I’ve been giving presentations to various clients, organizations and civic groups for a number of years. When I talk about content, my stunner – the one I hope is the takeaway for attendees is – “Nobody cares what kind of car brings their pizza. They care about the taste of the pizza.”
And the translation? Pretty simple. Content is still king. Delivery method doesn’t matter. It’s that simple. But, just for a second, I want to take it one step further. I want to tie content to emotion. I’m kidding, right?
I can’t imagine why you’d think that. Content usually begets emotion. You see a news report about a theft or kidnapping and it evokes emotions. Will kisses Alicia in the office and you have feelings about it. Chris Rock lays a one-liner out there and everyone watching laughs. Content brings emotion. Uh, it’s not a McLuhanism. It just is a fact.
Please! Take one step backward and ask, as a producer/director/writer, what’s the goal? To tell a story and trigger the desired emotional response(s)? It’s true of fiction. True in a lot of other places, too. Not sports? You bet, it is. The excitement of a runback or two base hit into the vines; inbounding for a three-pointer with seconds left on the clock – all immediately generate feelings in the listener or viewer.
In fact, sometimes it’s all about emotion. I recall one sportscaster who couldn’t see Stuart Appleby on the screen without dredging up the tragedy that he experienced in his wife’s death. That went on for years.
However, what a lot of folks don’t realize is that it takes a lot of elements working together to bring about the intended feelings…and a number of things get in the way. Top of the list? Production values.
Aw, Len, you’ve got to be kidding. Just objectively tell the story and let the feelings generate themselves. Oh yeah. Right. Just like pro sports expansions, the proliferation of video tools to just about everyone has diluted the production gene pool.
Now who’s kidding whom? Telling the story is an art and the sum total of the aural and visual content generates the feeling. Remember Mom or Dad telling a Halloween story…and their eyes got bigger, their voice became more urgent as the monster got closer?
Well, by and large, production values have been forsaken. Or have they just never been learned. When the cost of entry to the production world was high and therefore limited the number of producers, directors, editors, scorers and the rest, there was commitment to telling the story. The limited number of stories, then, meant a higher number of viewers/users of any single show/film/event. Don’t agree? Just look at the difference in the definition of a network “hit” in 1992 and twenty years later. A six rating wouldn’t have lasted to the second commercial break in ’92.
The point here is that is that the fewer number of programs and greater number of viewers for each generated – or paid back – more production dollars. That, in turn allowed for better production values. NOT! The values are still around. They may be built into the switcher or step printer or the faders of an audio board. The problem is the paucity of people who know coax those values out of the gear. And that IS caused by the low cost of entry.
Anyone with a few, and I mean really few bucks can get a video camera of sorts and become a producer. With youtube.com and break.com, you’re even a distributor. But, by and large, you’re really not a producer. You’re a, uh, let’s call you an “objective content generator.” Your camera looks at a scene or person and you press a button to capture it. The scene tells the story as best it can, with no help from you. But you’re not creating or encouraging any emotions. You’re letting the field-of-view do that. And you’re doing nothing to help out.
Look. If you’re a news stringer, pay no attention to what I just said. We need more reporters who let the camera tell the story and don’t try to shoehorn in a political, religious or other emotional point of view. Tell the damn story with facts. Of course, even that can be tampered with. In the distant past of grad school, a partner and I took footage of a major riot and cut it two ways…one pro-police and one pro-demonstrator. Both were totally plausible and would have easily been broadcast as actualities. Both were lies.
And it’s troubling when I read quotes like SVP at Associated Press Daisy Veerasingham saying, “We are getting onto story-telling. Just turning the camera doesn’t work in the 21st century. Our subscribers and their viewers want informed narrative--and we will provide it.” What’s an informed narrative? Does that mean a slant, angle, or coloration? That’s for another blog.
Back to production values…I’ve seen a gang of content in the last couple of years. A lot of it, decent. Some really good. The greatest percentage was just plain poor.
How so? Well, start with framing and camera moves. Let me be brief:
• What’s the center of interest? Make it the center of interest!
• Effects for effects’ sake? Why? Don’t you have a story to tell?
• Lighting has, by and large, become available light. Throw in the occasional LED on-camera lamp (don’t use the balancing filter indoors…it’s way too much fun watching someone’s face turn from red to blue as they move from the camera luminaire into the coverage of a house lamp) and you’re done.
• Enuf with the verite`. Handheld to be cool really isn’t. If it’s important to the situation, great but usually it’s not.
• Transitions? At least make them fit what you’re trying to do. Psychologically, a dissolve really does translate to a passage of time. Argue that it’s conditioning if you’d like, but it works.
Whines:
Center of interest? I frame everything just the way I want it. Center of interest doesn’t just mean framing. It’s contextual. From a framing standpoint, of course center of interest means to include what you want the audience to see in order to tell the visual story you want to tell. There’s more to center of interest. New Year’s Eve. The center of interest? C’mon. It ain’t tough. What’s the center of interest?
