Talking Heads, Amateur Night and Other TV Production Stuff

TV Production Talking Heads: The mouth is moving but the eyes aren't tracking.
That sincere heartfelt message you're hearing from that passionate pitchman, personality or candidate? Check the eyes. See how they click from right to left or left to right? This person is reading from a teleprompter. The message itself may not even reflect the speaker's values, beliefs or ability to articulate. It may simply reflect that he or she knows how to read.

TV Production Green Screen. The background is moving, but the foreground is standing still.
It's the famous Weatherman Syndrome. He seems to be pointing to a moving, interactive wall size map. Moving his hands as if he is personally pulling a cloud cover over the land. Actually he or she is standing in front of a green screen, and the background, or map, has been added later, in the editing suite. WouIdn't it be funny if he forgets and wears a green tie? That would give him a tie-sized hole in his chest, through which we could watch the weather map!.

On the TV Set: The camera doesn't see the empty coffee pot, the half eaten bagels and the make-up person chewing gum, just to the left. .
When you see the host and the guest talking in a beautifully decorated set, realize you're looking at an eight foot wide "living room." If the camera would just pull out a bit, you would see all the wires and cables, mics and lights, remnants of lunch and props that didn't work.

Amateur Night on TV: How come he does his own commercials?
Car dealers in particular have no way to brand their dealerships except with their own faces. After all, they all have the same new cars and the same prices. If they're smart, they hire an ad agency or a production company to minimize the rank amateurism. For instance, Mz. Squeaky Voice can be limited to one or two word utterances, such as "More Jeeps!" or "Hurry in!" as a professional announcer intones the nuts and bolts of the commercial.

Poor Quality TV Production and Look-Alike Spots.
Gone are the days when TV commercials were shot with 35 millimeter film. Now the TV station often offers free, albeit rushed, video tape production to local advertisers, usually with a panicked ad agency production person trying desperately to crank in some quality. That's why you see one TV commercial after another with rolling footage in the background, exploding computer-generated type flashing on and off the screen in the foreground, and somewhere the owner, the daughter or the grandkid being so cute you could, um, remember to Tivo the show next time.

The Baby Looks Up: Why you can't direct Junior on TV. .
Ever noticed that in TV sitcoms, babies rarely look where they are supposed to? Same thing in TV commercials. That's because right over their little heads is a great big ol' boom mike moving around. Not to mention lights on stands. People in the background. The baby's own Mom standing right off camera. The baby is looking up, around, over and out, but never at the seemingly adoring person who is trying valiantly to interact with the little tyke.

The Dreaded TV Commercial Disclaimer: They don't exactly care if you understand it.
In a contract it's the fine print. On the commercial it's the disclaimer. It's about when the contest ends, who is eligible, why you can't enter twice, that fact that the odds are one in a trillion. Or, it's about horrible side effects that are worse than the original condition, spoken in a soft soothing voice so you won't notice they just said you could go blind, crazy, or both. It's simply a legality. The advertisers don't care if you understand it as much as they care if they get caught not saying it. Which is why the words are often unintelligible, usually with run-on sentences and seemingly endless.

TV Production: Why you should have only one director.
Imagine you're under the lights, in front of the teleprompter, worried that your mic shows, trying to remember where you're supposed to stand, and the ad agency director is telling you soothingly how great you are, but let's just do it again with a smile, and this time don't step out of the frame; but at the same time the assistant says you should move over; the client says he doesn't like it; and the cameraman says that's a wrap. Usually we have to tell everyone politely and privately to shut up, er uh I mean to be sure to give the director all that valuable input directly because you have such good ideas.

Note: I have not had to produce a low budget TV commercial for over 90 days. Pshew.