Mike Fuller (Topical Television) Talk

On Thursday we were given a talk by Mike Fuller, one of the partners and executive producers of Topical Television. Topical Television is a production company based in Southampton who produce many television shows and videos, including around 60 inserts a year for the BBC’s 'The One Show'. This talk was very interesting as Mike has a job in the same field as what I would like to do, and he provided a great insight into what is required and common in the industry. In this talk I made many notes.

• There are a decreasing number of individual production companies
• Topical Television started in 1991
• 3 people started the company, one of these being Mike Fuller. They had been cut loose from their previous job
• Mike has never looked back from this situation – has never had to borrow money and has never been out of a job
• Annually make around £3million
• They have produced around 2000 hours of network programming
• They do not do any regional or corporate work
• Predominantly do work for BBC1
• They make around 60/70 films for The One Show a year
• Every year around November time they panic about not having enough work for the following year. Then the seeds they sowed gradually come to fruition and get more jobs for the following year.
• Mike believes that they are a very fortunate company
• The life of a small independent company is very precarious
• They were looking for a parent company for more financial security – Avalon seemed very suitable – they are the biggest independent broadcasting company
• Avalon also have several other umbrella companies underneath them

• Mike studied English at Nottingham University where he realised that he didn’t actually like it.
• He got a job at Nottingham radio station and became a presenter and reporter
• At TV Weekly he slipped behind the camera, then went from being a director to a producer to an executive producer.

Executive Producer role

• Don’t go out much – don’t have the stresses of day-to-day filming
• Have the stress of when problems get bigger
• Have to oversee and make sure inserts are progressing
• It is important that producers and directors make their own films
• Uses a big white board and lots of post-it notes – makes things easier to visualise and stay organised
• Formatting skills are very important – making spins on a simple idea
• You are constantly finding new ways to spin old concepts
• Have to plan ahead and think of inserts that will work – Mike showed us a brochure of insert ideas that has been sent to the BBC – huge variety and amazing attention to detail
• Look at newspapers, clip out articles - helps get ideas for themes and programmes

• On The One Show, each insert is produced as a documentary, but condensed into 4 and a half minutes
• There is a shooting script for each film
• Each insert has an individual story
• HAS to be factually correct
• Had a good analogy regarding the inserts they make and projects – Don’t build up a wall, fit it all into a brick and concentrate on a particular point
• The attention to detail is mind-boggling
• If you get it wrong you get lots of complaints and into hot water
• Have to have a source for every bit of information in the script
• Reality/structured documentary TV – As an audience we don’t know if we want to know the real real, the pretend real, or if we don’t even know ourselves
• Can get feedback very quickly now – can get picked up very quickly and closely
• Archive footage – we see it in a different light – what was acceptable back then
• Must get into the industry when/where you can
• As a runner you must contribute and offer more to get up the ladder quicker/further
• At the BBC they have a pro-rata system for financing inserts – based on timings and theme
• Volume and format is important – how you make money
• You need to know you can deliver
• When filming, having a shooting script helps you get the shots you need quickly and efficiently
• Use every available minute you have
• When Mike used to go out filming, he got into the habit of only seeing the problems
• You mustn’t underestimate luck – must be optimistic
• Presenters either come from show business or a background of specialist knowledge
• Budgeting – you can only go slightly over budget per episode to make a big financial loss over a series. For example, going £2000 over budget per episode of a 10 episode series means going £20,000 over budget – not good
• They add around 7.5-10% of the production fee to the charge