Graphic clutter?
The New York Times’ Wendy A. Lee writes about the new fall TV season bringing in more graphical clutter for viewers to deal with…
The trend toward visual clutter has also reshaped television news broadcasts, where the familiar sight of a lone anchor talking to a camera has grown increasingly rare.
On CNN, the hyperactive pace of Wolf Blitzer’s nightly news show “The Situation Room” is so extreme that it was parodied on “Saturday Night Live.” With one glance at the screen, is it really possible to absorb the United States military strategy in Iraq, or that a thunderstorm is moving over the Midwest, the Standard & Poor’s index is up 16.95 points, and Sean Combs has separated from his girlfriend? “Our pixel footprint can get way out of control,” acknowledged Jonathan Klein, the president of CNN U.S., referring to the television industry in general.
Um, where has she been for the last two years? Wolfe’s been doing this style of broadcast for awhile, and overall, they seem to have mastered the format IMO.
Comment by Chris (clind) — September 24, 2007 @ 10:16 am
I hate this clutter, especially when some very visual story is being shown. Something like a rescue, war footage, plane crashes, etc. Once in a while the people in the control room will get a clue and remove the “lower third”, but it seems quite rare that they do so.
So while reporters and camera people are out there risking their lives to bring us these pictures, at least a third are typically covered up by the clowns back at the ranch.
Comment by Missy — September 24, 2007 @ 11:29 am
And another thing: the graphics basically just tell us what the story is about, and do a very poor job of giving us the name of who is doing the speaking. They apparently give the person’s name and title at the very beginning of an interview, but if you don’t see that, forget it! So many times I’ll be watching and the network will never put that person’s name up again, but will instead keep captioning the content of the story, as if we can’t tell just by listening.
If they insist on this screen clutter, they could do a better job in making us of the space.
Comment by Missy — September 24, 2007 @ 11:32 am
Also, someone should tell the cameraman to shoot with the understanding that the lower third is going to be obscured. There’s nothing weirder than watching an interview with someone whose lower face, including their mouth, is covered by text and graphics. It’s like they’re peering over a fence.
Comment by Arthur — September 24, 2007 @ 1:17 pm
Basically, I agree with Missy. There is a graphics overkill going on at these cable news stations. Don’t get me wrong…I appreciate well done graphics but I think they need to be used with more discretion. It’s distracting and annoying when a heavily visual story is being aired. I too would like the guest(s) names and positions to be up longer or shown more often. I can’t tell you the number of times I look up to see who’s talking and miss their name. And instead, I get some chyron that is 1) an overly cute, overly cliched play on words or 2) worded to lead me into thinking a certain way before I even get a chance to hear what the guest(s) have to say. Sometimes less is more.
Now, Arthur, apparently you haven’t caught some of Cavuto’s shows…you know, the ones where most of the bottom 1/3 graphics disappear so the viewers are able to see the cleavage of the woman he’s talking to? LOL! Graphics be d@mned! This woman has got some, uh, huge tracts of land! Monty Pythoners will get that.
Comment by STP — September 24, 2007 @ 5:07 pm