Posisi Producer dan Program Director dalam Industri Televisi

Dalam sebuah produksi acara televisi, kadangkala ada kebingungan bahkan kerancuan tentang bagaimanakah posisi Producer (Prod) dan Program Director (PD) dalam sebuah proses produksi. Pernah terjadi pada suatu shooting dengan sistem multicameras di lapangan, Producer dan Program Director bersitegang tentang siapa yang seharusnya ada di pucuk komando. Padahal posisi keduanya saling berkaitan bahkan jalin menjalin dalam konteks produksi program televisi. Oleh karena itu sebenarnya yang dibutuhkan adalah kolaborasi antara dua profesi ini sehingga sebuah acara bisa diproduksi dengan lancar dan sukses.

Sebagai perbandingan, pada industri Film seorang Director memegang peran yang sangat dominan dalam mengambil keputusan dan menjalankan proses produksi (dari mulai interpretasi script, metode acting sampai style pengambilan gambar), sementara seorang Producer lebih fokus pada elemen bisnis dari produksi tersebut (budgeting, funding, distributing dll). Sementara pada industri Televisi, terdapat beberapa perbedaan dengan di industry film mengenai peran Producer dan Director terutama pada program-program yang berkesinambungan seperti drama seri, berita/takshow rutin, kuis dll. Perkecualian pada Film atau drama Televisi yang tidak berseri (FTV), biasanya peran Producer dan Director mirip dengan peran mereka di industri film.

Pada industri televisi, seorang Director (PD) harus merelakan sebagian ‘kekuasaan absolut’-nya pada Producer. Hal ini lebih disebabkan sifat dari industri televisi yang program-programnya seringkali harus dibuat secara berkesinambungan (tayang tiap hari, tiap minggu atau tiap bulan). Jadi Program Director biasanya mengerjakan program reguler yang sudah ditentukan pattern-nya dan seringkali tidak terlibat pada fase pre-poduction ketika program tersebut masih berbentuk konsep. Producer-lah yang membangun konsep, mempresentasikan, dan mendapat keputusan dari manajemen tentang kepastian diproduksinya suatu program. Pada tahap pre-poduction ini seorang PD sebetulnya juga dapat dimintai pendapat profesionalnya, meskipun pada tahap pelaksanaan program tersebut dijalankan PD yang lain (dikarenakan jadwal kerja perusahaan yang menggunakan sistem shift).

Menurut Bignell dan Orlebar (2005, pp: 32), “producer adalah pimpinan dari sebuah tim produksi.” Producer membuat konsep, menyusun budget, dan mencari sumber dana. Dengan bantuan PD, Producer juga memilih penulis naskah dan production crew. Producer berurusan pula dengan kesehatan dan keselamatan di lokasi shooting sampai pada usaha agar program yang diproduksi ditayangkan di televisi. Producerlah yang mempunyai kekuasaan creative.

Di sisi lain, PD bertanggung jawab tentang bagaimana program yang dikonsep Producer bisa dieksekusi dan direalisasikan dalam tayangan televisi. Termasuk di dalamnya adalah menyutradarai show, mengarahkan actor dan crew teknik. Pada produksi multicameras, PD juga membuat camera script (untuk drama), menjalankan rehearsal dengan talent, bertanggung jawab atas look dari show dan dalam kadar tertentu juga telibat dalam urusan content.

Lebih spesifik dalam Mollison (2001, pp: 308) dijelaskan bahwa Producer juga berperan untuk mengambil keputusan final tentang artistic, kebijakan editorial, dan mengontrol budget. Ketika keputusan tentang treatment selesai dibuat, Producer melimpahkan kepada PD di studio tentang realisasi artistic produksi. Pada produksi drama, Producer biasanya tidak terlibat di control room. Sementara pada siaran berita dan current affairs, Producer berada di control room untuk pengambilan keputusan yang berkaitan dengan content updating dan kontrol durasi program. Producer bertanggung jawab kepada manajemen. Ada kutipan menarik dari Gilda Baracchi, seorang Producer, “It’s the ideas that count. The producer’s business is content.”

Masih menurut Mollison (2001, pp: 308), “seorang PD bertanggung jawab atas visi kreatif di balik produksi dan mengarahkan Program Designer dalam menerjemahkan visi tersebut melalui sets, costume, lighting, dan sound. PD mengambil keputusan tentang final visual dan audio treatment. PD bertanggung jawab kepada Producer.”
Dari uraian diatas dapat ditarik kesimpulan bahwa antara Producer dan Program Director mempunyai kedekatan yang erat dalam konteks pelaksanaan pekerjaan. Ibarat dalam struktur militer, Producer adalah Kepala Staf, sedang Program Director adalah Panglima pasukan. Keduanya harus menempatkan dirinya pada posisinya masing-masing secara tepat berkolaborasi untuk mencapai tujuan.

