There are many different types of research. You have already done some background research into your audience and into the type of piece you are making. The type of research dealt with in this chapter is the sort of research you would do when you have your idea and are starting your project.
As with your background research, you should be keeping notes. This will help you during the production process as you can refer back to the notes, and it will also help with the evaluation. Just as with your audience research you should also be clear about the objectives:
If you are making a factual piece, either a news item or a documentary piece, you will need to research the subject of your piece. You can do this in two ways:
However you do the research, you should always be clear about what the story is you want to tell before you do any recordings or filming. You should already know all the main facts and you should know how you want to tell you the story. This is not to say that surprises don’t happen or things don’t change, but you need to do your research.
Remember: if you don’t know the point of the story, there is no hope of a viewer or listener knowing either.
In any TV or radio recording you are going to need to choose where you do your filming or recordings. This kind of research is called a recce. You may have just one location in your production or you may have several, but you need to visit each of the places you want to use, and while you are there you will need to think about the following:
If you are making a factual piece you will probably need to interview people. You need to recce people as well as places. If possible, you should go and meet the people you are going to interview. If you can’t meet them, then you should at least talk to them on the phone. Interview techniques will be dealt with in more detail later on, but for the moment you should be thinking about the types of person you want to include in the piece. You need to know that they have something to say that’s worth saying and that the interview will not just be a waste of time. Before you talk to anyone prepare some questions for yourself and the contributor.
Ask yourself:
You may be doing a dramatised piece which needs a cast. Casting is an important part of the process. You should be thinking about your characters, the look, the personality, how you want them to come across. If you form a mental picture of your character you will find it easier to cast.
Often the choice of music will come later, perhaps during the edit. However, it may be that the music is an integral part of your piece and therefore you need to be thinking about it quite early on.
Unless you write the music yourself, any music recording will belong to someone; they will own the copyright to it. If you want to use music in any kind of broadcast, you will need to get permission from the person who owns the copyright. There are however a number of companies which provide mood music, sometimes referred to as background music or royalty-free music. The difference is that this music has been deliberately created for the broadcast or film industry, so programme-makers are encouraged to use this type of music. Broadcasters would usually pay a one-off fee to use the library, and critically the library is very unlikely to refuse permission since the whole point is that they are trying to sell the music. It is usually very easy to search for this type of music under genre, instrument or mood, and it is a quick and easy way of researching a large amount of music.
If you log onto the website you’ll find links to some examples.
Commercial music, the type you can buy in a shop or download, will be more difficult to get permission to use. Some artists are careful about how their music is used and others simply refuse to let anyone use their music for any purpose. It is for this reason that you will probably be directed to music libraries.
Depending on what type of programme you are making there may be other elements you need. Radio features, for instance, quite often use illustrative material such as readings, poems and archive content, even dramatised sequences. TV pieces often use still images, archive footage and sometimes dramatised sequences.
In a professional world if you want to use this kind of material, a big part of the research process is clearing the copyright. Copyright is the legal right you have over the reproduction of your own intellectual property, whether it’s something you wrote or composed, something you painted or a photograph, or indeed a film or radio piece. Copyright often lies with the person who created the piece; however, if that person is working for a company then the company may hold the rights. Rights are often bought and sold, so the person who originally made the work may no longer own the copyright but could have sold it to someone else.
Just as with music, anything you have not created yourself is likely to belong to someone, and that person or company has the right to decide whether or not to let you use the material. If they do allow you to use the material then they have the right to say how much you should pay and what kinds of rights they will sell you. In the broadcasting world you normally buy the right to use the property in a particular medium – radio, TV. You would also be restricted as to how often you could broadcast the material. The right to broadcast over the internet becomes even trickier.
There are a number of different types of copyright and they all have different rules:
Copyright is quite a simple concept; you want to borrow something from somebody and they tell you what they will let you do and how much they will charge you. However, the reality is that it can be very complicated to find out who owns what rights and then even more complicated to come to an agreement over what they will let you do. In big broadcast organisations whole departments are dedicated to clearing rights.
Rights become an issue when a copyright item is broadcast or published, or where there is an audience for a live public performance. Thus, for instance, you can sit at home and read an extract from a play to your friends without there being any copyright issues. If you were to stand up in class and read it there is no copyright issue. However, if it was part of an amateur production to which parents and friends were invited then this is likely to be classed as a performance and there would be a copyright payment due.
Generally in a student piece the advice would be to avoid copyright material where possible but if you do include any material which is not your own you need to make sure that this is made clear and you are able to cite the source.
Your programme is only as good as the research you put into it. Finding the right locations, contributors, knowing your subject will make your piece what it is. Doing good research gives you options and choices for where you want to take your piece. However, you will need to make sure that you are getting the best out of the research. You will need to have a clear idea about what you are researching, why, and what outcome you want. If you are organised and methodical about your research then it will never be wasted time.