Lower production and aesthetic standards have been more evident on the TV-film scene this season, leaving viewers with a bad taste in the mouth, because they’re being taken for granted—even more than usual. Alarmingly, some of the dilution of accepted production standards has been perpetrated by people who are supposed to uphold them.
For example, on a recent talent tilt, the finalists were tasked to act in a short horror-thriller, and the five-minute production ended up as a big mess, because the director didn’t know what he was doing.
The poor newcomers involved couldn’t act themselves out of the resulting mess—but, to add insult to injury, they were held liable for it!
A negative note rapped them for not showing their faces clearly to the camera—a nonsensical critique, by the way, because this is the director and cameraman’s lookout, not the actors.’
Other productions on TV are similarly difficult to watch, because they take lazy shortcuts. The most frequent and glaring evidence of this is some TV directors’ refusal to “cut up” a big scene involving many actors into separate shots.
Instead, they take the easy way out and just line 10 or so actors side by side, while they shout out their assigned lines. You would think that the producer would rebuke the director for being so lazy—but no, he wants to get the shoot over and done with as swiftly as possible, too, so he lets direk get away with it.
What about the show’s viewers? Don’t they get insulted when they are forced to watch such slipshod work? The golden rule for televiewers is: When you are dissatisfied with the low standards of the “entertainment” you’re getting, don’t just seethe, switch channels to find another and hopefully better and more viewer-respectful show!
One problem with local viewers is that we’re so darned patient, forgiving, and easy to please—which is why some production people take us for granted and presume that we’ll lap up anything and everything they churn out.
So, we have to raise our own standards and expectations, in the hope that lazy TV people are persuaded by the financial bottom line to do better work and meet those expectations and requirements.
The problem holds true even when it comes to so-called awards for excellence: There are so many awards groups handing out trophies these days that even mediocre or downright lousy work is “honored” with citations for “excellence!” So, if you look to awards to validate exceptional work on the big and small screens, you’re in trouble!
Many of the TV-film awardees cited these days don’t deserve to be singled out for praise, because their awards can be bought, or the groups handing them out simply don’t know what they’re doing, or looking for.
So, if awards, which are supposed to set standards for everybody in the biz to measure up to, are themselves severely compromised, the problem we’re facing is huge! There’s no way out but for all of us to ignore those dubious “awards”—and focus only on the few citations that deserve our respect and affirmation!