Your Public Best - Lillian Brown [115]
I remember a famous actor who was doing a remote shoot in front of the White House. The piece was only twenty seconds long, but he was having an off day. The tourist crowds on the White House tour had to be detained and quieted during thirty-nine seemingly endless takes. When I eventually saw the final perfect piece aired on TV, I realized the viewer seldom knows what is involved in such a production.
Longer pieces and commercial films offer their own set of problems. For example, outdoor lighting is a real challenge when shooting commercial films. Gaffers may unload truckfuls of lights, stands, filters, scrims, and gels. Available light or sunlight may have to be matched to artificial light. The natural lighting levels will change as the day progresses. The scouting team may have incorrectly calculated the glare of the sun on white marble or other reflective surfaces. Rather than be photographed in the bright sun, seek some shade in the shadow of a building or under a tree. Otherwise, you may find that you can’t help squinting into the sun, the picture will be washed out by too much light, and shadow lines in the face will be exaggerated.
Uncontrollable noise can also be a major source of frustration to a film crew. Any number of sounds can ruin a good take—crowd noise, an ambulance siren, passing planes or buses, a lawn mower, or a crying baby. Curious crowds will surround a film crew in hopes of seeing a celebrity. Pedestrians will often stroll unawares across the camera field. Their conversation may ruin a take because their voices were picked up on the sensitive sound systems being used.
Location shooting always seems to take more time than anyone anticipates. Allow ample time for travel from location to location. When on location, never count on catching a plane or getting to an appointment or a social dinner on time, unless the producers know of your time constraints in advance.
THE INVESTIGATIVE TV UNIT
If you are a very high-profile person, you may be sought for a feature story by an investigative TV unit such as “60 Minutes.”
If such a program is interested in interviewing you, you will probably first be contacted by a researcher. Once preliminary conversations yield enough information, a producer will then be assigned to the project. Finally, you will be interviewed at a given location (usually in a nonstudio situation with a film crew). It may all be done in one location in one interview, or in multiple locations over several days or weeks. After the producers have reviewed your interview(s), you may be called back to set up one more taping so that they may ask additional questions; this is especially true if the news changes as your segment is being produced.
Both positive and negative information may be used, and you must assume that you will have no control over the final edited material. You may have spent hours of your time being interviewed, and they only use thirty seconds of it. Or what they use may seem to be unfair and out of context. Only you can decide if it is worth it to you to be interviewed by an investigative TV unit. Often, the ensuing publicity for you and your message is worth the trouble and risk.
BE A TELEVISION CRITIC
Now that you have read the sections on your appearance (particularly on clothes and makeup) in chapter one, voice placement in chapter two, and can understand the distortions caused by camera lenses, overhead lights, and amplifying devices, you can begin to see how easy it is to make innocent mistakes when you are appearing on TV. You begin to see with the eyes of a person who has worked behind the camera for years.
It’s fun to be a television critic. Sit down some evening, pen and paper in hand, and flip the dial between competing network or local evening news broadcasts and perhaps some of