Leon Franklin: Author
Noel F Bennett: Film Maker
Bennett Family Tree
Friends of St. Clare's
Too Close for Comfort
Too Close for Comfort
These are some of my thoughts on modern television camera techniques. I am not an expert on TV or camera work but I am a TV viewer and I do know what I like and don't like. I certainly do not enjoy the way directors and camera teams frame most of the shots nowadays. I am not averse to close ups, in films or on television; they are an integral part of the show. However, let’s take a closer look at what is happening to our viewing – pun fully intended.
As an example, in the snooker coverage, we now get shots of a snooker player’s right elbow, nothing else in the shot just an elbow. We also get shots from cameras in the pocket, that’s OK but is it really necessary for our enjoyment of the game? A story once came to my notice that at one snooker match the television programme director insisted on putting a miniature camera on the end of Stephen Hendry’s cue, but just before they were both about to shoot - Stephen chalked it!
In a famous cookery programme we suddenly find ourselves peering up the inside of Nigella Lawson’s left nostril. It is just not conducive with learning how to prepare the dish and in this case I can think of more interesting places to point a camera lens.
When we watch television I was under the impression that we are supposed to have the best seat in the house. Well it turns out I was wrong. With modern day camera work and I presume a dictators directions, (or is that a directors dictations) it seems we instead have to watch whatever is deemed an artistic shot. So when Torvil and Dean are each executing a side by side spin, all we often see is the top half of one of them. How we are supposed to enjoy the beauty and synchronicity of this skating element I really do not know. I have a video of their skating programmes over the years and the best camera work was used in their early days.
What we as viewers want is a good view, the best and most natural view that we could have if we were actually there, yet not necessarily confined to a seat fifty rows back. If we were in a kitchen watching a dish being prepared our nose would not suddenly be thrust into a frying pan to be horribly burned and then into the mixer to be scarred for life followed by a shot within kissing range of the chef’s mouth.
Can you tell that I am, to be polite, peeved off with all these inappropriate, at best unnecessary, at worst infuriating, methods of shot selection. It seems just like the King with his new suit of clothes, eventually it was a child who said “The King is naked.” I have no training but from an ordinary viewers point of view this sort of weird fiddling with our programmes is plainly silly and distracting. We don’t want these misguided directors and cameramen who think the programme needs their arty-farty methods of interpretation.
Pause for breath.....
Right next.....
When you broadcast programmes like the X Factor and Britain's got Talent, please, please....
‘Let us see the bloody act!’
Not the panel, not the audience, not their friends and relations. Yes let us see them after the act, but it is very infuriating during the act. Tell me Mr. Director, when you go to the theatre, during the actual performance, are you constantly looking around at other members of the audience or at the usherettes, the friends and family you have with you or anywhere else for that matter? No, you will have your eyes glued to the stage like everyone else, why should we television viewers be any different?
Also - the viewers eyes are never given time to focus or rest, so many different shots one after the other with plenty of flashing lights. These are virtually subliminal cuts which I thought were banned. Anyone suffering from epilepsy has a warning on the news when flash photography is filmed, and that is nothing to the constant flashing of lights, spinning of camera’s and battery of cuts from one shot to another we get on a lot of modern programmes. No wonder the X Factor - the worst offender - is losing viewers, it may even have been taken off air by the time this blog is published. Will someone show them this blog before we have to suffer the same nonsense on the next series. Yes we can switch off or over, but have you seen the quality of the other shows????
Look, directors I know you have a difficult job, but please remember, if your subject is worth broadcasting it will stand alone with the minimum of gimmickry. Your job is not to try and improve it or show how good you are. Anyway it is not possible to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. Your job is to give us the best view of what ever the subject is doing; it’s as simple as that.
Even the news is being got at!- in this way, with constant out of focus shots, and shots which are superfluous to good news reporting.
We do not want or need:-
As an example, in the snooker coverage, we now get shots of a snooker player’s right elbow, nothing else in the shot just an elbow. We also get shots from cameras in the pocket, that’s OK but is it really necessary for our enjoyment of the game? A story once came to my notice that at one snooker match the television programme director insisted on putting a miniature camera on the end of Stephen Hendry’s cue, but just before they were both about to shoot - Stephen chalked it!
In a famous cookery programme we suddenly find ourselves peering up the inside of Nigella Lawson’s left nostril. It is just not conducive with learning how to prepare the dish and in this case I can think of more interesting places to point a camera lens.
When we watch television I was under the impression that we are supposed to have the best seat in the house. Well it turns out I was wrong. With modern day camera work and I presume a dictators directions, (or is that a directors dictations) it seems we instead have to watch whatever is deemed an artistic shot. So when Torvil and Dean are each executing a side by side spin, all we often see is the top half of one of them. How we are supposed to enjoy the beauty and synchronicity of this skating element I really do not know. I have a video of their skating programmes over the years and the best camera work was used in their early days.
What we as viewers want is a good view, the best and most natural view that we could have if we were actually there, yet not necessarily confined to a seat fifty rows back. If we were in a kitchen watching a dish being prepared our nose would not suddenly be thrust into a frying pan to be horribly burned and then into the mixer to be scarred for life followed by a shot within kissing range of the chef’s mouth.
Can you tell that I am, to be polite, peeved off with all these inappropriate, at best unnecessary, at worst infuriating, methods of shot selection. It seems just like the King with his new suit of clothes, eventually it was a child who said “The King is naked.” I have no training but from an ordinary viewers point of view this sort of weird fiddling with our programmes is plainly silly and distracting. We don’t want these misguided directors and cameramen who think the programme needs their arty-farty methods of interpretation.
Pause for breath.....
Right next.....
When you broadcast programmes like the X Factor and Britain's got Talent, please, please....
‘Let us see the bloody act!’
Not the panel, not the audience, not their friends and relations. Yes let us see them after the act, but it is very infuriating during the act. Tell me Mr. Director, when you go to the theatre, during the actual performance, are you constantly looking around at other members of the audience or at the usherettes, the friends and family you have with you or anywhere else for that matter? No, you will have your eyes glued to the stage like everyone else, why should we television viewers be any different?
Also - the viewers eyes are never given time to focus or rest, so many different shots one after the other with plenty of flashing lights. These are virtually subliminal cuts which I thought were banned. Anyone suffering from epilepsy has a warning on the news when flash photography is filmed, and that is nothing to the constant flashing of lights, spinning of camera’s and battery of cuts from one shot to another we get on a lot of modern programmes. No wonder the X Factor - the worst offender - is losing viewers, it may even have been taken off air by the time this blog is published. Will someone show them this blog before we have to suffer the same nonsense on the next series. Yes we can switch off or over, but have you seen the quality of the other shows????
Look, directors I know you have a difficult job, but please remember, if your subject is worth broadcasting it will stand alone with the minimum of gimmickry. Your job is not to try and improve it or show how good you are. Anyway it is not possible to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. Your job is to give us the best view of what ever the subject is doing; it’s as simple as that.
Even the news is being got at!- in this way, with constant out of focus shots, and shots which are superfluous to good news reporting.
We do not want or need:-
- To watch a reporter being filmed as if they are in the middle of a carousel.
- Blurred vision - we buy glasses for that.
- The same 5 second piece of news film shown over and over again to fill a 3 minute report.
- Thick bands of information scrolling across the screen obscuring our view.
If I see Tim Wannacot spinning round and round like a Whirling Dervish-er once more I just may throw something at the screen.
I feel a lot better after that.....I will be OK now - until I start to watch some more telly.
Leon Franklin (2014 I think)