Initial Basic Planning for a Community online TV Station

Hi Guys. 
Thanks for your interest in this blog. I really appreciate you reading, and I hope that you are finding it interesting. Most of all I hope you are taking action. I'm going to try and answer Gina's question about how do you start to put together a community TV station? This is a difficult one to answer without more information but I'll give it a shot. 

Lets assume that you want to put together an online station that will be become self-funding because whatever you do there will be some costs and you may have a bagful of

volunteers but that isn't enough. 

So first of all you need to write down your objectives, assets and resources and the type of station you want. These are the 3 circles that you need to complete and have overlapping to see if the venture is credible.

 So list out your Assets and Resources. So this will include what equipment you have, what facilities and space, the people you can rely on, and any finances. Now this can be what you have or what you need. Be ambitious and write down what you need then you can look for it. Don't limit this to what you have. Include, for example, local college or university students studying acting or film making because you can gather a team here. I have worked with several successfully and am now partnering some projects with a friend whom I met through his studies and is now doing his masters in Film making and TV

What are your objectives? Do you want to provide a local information service, entertainment, news, local music? Do you want to provide training to local unemployed people, those retired, maybe disabled people. Do you want to provide a live station or pre-recorded that is available on demand? Do you want to get funding or will you look for local sponsors and advertisers? Will you want to have a large space station or just a desk and have most outside recording? Think about other questions and answer them here.

And finally, what type of station are you planning? Will it be in your home? I do a lot of filming in my bedroom, standing in front of the camera and away from the wall with a couple of daylight bulb lamps, one on an umbrella reflector and the other a light pointing on the back wall. I could put in a small desk and be a news reader. You might have a large lounge/living room that you could use. How about a double garage. You may be able to afford space. Maybe you have an office or can use an office evenings or weekends. I even had a large empty warehouse at one time. In the UK if an empty property is used by a charity or social enterprise then the owner doesn't pay business rates, or at least has an 80% reduction. So it helps you and the owner. The only problem is that you have no certainty and can have to move at any time, if the property is sold or rented out. A friend of mine who ran a charity and needed loads of space for his outdoor equipment had free space but moved about 4 times in 3 years. Keith Chegwin, a British actor and TV presenter ran an online show back in about 2003 for 2 months from his bed, two hours every day. He was a forerunner and it was successful. He had 5 cameras and ran it as webcams. I think I remember him having guests who went to his home and sat on or in his bed.

So you may have an intimate studio or something bigger. Here we are looking at what you have and also what you would like. But I seriously recommend you start with what you have and get going. Then when you get funding, sponsors or advertisers you just move up. At least you will have started and have a track record and viewers.

NEXT STEP
 Now you have this information see if it all overlaps as in the diagram below. If there is a big mix in the centre you are probably ready to go. If the central mix is small you need to see what you can do to increase it.

 Now you need to take all that information and write a business plan. You can make it elaborate if you wish but I'd keep it down to bullet points. The elaborate plan is when you want to involve funding or sponsors. The bullet point plan becomes a working model and should be looked at and updated daily. It will help and inspire you towards your goal.

Include a programme schedule section where you write out the programmes you want to include, details and length. This will help you focus.  If you can produce a very short video of yourself, or someone helping you, talking about your venture and expectations this can be put up on YouTube and Facebook etc to spread the word. It can be used to promote what you are doing. The main thing is to do it. No matter how good or bad it doesn't matter. All that matters is you take that first step. You can and will get better with experience. And your confidence will grow too. Be passionate because that is contagious.

This is just an outline but I hope you find it interesting and encouraging. I truly feel that the future for small independent local online TV channels is very bright. Take a look at the top YouTube channels and you will see that many are really individual TV channels, usually of one person. You will take this to the next level. So there are my thoughts for planning your online TV channel.

PLEASE NOTE. My new online course "How to set up and produce an online TV station" will be available soon. Click here to become an early bird   You can make a really exciting project out of online TV and I'm here to help you and answer any queries. Leave a comment below. Also please look at the right side of this blog and like my Facebook page. And SHARE

Your Community Station Studio Start-up

Hi Guys

Thank you for reading this blog. I do hope you find it informative and useful and that you take action. I've had some very positive feedback from the last post about setting up your own online TV show and today I want to elaborate on some issues that I've had questions about.

