In his own words, Tom Porter, series producer for Ten Alps company Blakeway Productions, details the challenges and benefits of turning around a program for Channel 4’s ‘Dispatches’ strand.

Towards the end of a Wednesday afternoon last month, we got a call from C4’s head of news and current affairs, Dorothy Byrne, asking whether we could turn around a ‘Dispatches’ about breakfast cereals and health claims in five weeks. Of course, we answered - “no problem.” “You must be mad, agreeing to that schedule,” someone from the development team piped up after overhearing the conversation. But five weeks later it was on air and earning the highest audience for ‘Dispatches’ so far this series - peaking at 1.9m.

With a relatively speedy turnaround, the biggest challenge for us, as always, was doing our utmost to make sure the detail of what we said was accurate. From a standing start, our team became experts in sugar and salt levels, EU labeling law and advertising regulations. To do that you need expert help, but the experts we use, both on and off-screen, are not just chosen for their academic prowess; we investigate their backgrounds and any corporate links they might have. Ultimately, links between corporations and certain academics in the field became part of the film’s story.

In ‘Dispatches’ terms, the breakfast film was, in fact, not a “fast turnaround.” Blakeway has made around six of the 40 or so ‘Dispatches’ broadcast in each of the last two years. Our quickest, on the media coverage of the Gaza conflict earlier this year, was made in just ten days. The challenge there was logistical - breaking Jon Snow out of the news studio and getting him and a crew on the ground in Israel within 48 hours of the commission and filming nine interviews in a weekend.

Sometimes it takes much longer to get to air. The film we produced with journalist Stephen Grey about the war in Afghanistan was predicated on access to Britain’s top generals. But it took the MoD six months to let us interview them, during which time the team was in a permanent state of readiness to ‘go.’ If we got the interviews, we needed to get the film on air in a hurry before events overtook us, but without them, there was no film.

These practical challenges come from Channel 4’s central concern about all ‘Dispatches’: can they ‘own’ the subject and bring something totally new to the screen? ‘Dispatches’ is not very often in the business of doing ‘pull togethers’ of news stories and that’s what makes it tough to make but unique. In the world of diminishing budgets and truncated viewer attention-spans, we hope it continues that way, however fast the turnarounds.

In this post, Gilded Lily Productions’ Karen Hoy shares a few thoughts on mindful scheduling and the merits of Wikipedia over “proper” research.

On the Art of Scheduling
There was a useful interview with BBC head of arts commissioning Mark Bell in yesterday’s Guardian media pages. See it here.

Among other things, he discusses the scheduling of BBC2 general arts program The Culture Show, championing its move from late night to 7 p.m. It’s a change that I appreciated as a viewer, so I agree with Mark. I love my arts, but I’m not hardcore enough to always watch it very late, when the melatonin is setting in for the night. The brain needs to switch off by then, even if the telly doesn’t (Hello FX). I was surprised at how much more I enjoyed the same content at 7pm, when the brain is still interested in learning things. Now I’ll even rush home for The Culture Show. Part of the art is the fantastically sculptural dresses and jewelry as worn by other-worldly co-host Lauren Laverne. That makes The Culture Show worth a peek at any time.

And on the ever-present temptation of Wikipedia:

I’ve been doing some background research on a new history idea today. I found a short paragraph in a historical novel, that was so evocative and precise I wondered whether it was a “true” detail. It described a notebook belonging to a young girl, and some lines she wrote in it. ‘Gosh,’ I found myself thinking, ‘wouldn’t it be amazing to come across her actual notes in a museum archive somewhere? That would be such a buzz.’

In continuing my very general reading, it was time to hit Google. The inevitable first link to follow up was Wikipedia. It just sits staring at you in the first page of your first “search” and you’re desperate to do something more original, but of course you click on it, just to get it out of the way, and then get on to “proper” research.

Remember, this is still just general background research, nothing specific at all. And there on the first page, in a window, is a summary of the historical reference, with a photographic portrait of the child, and a facsimile of the notebook. It’s just too easy!

