Producer Tips

Every week Faith Miller, our executive producer, would send each producer a set of three goals for us to work on to become better producers for the following week. The goals ranged from copy editing, story focus, graphic designs, conversational writing and end of show timing.

All of these points are extremely important, but I would say the three most valuable takeaways that I wish I could have fully comprehended the importance of earlier on in the semester would be:

1. COMMUNICATION: I can't emphasize enough the importance of communication. Without solid communication between everyone on your team, something is bound to fall through the cracks and not get executed as you envisioned. There is no way producing can be done alone. It requires a team. And in order to produce as a team, communication is key.

2. BE DILIGENT ABOUT THE DETAILS: After all of everyone's hard work, the last thing you want to do as a producer is overlook a little mistake that takes away from all the hard work you put in throughout the day. Something as simple as leaving out a word in the copy, forgetting to add a cutline to an OTS or misspelling a name can distract your audience from all of your other great work. Just make sure to leave a couple of extra minutes before the show goes on air to check over the rundown and make sure everything is looking exactly how you want it to.

3. GET CREATIVE: The truth is no one wants to watch a boring show. The more interesting you make a show the more people you'll reach and the crew will also have the opportunity to try exciting new things. As a producer, it's our job to attract an audience, keep them entertained, and ultimately, inform the masses. And without a little creatively, this is nearly impossible to do.

P.S. Keep calm. Make mistakes. Learn from them. And most importantly, have fun!