Tuesday, June 27, 2006

AMERICAN CULTURE HITS NEW LOWS (John Shirley)

There's a trend to edit documentaries--even the more serious ones involving history and science--with editing tricks that "jolt" the viewer with suddenly-sped-up motions, deliberately wrenching cuts, abrupt switches in camera viewpoint, spastic camera motion, etc etc etc, to try and give the film a "sexy" high energy feeling. This is an expression of the film maker's assumption that you're stupid and lazy and you suffer from Attention Deficit. You don't have the attention span to watch a documentary that flows, that is rationally cut together. You need to be babied along, like someone snapping their fingers or jingling keys to get an infant's attention.


Anyone who's suffered through a typical UFO documentary (say, the ones on the Discovery Channel) will immediately know what Shirley's talking about. The rules seem to be:

1.) Assault the viewer with lots of randomly inserted stock footage from little-known 1950s sci-fi movies.

2.) Go for lots of "moody" lighting that makes speakers seem like they're tuning in from another dimension. This gives them a suitably "spaced out" appearance and helps ensure that they won't be taken seriously.

3.) Employ dumb sound effects. Whirring, beeping, humming. You know, "space" sounds!

4.) Show the archetypical "Gray" alien visage as often as possible, regardless if the documentary is actually addressing aliens. Space exploration, extraterrestrial intelligence, UFOs -- it's all the same, so who cares?

6 comments:

Paul Kimball said...

Mac:

A couple of points:

1. Blame, to some degree, music videos, which changed the way people perceived not only music, but also television and film;

2. Blame as well the viewers - if filmmakers are insulting their intelligence, that's because these people want to be insulted, or can't tell the difference anymore;

3. Finally, blame the filmmakers and the networks, for taking the easy way out, instead of making challenging films (and I speak here about subjects other than UFOs and the paranormal).

I liken a good documentary to good sex - faster, quicker, herky-jerky is not necessarily better.

Paul

The Odd Emperor said...

Good sex? Good analogy!

People in the news business have said more or less the same thing to me. I really love a good documentary but, lately the stuff coming out of the Discovery Channel et-al has been close to unwatchable. Much of this comes down to the bread and circuses society we’ve created around ourselves. "If it bleeds it leads,“ we need to shake the camera more" and "let’s get some more explosions shall we?"

Chris said...

My, how dignified and professional Leonard Nimoy's old "In Search Of" series seems by today's gaudy standards...The 70's was probably the high water mark for TV documentaries. It's been downhill ever since.

Paul Kimball said...

Now, folks, let's not be too harsh - it's easy to over-generalize. There is some very compelling AND entertaining work being done on television these days, and in independent films. A series out of Halifax, Sea Hunters, managed both reasonably well for years.

However, I'm with WMB on this one - I still prefer the print medium to the visual one. But then I still don't have a cell phone! :-)

Paul

Mac said...

But then I still don't have a cell phone! :-)

Nor should you. They're over-rated. Even way-cool ones like mine! ;-)

Mac said...

My fancy cameraphone is 100% free, or I'd never be using it. As soon as my "ambassadorship" ends I'm going back to my cheap pre-paid emergency phone -- although I *will* miss the camera. And the videogames. And the MP3s. And the...