I’m grateful for Wikipedia, really. It hasn’t completely replaced libraries, archives, real books, and direct info from the experts, and never completely will. But it sometimes feels like a bit of a spoilsport… like someone who “helps you” with the crossword when you want to think a bit more for yourself first!

Karen Hoy is Development Producer/Writer at UK-based development house Gilded Lily Productions.

LA-based producer/writer/director Peter Hankoff has worked with footage old and new for myriad projects. But how close to the truth is what ends up on camera, and how far away from that truth can any footage get over time? Here, Hankoff explains in his own words.

I’ve been making non-fiction television for several years. A lot of it deals with World War II, but all of it touches on the conflicts of the human condition. And balancing history and entertainment can be a challenge. “Repurposing” a lot of archival footage, to make my point, has made me appreciate the dangers of separating reality from reality television.

Just because something ends up on camera, how real is it? Does raw footage make something “more” real? Does it create more truth… or more possibility for distorting the truth?

I’ve spent a lot of time both retelling history and looking at the way movies have depicted history as it was happening. When I screen old footage, I’m also cherry-picking from history to show what was once taken for granted and is now part of the past: streetcars, ocean liners, horses on city streets, steam shovels, riveters, etc.

History has given me some perspective, but also a somewhat grim view of the deeds of mankind. Granted, bad news sells a lot better than good news even if it’s old, but the projects I’ve worked on have given me a reputation amongst my friends as an expert on evil.

It’s easy to see the propaganda aspects of old newsreels - especially wartime newsreels - as I’ve done my homework and can understand the historical context from which they are drawn. Watching the “news” in a Nazi “Wochenshau” newsreel is pretty much a no-brainer, but I wonder how what we’ve been making now, whether it’s “reality TV” or more “conventional” documentaries, will one day be held up as the raw data of our time.

Perhaps because of my historical appreciation, I can see that there is a kind of innocence I and others have as Americans - it’s an unspoken assumption that there is plenty and a kind of abundance that underlies the culture and structure of what I’m creating. If the future becomes really grim, maybe my footage will be repurposed because this is an era of green trees or clear air or mountains with snow.

Indeed, as the Internet blossoms, I wonder where all our shots will end up. At some point the copyrights will cease and there could be a glut of content - perhaps a 21st-century nostalgia craze based on what we’re all making now.

When I think of those World War II battlefield crews cranking out the stories of the day, I often wonder, “Did they think their footage would end up in hundreds of uses after the fact?” And how much of their stuff has been reedited to create unintended meanings?

Perhaps I’m inadvertently creating some future view of history by shooting footage today that may be treated in that same light. I can only hope the interview or b-roll I film today isn’t twisted around and made to create the thing I try to expose in a lot of my work: the subjugation of human beings and the oppression of human rights.

A century from now, will historians and filmmakers, or whatever term technology creates for us, sift through all of today’s reality shows and non-fiction TV to explain turn-of-this-century Western life? Will the voyeuristic minutiae of today become the sociologist’s raw data of tomorrow? Will our escapades seem trivial or revealing as today’s Survivors and Idols and Girls Next Door take us through their unscripted dramas an hour at a time?

I shudder to imagine how our lives will be reconstructed and presented. What would Neanderthals think of how we view them? After all, cave paintings were the original reality shows.

Only time will tell.

Peter Hankoff is an award-winning director, producer and writer who has served on the production of various projects with Creative Differences, including Gun Camera (Military Channel), Battle for Iwo Jima (National Geographic), Unsolved History (The Discovery Channel) and most recently, Nazi Masters of Death: The Hidden Holocaust. For more information, go to peterhankoff.com.

We at Realscreen would like to welcome Karen Hoy, development writer/producer at UK-based development house Gilded Lily Productions, as one of our guest bloggers. In this, the first post in her series of blogs that she’s dubbed Constant Beginnings, Hoy discusses one of her favorite (and hygienically sound) tools for stimulating the development process. Look for Karen’s blog to be featured in realscreen.com’s Real Insights from hereon in.

