Does anyone remember documentaries that WEREN’T fronted by a “personality”? That WERE filled with 20% (approx) more substance and from which you actually LEARNED something?
This sounds like yet another middle-aged rant but it is a serious point. Personalities and the baggage they bring are getting in the way very often of communication. They stand for ages, talking often inanely about a subject they have no real expertise in and then regularly repeat what little they have said several times.
I remember Horizon programmes (BBC 2 Science documentary series) not that long ago that were never fronted but always “voiced-over”. The entire programme was content driven and was often quite challenging. On the makers part, that challenge was to get the content across, in all its complexity, in a way the audience could grasp. I particularly remember a riveting programme on Buckminster Fullerene – a newly discovered form of Carbon with a molecular shape like a football. (C60 and the shape is the geodesic dome) The image of “Bucky Balls” has stuck in my mind ever since and also the skilful way the programme explained a complex and potentially dry subject. How could anyone be interested in it who wasnt an Organic Chemist you might ask? Well, that was the art and skill of the makers of Horizon in those days.
Some expert personality fronting is acceptable of course. Simon Sharma, David Starkey do an excellent job with history and they are still making considerable demands on their audience in terms of language and comprehension skills. There are also long stretches of programme with no “personality” featured. Just voice. But the likes of “Dan Snow’s History of the Railways” is now far more typical and just sums up everything that is wrong to my mind. He may be a historian but you would NEVER guess that from his style and content! A subject with huge scope and potential has been dumbed down and turned into a patronising, superficial skip through this key industry with far too much of him in every shot. I suppose the title says it all. This is NOT a history of the railways.
I refuse to believe that the great British public can no longer cope with heavier content in documentaries. I feel we are being patronised and treated like children by programme makers. But, there again, who is watching TV these days? Most of us are 2nd screening apparently (watching a computer screen/tablet/Ipad at the same time as the TV) and therefore NOT paying attention to either! And the content on the internet is SOO much more interesting and reliable – or is it?
Just some thoughts. I shall retire to my sheep shed and talk to the Bowmonts. Personalities abound but never get in the way of the core messages they want to communicate. “I’m hungry.” “Please help me.” “Fresh water please” “What have you done to your hair – it smells funny!” [After the hairdresser!]
It’s part of a wider issue about having to entertain, rather than educate. I saw it in the early 90s when I was training to be a primary teacher, and was very clearly given to understand that my main purpose was to keep the children in my care entertained, and if possible make sure they learned something along the line. This wasn’t Reception classes – I mostly taught Y5-6 (aged 9-11). It was a major reason why I left teaching promptly – if I’d wanted to be an entertainer, I’d have got myself and Equity card, not a BA and PGCE. I felt we were short-changing a whole generation who were being spoon-fed and exposed to relentless hyperactive stimulation, instead of being taught to think, question and stretch themselves. Given that our responsibility as educators was to give young people the skills and knowledge they need to grow in to fulfilled adults, fully using their potential, I felt that to remain in teaching while it churned out children who were being denied access to the experiences and mental disciplines they would need to be useful, creative or successful (or, indeed, employable) in their adult lives was to collude with something very wrong. Ironically, I eventually ended up in adult education, dealing with some of the results!
So, I’m not sure that I entirely agree that the great British public can cope with heavier content. Anyone educated in the state system in the last few decades is unlikely to have encountered much in the way of challenging content, or been required to give something their sustained attention (viz the demise of the essay from public examinations, in favour of shorter answers). Also, if (as we are told) adult attention span is 20 mins max, how much is that reduced by if we are multi-tasking? I’d be interested in any research that’s been done on the implications of 2nd screening on attention span, or the percentage of what we see/hear on any one device that we actually take in.
No doubt lots of people reading this (and especially any teachers who have managed to remain in the profession without doing violence to their principles) will be sticking pins in my effigy by this point! But I genuinely believe it’s a huge social and economic problem which we have, largely, brought on ourselves. I find it especially ironic that non-payment of the BBC licence fee is a criminal offence, but the failure of the BBC to be a public service broadcaster, providing material which educates us, broadens our knowledge and experience, challenges and stretches us (several hundred other channels are taking care of entertaining us), goes completely unchallenged. We can hardly expect anything but ‘documentary-lite’ from commercial channels, but from the state broadcaster we should be entitled to more substance for our money.
