The contracting process, pitching & writing radio documentary proposals

The verbal pitch and written proposal are the tools you use to sell your radio documentary concept to a broadcaster.

While not all broadcasters programs require a full written proposal in order to commission a feature – ‘imagining the project’ and writing it out is a great exercise that helps you focus both your research and understanding of the story’s potential…. And gives you the information you need to evaluate whether or not the idea is really worth pursuing.

Before going further I want to stress that a lot of time and research goes into developing a project concept to the point where it's ready to be written into a proposal - you need to have conducted preliminary interviews, been on a RECCI (if possible), secured permissions and also researched background and context - and then critically re-evaluated the concept. You usually only get one crack at presenting the idea to a commissioning editor - so you want to give the project the best chance of getting through and being a great program. (For more on this see the post on developing program concepts)

The proposals are pretty functional and practical sorts of documents – it is a ‘working document’ that needs to:

• ‘Excite, entice and inspire’ an EP into wanting to make the program happen
• Give an EP a strong sense of the program – story, characters, how it will sound, approach, sound sources, access etc and if it is actually viable/possible in the duration in the timeframe with the available resources
• Reassure an EP you have the research, communication and program making skills to execute the project

While some broadcasters provide Freelancer Guidelines – if the show doesn’t ask for specific information – be best approach is to keep the proposal structure pretty clean and straightforward…

Make it clear what the document is and your name at the start with an indication of how long you think it should be – begin with ‘Promotional Material’ – a short synopsis of the program that should sell the idea – interest the reader. The synopsis is traditionally the ‘carrot to dangle under their nose’

Follow this up with Explanatory Material – outlines, treatments, scripts – levels of detail vary but basically you need to tease out the story, soundsources, why it’s interesting etc or other relevant information – this is more ‘bread and butter’ kind of writing that give the reader an understanding of ‘how it will work and sound’.

Provide support material in the form of preview tapes or photos or other written stuff if you feel it’s really necessary – but if the information is important then don’t let it get lost in ‘Support Materials’.

In the end ensure you have a business end to the proposal sorted – and don’t forget contact details. When you get down to the nuts and bolts of the proposal concept - you should be clear and direct about the viability and upfront with potential weaknesses.

FURTHER INFO

• Lecture Notes derived from the a lecture I give in the RMIT Media programs Broadcast Media course.

• Audio/Transcript of a short interview with producer/presenter Brent Cloughabout pitching and proposing documentary ideas to ABC Radio National feature programs
Interview with ABC Radio National's Brent Clough by kylabrettle
• Post written by longtime producer/executive producer Matthew Leonard, Notes from the Thought Police – an insiders view of the contracting process and great tips for independent contractors

• Find more resources and link under my delicious tag, pitching&proposals

RELATED SUBJECTS
• Post, On developing radio documentary program concepts

• General resources and links about generating, developing and presenting program concepts under my delicious tag project_development.

Listening to Shocking Sound

BEYOND THE SHOCK MACHINE by Gina Perry and Sharon Davis... broadcast on ABC Radio National's Hindsight

"In the summer of 1961 Stanley Milgram, a 27-year-old associate professor of psychology at Yale University, conducted a series of controversial experiments designed to test the limits of obedience. Volunteers in the experiment were told to give electric shocks to a person they could hear screaming in pain in the room next door. Seemingly ordinary people turned into torturers.

Much has been written about Milgram and his experiments. But there's a missing part to the story -- the voices of people who took part. Gina Perry goes in search of those who participated in what's been described as the most widely cited and provocative set of experiments in social psychology.

This documentary was awarded a silver medal in the history category at the 2009 New York Radio Festival Awards. It was first broadcast on ABC Radio National's Radio Eye program in October 2008."

This is a compelling audio documentary about a endlessly fascinating and disturbing subject - our capacity for obedience, brutality and doing what we know is wrong. The piece explores layers of discomfort - both the findings of the study and the ethics of the experiment itself.

If you are into psychology and all things neuroscience - you'll find it a bit of a beachy, easy-to-find subject - a famous study that's already received a lot of attention and exploration... but if you don't know much about this - the program is a great introduction.

The show is well structured and neatly put together - the ensemble of interviews is

comprehensive and satisfying - and the archival material is truly excellent. It's a very straight program - the producers maintain a safe distance from the subject and it's aurally very conservative. The online presentation of this program is pretty lame - a few bald words with no images or references - not much chop for a subject with such rich archival resources and references.

IMAGES: Obedience image http://www.mytvblog.org/?p=2735, Milgram experiment http://rogerhollander.wordpress.com/2009/02/13/questioning-a

uthority-a-rethinking-of-the-infamous-milgram-experiments/, Shock machine http://www.usu.edu/psycho101/lectures/chp14socinflu/socinflu.html

Where am I at... in July_09?

Second semester is about to snap into action and I'm not feeling terribly prepared. Feeling a bit soft and squishy - overly relaxed, sun-drunk and vague... just spent three most enjoyable weeks Spain - along with everything else, took lots of holiday snaps, home video and audio recordings and made a series of slap-dash one minute films... good to remind myself that making media can just be about having fun.

But it's also about work - and that's what I've come back to.

Righto - so the landscape has changed a little... my gig as online producer for ABC Radio National's music unit finished up at the end of June - it was quite an amazing opportunity to step into shoes that had never been worn and be the first one to scuff and mark them... had lots of ideas, learnt a huge amount and did some good work - though perhaps thought too much as I didn't end up making as much tangible stuff as I would have liked to.

This semester I'm intending to spend a bit of time with my postgraduate project (which languished a bit last semester - squeezed, as it was, between two intense and demanding .5 jobs) . On the teaching front I'm coordinating Broadcast Media and running my third year Radio Active Space studio (aka PP2)... and I've got my number one honours student to supervise - Johnathon Hutchinson (whom I expect great things of).

So that's me in a nutshell, or an egg-shell - or rather, what's called an egg chair.