The problem with open plan offices is that when staring out of the window, or sitting back with your arms crossed, people might think you’re not working. After three seconds of such activity (I timed it) it’s impossible not to feel self-conscious, even though the most productive development time (outside of brainstorming meetings with colleagues) is being alone with your brain.

In fact, I don’t believe a computer, or even a chair, has much to offer these potentially fruitful sessions. Keyboard time, I believe, is for writing up ideas, not for leading them.

The truth is, there is no better place than the bath – as any development person who ever takes one has surely realized – for some quality time with the gray matter.

The potential of the bath-time environment is so specifically fertile, I’ve found it’s even possible to get in with a pre-ordained question, and make progress with it, where dryer surroundings have failed. Apart from the obvious, “What’s the next big idea?”, here are some suitable conundrums:

- How can I balance this narrative better?

- Which of our characters has most potential to take the lead and why?

- Do we have a USP here?

- What’s missing that would identify this idea as a format?

- Is this program best presenter-less, or presenter-led?

Then there’s the ultimate:

- In what direction does this idea need to go, to make it commissionable?

Obviously, it’s not practical to have a bathtub in development departments, although I honestly think the benefits might outweigh the weirdness! But why not have a development sofa as the next best thing, seeing that part of the point of the bath is blood flow to the brain? It is – I have been told – why psychiatrists have couches. Apparently we think better lying down.

But that warm enveloping water does something real too. Whenever time or convenience does lure me into the shower, there’s always a short pang of professional regret. I’ll never completely know what might’ve been.

Karen Hoy is Development Producer/Writer at development house Gilded Lily Productions.

Tom McDonnell, co-founder of UK digital production shop Monterosa, says it doesn’t have to be a question of digital vs broadcast. They’re actually supposed to work together.

In Britain, iPlayer, Sky+ and Spotify have all gone mainstream, and in the US, Hulu’s revenues are putting pressure on YouTube owners Google. As the quality and convenience of these services increases it can be hard to see a future for broadcasting. There are many different projections about the speed of video-on-demand take-up and the growth of personal video recorders, but it is clear where we’re headed.

However, watching or listening to something at the same time as everyone else in the country or in your interest group is still compelling. For many in the UK, 9 p.m. on a Wednesday night is time to wince at The Apprentice, Saturday is a time for Talk Sport, and 10 p.m. is a chance to watch the news. Broadcast definitely has a future, but does that future include programming that isn’t time-relevant?

Along with a growing crowd, I only watch factual shows like Panorama online, and usually when someone tells me about it - probably a friend who watched it on TV. But when that friend becomes an iPlayer addict like me, how will I find out about it? iPlayer has a limited amount of space on its front page, so my potential exposure is reduced.

This effect has the potential to spiral to a stage where some of the best programming finds it very difficult to find an audience.

There is hope. Personalisation and social recommendation both have critical roles to play, but I see the most exciting opportunity within the rise of concurrent ’second screen’ behaviour. According to the IAB’s ‘08 Thinkbox report TV & Online: Better Together, almost half of digital households watch TV and go online at the same time on a daily basis.

Ironically, as more people consume media on-demand, the same people are using live realtime communication more than ever. Facebook has brought instant messaging to people who didn’t know what it was, smart phones enable people to use email as IM, and Twitter has brought realtime ‘broadcast’ messaging to the masses. The appetite for gaming, from consoles to iPhones and casual online, is bigger than ever before.

By combining people’s growing love for realtime social communication, gaming and concurrent couch-activity, the broadcast industry has a vast opportunity. The era of DVD-extra style television websites has passed and broadcasters need to shift focus. This isn’t just a chance to keep people watching or listening, it creates a new revenue stream in targeted, synchronised advertising. If lastminute.com’s latest offer appears on both screens, it means one less click before that hotel booking. Fewer clicks equal higher conversions.

