60 Minutes is getting sloppy

[Douglas]

Did anyone else see the sloppy interview on last Sunday's 60 Minutes?
Whoever shot it crossed the line with the reverse angle camera. Scott Pelley and the person he is interviewing were both facing screen right.

The sgement cut between the shots several times. Very sloppy.

[dhart]

I stopped a rather "youthful" field producer from directing me to cross over the stage line the other day. When I said "stage line" I got this rather blank stare in return. Perhaps they're not covering that concept in production classes these days.

[satpimp]

Quick Note:

I loved the piece. Saw the Axis blow up..liked the piece so much, I watched it as a concious editorial choice/break point, in what was fast becoming very emotionally trying to watch. Maybe I was being kind because... did I mention I like the piece.

The day before Atlantis launched we ate at Shuttles, interviewed the owner. Have met so many of those folks who loved their jobs more than a humble earth bound guy often can. Things were closing up on that trip and that's when the Constellation project was still on.


Cheers,

Omar

[Shootblue]

Easily fixed in post with a horizontal flip too...

[nautilusvideo]

ALL the networks are getting sloppy. Seems that basic/minimal skills such as leveling a tripod, focus, lighting, audio & framing are too difficult for this generation's shooters to master. I see network mistakes every day that would have elicited a nasty call from the chief photog in my day. It's sad to watch what was once a craft reduced to crap.

[Lensmith]

I saw it as well. Later figured it was another youthful mistake...at a place where youthful mistakes were supposed to be left behind long ago.

[Douglas]

Just for the record, I like the piece too. As I do almost every 60 Minutes piece. Still one of the best shows on TV, and there's nothing else like it. Too bad Rock Center doesn't take itself more seriously and give 60 Minutes a run for their money. And I wish Dateline would get back to investigative journalism instead of rehashing real crime stories. The show looks great, but I can't watch that meaningless stuff for more than about two minutes and then I'm scrambling for the remote.

[Shootblue]

There was a great example of bad LED light characteristics on last week's Rock Center. It was a elderly lady who was facing left...not sure what time in the show it was. It had this blue that the camera just couldn't seem to get rid of.

[Run&Gun]

I had a friend point out something similar to me last week that he was watching from a 3-cam shoot. The 3-shot had talent on screen left, subject on screen right, but the iso's had the talent on screen right looking left and subject on screen left looking right. The iso's were fine when they were just cutting back and forth between them because they were opposed to each other, but the 3-shot was completely flipped and when they would cut to it and back it was very jarring. They should have dropped the 3-shot and no one would have ever known, but everyone want's all of these "extra" angles today whether they work or not.

[Capt. Slo-mo]

Was there a 2nd person on the couch? Couldn't tell if that was a shoulder screen left in the Pelley cutaway. The most charitable explanation would be that the shooter was getting cuts for the other person, and Pelley looked over at the gentleman, and the axially-impaired editor used it.

But since you say it happened several times, I'm going with field brain impairment from the shooter, and editors/producers who watch too many Youtube clips.

[Wheatstone Bridge]

Well instead of concentrating on the 5 C's of cinematography these days , it's about how many flip flops , colors and blurs , pans and zooms ,white flashes and a s**t load of silly special effects one can place in a piece.

[BluesCam]

It drives me nuts to see them cross the 180.

[Nino]

The 180 rule has passed-on with the Betacam. There are no rules today.

I do a college/pro football shows and part of the show is a drill of a QB throwing the football. There are two real pro cameras there, I’m one. Before starting I give instructions as I’m the DP in charge of the show. “All cameras on one side and let’s split the action.” The reason, I explain, that I want everybody on one side is because it’s a better background, better light and also for continuity, I shouldn’t have to explain what continuity means. But we also have two APs getting into the act, one with a 5D and the other with a small P2, and of course they don’t pay attention to what I’m saying, I have grey hair, what do I know. They are constantly in my viewfinder, meaning that I’m also in theirs, although they don’t see it. Of course also being the footage that they shot themselves it will get used a lot.

