Tras las cámaras

Abstract

Tras las Cámaras was born out of the need to fill an information gap in the audiovisual production sector. The media that deal with current affairs in this industry focus their pieces generally, showing particular interest in roles such as the director or the actors starring in the productions. On the other hand, this media aims to inform in a more specific way, giving a voice to workers with less recognised roles. It dedicates pieces that focus entirely on their work, their value within the industry and their functions. 19 The cybermedia is organised into five sections. The three main sections -where the pieces focused on the most invisible positions within the industry- are: El Rodaje, El Montaje and Prevenidos. Each of them refers to one of the production phases (pre-production, post-production and production). El Rodaje includes all the content related to the moment of filming, the film sets themselves and all the workers involved in this phase. This includes the two audiovisual reports, as one of them talks about how television filming coexists with COVID-19 and the other one talks about film and movie locations in Valencia. It also includes information about filming in the Valencian Community, as it is a very important geographic point for the media. The Prevenidos section covers everything related to the pre-production part. It is one of the main phases since without all the previous planning, the project could not even be filmed. Despite this, it is one of the most neglected phases. People outside the film industry hardly value the work of the people who are behind it. Some of the professions in this phase are even unknown, as is the case of audiovisual location scouts, who are in charge of finding good locations for filming and processing all the licences to film on them. This section features two interviews with experts. One of them is with Elena Gobernado, a scriptwriter who belongs to the organisation EDAV (Escriptors de l' Audiovisual Valencià). Another of the interviews deals with the art department within production, more specifically, the role of the audiovisual localiser, which Fran Marco discusses from his own personal experience. El Montaje is the third of the main sections of the magazine. Everything related to the work carried out after filming is included here; this part is what is known as the post-production. This includes the radio report, which deals with the situation of dubbing in Spain, with personal sources such as María Jesús Nieto from ADOMA. Of the other two sections, one of them focuses on everything related to economics, distribution and advertising. It is called Economía del Cine and includes reports on salaries, subsidies, economic losses in specific areas of the industry, etc. The last section, entitled Agenda, covers the current news. Above all, it includes short news talking about current events that encompass different characteristics of the audiovisual and film industry, so these pieces could not be 20 classified in any of the other sections. It also covers different events such as galas and festivals. Two photo galleries are included here too. One of them looks at the LABdeseries Festival from the inside, showing some of its screenings and talks with the speakers. The second gallery portrays an exhibition also related to the series sector, featuring different frames or scenes from the most iconic series of recent decades, such as Game of Thrones or BIG Bang Theory. As for social networks, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube have been the chosen ones to disseminate information about the medium and represent it. The first two are the most frequently used, as they allow to post more instant content and to have more interaction with followers. These platforms have mainly been used to publish images and information related to the pieces uploaded in the website in order to advertise them. Different actions have also been carried out to maintain feedback with the audience and attract new audience. Among these strategies, multiple choice or true or false questionnaires were used to interact with the followers. For example, after publishing a piece about Berlanga on the website, different true or false questions about the life and work of the Valencian director were posted on Twitter. Another strategy chosen is interactive games. For example, on Instagram stories, was posting scene’s frames from movies or pictures of emblematic places in the city of Valencia. The idea was that the followers could guess which series or film were these pictures from. An audiovisual report of film locations from the city of Valencia was published on the website before this interactive activity was launched. YouTube, on the other hand, is a social network that does not have as many tools to publish in a more regular way. Its content is mainly based on videos, so it was not possible to publish any games or quizzes. Videos produced by the media, such as television reports, radio reports and recorded interviews, were uploaded to the platform. The live tool has been used on several occasions to contact followers and to take advantage by using a game, Kahoot, in which various participants can play simultaneously. This game consisted of a few questions that had to be answered as fast as possible by the participants. In each live show the questionnaire was about a different theme related to the film industry or it was related to some of the pieces published on the website beforehand. 21 As for the elaboration of the different pieces, not everything has been easy. COVID-19 has affected all sectors, and the implementation of new protocols has also made the work of journalists more difficult. The press is not allowed to enter or record images in some places, and some people were not keen to meet in person for interviews because of the possibility of contagion. Despite these inconveniences along the way, Tras las Cámaras has adapted to the pandemic and has been able to get some pieces. Not all the interviews could be face-toface, so tools such as Zoom or Google Meet have been very useful in this special situation. These tools have also been useful to interview fantastic workers who are not from the Valencian territory, as has been the case of María Jesús Nieto, a dubbing actress who belongs to the ADOMA board, or Fran Marco, an audiovisual localiser. The pandemic has not only hindered the plans we had for the face-to-face interviews, some pieces that needed their own shots and scenes recorded by the media have also been affected. For one of the audiovisual reports, it was necessary to shoot inside a production company to see by first-hand how the filming adapted to the pandemic. But due to protocols, no production company agreed to do it. The reportage had to be rethought and the focus shifted to a shoot that could be accessed. This led to filming on the set of À Punt, where we approached how a public television station films, adapting to COVID-19, with shots of the prior disinfection of the used materials and with personal interviews. Despite the difficulties imposed by the pandemic, the media has published a wide variety of journalistic pieces, most of them produced in-house, without using other press releases or information on different websites. From reports in different formats (written, audiovisual and radio) to news and in-depth interviews. These are some of the main highlights of Tras las Cámaras. The wide variety of personal sources is another positive aspect of the medium. Each piece features interviews with a variety of specialists in their field, most of them interviewed face-to-face. Moreover, there is no shortage of documentary sources, with official websites such as the Generalitat, the Institut Valencià de Cultura (IVC) and the BOE being some of the most consulted. Some of the most negative aspects of the medium are to be found on the website. Due to the limited knowledge of how WordPress works, beyond what has been 22 taught in class, it has not been possible to innovate much in its design. It is simple and basic. It is easy to use and intuitive, so it will not be difficult for any user to navigate between sections or to search for something specific. Another aspect that could be improved is the number of pieces published. It is not a low number, but some of the sections are a bit emptier than others, such as the Agenda section. This is due to the complexity of the pieces, as most of them are quite extensive and contain a variety of sources. Therefore, a lot of time has been spent on contacting specialists and conducting interviews for each of them. Thus, the number of articles and their publication frequency could have been improved by not leaving many days without uploading information to the website.