Realtime social engagement can be built into all genres from factual and drama to films. At Monterosa I’ve been involved in several projects around the ’second screen’. The most recent of these is The Apprentice Predictor. It allows people to play along with the show every Wednesday night in realtime, guessing who they think will get fired whilst watching live graphs above each candidate. The longer you hold onto the candidate, the more points you win at the end if you get it right. It’s reasonably simple to play and only scratches the surface of what’s possible. Re-playing after the show, playing with friends using Facebook Connect and adding an ongoing competition are the obvious next-steps.

MySpace, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter have all taught us how quickly online behaviour can change. In broadcasting, a tipping point is approaching, and 2009 presents a huge but fleeting opportunity to add an exciting new dimension to the medium. The question is, will the commercial broadcasters who need this the most have the wherewithal to respond before it’s too late?

A viewpoint from Tim Sparke, MD of MercuryMedia and www.joiningthedots.tv.

When the makers of the first global ‘disastainment’ docs – In Debt We Trust, An Inconvenient Truth, Enron, Outfoxed, etc. – warned of the impending financial, climate, energy, propaganda and leadership crises, which were slowly creeping up on the West, they were out of step with the ‘militainment’ agenda the global media was following. Now that TV news has moved on and to mention the War (Fawlty Towers) during the election cycle has become ‘verboten,’ a new crop of mainstream disaster docs are coming on stream. They include I.O.U.S.A. (the US is going bankrupt) and The Age of Stupid (a look back at our current environmental catastrophe set in 2050), with both titles tipped for awards and audiences.

Clearly, whilst screening films on TV which promote consuming less, saving more and distrusting mainstream media is antithetical to the very nature of broadcasting, I detect a perceptible but renewed enthusiasm amongst the mass-media for giving audiences a straighter version of the truth.

Docs are back on the agenda and this is good news for audiences. The bad news for documentary producers is that there are just too many finished docs for broadcasters, festivals and distributors from which to choose. As Sir David Attenborough would probably say, “The doc producer breed has replicated to such an extent that over supply threatens the viability of the species.” According to sources at BBC’s ‘Storyville,’ over 1,800 finished docs have been offered in the last year, and in reality, although there are 26 slots to fill, the majority will be for coproduced rather than finished projects.

My own company has been offered 400 films this year, and we take no more than 20 to market. Similarly the Sheffield, Hot Docs and Toronto film fests have reported massive increases in finished films looking for exposure. Whilst pressure is being brought to bear on cash-strapped Channel 4 to open up more slots for acquired docs and the European pubcasters’ remain committed to the genre, the number of slots available for the valuable work of documentary-makers isn’t going to rise in proportion to the number of finished films on offer.

So are there any solutions at hand? Well, sort of. The online market is still nascent, and will grow in time, with iTunes, Real Networks and joiningthedots.tv, amongst others, now offering docs on a pay-per-view download basis. There is also an advertiser-supported model for docs beginning to evolve, but its early days and rewards are slim. However it is the technological changes in traditional media which are curiously exciting this writer the most. Digital theatrical distribution is now a reality in many countries, as it enables limited release event-driven exhibitions to take place cost-effectively. (Joiningthedots.tv is scheduled to release nine titles theatrically in the UK next year, following five successful releases in ’08.)

The DVD market for long-tail titles, through on- and offline retailers like Amazon, Borders, HMV, etc. is beginning to show real returns, and the in-flight market with on-demand delivery is now a reality. In-flight buyers are seeking top docs to satisfy their high value business class passengers…though take note, all you self-distributing producers – they are still a tad sensitive about climate change!

So should doc-makers give up and get full-time paid employment during these hard times? No, though part-time work should be considered, especially if it’s a choice between art and paying the electricity bill. Seriously, the world needs the clarity of your authored polemics more urgently than ever, especially as the trust deficit between media corporations and audiences widens as the financial crisis hits home. But should you re-mortgage your home to finance your latest epic? Absolutely not. Foreclosure is not pleasant in any country.

