The Need for Production Techniques

Although it’s hard to appreciate at times, the screened image is a totally artificial, stylized representation of the real world!

Whenever we frame a segment of the scene with the camera lens, we are detaching it from reality. The audience sees only what the director chooses. They have little idea what is happening around.

The lens conveys impressions of scale, distance and proportion that are often quite false. A tiny object can dominate the screen, while a gigantic subject passes unnoticed. But we accept the result as reality.

Why have ‘techniques’?

There are various reasons for today’s production techniques:

• The TV screen’s size limits the amount of information that we can discern, if we want the audiehce to see a broader view of the scene, to locate themselves perhaps, a long shot is needed. Where we are concerned with interactions between.people, a medium shot may be necessary. To see specific details, only a closeup will suffice. And so we continually alter the shot’s size and direction, to present these various aspects of the subject and the scene.

• As our center of interest moves, the shot needs to alter–e.g. from a wide shot as a person speaks to us, to a closeup showing us the coin they are holding. If we cannot see properly, we become frustrated. If a shot is held for too long, our interest falls.

• In most programs, the director is presenting a sequence of points: directing the audience’s attention to particular aspects of the action or the scene, showing, for instance, how an action.(throwing a ball) has a particular result (it breaks a window). Whether we see this result, hear it, or both, will depend on the kind of impact the director wants to make on the audience.

• Effective directing techniques encourage audience reaction. They do not merely present images for them to watch. They arouse interest, persuade, intrigue… They encourage the audience to respond.

• Because subjects are presented within a frame, we get subjective impressions of ‘balance’,‘grouping’, ‘unity’ and ‘pattern’ that we never experience in everyday life. (One takes advantage of these phenomena when composing a shot.)

• Some production techniques are imitations of our own natural responses (e.g. moving the camera in for a closer view). Others are quite stylized conventions (e.g. wipes, inserts, mixes). Some visual devices are introduced primarily to overcome the mechanics of production (e.g. ‘cutaways’ when editing an overlong speech).

• Many production techniques have now become part of the understood grammar of the medium. If we use them carelessly, this can destroy the empathy of communication with our audience.

Guided selection

Faced with a crowded, active scene the eye would wander at random if offered free selection. Guided selection concentrates on local detail or action. In a wide angle shot, details are so small that they lose individual impact. Spurious factors distract the attention.