The Time Team year

As one Time Team year finishes, another begins. With the 13th series being screened in January-April 2006, and filming for the 14th underway in March, there is little time for a rest for many of those associated with the programme. Steve Platt reports on a typical Time Team year.

Wrap party
It's mid-October, just before the clocks go back, and the autumn chill is beginning to bite on the final day of the final dig for the 13th series of Time Team, first screened in January-April 2006. There are more than a few fuzzy heads on site this morning because the night before has seen the traditional Time Team 'wrap party'. This is when most of the team, the diggers, the film crew and the rest of the people who've been involved in putting together the 13 programmes that will make up the new series celebrate the conclusion of their efforts and say their farewells to each other until the start of the next digging season.

There is still a lot more work to be done, of course, before the raw material from those 13 shoots, filmed over the previous six months or so, is turned into the finished television programmes. And work has already started behind the scenes, too, in preparation for the next series – not to mention the various Time Team spin-offs, documentaries and other programmes that are now in production almost all the year round.

Natural hiatus
But mid-October, and the conclusion of the year's digging and filming, is about as near as it gets in the Time Team production cycle to a natural hiatus. The 50 or so people involved in the production of each programme, most of whose contracts finish with the final shoot, certainly make the most of their autumnal knees up. (See Taking time off.) The party is held on the penultimate day of the dig, rather than the last one, because most people like to leave for home as soon as the final day's filming is over.

'There are always some very sore heads around the next morning, but actually there is no end to the Time Team year for me,' says Tony Robinson. As well as being the presenter and most public face of the programme, Tony is also associate producer. 'There's all the post-production to be done and all the voicing of the shows,' he says. 'This carries on well into the new year. I can be in the situation in February or March where we've started work on making the next series and I'm still finishing off the last programmes in the current series, while the earlier ones are showing on television.'

Indian bracelet
'The Time Team year overlaps itself like a rather elaborate Indian bracelet,' says Tony. More prosaically, executive producer Philip Clarke says simply that it 'never really ends'.

'By the time of the wrap party, we're already into the next year's production cycle,' says Philip. 'We'll have reviewed how the year's gone and what changes we want to make, and we'll be planning ahead for the next series. We'll have been involved in negotiations over contracts for the next year and started making arrangements to replace anyone who's leaving, covering for pregnancies and so on.'

Researching sites
By mid-November, the development process for the new series will be underway. A shortlist of likely sites is drawn up from the many hundreds of suggestions made by viewers, archaeologists and Time Team's own researchers (see Selecting the sites). By early in the new year, these will have been whittled down to something resembling a final list – although invariably some will be dropped and others added, often at quite a late stage.

The main people involved until now will have been the development researchers, who are employed from November onwards, and series editor Michael Douglas. Others who are consulted in drawing up the list of sites include Tony Robinson, Philip Clarke and Time Team series producer and devisor Tim Taylor. Mick Aston is also called upon for his archaeological judgement.

First shoots
It is from mid-February onwards, though, that the programme-making process begins in earnest. This is when the first sites are allocated to their respective directors, production coordinators and research teams. Each director (nine were used to make the 13 programmes for the 2006 series) has four weeks for research and preparation prior to filming. The first shoot takes place towards the end of March, and from then on there are at least two programmes in development at any time.

Jay Parsons is one of the two production coordinators whose job it is to make sure everything runs smoothly. They are responsible for everything from arranging transport and booking accommodation to negotiating with recalcitrant landowners over access. 'We alternate with each other,' says Jay, 'but often you can be organising your next site before you've finished with the current one.' Usually, there are no more than a couple of digs in a month. But in 2005, when Time Team was also running the Big Roman Dig, the biggest archaeological event ever held in Britain, there were as many as three. 'It can get quite hectic, trying to keep everything together' says Jay.

Editing period
When the actual filming is over, the directors have a four-week editing period to produce a 'rough cut' of the finished programme. This is when they must decide which of the various possible storylines to follow and edit the many hours of film (see Hundreds of hours of film) accordingly. As well as the programme director, executive producer Philip Clarke and series editor Michael Douglas will also be involved in this process. 'We usually have one viewing of the film in the third week of editing and another in the final week,' says Philip. A copy of the rough-cut programme will also be supplied to Channel 4's commissioning editor for viewing.

This stage in the production process may not take place immediately after filming. Even if it does, there is still a lot of other work to be done before the programme is ready for screening. This includes the addition of Tony Robinson's voiceovers, as well as any graphics, which are usually the last things to be completed. Much of this occurs in the autumn, when it's sometimes hard, according to Tony Robinson, 'to remember which programme you're working on at any given time'.

'From mid-October through to Christmas, there are a lot of films in the cutting room,' says Philip Clarke. 'We can be sitting through three or four viewings a week and working on several different programmes simultaneously.'

Final cuts
No matter what stage the programmes are at, a draft running order for the new series is drawn up in early October. 'We've usually got a couple of programmes finished by then, and a good idea of how most of the others will work out,' says Philip. 'We try to put the strongest three up front to start the series.' Editing the later programmes in the series will often continue well into the new year, with the final cuts of some programmes taking place into late February or even March.

'Somewhere around mid-February, there is a feeling that you slough off the old series and start gearing up for the next one,' says Tony Robinson. 'And then before you know it, you're meeting up with everyone again on the first dig of the new series and the whole cycle starts all over again.'

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