The economic reality of oversupply and finite demand means that producers have, however, to take some responsibility for distribution. That’s if you can get distribution, and if you can learn to ‘partner’ with your distributor. (Remember, they’re your friend, not your punching bag.) If your ego can’t handle that, learn to self-distribute. And no, we distributors won’t cry if you go that route, we are a tough bunch and are used to ‘losing’ the latest ‘great’ film offered. As we sometimes remind each other in the lines for Easy Jet departures to MIPCOM and IDFA, documentaries are like London buses: we know there will always be another coming along in a minute and who knows where it might take you.

Julia Barron, head of current affairs at London’s October Films, examines the price journalists pay in order to keep the powerful honest.

Questioning the ‘official version’ is the raison d’etre of the journalist, and there are few more powerful places to do it than on national TV. So when those in power make the substantial claim that we are winning the ‘War on Terror,’ it’s not likely to be accepted without question by journalists. Unfortunately, those making such claims often go to some lengths to protect them from close examination.

In the summer of 2006, the UK Ministry of Defence decided the best way to avoid too much scrutiny was to ban all TV crews from going to the front line in Afghanistan. The ban was nimbly circumvented by filmmaker Sean Langan, who found an unofficial, hazardous route of his own. Commissioned through October Films to make a film about the war, he caught a lift with some Afghani soldiers ‘accompanied’ by British troops. The resulting film showed the extraordinary professionalism of our soldiers, but also the futility of their mission - as they wrested control of a key strategic town from the Taliban only to be ordered out by HQ. Two multi-award winning films would follow - Meeting the Taliban and Fighting the Taliban. The second film revealed how quickly the nato strategy unraveled and it helped to undermine the MOD’s efforts to keep the war out of sight and out of mind.

Langan’s latest Afghan project, made with a different prodco, resulted in him being kidnapped for three months. Happily, he got out alive, but it was a reminder that examining the official version of truth in conflict zones is a dangerous business. Last year, 170 journalists were killed or murdered, the second highest tally on record.

At least in the ‘War on Terror’ you pretty much know the line of fire. One of the hardest films we’ve made since I joined October Films wasn’t about a war at all, but rather a superpower.

Last year, Murdering the Truth for C4 investigated the assassination of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya. The producer, Paul Jenkins, was following leads that a rogue Chechen hit squad was responsible; but also - more alarmingly - that the FSB, the Russian State Security Service, was involved. Politkovskaya worked for Novaya Gazeta, an investigative newspaper which had long been a thorn in the side of President (now Prime Minister) Putin, himself a former KGB officer. She wasn’t the first of Novaya Gazeta’s journalists to be killed and we were aware that our own investigations were probing into a shadowy and dangerous world. We had to put a set of safety protocols in place every bit as rigorous as those for Langan in Afghanistan.

Late one night, a few weeks after Politkovskaya’s murder, I got a call from our producer in Moscow. He’d found something curious on an obscure Chechen website; could I follow it up? A London-based Russian dissident, a supporter of the Chechen cause, was claiming he’d been poisoned.

The next day I spoke to a very poorly sounding Alexander Litvinenko and arranged an interview. We had recently exchanged numbers at a public event protesting Politkovskaya’s murder, where he had publicly accused Putin of being behind it. He never made our meeting. A few hours after we spoke, he was rushed to an isolation unit. He later died there of what has been described as an ‘internal Chernobyl,’ a dose of radiation probably fed to him in a cup of tea. Litvinenko, himself a former FSB agent, is alleged to have been murdered by two former FSB agents, both of whom remain at large in Russia, despite an official British extradition request. One is now an MP in Russia’s parliament. To date, no one has been convicted of Politkovskaya’s murder.

Sometimes even the fog of war isn’t enough to be a patch on state cover-ups. We should salute the journalists who risk their lives to show us the truth as they find it, not as the powerful would like us to see it.