Hard News: Biting back at Bill
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has anyone noticed that they always have experts walking past or towards the camera before they're interviewed.
it kind of says, "look dr. [whogivesashitreally] can walk in a straight line! s/he is therefore someone you should listen to attentively!
If I may give away a few trade secrets.
That's probably a sign the story is short on pictures. That technique is usually done to give some sort of vision over the script and is quite common in stories which, while worthy, are a bugger to find exciting pics for (eg finance, insurance etc)
Other tricks include;
the reading a document/computer screen shot
the making a cup of tea shot
the two shot (ie ws of reporter and interviewee)
the noddie (ie mcu of reporter - usually to cover an edit in a quote/grab) -
and the quickly putting away guinea pig under the counter shot.
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Copywriting:
Real estate agents think "Towering Inferno" is a great tagline for a highrise apartment building - nothing like the prospect of being trapped and burned to death to move property I suppose, unless they're talking about house prices. In other crimes against the English language, I saw one once describe a property as having the "penultimate kitchen".And walking in front of the camera:
TV camera crews like to use moving images wherever they can, to fill in the visuals while reporters voiceover the actual words. A still image of the expert's place of employment provides context. Someone walking in the picture (apparently) makes it more visually interesting. The poor old expert they've just interviewed is usually the first muggins they can find to perform this task. Receptionists answering fake phonecalls are also frequent victims of this practice. -
merc,
OK, this is my personal fav, when they interview an academic or pseud, they alway sit in front of a bookcase, always, and their book, if they have one, is always in view on the shelf behind the learned head, brilliant.
OK, fav 2, when they go in a pollies office, thay are always empty as, but the pollie pretends to be reading a pile of papers, always, sometimes with pen in had, none of them have a 'puter at the desk either, so when do they scan kiwiblog? And in Murray's case, who must be Murray M, when does he post a comment?
As for outrageous accents, the female newsreader on The panel today (go Garth! you said obscene about losing your job today 25 times!) she was awesome, sort of nav unit meets english Cherry 2000... -
One News headline on Virginia Tech aftermath: "Authorities are under fire ..."
Oh dear.
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merc,
...or the voice on Flight Simulator 1.0, "Warning, warning, pull up, pull up", ineffably slow and silky, no hint of panic.
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merc,
Garth George on it...indescrible.
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Close-Up trailer: "The worst massacre in US history".
If they don't know any history, couldn't they at least learn how to use Google?
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Response from TVNZ and TV3 - not one - not one - alteration to programming. Not one extended bulletin. No "Close-Up". Nothing. At All.
A little like the response from the rest of the world since...much of what was pledged, including the governmental aid, didn't turn up. That mighty US pledged highway out of Aceh remains a pipedream, and only $156 mil of the One billion promised by Australia has been received to date.
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yes that is a nice voice isn't it m?
GG should've listened to the "Warning, warning, pull up, pull up" a long time ago. he heard it, but thought it was a reference to his fly. -
merc,
Garth needs a hug, really.
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3410,
SG,
This thread needs to go on forever, as a live-bloggin' record of shabby TV news practices. I can hardly believe that, as of Apr. '07, no-one is DVD-recording, and YouTube-embedding these myriad embarrassments, C&L-style. Props to Dannews, but more needs to be done. (Note: such appropriation is protected by s. 42 of the Copyright Act, 1994.) -
one of the more distatsteful aspects of these tragedies' coverage i find, is the desperate attempts of the correspondents to mute their excitement. i can understand their excitement, and i know it doesn't mean they like what's happened or aren't truly appalled by it, but the excitement comes through often. and it looks really really awful.
susan wood was particularly incapable of repressing her excitement when she'd accidentally discovered a real story in her lap. -
3410,
Close-Up trailer: "The worst massacre in US history".
If they don't know any history, couldn't they at least learn how to use Google?
You're assuming that they value accuracy.
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no-one is DVD-recording
you mean 1 and 3 tv news? it is being continually logged in its entirety ad has been for years, if that's what you mean. and not by the broadcasters either.
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Mmmm the walk on shot, now there is one part of the news presentation that serves absoluteloy no purpose whatsoever. The walk-on shot is probably my most coveted hatred of television media in general, that and bad continuity.
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Absoluteloy?
Have i been turned into Kel by osmosis?
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3410,
Intriguing, Riddley. Please elaborate.
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merc,
Kath, cough, cough, that would be Kath who would be you by osmosis.
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Controlling emotion regardless of what news is being read is, of course, the art of the professional broadcaster. Phillip Sherry many yonks ago had a 'one face fits all' style of delivery a la Cronkite (mind you it could have been a rubber mask), and dear old Richard Long was quite good at the stiff upper lip no matter what, unlike Jude who had adopted her sad face/happy face so we would know what to feel. But for sheer bloody unprofessionalism of the worst sort was crossing to CNN the night of 9/11 and seeing them howling and gnashing teeth and losing all sense of objective journalism -- I had to make a quick dash to the BBC to try and get some semblance of sense out what had happened.
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Haven't been back to CNN since.
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The contrast between CNN and CNN International during last night's Virginia Tech coverage was marked... Wolf Blitzer in his Situation Room was shouting questions and observations at reporters, witnesses and the viewer... the two presenters who first fronted the breaking news were following the usual set of inane questions that every TV reporter is seemingly obliged to ask victims and witnesses to tragedies (One poor student was asked at least six times how it "made her feel")... and the gathered pack of journo's at the press conference were determined to have the case solved by dinnertime... it is interesting how much alike coverage of most breaking news stories is - I am sure there must be a checklist of questions, statements and story angles somewhere. "Trail of destruction" anyone?
CNN International on the other hand (when we switched back to that from the US feed), had a much calmer response. You would be hard pressed to believe they are the same source network.
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I thought Garth George was trying the luvverble old curmudgeon bit. Failed of course with railing against the people who dared to write to him disagreeing with his anti GW hogwash.
The TV news thing that grates with me is the interminable live crosses to things that are not really worth it eg. Cops standing on overpasses with traffic in the background saying "Traffic is heavy tonight as people are going on holiday".
Or the live reporting we had to have from outside the hotel where Anna Nicole Smith died "Well it's 2am here, Mike, so not alot is happening".
Or the political reportor reporting from the steps of paliament about something that might happen next week.
Then we have the film of traffic accidents that are on the news because we have footage eg. the crazed truck driver from Israel last week, a story so unimportant that the news readers could barely stay awake yet it got two showings.
And the man from Channel 9 Australia who is going to take over at TV One wants to see it more competitive...
Lordy, lordy thank heaven for the interweb.
Merc it is indeed time for the shining sword of truth or maybe the glowing wand of relevance or even the bleached toothpick of pretty interesting. -
merc,
or even the bleached toothpick of pretty interesting.
Hehe, I'm switching off, weaning myself off my TV news habit, nasty as nicotine. After I left adland I didn't watch TV for 2 years, I'm heading that way again.
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Last month, I said to myself "You are being too harsh, even elitist, there must be something to watch and it would stop you obsessing on that book about the post apocalyptic boy" So I went through the programme listings trying to find something to watch. there was nada, zip, zilch. Even if we had rich peoples TV there would have been bugger all to tempt me. We keep watching the news because it's a habit, I suppose.
Ooh ooh another peeve: The items that show you some person with some terrible thing happening to them and then "You can see more of this on "35 Minutes" tonight ie. "This was a spruik"
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