How ‘bout the countdown to the new year. Yet at least one production – a BIG one – dumped the countdown most of the time, choosing instead to show full screen promotions for their owned properties…vacation spots, television shows…plush animals…you name it. Between those and commercials, the countdown was on screen for less than seven minutes from 11:30 to Midnight. (Yeah – I put a clock on it. Don’t DVR’s really honk you off?) Oops. They missed the point of why they were there.
But I don’t have time for transitions. NFL playoff game. Fast cutting to keep up with the plays, the players, action on the sidelines. Suddenly, after a touchdown, there’s a closeup on the football resting on the tee. In a fast but absolutely beautiful move, there’s a defocus and dissolve to an MCU of the placekicker. It was perfect. Told a great story. More importantly, I didn’t even realize it. I was another 30 seconds into the game before I told myself that I needed to go back and look at it. A production element that added to the excitement and tension of the game, didn’t get in the way of it, and was executed under about as much production pressure as you’ll find.
Audio: I’ve long given up on a seamless network rejoin or backtimed audio up to the hour. Same with commercial breaks. Up- and down-cutting is now de rigueur and, I suppose advertisers understand. Maybe they just build it into the buy. They must because they’re allowing it to happen. Silly me – I think about the emotional carryover (wait…now he’s REALLY BSing me) of a down-cut. Does anyone think less of the Vegematic® because the spot was down cut? Maybe not. Does anyone think less of an expensive washer or dryer or automobile? Underneath it all, maybe! Hello, Kenmore…are you listening? And, apparently they accept loss of lip sync, too, though if they did any research on how loss of sync affects credibility, they’d be crowing to every network ops manager in the business.
And when was the last time the VU meter hit zero? I mean the “zero” on the left, not 0dBm. I watched a radio program guy fool with his automation system for over an hour trying to butt up his network news join with the local ID. He finally succeeded in smashing them together, no breaths, no nothing. A different PD gave me an explanation – they use so much heavy compression that if there’s any dead air (to him a few milliseconds was dead air) the recovery would bring the noise level up to unacceptable levels. Anyone else see the problem here?
Remember as you employ any of these that the production values you approve may get in the way of what you’re trying to say. That hurts advertisers. It may drive listeners or viewers away. That hurts YOU. And, more importantly, at least give passing thought to production values at all levels. Even with that little handicam, it’s possible to reposition, reframe or reblock and tell a better (meaning one that’s more like the one you want to tell) story. Move a light or turn one on…or off! It might just get your point across in a stronger way and to more of your viewers. Isn’t that what you’re after?
And the translation? Pretty simple. Content is still king. Delivery method doesn’t matter. It’s that simple. But, just for a second, I want to take it one step further. I want to tie content to emotion. I’m kidding, right?
I can’t imagine why you’d think that. Content usually begets emotion. You see a news report about a theft or kidnapping and it evokes emotions. Will kisses Alicia in the office and you have feelings about it. Chris Rock lays a one-liner out there and everyone watching laughs. Content brings emotion. Uh, it’s not a McLuhanism. It just is a fact.
Please! Take one step backward and ask, as a producer/director/writer, what’s the goal? To tell a story and trigger the desired emotional response(s)? It’s true of fiction. True in a lot of other places, too. Not sports? You bet, it is. The excitement of a runback or two base hit into the vines; inbounding for a three-pointer with seconds left on the clock – all immediately generate feelings in the listener or viewer.
In fact, sometimes it’s all about emotion. I recall one sportscaster who couldn’t see Stuart Appleby on the screen without dredging up the tragedy that he experienced in his wife’s death. That went on for years.
However, what a lot of folks don’t realize is that it takes a lot of elements working together to bring about the intended feelings…and a number of things get in the way. Top of the list? Production values.
Aw, Len, you’ve got to be kidding. Just objectively tell the story and let the feelings generate themselves. Oh yeah. Right. Just like pro sports expansions, the proliferation of video tools to just about everyone has diluted the production gene pool.
Now who’s kidding whom? Telling the story is an art and the sum total of the aural and visual content generates the feeling. Remember Mom or Dad telling a Halloween story…and their eyes got bigger, their voice became more urgent as the monster got closer?
Well, by and large, production values have been forsaken. Or have they just never been learned. When the cost of entry to the production world was high and therefore limited the number of producers, directors, editors, scorers and the rest, there was commitment to telling the story. The limited number of stories, then, meant a higher number of viewers/users of any single show/film/event. Don’t agree? Just look at the difference in the definition of a network “hit” in 1992 and twenty years later. A six rating wouldn’t have lasted to the second commercial break in ’92.
The point here is that is that the fewer number of programs and greater number of viewers for each generated – or paid back – more production dollars. That, in turn allowed for better production values. NOT! The values are still around. They may be built into the switcher or step printer or the faders of an audio board. The problem is the paucity of people who know coax those values out of the gear. And that IS caused by the low cost of entry.
