Educational

Content Creation for TV – Part 2

Posted on by Korede Fagbola
14
Nov

WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED SO FAR

The first part of this educative piece must have given us insights on how to launch, sustain or scale up a career in content creation for TV. Repetition, they say, is the key to real learning; hence we begin by highlighting key takeaways from the first installment on this topic;

  1.  Clear the fear in your head, start first: Don’t wait for perfect content, perfect gadgets, perfect team members, perfect audience or even a perfect time. The real ‘perfect thing’ to do is to start with what you have and ruthlessly commit to developing your craft on the journey. Good enough, that commitment will lead you to helpful improvement tips like the ones contained in this write-up.
  2. Define and Discover Your Genre: Appraise your strengths, skills and style when it comes to content creation and production, stay consistent (but never get stuck, boring or unevolved) and keep churning out great genre pieces.
  3.  Set up a Team: If content creation is not a mere fling or hobby for you and you are in this for the long game, then you might want to consider building a Content Writing Team and a Content Production Team.  

WHAT DO I NEED? | SETTING UP YOUR CONTENT CREATION & PRODUCTION TOOLS

Moving on, we get to a critical and more technical part of building an enviable and sustainable career path in content creation for TV

Content Creation for TV is not just one thing; it’s an entire production chain that spans from ideation to organization of ideas to script (content) development, production, editing and finally, distribution (broadcast) of such content for the world to enjoy. Pundits might prefer to summarize all these steps as Preproduction (Ideation, Content Development etc.), Production (Performance, Recording etc.) and Post-Production (Editing, Subtitling etc.), but to keep things relatable and simple for every reader, we’d just look at few gadgets and tools that are needed in the most important stages of content creation.

  1. Content Development
  2. Organizing, Sharing & Keeping Content Ideas for TV: Sometimes, the biggest problems we face in our creative processes and productions is not our lack of big things and tools, but our trivialization of very basic things. Getting a Canon XF400 might be a bit of a challenge at the moment, but how difficult would it be to get a Google drive dedicated to all your content works? Zero naira! Yet, the magnificent success of what you’d eventually achieve with Lights, Camera and Action begins with the intentionality of using certain tools to organize, manage and develop your ideas; such tools include;
  3. Google Drive: With 15GB on the drive (for free version), you can use other Google Tools such as Google Docs to develop, share and save your content on the cloud forever (no fear of loss or damage). Other cloud storage tools to consider are Dropbox, Mega, Nordlocker, pCloud etc
  4. Evernote: Too many ideas running to and fro your mind? Content ideas get lost ‘in transit’? You need a note-taking tool like Evernote (other alternatives are Google Keep, Simple Note, Quip, Nimbus Note etc.) to categorize, share and keep your ideas in one place.
  • Generating Content Ideas & Creating Scripts/Screenplays: Whether you are working on a TV Drama Series or a Reality TV Show, these tools would help to build a rock-solid pre-production foundation as you communicate your ideas and scripts in clear ways for the production team to interpret.
  • Google Trends: What are people searching for the most online? How to find and keep a spouse? Celebrity gossip? Dealing with grief? Google Trends would help you find out.  Simply knowing these things can help you infuse some of these ‘popular searches’ as elements and culture references in your content or scripts (this may not apply to all genres). You might also try similar tools like Semrush, Ahrefs, Act-on etc.
  • Final Draft:  Final Draft is the standard screenwriting software for leading production companies and studios. With this, you can write, edit and collaborate on your content creation like a real pro. Other alternatives to Final Draft are Trelby, Fade In, Movie Magic Screenwriter etc.
  • Video Content Production Tools
https://holoceneinnovations.com/product-category/professional-video/camera-support/
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  • Lighting: Well-written dialogues and script ideas would definitely not cut the deal for your TV audience except if you have some relatively good lighting. Again, scale, scope and budget apply and that’s why it’s good to check out these lighting equipment suitable for all your TV production works
https://holoceneinnovations.com/product-category/lighting/
  • Others: Since this is not intended to be an exhaustive list as our focus is on the broader subject of Content Creation for TV, it would really help for you to check out other Video content Production gadgets (from Tripods to External Microphones, lenses etc.) on https://holoceneinnovations.com/product-category/lenses/
https://holoceneinnovations.com/product-category/professional-audio/
  • Video Editing Tools | Post Production

If you are involved in the full content creation cycle for TV, your success is fully sealed only when your post-production is done professionally and excellently. For this, you (or a member of the team/production crew) will need (among other things) high-spec Systems (check them out on https://holoceneinnovations.com/product-category/computers/) and Video-editing software.

WAY TO GO!

In this two-part series of Content Creation for TV, you have learnt how to;

  • Face and overcome your content creation fears
  •  Decide and discover your genre
  •  Set up your content writing and production team
  • Access and use content development tools, video production equipment and video editing tools

What is left is execution. Act on what you’ve learned. Learn, relearn and unlearn. The TV screens are waiting for your beautiful creations.

Korede Fagbola