Dalam konteks grade,terdapat banyak variasi pendapat akan posisi Producer dan Director. Tapi sebagai bahan pertimbangan, United States of Labor (http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes272012.htm), menempatkan profesi Producer dan Director berada di Job Zone yang sama (Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed) dan memiliki standar penggajian yang setara. Median wages (2009): $32.08 hourly, $66,720 annual.

Interesting QUOTE:
“A Program Director requires the dramatic skill of a stage director, the visual skills of a film director and the technical skills of a live TV director.” -David Tetzlaff-

Referensi:
Bignell, J and Orlebar, J (2005). The television handbook. Routledge: London
Mollison, M (2001). Producing videos: a complete guide. AFTRS: Sydney
United States of Labor (2010). Occupational Employment and Wages, May 2009. 27-2012 Producers and Directors[on-line]. Available WWW: www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes272012.htm
Tetzlaff, D (2011). Director, Television [on-line]. Available WWW: http://www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=directortel

Writing The Body

This journal will describe some forms of writing on the body and also the interpretation of the term of writing on the body. According to Certeau (1984, 134), writing is the concrete activity that consists in constructing, on its own, blank space-the page- a text that has power over the exteriority from which it has first been isolated. There are at least two interpretations when talking about writing on the human body. First, writing on the body can be understood as a real activity writing some texts on the surface of human’s bodies. The second, writing the body can also have a connotation meaning. It means that the body is marked or written of so many symbol and status that influenced by the socio cultural factors.

First of all, the body can be written of some text such through tattooing or piercing whether it is permanent or temporary thing. Some culture has this kind of habit of using the body as the media in writing some text. The text written can symbolize so many meaning. For example, in Yakuza organization in Japan, the tattoo in someone’s body can be the symbol of affiliation and the status of a particular person in the organization. Another example of using the body as the media for written text is in Dayak tribe culture in Borneo/Kalimantan, Indonesia. The tattoo in their body can be the symbol of the maturity and also the social status in the community.

Secondly, the connotation meaning of writing the body is that the body has been marked and labeled by the written law and the socio cultural factors in the society. In Islam, the human body is depicted as a clean white paper when s/he is born. The human body is written and coloured by the influence of the parent, the socio cultural, the experience and any kind of factors that has contact with the growing body. Soon after born the baby will labeled as male or female. Then race or ethnicity also will be marked to the baby. The next thing is religion and then when the baby is grown up s/he will have the social status in the society. When s/he is following the fashion or music trend in this globalise society, s/he will add some more text into their body such as a rock person, an R & B person, a Nike person, a Esprit person and so on. Even until the body is pass away, it still has some marks. For instance, the society will recognise the death body as a good or bad person when s/he was still alive. While the body ends the journey in the world, it will has so many text, symbol, mark and label all over the body.

The connotation meaning of writing the body sometimes is one of the biggest problems in the history of human being. People cannot release themselves from the text written in their body. People can be fallen into trouble only because they have some label in their body. The history prove this phenomenon that can be seen from what happens to Jewish in the past, the Palestinian, the Bosnian, the Moslem, the Aboriginal people and there are still a long list of what can be caused by the writing the body.

Interviewing Techniques in Documentary Production

There are five important points to be considered when talking about interviewing in documentary making process. There are: the preparation and understanding of situations, questioning strategy, the controller, the camera placement, and the ethic issue. This journal will describe these important points.

First of all, the preparation and the understanding of the situations is the important thing. The interviewer needs a basic skill of interviewing for documentary film. The preparation of everything is important, but it must not eliminate the spontaneous factor. The preparation means that the interviewer should have some expectation of what each subject participants will contribute. Another thing is during interview process the interviewer must know when s/he has to talk and when s/he should be quiet. The interviewer cannot talk when the subject is talking, because this situation will make the editing process more difficult. In order to give some response, the interviewer only can give some visual feedback such as nodding or smiling.

The second important factor is the questioning strategy. The interviewer has to arrange the clear and understandable question. It will help the subject answering the question easily. The interviewer also has to guide the subject to answer each questions in complete sentence instead of answering shortly such as ‘yes’ or ‘no’. To gain the depth information, the interviewer has to build the intimate situation with the subject gradually and try to make the subject comfortable with the interviewer.

