we were making this program for these people,
and we saw what they thought of the program and what we can improve, what we can change.
>> In this unit we saw the concept of algorithms,
as a sequence of ordered steps for carrying out a task.
Is this concept applicable to audiovisual preparation?
>> Yes, an audiovisual, by definition,
an audiovisual is a sequence of steps, that has determined stages.
We have production, preproduction, filming, prostproduction.
For example, the production involves creating the script,
obtaining the funding, in order to realise the idea,
and realising it so it's an audiovisual product.
Then we have the preproduction, where
it is very important to establish a plan of work.
The workplan is a an ordered sequence of steps that need to
be followed, so it’s a schedule so we know that in that month
we're going to perform specific tasks, in some other month different ones.
And as it’s a sequence of steps we can’t skip any steps.
If we don’t do the production we can't move to the next stage, if we’re not done
with the preproduction for the shooting we can’t start filming.
And if we don’t have all the material filmed we can’t start editing and have
the final product.
Well, we have the shooting and finally the postproduction.
In the postproduction we have all the material that
we filmed, for instance a movie that was filmed non-sequentially.
Why?
Because we simply assemble a specific schedule,
say we’re filming something in the beach, but the beach appears at the beginning
of the film when it’s ready and at the end, we film everything
together because this way we’ll go to the beach only once and we optimise our resources.
So when editing we take all the material,
we choose the best takes, we put them in order,
and it’s a process that repeats because we’re choosing takes, we order them,
we’re choosing takes, we order them, we look at the material, we choose takes, we order them.
>> Do you need to make any decisions?
>> Yes,many decisions.
In general, we need to make decisions in all stages, from the moment
that we select the team, who to work with,
to choosing the camera to film, the location for filming,
if we need to get a new take or the previous take is enough,
in postproduction why choose whether to drop a scene or not because very often
you write something on the script and in the end when we watch all the scenes
together we think, hmmm in reality this scene doesn’t work well and
we remove it and we need to decide because it's a shame not to use material we have.
>> In the case of filming a live TV program,
what do you need to keep in mind?
>> When filming a live program one of the most important
things to do is to keep in mind that
you need to give clear and detailed instructions.
Why, what happens?
When creating a live program, the person is watching it when
it is being filmed,
we can make mistakes but these can be seen.
It is not good when we make a mistake to get a new take,
as the person will see afterwards that the program doesn’t include the
mistake because we shot it again.
For example, in a cooking program where I worked,
we had to show the ingredients.
So I had to explain to the presenter of the program who doesn’t know about
audiovisual, who is a presenter in reality and doesn’t have my role as a producer,
that we were going to show all ingredients and how we were going to show them
so that, when he picked up the ingredients he wouldn’t cover them, because he could be
picking up the ingredients covering them while we were filming.
So I had to be very clear at that point when giving the instructions
about how to pick up the ingredients so that everything would look good and to avoid
any mistakes when filming live.
>> What does action mean?
>> Action means many different things.
For example, imagine that we're working for months
to reach the moment of filming, right,
to film.
So when we say action it’s like all this machine that has been working
for months is captured in one scene, so we see the actors, the sets,
everything ready, we say action and we film everything that will take place,
what the viewers will see afterwards in the film.
We say cut, and action is over.
We have the chance to watch it once again and do a retake because we
didn’t like the actor’s expression, because there was an error in the script,
because the actor tripped in the carpet, for any reason and we might get a new take.
So it’s like trial and error the action and cut to do another take.