These are my personal observations in life where sometimes the stupid meets the insane.
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Friday, October 31, 2003
Film at Eleven! Ain’t What It Should Be!
Remember the days when the deep voiced announcer would break into your favorite television show and say something like “a car jumps the curb and plows into the kitchen of neighbor’s house. Film at eleven.”We would tune in at 11:00 to hopefully see the accident in progress. The reporter, in a forced staccato delivery, would say the same thing that the announcer said during the tease. And what would we see? We were treated to a “LIVE” shot from a cameraman who had to use a zoom lens on his zoom lens because he was kept behind the yellow tape which was four blocks from where the accident occurred. From that shot the reporter directs the cameraman to turn and show the curb over which the car jumped. Is this curb supposed to look different than any other curb in any other neighborhood?
With the improvement in technology, we have video cameras everywhere. They’re at intersections, in police cars, in parking lots and in banks. We are promised to see things “as they happen!” in that Cronkite-like voice (if you don’t know who Walter Cronkite is, go ask your parents.) We hear the same shtick from the announcer as he implores us to watch. “An accident at Pine and Walnut and we have the exclusive video.” How is it “exclusive” when every local news station has it? But I digress. So at 11:00 we turn to the local news channel because everyone knows the family who lives at Pine and Walnut. We watch intently. We see two cars approaching each other and then… and then… then… just before the cars collide, the picture freezes, gets very pinkish, the picture tilts from side to side and then large black bars fill the screen. We never actually see the collision.
I’m not advocating that we be treated to an exhibition of blood and guts, but for Pete’s sake, if you tell me that’s what I’m going to see, show me, I want to see it.
Back to the film. After you see it four or five times, then they show it in slow motion. Then they decide to zoom in to the supposed point of impact. Is it my TV or what? All I see on my TV screen is about a dozen blocks in various shades of gray shifting and pulsing in front of my eyes. There is no way I can see what happened. After I’ve watched three and a half minutes of this tape at various speeds and sizes, I couldn’t tell you what happened. I would be a horrible witness. They would probably throw me out of the courtroom. I think a NFL referee would be challenged to tell you what happened. Even he would tell you that there is not irrefutable evidence that an accident actually took place. His announcement would probably go something like this: “After reviewing the accident, there is not irrefutable evidence who caused the accident. The drivers will return to their cars and we will replay the accident.”
No, film at eleven ain’t what it should to be. It’s like a steak dinner, WITHOUT THE STEAK!
Posted by Life's Little Observer
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