Anyone with a few, and I mean really few bucks can get a video camera of sorts and become a producer. With youtube.com and break.com, you’re even a distributor. But, by and large, you’re really not a producer. You’re a, uh, let’s call you an “objective content generator.” Your camera looks at a scene or person and you press a button to capture it. The scene tells the story as best it can, with no help from you. But you’re not creating or encouraging any emotions. You’re letting the field-of-view do that. And you’re doing nothing to help out.
Look. If you’re a news stringer, pay no attention to what I just said. We need more reporters who let the camera tell the story and don’t try to shoehorn in a political, religious or other emotional point of view. Tell the damn story with facts. Of course, even that can be tampered with. In the distant past of grad school, a partner and I took footage of a major riot and cut it two ways…one pro-police and one pro-demonstrator. Both were totally plausible and would have easily been broadcast as actualities. Both were lies.
And it’s troubling when I read quotes like SVP at Associated Press Daisy Veerasingham saying, “We are getting onto story-telling. Just turning the camera doesn’t work in the 21st century. Our subscribers and their viewers want informed narrative--and we will provide it.” What’s an informed narrative? Does that mean a slant, angle, or coloration? That’s for another blog.
Back to production values…I’ve seen a gang of content in the last couple of years. A lot of it, decent. Some really good. The greatest percentage was just plain poor.
How so? Well, start with framing and camera moves. Let me be brief:
• What’s the center of interest? Make it the center of interest!
• Effects for effects’ sake? Why? Don’t you have a story to tell?
• Lighting has, by and large, become available light. Throw in the occasional LED on-camera lamp (don’t use the balancing filter indoors…it’s way too much fun watching someone’s face turn from red to blue as they move from the camera luminaire into the coverage of a house lamp) and you’re done.
• Enuf with the verite`. Handheld to be cool really isn’t. If it’s important to the situation, great but usually it’s not.
• Transitions? At least make them fit what you’re trying to do. Psychologically, a dissolve really does translate to a passage of time. Argue that it’s conditioning if you’d like, but it works.
Whines:
Center of interest? I frame everything just the way I want it. Center of interest doesn’t just mean framing. It’s contextual. From a framing standpoint, of course center of interest means to include what you want the audience to see in order to tell the visual story you want to tell. There’s more to center of interest. New Year’s Eve. The center of interest? C’mon. It ain’t tough. What’s the center of interest?
How ‘bout the countdown to the new year. Yet at least one production – a BIG one – dumped the countdown most of the time, choosing instead to show full screen promotions for their owned properties…vacation spots, television shows…plush animals…you name it. Between those and commercials, the countdown was on screen for less than seven minutes from 11:30 to Midnight. (Yeah – I put a clock on it. Don’t DVR’s really honk you off?) Oops. They missed the point of why they were there.
But I don’t have time for transitions. NFL playoff game. Fast cutting to keep up with the plays, the players, action on the sidelines. Suddenly, after a touchdown, there’s a closeup on the football resting on the tee. In a fast but absolutely beautiful move, there’s a defocus and dissolve to an MCU of the placekicker. It was perfect. Told a great story. More importantly, I didn’t even realize it. I was another 30 seconds into the game before I told myself that I needed to go back and look at it. A production element that added to the excitement and tension of the game, didn’t get in the way of it, and was executed under about as much production pressure as you’ll find.
Audio: I’ve long given up on a seamless network rejoin or backtimed audio up to the hour. Same with commercial breaks. Up- and down-cutting is now de rigueur and, I suppose advertisers understand. Maybe they just build it into the buy. They must because they’re allowing it to happen. Silly me – I think about the emotional carryover (wait…now he’s REALLY BSing me) of a down-cut. Does anyone think less of the Vegematic® because the spot was down cut? Maybe not. Does anyone think less of an expensive washer or dryer or automobile? Underneath it all, maybe! Hello, Kenmore…are you listening? And, apparently they accept loss of lip sync, too, though if they did any research on how loss of sync affects credibility, they’d be crowing to every network ops manager in the business.
And when was the last time the VU meter hit zero? I mean the “zero” on the left, not 0dBm. I watched a radio program guy fool with his automation system for over an hour trying to butt up his network news join with the local ID. He finally succeeded in smashing them together, no breaths, no nothing. A different PD gave me an explanation – they use so much heavy compression that if there’s any dead air (to him a few milliseconds was dead air) the recovery would bring the noise level up to unacceptable levels. Anyone else see the problem here?
Remember as you employ any of these that the production values you approve may get in the way of what you’re trying to say. That hurts advertisers. It may drive listeners or viewers away. That hurts YOU. And, more importantly, at least give passing thought to production values at all levels. Even with that little handicam, it’s possible to reposition, reframe or reblock and tell a better (meaning one that’s more like the one you want to tell) story. Move a light or turn one on…or off! It might just get your point across in a stronger way and to more of your viewers. Isn’t that what you’re after?
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