I just caught a glimpse of this fun video on YouTube made by Stargate Studios, a high tech production company that does visual effects for film and television.  I was pleasantly shocked. I couldn’t believe how many backgrounds, and even foregrounds, had been modified using technology.  Do you recognize a popular TV show or movie you’ve seen in the series of clips? I shouldn’t be surprised.  So much of what we consume in terms of media is altered these days–from print ads that are airbrushed, to million-dollar Hollywood films that feature monsters and heroes created on a hard drive.  What we perceive when viewing the final product is sometimes only the final layer to a process.

As a radio producer I think about this process a lot as I listen to, watch or view media in some way. And now that I teach radio production to young people here in Oaxaca, I consider media literacy an important part of the learning process to creating media of any kind. What’s behind the media we consume?  When we look at an image or listen to audio, someone had to place that camera there, that microphone.  Someone is directing our “gaze” towards something. It’s good to be aware of that.

Have you ever seen the movie Broadcast News?  It’s from the 80’s, starring Holly Hunter, William Hurt and Albert Brooks. I always think of that scene where Hurt’s character’s ethics as a reporter are called into question. The news crew is sent out with one camera to perform an interview. So as you might imagine, they set up the camera facing the woman being interviewed.  However, like many news shows, they want to grab some video of the reporter listening to the interview that they can edit later and splice into the interview.  You’ve seen this before.  Think of any time you’ve watched Barbara Walters or Mike Wallace interview someone. You see a cut of them asking a question, then the interviewee answering, then a quick shot of the interviewer nodding as they listen, right?  Well, if you only have one camera, which is very possible for small news crews, you have to shoot those questions and nods after the interview has finished.  What you see is not what actually happened, but what the crew has reproduced. In the case of Hurt’s character, we find that during the actual interview he is caught up by the emotional story of the woman he is interviewing and truly cries.  When the interview is over, and the crew turns the camera on Hurt to grab a few quick shots of him asking questions and nodding, one of his line producers laments that they didn’t have two cameras to catch his actual emotional reaction, which would be “good television.”  He rebuts, “Give me a second. I can get myself there,” and then summons a few manufactured tears for them to film.

So, is there a difference?  Is there a difference between filming stock shots of interview questions after-the-fact, and reproducing emotional reactions? And sometimes I wonder why are we filming the interviewer at all if the story is about what the interviewee has to say? What’s the purpose? What do you think?

I don’t think the production of media is necessarily bad, or created with a sinister intent to mislead us.  There’s obviously a different set of guidelines for broadcast news and entertainment media. Like the video from Stargate Studios, production can create imaginative scenes and stories that transport us somewhere else, somewhere we couldn’t otherwise go.  Touching up photos can make an image pop, draw the eye somewhere new and unique, make a statement, no?  I invite you to visit our galleries and take a closer look.  Think about the story and process behind the images.  Sometimes that process is just as fascinating as the naked image itself.  Questions, doubts, revelations can arise from peering just a little bit closer, or from a different angle.  And we invite that inquiry.  Come take a look (or invite someone else to by sending off a card)!  And then tell us what you think.  We’re interested in the dialogue.

Cheers,

Megan