BBC News 24
4th April 2014: Where’s the journalist?
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Gary Critcher
This is a good one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyvVZAu_N2s
Mike Giles, Ian Hillson
If you didn’t laugh, you’d cry! But it probably has the benefit of waking the viewers up ~ 24 hour news would certainly send me to sleep. I’m sure some of the soporific quality of BBC News is due to the monotone delivery of some of the reporters – made more noticeable by the "pausing in the middle ….. of sentences" for dramatic effect.
Bill Jenkin, Alan Stokes
This is only one in a long line… It’s caused by journalists entering the wrong Mosart commands. Once F12 is pushed on the keyboard there isn’t much that can be done (or so I’m told). There is always <CTRL><ALT><DELETE> (or Mac equivalent) which could be even funnier, as they wait for a re-boot. I take it the cameras default to ‘home’?
See also:
http://youtu.be/7jHsoauynPM
http://youtu.be/3Vegx_f9C50
From the website:
“… Viz Mosart is the number one studio control system in Europe with more than 70 percent market share, and the only open studio automation system capable of working with all major systems and devices, including all leading video switchers… Viz Mosart takes input from the newsroom computer system and translates it into commands for all connected systems and devices, giving the broadcaster greater flexibility, speed of response, and cost-effectiveness in news, weather and sports broadcasts…”
Patrick Heigham, Jeff Booth, Ian Hillson,
That’s why we used to have real cameramen and floor managers! But it’s 2014 =- what are they? What we need is more Journalists – no, sorry, that’s what we have already, isn’t it?
John Bennett
Where on earth can you find a "mint condition" Cameraman these days? They’re rare as Hen’s teeth!
see Radio Times Van on this page.
Patrick Heigham
I have been watching the repeats of Michael Portillo’s Train Journeys around the UK (2014), and in the main, enjoying – but I get increasingly annoyed at the camerawork during the interviews.
Handheld, and no anticipation before or after the question/answer to turn the camera to the opposite character – hose piping like an amateur wedding video. Also the zoom control suffers from an itchy finger – I assume it’s on a rocker switch instead of being a proper zoom ring on the lens.
The series was made by TalkBack Thames, the credit is for “Filmed by and Directed by …”, so is it a Director that thinks he cope with camerawork, or a cameraman who thinks he can direct?
I could and have done better, being properly trained by the BBC system in the early 1960s.
I was appalled, years ago, at seeing an internal advertisement while filming in the boardroom of the White City building, advertising training courses for researchers to go out and film reports. (Saw one interview where the 2nd camera had been set up the wrong side of the main, so the eyeline crossed the line. Doh!)
This is a real downgrading of quality television – quality? Wot dat?
Gary Critcher
…and don’t get me started about the ‘Antiques Roadtrip’ series.
‘White Balance? No, we don’t need any of those…’
Patrick Heigham
White Balance!
I have a fond memory of Oslo – working for ABC New York, we needed a B-Roll pretty shot of the city – leaving the car at the parking place we trudged up the hill to the viewpoint.
As the light was dying and getting redder, cameraman needed to re-white balance. I normally kept the white card in my SQN pocket, but it had been left in the car – no time to go and retrieve it.
Our pretty lady producer/director, with whom we had worked many times, pipes up:
"I’ve got white panties on!"
and obligingly dropped her jeans and bent over for the cameraman to focus on her delightful rear!
