Producing for Television

Course Description

Producing for Television instructs students in preproduction methods for a live television broadcast. Students develop comprehensive plans encompassing all production phases, including concept development, format design, and the integration of audio and visual elements.

Within the SCNS taxonomy, RTV is the Radio and Television prefix. Daytona State publishes this at 3 credits, offered fall and spring, with RTV1000 and RTV1510 as prerequisites, giving approximately 60 contact hours at the prefix convention.

Producing is the least glamorous and most employable role in this prefix. The director makes the show; the producer makes the show possible — the concept, the budget, the schedule, the people, the rights, the logistics, and the accountability when any of it fails. It is also the role that most reliably leads to running things, because it is the one that requires understanding every other job.

Daytona State does not publish a lecture and laboratory split for its RTV courses, but the convention across the prefix is consistent: every published RTV course at this institution runs at approximately 20 contact hours per credit (RTV1000 and RTV1510C at 4 credits and 80 hours; RTV2100C and RTV2600C at 3 credits and 60 hours). These are studio and laboratory courses, and the hours reflect substantial hands-on time rather than lecture.

Learning Outcomes

Required Outcomes

• Describe the producer's role across preproduction, production, and post-production.
• Develop a programme concept and articulate it in a pitch.
• Define a target audience and design a format to serve it.
• Write a treatment and a programme proposal.
• Build a programme rundown with accurate timings.
• Develop a production schedule and identify dependencies.
• Build and manage a production budget.
• Identify and allocate crew, facilities, and equipment resources.
• Book talent, guests, and contributors.
• Plan the integration of audio, video, graphics, and playback elements.
• Coordinate remote sources and contributions into a live programme.
• Prepare production paperwork: call sheets, contact lists, and run-of-show.
• Conduct location scouts and risk assessments.
• Identify and secure necessary rights, releases, and permissions.
• Identify legal and regulatory constraints on planned content.
• Develop contingency plans for foreseeable failures.
• Communicate effectively with crew, talent, clients, and management.
• Run a production meeting that produces decisions.
• Manage the production on the day and make decisions under time pressure.
• Manage changes to a plan without losing the programme.
• Evaluate a completed production against its objectives.
• Describe distribution and promotion of a programme.
• Work productively within a team with defined roles.
• Deliver a complete production plan to professional standard.

Optional Outcomes

• Describe programme financing and sponsorship.
• Describe audience measurement and ratings.
• Describe FCC regulation as it affects broadcast content.
• Plan a multi-camera remote production.
• Describe streaming and multi-platform distribution.
• Develop a producing portfolio.

Major Topics

Required Topics

• The producer's role
• Concept development and pitching
• Audience and format design
• Treatments and proposals
• Rundowns and timing
• Production scheduling
• Budgeting
• Resource allocation
• Talent and guest booking
• Integrating production elements
• Remote sources and contributions
• Production paperwork
• Location scouting and risk assessment
• Rights, releases, and permissions
• Legal and regulatory constraints
• Contingency planning
• Communication
• Running production meetings
• On-the-day management
• Managing change
• Post-production evaluation
• Distribution and promotion
• Team working
• Delivering a production plan

Optional Topics

• Financing and sponsorship
• Audience measurement
• FCC regulation
• Multi-camera remotes
• Streaming and multi-platform distribution
• Portfolio development

Resources & Tools

• The programme's own studio, control room, and field kit — by far the most valuable resource here, and the reason to take these courses in person. Book open lab time and use it.
• Television Production Handbook (Zettl) — the standard text for studio and field production.
• Sight, Sound, Motion: Applied Media Aesthetics (Zettl) — why shots work, not just how to get them.
• In the Blink of an Eye (Murch) — short, and the best thing written on why an edit happens where it does.
• Grammar of the Edit and Grammar of the Shot (Bowen) — practical and genuinely useful early on.
• Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Audition, or DaVinci Resolve — Resolve has a genuinely capable free version, which matters when you are building skills outside lab hours.
• Frame.io, Vimeo, or YouTube for review, delivery, and portfolio hosting.
• NAB Show and SMPTE — where the industry's technical standards and equipment are set out.
• Florida Association of Broadcasters (fab.org) — state industry body, job board, and scholarships.
• NATAS Suncoast Chapter — regional Emmy chapter; student entries are a realistic and well-regarded credential.
• FAA Part 107 study materials (faa.gov) — free, and the certificate is directly marketable.
• Production music libraries and Creative Commons audio — learn to license properly now, because it is unfixable later.

Career Pathways

• Film and video editor — SOC 27-4032.
• Camera operator, television, video, and film — SOC 27-4031.
• Producer or director — SOC 27-2012.
• Broadcast technician / audio-visual technician — SOC 27-4012, 27-4011.
• Sound engineering technician — SOC 27-4014.
• Local television news — the traditional entry route, and still a real one in Florida's many mid-size markets.
• Live sports production — a large and growing Florida sector, from college athletics to professional venues.
• Corporate, marketing, and agency video — where a large share of production work actually is, and frequently the best-paid.
• Houses of worship and non-profits — substantial steady demand for competent live production.
• Government, municipal, and educational channels — stable employment with benefits.
• Theme park and attractions media — a distinctively Central Florida employer.
• Freelance and owner-operator work — common in this field; treat it as running a business.
• Transfer to a bachelor's in telecommunication, digital media, or mass communication — ⚠ confirm which of these courses apply, since technical production credit does not always transfer as major credit.

