The CPB/PBS Producers Academy is offering a “scholarship” opportunity to 20 individuals for a Producers Workshop to be held at WGBH Boston, Saturday, June 20 through Friday, June 26, 2009.
Each scholarship will include the cost of the workshop, and reasonable expenses for airfare, hotel accommodations, meals, and limited ground transportation.
If you are interested in applying, please submit three copies of the following: a completed application form (attached) along with a resume that includes education and television production experience; a letter of recommendation from a public television station or other public television programming partner (including the Minority Consortia, ITVS, etc.), production company, or industry professional; and one non-returnable VHS tape or DVD of recent work. (If the tape/DVD is a clips reel, a second full-length program may also be sent.) The video provided should include work for which the applicant performed a significant role (ex: producer, director, writer, editor, associate producer); please indicate your actual role and production credit on the program you submit. Tapes must be cued to the beginning of the program or scene to be viewed. You may also include a URL for further information or viewing.
Please include a brief narrative of your professional development goals within public broadcasting. Among the areas you may wish to address are general and long-range goals and how the Workshop might help you attain them, specific skill areas you hope to develop further in the Workshop, and projects you are currently planning or have in progress that might be aided by your participation in the Workshop.
To be considered, an application must be received at PBS by 5:00 PM Eastern on Friday, April 3, 2009. Scholarship awards will be announced on Wednesday, May 13, 2009. The following describes the planned workshop:
Over a seven-day period, participants in the Producers Workshop will attend an intensive course that covers a range of production skills and draws on the expertise that has made PBS a recognized force on the American cultural landscape. The goal of the Producers Workshop is to encourage a diverse and talented group of producers who will create new and greater programming achievements in public broadcasting.
The Program
The Producers Workshop will be open both to public broadcasting station staff producers and to independent producers who are involved in public broadcasting.
The Workshop will be located at and administered by WGBH Boston, one of the largest organizations of producers in public broadcasting. The executive director of the Workshop is Judith Vecchione, Executive Producer, WGBH National Productions.
Participants
The CPB/PBS Producers Academy WGBH Workshop has been developed for producers who create or intend to create works for public broadcasting, either through a public television station or independently. It is an opportunity for these producers to work intensively on the skills that will benefit them most, through classes and through direct contact with some of public television’s most talented personnel.
The definition of “producer” includes producer/writers and producer/directors; individuals who have worked locally as well as nationally, in all genres of programming; professionals who work in video, film, and interactive media; and those who work in studio-based as well as field production.
It is important to note that the Workshop is not for beginners. The program has been designed as advanced training, to hone and upgrade skills at a relatively high level so that the participants can apply these skills to works in progress or in the future.
Applicants must work in the United States and its territories, and must have time to complete preparatory readings and other assignments in the month before the Workshop begins on June 20, 2009.
Seminars and Sessions
The Workshop will be held over a seven-day period, June 20 – June 26, 2009. The course of study will consist of seminars on these or similar topics:
Saturday: Travel and Welcome dinner
Sunday: Working with PBS and CPB, Screenings of Workshoppers’ productions
Monday Writing, Producing/Directing
Tuesday Editing and Post-Production, New Media Production, Reception
Wednesday Project Management, Legal,Pitching Your Project
Thursday Special Sessions on Workshoppers’ projects
Friday Publicity & Outreach, Fundraising, Travel home
Production Skills Seminars
The first few days of the course will be devoted to specific areas of program production: proposal writing, production planning and administration, directing/producing, writing, editing and post-production, extending projects to new media platforms or creating original new media projects, and effectively presenting a project to funders and other audiences.
At each seminar, the participants will screen productions and discuss “homework” materials they have prepared in advance. The discussions will be led by the executive director of the Workshop and by other experienced production personnel drawn from the public broadcasting universe. Many of the classes will focus on documentary genres such as science, history, and investigative programming; other classes may include arts and performance programming, interactive and new media production, and live/studio production. The skills that the Workshop will seek to develop will be applicable to a wide range of productions.
As examples, at the Writing seminar, Workshop participants might screen extended excerpts from programs in the American Experience series, focusing specifically on the writing in films such as a presidential biography of Ulysses S. Grant and New York. Assisting in the day’s work would be the authors of the programs under review, who would discuss with the participants the development of programs from proposal to treatment to script, the very different choices they made in creating the narrative “voice” of these programs, the use of letters and other written sources in scriptwriting, how archival materials and scriptwriting interact, and other points of both philosophy and craft.
In the New Media seminar, by contrast, the presenters might start with the ways that production for new media platforms should be conceptualized differently than linear (“traditional”) media production, and the opportunities and challenges that multi-platform production offers to PBS producers. Both Web-original and companion sites would be discussed, as well as high-budget and lower-budget Web production.
Special Sessions
One day of the Producers Workshop program will be tailored to the individual participants’ work issues and interests. The 20-person group will break up into smaller groups of 3-5 participants who will attend tutorials with experienced national production staff. Here are some examples:
• Workshop participants who have documentary programs in progress could be paired in small groups with experienced producers and executives from programs like P.O.V. and NOVA. The small group would screen and critique the works, and the leader and other participants would offer structural and narrative ideas to move the production ahead.
• For those who want to improve their field directing, a session would be arranged with an experienced cameraman/producer. The group would look at current and past work that the Workshoppers felt could have been improved, examine clips from other productions that could serve as future models, brainstorm about how participants could prepare for future lighting or other production challenges, and discuss how to locate and use resources in the participants’ home areas.
Understanding Public Broadcasting
Sessions will be offered on working with PBS, CPB, and related public television entities with discussion of topics such as resources available through local stations and the network, new media and public broadcasting, and more.
The participants will gather together at the end of the Workshop to share their Special Sessions experience, relate them to the earlier Production Skills Seminars, plan their next steps, and celebrate their accomplishments.
Producers Workshop Staff
The Producers Workshop course is developed by Executive Director Judith Vecchione. Ms. Vecchione is a longtime staff member of WGBH Boston, where she has been executive producer for award-winning series including Discovering Women, Americas, and De Gaulle and France. She has also worked extensively with independent filmmakers as executive producer for The CHINA Trilogy and Eleanor Roosevelt, among other projects. She was series senior producer and producer for two programs on the acclaimed series Eyes on the Prize, and produced two programs for Vietnam: A Television History, for which she won a national Emmy. Her most recent films include Young and Restless in China, which aired on Frontline (executive producer), Fire Wars for NOVA (producer/writer), and Mary Pickford for American Experience (executive producer).
Workshop sessions, in both the Production Skills Seminars and Special Sessions, will be led by top-level executive producers; by producers, directors and writers in documentary, studio, and interactive production; and by senior production administration personnel. These will be drawn from the WGBH Boston staff, which includes the major series American Experience, NOVA, Frontline, Antiques Roadshow, Masterpiece Theatre, Design Squad, Arthur, This Old House, and many others. Independent producers whose work has been showcased on public broadcasting will also be invited to serve as teachers and mentors in the classes; past teachers have included Ric Burns, Stanley Nelson, Rachel Dretzin, Barak Goodman, Adriana Bosch, Michael Kirk, Mark Zwonitzer, Callie Crossley, and Ross McElwee.
Click here to download the 2009 CPB/PBS Producers Workshop application