Friday, November 23, 2007

Sacre Bleu! BBC walkies

Gasp ! A walkies shot on BBC News - a sport report on who will succeed the sacked England coach.

What's a walkie?.

Well, it's a set up shot, where often the camera operator asks the interviewer to walk from one point to another. In this case to walk inside a room and sit at a desk.

What's the problem?

It's a staged shot and the media have been saying they want to stamp that out.

Channel 5, a national news channel, said it was ridding the news of noddies (another staged shot) and others.

Why should it matter?
It's staid and lazy tired visual journalism; the construct of journalism can be done without set up shots.

My experience working for ABC News in South Africa was the networked eschewed set up shots.

As a videojournalist all I'll tell my interviewer is to do whatever they'd be doing and to ignore me as I film around them.

The shot then is more natural.

Doesn't sound a big deal then really

Depends whether you're into expanding the visual language of reportage in the same way that we should avoid cliches such as " their dream became a nightmare", and "It remains to be seen".

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