I imagine some innovative sports producer a few decades ago revolutionized television sports coverage by adding more reaction shots to give the viewer at home more of a sense of being at the park (I contrast that with old footage of baseball games I have seen with one single static camera, I think maybe in the upper deck from behind home plate). That was an improvement, and the, like most things, television decided that if a little was good, a hell of a lot more would be even better. Its not of course, it is a hell of a lot worse. The bane of television sports is the promiscuous use of crowd reaction shots, that not only are by now mostly stock, generic and cliched, but not infrequently cause the home viewer to miss information.
It seems to me that this reaction shot disease has infected the television coverage of political events too - and it seems to have gotten worse this year than in the past. I noticed it last week in Tampa (where the producer seems to think it is his job to match whatever the speaker is saying with some visual from the crowd - this is a tiresome trick that seems to have been taken from State of the Union address coverage in particular). It seemed even worse to me today. I was watching Michelle Obama's speech (and wow, that was really effective) while reading the transcript on my computer. She had a line about still being "mom-in-chief" - not her best line, hokey and cliched, but I suspect it tested well with the focus groups. Still, it was obvious reading ahead in the transcript that this was a main line in the speech, and that it would be an applause line. There was plenty of time to let the camera stay on the speaker, let her deliver the line (Michelle was in full public speaking mode, and very emotive, both with facial expressions and body language), and then pan around the auditorium for reaction shots. But no the camera (and I was watching PBS tonight, not sure if that is a pool feed or their own equipment) cut away from her before she even finished the line, settling on three emoting Democratic moms in the audience. I could cite similar examples of this annoying habit with the Republicans, but I have to admit I did not watch their speeches along with the transcript, so it was not quite as obvious to me). My wife suggests this is the influence of day time talk shows, which often break from the panelists to find women in the audience with tears in their eyes. If so, then maybe the over-use of reaction shots in sports that I see so often is not really unique to sports, but an obsessions of television producers in general. In any case, what exactly would it take to get these guys to cut back? -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
