Movies for TV - Early Television Foundation

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THE PROGRAM ANGLE
repetitious narration or illustration and indifferent production. ( If
film is used there is no excuse for indifferent production since
perfection should always be assured by reshooting until it is obtained.)
Third person and baby talk "cute" types of commercial
are also, generally speaking, very bad irritants.
The question of format of the commercial is one that is still
being argued. Audio-video balance is the subject of many a long
discussion. A number of experts in the field assert that since tele-
vision is a visual medium, vision should be used in the presentation
of its message and maintain that a ratio of 90/100 should be main-
tained. This applies particularly to feature length films and shows
rather than specifically to commercials. On the other hand, tele-
vision is different from the theatre just as much as it is different
from the movie, and its presentations are aimed at entirely dif-
ferent groups of watchers with the result that strictly theatrical
or movie rules cannot apply. The fact that the important time
from the advertiser's point of view is the moment when the story
ends and the commercial commences and is told to a group of
two to five people means that they must be able to attend to the
message even though they have gone to replenish beer mugs and
sandwich plates.
The other school, which is larger, says there should be quite
a lot of audio appeal and message so that even though people are
stretching and moving around the room they will still get the
message. In either case the important thing is to get hold of the
audience's attention by some means or another it may be by an
aural appeal to bring their attention back to the screen and then
sell them on the screen. The balance between the two styles de-
pends on the type of article that is being
demonstrated. If it is
easy to show in use and lends itself to demonstration,
visual is
obviously the better ; on the other hand, if it is large, bulky, static,
and needs a lot of explaining, more words must be used to in-
crease the information available and thus the appeal.
Identification really belongs with the foregoing inasmuch as
it is tied in directly with balance and selling power. It is important
that the sound or narration which accompanies the story is prop-