Posted by Peter Ceresole on January 09, 2009 at 22:26:41 user PeterC.
In Reply to: Re: Modern TV (was AR YouTubing [was Re: Esperance posted by Peter H on January 09, 2009 at 21:39:21:
why, in all current TV dramas and documentaries, are the shots so brief?
In all of them? I think not, but I understand what you're getting at and to some extent, and in some cases, I agree with you.
It's just the style of the times, and it's very much influenced by commercials and by a terror of boring the audience. I used to feel the same about digital trick shots and image manipulation. My personal mantra was 'decent shots, properly put together'. That was about it. But I was very old fashioned.
And anyway it was (and always is) horses for courses. At one time I spent several weeks doing the Panorama trailer and titles, which were cut together to the title music in half an hour on Sunday night. I'd wheel Fred Emery into the dubbing theatre, he'd shout his way through the script (25 seconds) and I'd bang 30 shots over the top of it. 35 shots, if we could get away with it. They had to make sense (and they did) and it was like cutting them to music, to the rhythm of the words.
It was impressionistic.
But the programmes themselves were much less frantic. I think, in general, they still are.
But it's impossible to avoid the spirit of the time.