By: Lisa Tregenza on February 21, 2013
at 12:40 pm
couldn’t agree with you more and to that end have written to the BBC asking them to take lessons from David Attenborough who, although he does show himself from time to time, mostly it is the animals taking centre stage. Dan Cruikshank drives me completely insane with his arm waving – someone should tie them behind his back. He completely ruined an architecture of London programme – all we saw was DC waving his arms about !
Enough – I am only allowed 1 moan a day and this is it !
I watch only documentaries and choose those carefully; otherwise the radio or a good book. Time is running out for me and there are so many books I have still to read !
By: Constance on February 21, 2013
at 3:45 pm
Thanks for bringing it up Linda, I totally agree with all said here. It’s really been bothering me recently and I thought it was maybe just me/my age, although having read Liza’s post maybe it’s through having had a more thorough schooling than recent generations? Basic education (-at least!) should go on in schools and not during adult broadcasting hours from the BBC. Am horrified to read Liza’s experience of having to entertain rather than teach; funnily enough, the early 90′s is when we lost our polytechnics, so everyone could go to uni, yay! Now everyone is super clever, innit?
In the last few years there’ve been lots of expensive-looking science programs that looked promising but were ridiculously dumbed down or perhaps shoddily researched (REE-search, as they say nowadays): one on viruses said no more about bacteriophage than I learnt at uni 20 years ago. Realisation came to a head recently watching re-runs of Attenborough’s glorious Life on Earth (1979), the commentary of which is so dense I have to rewind to take it all in. Contrast even with his own Africa series (2013), lots of lovely cinematographic shots but short on info by comparison. Kept thinking he would say more about the animals, e.g. picathartes in the Congo episode, but cut to some lovely scenery (or whatever) instead. Would be interesting to compare the length of scripts between L.o.E. and now.
I was relieved when they put physicist Brian Cox on the telly – at last, hard-core armchair education for the masses, I thought – but he’s far too laid back. Dan Snow – fantastic eye candy – but if I want to know about trains etc. give me Fred Dibnah any day.
What’s the point of putting bright people on the telly if the producers don’t wring the knowledge out of them? Can they not be bothered? Are they eking it out? Are the producers themselves of the “multiple choice” generation? It’s very frustrating and I wish they’d pull their collective overpaid finger out.
By: S Smith on February 21, 2013
at 5:26 pm
Sorry, I meant Lesley not Linda! please edit for me
By: S Smith on February 21, 2013
at 5:32 pm
No worries! As long as it’s not rude, I don’t mind what I’m called!
By: devonfinefibres on February 21, 2013
at 6:42 pm
I’m sure that hanging out with the Bowmonts is much more inspiring than what is on the big screen!!
By: Elaine on February 22, 2013
at 1:13 am
Oh Lesley well said!!! I am as you know “in to” history in a big way and cannot bear to watch a programme with Dan Snow in – he drives me crackers and is so lightweight!! Not many people actually do seem to be allowed to give proper information anymore. There is nothing that you can really rely on as information unless you already know it! When I was filming Victorian Farm I was emphatic that the urine I was using was for colour modification, NOT a mordant, I emphasised the point LOTS. What does the voice over say? That the urine was the mordant!!! It’s out there in the big wide world and effectively I’VE said it cos it’s when I was doing the dyeing. SOOOOOOOOO infuriating and I can’t do anything about it now, it’s been shown all over the world!! Ruth herself has a similar problem, she IS an historian, what she doesn’t know about Tudor clothing isn’t worth bothering with (that’s maybe an exageration, but you get the sentiment!), but she has to say what they tell her on the One Show and she rarely gets let loose on her own subject on TV!
By: mulberrydyer on February 24, 2013
at 5:36 pm
I heartily agree. Unfortunately, the issue seems to be global and not just limited to the BBC. I don’t think myself old (only early 40′s) and yet so much has changed for the worse I feel.
By: WS on March 9, 2013
at 3:21 am