Gina from Ontario asked how do you start? And Bill living (I presume) in Wood Green in North London said he runs a community project and thinks this would fit well with what

they are doing. He also wanted to know how to get going. What equipment and how does he design a studio in his Community Centre?  I'll try and answer Bill's question now.

So lets talk about your studio.

You can have a studio almost anywhere provided you have a

 small space bigger than about 4 metres by 5 metres. You will need a power supply for low energy lighting and other equipment. Standard power sockets will be adequate and the quantity of power used will be no more than the power you use to light your home. So there's no big drain on energy.

Natural lighting is the best for filming provided it is sufficiently strong but I feel that for a studio it will be inadequate. If there is natural light use it and supplement it with artificial lighting. You can pick up a lighting kit for a very low cost. Lights

available on E-bay are adequate and low cost. I'd suggest a couple of these packs. Cost is less than £90/$130 per pack. These lighting boxes are called soft boxes because there is a translucent cover over he front to diffuse the light and cut out shadows. But you can remove the covers and have direct light. They hold low energy daylight bulbs that are cool when working, unlike traditional lights which become tremendously hot. With two kits you are ok for smaller sets such as interviews and also for larger sets such as panels, chat shows where there may be 3 people on a sofa and a presenter. You can of course use more traditional lighting or LED lights that are now available as direct mains powered or battery operated.

How about cameras? There is a whole range of cameras from the simple (well rather sophisticated really) smartphone, through camcorders, professional cameras, DLSRs and Go Pro Heros. The choice is yours. Personally I'd grab a couple of camcorders because they are relatively cheap new or dirt cheap second hand. This means you can work on a shoestring and grow in time. There's another bonus here. If you are going for funding then you can produce material to backup what you are looking for by showing you have started to experiment. You'll also need tripods. Hand help cameras are generally really bad. You just can't prevent hand shake and movement. To start use KISS - keep it simple, stupid!!

Sound is more important than most of us realise. So I'd recommend using separate mics, not the ones mounted on cameras. You can use the input socket and either wireless or long leads and this is ok. We use a boom mic held over the actors, interviewers or guests. And this works well. You can make a boom easily and cheaply. We'll cover that in another post. So my favourite external recorders are the Zoom range. These provide a variety of sound options and are compact and lightweight.

You will need a backdrop. Now this could be as simple as a painted wall, but you could use paper or material backdrops. You can by backdrop kits of a stand and material backdrops in black, white and green. You will move on to the green backdrop for green screen as you become more experienced. If you have a large room you could just pull away from the walls and have the background out of focus.

So you have choice. In addition you can dress the set at little cost. Remember a photo of a prop can look like the real thing on video. A planter on set is easy and you might get a local shop to donate or free loan you. Ask kindly and you will be surprised what you can get.I have tended to keep it simple. A tall planter is all I usually have on set. 

You probably will need a desk for news readers. This doesn't have to be elaborate and in fact a shallow desk is good because it takes up little space for storage between use. 

Props can be the real thing or made out of papier mache which can be used to form almost anything. I used to make puppet heads with it but also remember a huge dinosaur (probably 4 metres high) we used in a carnival made from chicken wire covered in papier mache. Once painted it is pretty well water proof and, if enough layers, is strong too.

Backdrops can also be sheets of mdf, plywood or almost anything that's firm. So you can have a window with the sun shining through, a balcony, painted backdrop like you see in Kids TV shows. The limit is your imagination.

Now with a small studio you will probably need to shoot some material around the show you are producing. So, for example when we had a music item, this was filmed prior to the show and edited in. Firstly the guitarist had another engagement so we had to film him early, but secondly he would have been hanging around unnecessarily for a couple of hours. 

So that's your studio. Ideally, if you are working  in a Community Centre you will probably have more room. A studio should be an integral part of any Community Centre at it teaches a new skill, gives users confidence and social skills, and its a a fun project. In addition it is a great way to promote everything local, particularly community activities

If you don't have suitable premises I would highly recommend approaching everybody who might be able to help using both social media and direct approaches. You may be surprised at the support you will get without having to pay.

Good luck with your venture. Watch for further posts on setting up and running a Community TV Station. And there will be a full course ready soon with everything you need to know about setting up and running one.