The top 10 media revelations of 2011
1. Radio has better picture
It’s true! Have you ever imagined something or dreamed. Remember how real it felt. That’s how good the pictures from radio can get. It’s also the cheapest way to convey meaning. “Note How much more dialogue is necessary to convey the same story in sound alone.(Hilliard 54)This simple statement speaks volumes for radio. With more dialog and sound required to make the sound it allows a more vivid picture to be formed in your mind. This emphasis on imaginative thinking has really gone down the tubes since the invention of the tube. This is a tragedy because imagination is a truly important thing that should not be neglected.
2. Know your audience
Knowing your audience is vital to having a successful media writing career. You don’t want to have a person who specializes in writing in descriptive language and complex thought working in commercials. A polarized political pendant such as Rush Limbaugh speaking in an area such as Burlington Area of Vermont or in San Francesco is a guaranteed recipe for failure unless you don’t know the aforementioned. If not who let you onto the Internet. “Well, you get the idea! Factor in what you know about the audience’s age, gender, income, political milieu, religious affiliations, and other available information and you can pinpoint the content that might be most effective.”(Hilliard 5) Know who you are talking to before you talk. It will probably work out for the best. Eddie Izzard's comedy skecth from Glorious captures what I am trying to say most. CAUTION: Coarse langauge
3. Be Terse
Nuff’ Said…would all that would need to be said, But seriously don’t make the script too complex. “Be simple and direct. Use words of two syllables instead of three. That isn’t catering to the lowest common denominator, but to the essence of aural and visual communications. In the electronic media, the language goes by so quickly that one has neither the opportunity nor the luxury of savoring it, thinking about the nuances of a word or sentence, as one does when reading. Being long winded is for books not a world of infinite distraction. The large Blackman in this video says it all.
4. Learn to hold someone’s attention
HAY LOOK AT ME, you looking? Good,*magic trick*. Preferably you want something along the same lines in the first 15 seconds of your script.
Either something attention grabbing and serious or something funny and comical to grab the attention of the viewer, since leaving is only a click away. In the script on page 84 it’s a commercial for Bell, the phone company. “WOMAN: Joey Called this morning.”(Hilliard 84) Even though this a very simple lead in. Just simple enough to break down relatively easily. This statement offers a question and problem. Depending on the tone of the voice and body position it could mean any number of things such as angry, surprise, or fear and that is to name only the three first possibilities that came to mind. This area is a culmination of all your efforts. If you have written well and given much thought to your lead in you will be successful as an electronic media writer.5. Humor is OK!
Being funny is not a bad thing, it helps break the ice and grab attention. “Reading a chapter of a book or reading a dozen books will not give a writer the talent or skills of the great comedy writers…”(Hilliard 322). DO NOT FORCE IT, humor is great but do not be stupid with it. The easiest way to lose a crowd is to tell a flop. Whether the joke is inappropriate or just plan not funny it will have the same audience killing ability. But don’t be stupid about it; if it is a speech for disaster relief in Japan don’t open with “Surfs up dudes.” Humor is a persuasive technique and can be used to make you buy beer, or it can be used to help bring awareness to the rain forest. 6. Scripting could use some work
From the short time I was writing and creating scripts for commercials and the like I have found something that has never been seen before and it gives you a sense of time and scale. Or at least so I am told. The scrip on page 83 is a commercial for LIBBY’s famous foods. It does not even say how long the commercial is. There is no time stamp on the visual or audio ques. In my scripting at least every visual que has a time-stamp next to it.
7. Its gets progressively harder to write for the more people you have to reach
With a larger and larger audience it gets harder to make jokes that appeal to a large group without being too obscene or racist. With this large group there will be disagreements between the audience and you cannot give credence to either side thus fracturing your audience further. “Formula writing dominates most television series.” (Hilliard 5) Why formula because, formula’s are tried and true ways of making things. Television is a national medium and the shows on it have to reach the greatest amount of people possible. Truly great TV shows can reach a verity of audiences and can keep their attention span longer than just one episode.
8. Reality TV /= Reality
Reality TV is not reality anyone can become the “Outsider” with simple editing techniques. I’m sure with all the raw footage from the jersey shore you could make them all look like they hate each other or hate one person even though it might not be true it sure would make good Television.”Blau states that the work is “primarily a post-production job…we write everything after the fact.”(Hilliard 253)It makes sense that you can’t get people to do what you want them to do without editing. Hopefully the drama mamas will make television gold. It would be interesting to find out how many hours of raw footage exist from shows like The Jersey Shore. The whole point of these shows is to construct a reality. This reality can make really good TV or really shitty TV but it all depends on how well it is edited.
9. Commercials are a lot more complex than one would think
Commercials, The bane of anyone who watches TV outside of the super bowl. But these nuisances are not as mindless as one may think. They are in fact very sophisticated pieces of work that if done poorly will tarnish the reputation of companies. “Here’s the test: If you look at a commercial and fall in love with the brilliance of it, try taking the product out of it. If you still love the commercial, it’s no good. Don’t make your commercial interesting; make your products interesting.” (Hilliard 79) Not exactly the answer you thought you would get reading it did ya? But it sounds true, the product needs to the center of your product, it needs to pull all the strings in your commercial to make it into a coherent 30 seconds of persuasive viewing.
10. Is the blogosphere stagnant or flexible?
This is a more esoteric topic, it will require analysis of blogging in general and how even though it all looks aesthetically different it really isn’t that different from the days of soapboxes in the big cities.The people that are running the blogs are similar to the people wearing sandwich boards shouting about some topic or another of generations past. Activism has taken to the internet, to the never stopping stream of information. So blogs are just places for people to spout their opinions, But it comes down the writing that they are doing keep people interested in them. It requires mastery of or at least knowledge of everything Hilliard has talked about in his book to be able to blog well. Citing the whole book would seem rather…unethical so I cannot do that but I can quote “During the process of writing, the writer is usually isolated, alone in a room with whatever instrument she or he uses for writing: pen, pencil, typewriter, computer. Yet every word, every visual image has to be created with the thousands and even millions of people who will be watching or listening in mind.”(Hilliard 1).The author that pays attention to this will make the blogosphere not stagnant but will keep people flocking to his or her blog or soapbox or what have you. With that movement of information the blogosphere will stay healthy.
All Quotations taken from Writing for Telvision Radio News Media Written by Robert L. Hilliard, Buy a copy and read it.
All pictures listed in order of presentation
http://hewgill.com/threat/
http://www.kheper.net/topics/typology/four_humours.html
http://www.pr-media-blog.co.uk/2008/10/
http://discovermagazine.com/2007/may/map-welcome-to-the-blogosphere