Third, the controller in interviewing process should be the director, but in some situation the director can use other people such as the researcher or the other crews to make the subject more comfortable during the filming process. Using the researcher as the interviewer can be good way to continue the relationship with the subject because the researcher usually knows the subject before the director. So using the researcher as the interviewer will make the subject more relax and easy to talk about something deeply. On the other hand, using new person (the director) as the interviewer also has some advantages. One of the advantages is the arrival of a new person will build more spontaneous situation between the interviewer and the subject.

Fourth, the camera placement will also have some significant effects, especially between the audiences and the subject. If the camera is placed in front of the subject and make the subject looks talk to the audiences directly, it will give a face-to-face impression between the subject and the audiences. The audiences will feel be involved in the interview and the interview acts on the behalf of the audience.

Finally the last important point is the ethic issue. This is a big issue for the documentary makers. The need to tell the truth is bordered with the interest to keep the privacy of the subject participants. That’s why some documentary films make some controversy in the society after being released because the public cannot accept the documentary that perhaps has disturbed the norms or values applied in the society. Cunnamulla and The Crumb are some of those controversial documentaries.

In conclusion, the five important points should be considered in interviewing especially in documentary making process.

Communications Journal: Techniques of the Body

After several years questioning what he could call for the modes of body action, finally Marcel Mauss define it as technique of the body. He thought that a technique has to have an instrument. That was the fundamental mistake of thinking of this term. Then, after refer to Plato’s opinion about technique (i.e. Technique of dance), he define an action of body, which is traditional and effective as “technique”.

The action of our body is influenced by physio-psycho-sociological factor. The first factor is Physiological aspect. Our body has some fantastic ability that might not be imagined in the past. For instance, when we see the old world record of sprint competition, there are differences of the athletes’ achievements from time to time. In the past, people would never imagine that the speed of people running for 100 meters length could be under 10 seconds. That is one example of how fantastic our body potency is. We try to push the limit of our body abilities.

Second, the techniques of body are influenced by Psychological factor. The soccer world cup 2002 can be a good example for this. In this tournament, we could see how the player did some action that is not really related with their body ability but it maybe can give them some extra ‘power’ for their performance. For example, some players have to touch and grab some grass from the field before entering the field.

The last factor is Sociological factor. This factor has such a big influence to our body techniques. The differences of culture make every body has their own habit. For example, the way Indonesian people wave their hand to call somebody is different with western people. Indonesian people are waving with their palm face the ground (downward), while western people put their palm upward toward the sky.

Those three factors are related each other.

Writing The Body

This journal will describe some forms of writing on the body and also the interpretation of the term of writing on the body. According to Certeau (1984, 134), writing is the concrete activity that consists in constructing, on its own, blank space-the page- a text that has power over the exteriority from which it has first been isolated. There are at least two interpretations when talking about writing on the human body. First, writing on the body can be understood as a real activity writing some texts on the surface of human’s bodies. The second, writing the body can also have a connotation meaning. It means that the body is marked or written of so many symbol and status that influenced by the socio cultural factors.

First of all, the body can be written of some text such through tattooing or piercing whether it is permanent or temporary thing. Some culture has this kind of habit of using the body as the media in writing some text. The text written can symbolize so many meaning. For example, in Yakuza organization in Japan, the tattoo in someone’s body can be the symbol of affiliation and the status of a particular person in the organization. Another example of using the body as the media for written text is in Dayak tribe culture in Borneo. The tattoo in their body can be the symbol of the maturity and also the social status in the community.

Secondly, the connotation meaning of writing the body is that the body has been marked and labelled by the written law and the socio cultural factors in the society. In the Holy Koran, the human body is depicted as a clean white paper when s/he is born. The human body is written and coloured by the influence of the parent, the socio cultural, the experience and any kind of factors that has contact with the growing body. Soon after born the baby will labelled as male or female. Then race or ethnicity also will be marked to the baby. The next thing is religion and then when the baby is grown up s/he will have the social status in the society. When s/he is following the fashion or music trend in this globalise society, s/he will add some more text into their body such as a rock person, a R & B person, a Nike person, a Esprit person and so on. Even until the body is pass away, it still has some marks. For instance, the society will recognise the death body as a good or bad person when s/he was still alive. While the body ends the journey in the world, it will has so many text, symbol, mark and label all over the body.

The connotation meaning of writing the body sometimes is one of the biggest problems in the history of human being. People cannot release themselves from the text written in their body. People can be fallen into trouble only because they have some label in their body. The history prove this phenomenon that can be seen from what happens to Jewish in the past, the Palestinian, the Bosnian, the Moslem, the Aboriginal people and there are still a long list of what can be caused by the writing the body.

Anang (2002)