Production Processes and Working Practices
From Idea to Audience: The Three Phases
Every media product — a television drama series, a magazine feature, a music video, a radio documentary — passes through three broad phases before it reaches an audience. Understanding these phases, the people involved and the technologies used is essential for explaining why media products look, sound and feel the way they do. The spec frames this as the relationship between pre-production, production and post-production.
Pre-Production: Planning the Work
Pre-production is everything that must be decided before a camera rolls or a microphone is switched on. It includes commissioning (deciding which projects to fund and develop), writing and developing the script, casting performers, scouting locations, drawing up a production schedule and agreeing a budget. The stronger the pre-production planning, the fewer expensive problems arise during filming or recording.
In television, a key pre-production role is the showrunner — the person who holds creative responsibility for an entire series. In film, the equivalent executive oversight often comes from a producer or executive producer. These roles shape the product before a single shot is taken, which is why pre-production decisions have such a strong influence on the finished work.
Pre-production includes commissioning, scripting, casting, scheduling and budgeting. These decisions shape the product’s genre, tone, form and intended audience before production even begins. Budget limits in pre-production often determine the visual style of the finished product.
Production: Making It
Production is the phase in which the actual filming, recording or other creative work takes place. A television drama may shoot on location, in a studio or a mixture of both. A radio documentary requires field recording and studio interviews. A magazine requires photography shoots, writing and design. Each media form has its own production conventions, but in all cases the production phase turns the pre-production plan into raw material.
Production teams vary enormously in size depending on the budget and form. A large-scale television production might employ hundreds of crew members; a podcast series might be produced by a single person with a laptop and a microphone. The size of the team, the technology available and the working environment all shape what kinds of product are possible.
Post-production is where raw footage or recordings are shaped into the finished product. For film and television, post-production includes editing, colour grading, adding visual effects, mixing the soundtrack and creating titles and credits. For music, it includes mixing and mastering. For print media, it includes layout, typesetting and image retouching.
Post-production has been transformed by digital technology. Work that once required large specialist facilities can now be completed on a standard laptop. This has lowered the barrier to entry for independent and lower-budget productions — and it means that post-production decisions (such as colour grading choices or editing rhythm) are now a significant part of the creative identity of a product, not merely technical finishing.
Outsourcing, the Freelance Economy and the Gig Economy
Major media organisations do not employ every person who works on their products. Much media production relies on outsourcing — contracting specialist companies or individual freelancers to provide specific services. A broadcaster might commission an independent production company to make a documentary series; a magazine might hire freelance photographers and writers for specific features.
This has created a large freelance economy in media. Many crew members, journalists, designers and technicians work on short-term contracts, moving from project to project. This gives organisations flexibility but can create instability for individual workers. Critics of the model, particularly in relation to digital media platforms, describe these conditions as part of a broader “gig economy” — one in which workers bear the financial risk of fluctuating demand rather than receiving the security of permanent employment.
Outsourcing reduces costs and increases flexibility for media organisations. However, it shifts financial risk onto individual freelance workers, creating a workforce that lacks permanent employment security — a pattern that has intensified in the digital era.
The rise of subscription streaming services has created a distinct working practice sometimes called streaming-first commissioning. Rather than making a film or series for theatrical release or broadcast window, a streaming platform commissions content directly for its own service — and may release all episodes of a series on the same day rather than one per week. This changes the economics of production (budgets and marketing are shaped around subscriber retention, not broadcast ratings) and can also change narrative structure (binge-viewing audiences tolerate different pacing than weekly viewers).
Understanding how the platform a product is made for shapes its working practices and form is a key analytical skill. A radio documentary, a social media vertical video and a prestige streaming drama series are all made through the three-phase process, but the personnel, technologies, schedules and budgets involved — and therefore the finished products — look very different.