Special Information

⚠ Producing is the discipline of anticipating failure

• The producer's real product is a plan robust enough to survive contact with reality. Everything else follows from that, and the difference between a good and a poor producer is visible only when something goes wrong.
• Ask what happens if each element fails. The guest cancels, the remote feed drops, the venue withdraws, the rain arrives — each of these needs an answer before the day, not during it.
• Build slack into the schedule deliberately. A plan with no margin fails on its first small setback, and small setbacks are certain.
• Confirm everything in writing, and confirm again close to the date. A verbal agreement made three weeks ago is not a booking.
• Get the rights and releases early. Discovering a rights problem after the shoot means the material is unusable, and that is the producer's failure regardless of who created it.
• Over-communicate. Crews cannot execute a plan they have not been told; most on-day chaos is an information failure, not a competence failure.
• Protect the crew and the talent. Safety, breaks, and reasonable hours are the producer's responsibility, and the industry's historic record on this is poor.
• Own the outcome. Producers who blame the crew when a show fails do not get asked back; the accountability is the job.

⚠⚠ Copyright, music licensing, and releases — the trap that ends student projects

• You cannot use commercial music. Not thirty seconds of it, not "for a class project," not with a credit line. This is the single most common serious error in student video work, and it is the one that gets a portfolio piece taken down permanently.
• Fair use is a legal defence, not a permission. It is decided case by case, after the fact, by a court — it is not a box you may tick in advance, and relying on it for background music is not a defensible position.
• "Royalty-free" does not mean free. It means a single up-front fee rather than per-use royalties, and the licence still has terms — read what it permits, especially for commercial or broadcast use.
• YouTube's Content ID will find it, automatically and permanently. A muted or blocked video is a portfolio piece you no longer have.
• Get a signed appearance release from every identifiable person on camera — keep a stack of blank forms in the kit bag, because you will need one at a moment you did not plan for.
• Minors require a parent or guardian signature. No exceptions, and this matters constantly in community and school-based shooting.
• Location permission is separate from people permission. Private property needs the owner's consent; many public spaces require a permit for a tripod or a crew.
• Clear the background too. Artwork, logos, posters, and playing music in a shot are all someone's property.
• Use properly licensed libraries — production music libraries, Creative Commons with attribution honoured exactly as the licence requires, or music a composer has given you written permission to use.
• Keep your paperwork with your footage. Releases and licences you cannot produce are releases you do not have. Rule 11 applies — verify current requirements before distributing anything.

⚠⚠ Florida is an all-party consent state for recording — know this before you record an interview

• Florida Statutes § 934.03 requires the consent of all parties to record an oral communication where the participants have a reasonable expectation of privacy. Many states require only one party's consent; Florida does not, and this catches visiting crews and students who learned the rule elsewhere.
• Violation is a criminal offence, and it also creates civil liability — this is not a formality.
• The practical protection is simple: get consent on camera. Roll first, then ask "do I have your permission to record this?" and keep the answer in the file.
• The expectation of privacy is what governs. A public street where a person can be plainly overheard is different from a private office, a home, or a telephone call — and the closer to private, the more clearly consent is required.
• Telephone and video-call recording needs consent from everyone on the line.
• Consent to be interviewed is not consent to be recorded unless you asked about recording specifically.
• ⚠ This is a fast-moving area and the details matter. Journalism carve-outs, one-party states, and multi-state calls all complicate it. Rule 11 applies — verify the current statute and get legal advice for anything consequential rather than relying on a course guide.

⚠ In this field the reel is the credential, not the transcript

• Hiring in production is portfolio-driven. Employers want ninety seconds of your best work and evidence you can be relied on — the degree opens the conversation, the reel gets the job.
• Treat every course project as a portfolio candidate, which means clearing the music and the releases at the time, not the week you apply for work.
• Keep it short and lead with the strongest shot. A reel is judged in the first fifteen seconds, and padding actively hurts.
• Show your actual role honestly. Misrepresenting what you did on a crew project is found out quickly in a small industry.
• Say yes to crew positions on other people's projects. Credits, contacts, and competence all come from the same place, and this industry hires overwhelmingly by referral.
• Reliability is the actual differentiator. People who arrive early, handle gear carefully, and stay pleasant at hour eleven get called back; the ones with better taste and worse habits do not.
• Local news, live sports, houses of worship, corporate video, and municipal channels all hire steadily in Florida and are where most first jobs actually are — not at the networks.

How Florida course levels affect transfer

The first digit of an SCNS number denotes the year of offering, not transferability. Courses at the 1000 and 2000 levels transfer transparently between Florida public institutions, and 3000 to 4000 is unproblematic since both are upper division. The boundary that actually matters is 2000 to 3000, where lower-division credit generally cannot satisfy an upper-division requirement — relevant here because several Florida universities offer upper-division telecommunication and digital media degrees that these courses feed into.

RTV2241 is 3 credits and approximately 60 contact hours, offered fall and spring at Daytona State, with RTV1000 and RTV1510 as prerequisites. The deliverable is typically a complete production plan for a live programme, assessed as a professional document.

Producing pairs naturally with RTV1670 (Television Directing) and RTV2540 (Workshop in Studio Production) — see those guides.