News Production: Working in Live Television Practice: Watchdog

After completing two weeks work experience with the BBC's topical and Live department during the summer holidays, I was invited back to work as a runner on the 'Watchdog Live’ programme and thus I managed to obtain my first credit. I have also been asked to help again when the new series starts next April. Being able to work on such a professional, high end 'live' production I was able to pick up many new skills and an understanding of the environment, which would feed back into our own live news report. I was also lucky enough to assist and camera shadow on an interview shoot for an episode which gave me a chance to see how such interviews our filmed on a professional level.

Having now had practice in news; as 'Watchdog' covers news stories brought to the public by the public, I am able to try and apply what I've learned in my own News Channel series.
When going out on shoot it was very much the car of picking up props along the way. We were travelling from Manchester to Birmingham, and on shoot day we needed to pick up a chair from Ikea to use as a prop. There was a slight rush to pick this up as we needed to be on location for the interview in time, but there was a delay in Ikea in getting hold of the chair which set us back by an hour. However, because we accounted for this, and checked its availability online we weren't late for interviews. So it's acceptable to get props last minute, provided you account for them in your schedule.

I also learned whilst on 'Watchdog' that contributors won't always be satisfied. Its difficult to keep everyone happy but when on live television, a contributors time may get cut short. They have traveled a distance and jumped hurdles to get to your shoot, and their time may get cut short if the live program runs over. With a show like Watchdog, contributors are really important and it was my job to sign them in, show the around the studio (Dock 10) and make sure they are happy and comfortable. I was really impressed with the BBCs eagerness to look after contributors and little thing like allowing them to speak to and get photos with the talent (presenters) at the end of the show was a nice gesture that they didn't need to do. This makes the experience very enjoyable, and means people are more than willing to help out again; you never know when you're going to need them in the future.

A day that was challenging in terms of looking after contributors was a day where we had dogs on the show. The worst thing you can have on live television is animals and children so this was stressful. At the same time, there was a surprise in the show for presenter Matt Allwright, which shows what breed of dog he is linked to.  The idea was it would be a complete surprise to him on live television so he wasn't allowed to see this dog at all; so going the day and keeping the two apart proved to be quite the challenge.




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