October 3, 2006
The New TV Season
I have a tip for the producers of some of the new shows.
Despite what you may have heard, a boring shot is not actually improved by failing to hold the camera steady. You may believe that it adds some dynamism or a sense of edgy reality like some kind of hip documentary, but it doesn’t. It just makes the viewer wonder why you failed to lock down the tripod, or hire some camera people without palsy.
Similarly, normal people have tops on their heads. If every shot cuts off the tops of people’s heads, then, when you want to use a claustrophobic close-up for effect, no one will notice. This is true even if you cut away to another topless head, or succession of topless heads at a rate of one or more a second.
Normal people do not, actually, move their head around all the time as they look at things, and they don’t stand with their heads six to nine inches away from the faces of total strangers, and I do not want to watch TV shows that make me do that.
That is all.
December 26th, 2006 at 5:59 pm
Jayne and Jordan have worked as extras several times on the Friday Night Lights series (Jayne worked the movie too, but totally different story). I’ve tried to watch the show a few times, but I think it’s the worst offender of the bunch in regards to what you’re talking about.
I think it all started with either NYPD Blue or maybe even back on Hill Street Blues — not sure I remember. The handheld was fine for a kind of documentary effect , but what they’re doing now goes way beyond that — the fast cuts, the unsteady cameras, the chopped framing/composition — heck, the stuff on America’s Funniest Videos is shot better.