Documentary for the Small Screen

Preface

Why this book?

Until recently, film, video and television, both fiction and documentary, have been devised and created by specialized craft workers, using specialized knowledge and training. But now that is changing—and changing very fast.

That is not to say that professional film and video programme-makers are disappearing from the scene. Quite the reverse in fact. Britain, for example, has at the time of writing just under a thousand independent television film and video production companies—perhaps between two to three thousand directors and producers—mostly working in documentary, and all vying with each other to gain commissions from the limited number of broadcasters in this country. The same pattern is repeated on the continent ...