Denise Haskew reports on a trend within broadcast news organizations towards avant garde cinematography, using new recording methods and innovative shooting techniques.

Article first published: Nov/Dec 2007

There is a TV show on www.reel-show,tv in which David Valentine shows his short film, The Duellists, which was shot in the Manchester Arndale Centre entirely using CCTV cameras.

When we first talked about the film, there were one or two cynics who expressed the opinion that shooting films using CCTV cameras was something of a gimmick. But I bet they’re laughing on the other sides of their faces now. You see, our David seems to have started a bit of an avalanche. What was only months ago an avant garde free media filming technique has, over the past few weeks, hit the mainstream big time.

Already there are classic CCTV movies airing around the clock on the major news networks. Possibly the most popular is a feature entitled Princess Diana Gets Into A Lift Only Hours Before She Dies In Non-Suspicious Circumstances, but not far behind in the popularity stakes is Princess Diana Walks Through A Door Only Hours Before She Dies In Non-Suspicious Circumstances – along with Empty Shop Where Dodi Fayed Apparently Bought A Surprisingly Cheap Engagement Ring For Princess Diana A Few More Hours Before They Die In Non-Suspicious Circumstances. And then there’s my all-time favorite – Empty Corridor With Ashtray In Paris Hotel Where Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed Walked Only Minutes Before They Get Into The Lift That They Travel In Only Hours Before They Die In Non-Suspicious Circumstances.

Of course, this isn’t an exclusively UK phenomenon. I’ve been particularly struck by the way US networks have embraced avant garde shooting techniques, with my favorite movie from the US being Badly Shot Helicopter Footage Of OJ Simpson Driving Along A Road At Regular Speed.

Now maybe I’m being churlish in suggesting that two minutes looking at crappy quality 10 year old footage of an empty corridor in a Paris hotel to illustrate a story that was dull and over-reported to excess first time round is perhaps not the best use of expensive news air time. But I suppose it saves money on researching real news.

Anyway, more of that in a minute. But first, the quality issue. TV stations are lurching inexorably towards high definition, yet newscasters constantly argue that crummy mobile phone quality footage is acceptable when the news story is of sufficient public interest. Fair enough. But where’s the importance in a piece of CCTV footage of an empty corridor in a tastelessly decorated hotel? If it showed a member of the paparazzi spiking the driver’s drink, that might have been a story. But what was the story in this case? Well, the crappy two minutes CCTV shot of a corridor was there to illustrate the story that… some crappy CCTV footage had been released! It’s just not news, guys.

But Princess Diana is considered such hot property by broadcasters that they’d clear the decks if they found an envelope containing some of her old toenail clippings. Now I’m not saying the death of the former wife of the heir to the throne of Britain in a high-speed car crash in a Parisian tunnel in the arms of the son of the most successful corner shop owner in Britain shouldn’t rate a few column inches. Of course it should. But the days following the crash were a perfectly shameless example of how appalling TV news people are at allocating time to stories.

News organizations allocate the amount of space to a story depending on how significant they think the story is. Period. They never seem to consider the other important factor: how much actual information is there? As a magazine, we face the same issue with each potential article. Back in April when we got the interview with Richard Bluck about the first ever shoot with the Red camera on a Peter Jackson short, we had to rate that in terms of both significance and amount of information. Significance is largely a factor of how interesting we think you guys will find it – and we rated it pretty highly, so not only did it make it into the magazine, it jumped to the front. In terms of information content, it rated four pages. Why? Because that’s how much information we had!

TV news ignores this. With the Princess Diana death story, we were subjected to hour upon hour upon interminable day of no news writ large. Local reporters were dragged out of bed across the country to tell us how people in their area were as deeply shocked as people in other areas, and to prove it they dragged other people out of their beds in the early hours to bear testimony to the fact that they were indeed dutifully deeply shocked. Daytime TV gardeners were called upon to identify the flowers left by mourners on the gates outside Diana’s palace, and textbook pop psychologists were busy telling us how we should all be feeling right now.

All in all, a big news story, illustrated by days of interminable televisual garbage. When the Queen dies, I’m emigrating. That’s all there is to it.

Denise Haskew After 10 years as a television commissioning editor, Denise decided she needed a more intellectual challenge, so she gave it up to become a model. She has done all sorts of useless jobs, such as magazine publishing and PR. She plans to be on the first big spaceship to leave the Earth, alongside all the telephone sanitizers.