The making of...

Science Programmes for Spiegel TV

[ from research to broadcast ]

Science is on the net; the net is part of everyday-science. Science is also becoming a major content source for television. But where and how do 'net' and 'television' join their efforts to promote science as such? For the time being, at least, cooperation between traditional TV and the Internet is scarce - in spite of the optional Web-site almost any TV-producer provides.

The principle idea of the‚ European Popular Science Information Project' (EPS) therefore was to explore and develop new ways of incorporating and transferring Internet science content into mass media TV.

In the course of implementing this task we focussed our attention on three issues:

1) How to make Internet content usable for TV-journalists producing science programs?
2) How to incorporate Internet-based information in science TV programs?
3) How to visualize the Internet on TV (interface design etc.)? See: The making of... a working Internet interface for TV.

How to make Internet content usable for TV-journalists producing science programs?

The storyboarding technique is well known in film production, where - in 'comic book' form - all the necessary information needed for cooperatively shooting a film is sketched out, either to develop the general plot or to find practical, camera-oriented solutions for a given scene or sequence. In short, the film is pre-told in still pictures. And by now there exist various softwares for this type of storyboard.

We applied the general idea of storyboarding to our needs, i.e. to essentially pre-tell the intended science program or 'story' to concerned parties and then to organize the program production via the Internet. We wanted to include as much diverse information on a given subject as possible: texts, images, sounds and moving pictures available on the net - and making additional material available on the net. Eventually some of these storyboards developed 'a life of their own', independent of program production. Thus storyboards could be seen as an independent form of net culture: telling (science) stories the Internet way.

The innovative character of the three science TV programs aired by SPTV as a result of the EPS effort was disappointing. Although commercially a fair success, their quality really did not differ much from usual science TV reporting - except for the fact that content actuality and completeness was enhanced and that the accompanying websites were better than usual.

But there was some progress 'behind the scenes'. It was established that analogue TV production techniques (which at that time still dominated at Spiegel TV) were no match for the digital possibilities of research, communication and 'storyboarding'. Therefore many efforts by EPS ended in a vacuum - including the fact that the DFN had made available high speed connections into the European Research Network (which were never used by Spiegel TV).

In addition the EPS team at the IFS began developing electronic storyboards in order to speed up communication during the pre-production phase, to identify and develop ‚stories', to contact and inform experts and interview partners etc. (for details on the storyboarding technique see below). The same storyboards were also used to document the broadcasts at Spiegel Online (another subsidiary of DER SPIEGEL).

The storyboards of EPS-IFS as they stand today do not represent a final statement on the subjects, but a work in progress, which is constantly adapted to the actual needs of the project and program production. In fact, we still experiment with ways and means to present these storyboards to 'outsiders'. Right now we have some storyboards simply outlining possible aspects eventually to be covered in a film. Some just constitute a background for negotiations with the editors and authors of the films and programs. Others try to catch the visual essence of films already edited etc..

A second type of storyboards was implemented in the process of editing the material shot for the experimental programs at TV Münster - with far less rigid production schedules. Stills from the raw material were digitized, arranged in order of their appearance in the final film and displayed on a website. As with the original storyboard of ideas and scientific content, these purely visual storyboards were eventually hyperlinked to resources, other images or films, sounds and texts. These storyboards could then be used to discuss the possible editing versions in a collaborative working environment, making suggestions about the order of images, the corresponding filmscenes and narration.

In addition to the shot material, we added images and films that we found on the Internet to the programme. The images displayed here give a rough overview on the content of the films finally realized and actually broadcast in November and December 1997 by Spiegel TV.

But Spiegel TV since has made many efforts to incorporate digital communication into its production routines.

And EPS, after terminating cooperation with Spiegel TV in early 1998, has analyzed and evaluated its experiences with commercial national television to fairly great avail.

A report written by one of the EPS researchers reflected on the cooperation with Spiegel TV, taking the programme on Forensics as a reference.