When the QB throws a pass left to right on the screen the receiver should also be receiving it left to right, well, I saw the final edited show on TV and on the the same action the QB throws left to right and the receiver is getting the ball right to left. So somewhere outside camera view the ball must have bounced against something, the receiver detected the bounce, run in the other direction and completed the pass, if true that’s unquestionably first round draft candidate, if wasn’t for bad camerawork of course.

The only positive is that my soundman (my son) and me, we’ve been getting a lot of air time as we’ve become part of the show, running like two idiots in the background.

We have roaming little cameras attached to people who should be holding cameras in the first place all the times. The concept today is the more views and more angles the better, instead of better angles and better views.

[Michaelrosenblum]

When Monks hand-wrote the bibles they were beautiful works - expensive but beautifully crafted. When Gutenberg's printing press came along, they were cheaper but messier. When Bell Telephone ran the phone business no one ever yelled 'can you hear me now?'. Not even Alexander Graham Bell (for the most part). Today, dropped calls are so commonplace we don't even think about it. Of course, it no longer costs $30 to call San Francisco for 3 minutes. There is a price to pay for every new technology, and generally that price is in 'perceived' quality. Digital music on my iPod or even iPhone doesn't sound nearly as good as music on my CDs, which didn't sound nearly as good as music on my vinyl (so I am told), which doesn't hold a candle to live performances. That's just how technology is.. often.

[Douglas]

I guess I don't understand your point. Crossing the line on an interview setup has absolutely nothing to do with the technology being used.

It's like leveling a tripod, executing a smooth zoom, or focusing the lens. Doing it right does not cost a penny more or add any burden to the production than doing it poorly.

[adam]

Peter Jackson filmed the entirety of Lord Of The Rings so that the characters where always moving left to right across the screen on their way to Mordor and then right to left on the way back. To my knowledge it is consistent through the entire movie. Think about that, every single shot was constructed, planned and executed that way. 60 minutes couldn't nail that concept in one interview. I concur, talent/knowledge gap.

[Michaelrosenblum]

Hi Doug
I suppose that as the technology for anything gets cheaper and the ability to 'do' something gets into more hands, the workmanship, almost as a natural consequence becomes sloppier. Case in point (or one of many): When all business correspondence was done by professional stenographers and typists, it was probably rare to mistake a 'who' for a 'whom'. Today, the opposite is true (not to mention aphorisms like LOL). It's just as easy to write 'to whom' as it is to write 'to who' but how few are those who do!

[Shootblue]

Case in point-photography. The barrier to entry became lower as technology improved (well, depending on your point of view) and prices dropped. Now we have every soccer mom who has ever had a family member tell her they like that ONE photo now becoming "Cherished Memories Photography" because they can afford it now and think they have made some great photographic works. That woman has very little clue 95 percent of the time as to an understanding of solid fundamentals, she just knows she likes taking photos, heck, it can even be a financial loss because she enjoys doing it. The same thing exists to a smaller extent in video, for sure infiltrating into broadcast news stations, and probably creeping into ENG/EFP productions. It's a sad situation to me...what used to be solid, fundamental works by portrait photographers are rarely seen anymore...and it's happening more in tv. I suppose we accept the change or die trying.

[cyndygreen]

Die trying.

In the nineties some ND (to remain nameless) insisted we shoot some pretty crazy stuff he saw in commercials (and probably while visiting relatives).

So I would walk around the reporter and subject in 360s during interviews hoping like hell the important stuff would come up at the right point in the cycle.

Or the stories I shot "super 8" style because HE liked shaky and popping in and out of focus. Thank goodness neither he nor his "styles" lasted long.

Although this is different...caused by factors other than one person's stupidity...one of several things might happen. Everyone learns to shoot. The audience gets fed up and insists on higher quality when they have to pay for it. We all get stupid.

I'm fighting for #2.

[Michaelrosenblum]

Back to photography for a minute. Still photography. I was astonished to see that many new model SLRs don't even have hyper focal distance scales on them. Where everything isn't automatic (and most now is), people still spin the aperture ring until the red spot is in the middle having no idea what it all means. For the rest it's autofocus, auto everything. And do you know any professional photos who can even earn a living? My friend Mike Yama****a is, I think the very last contract photographer for National Geographic. It's tragic, but that's technology for you.