television

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July 3, 2009

General Principle

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While taking advantage of the greater fluidity that television camera work allows, you must also be aware of the extra cost involved in elaborate exterior film work. You will need to remember also that a 23-inch box is not very suitable for wide panoramic sequences. As far as characters are concerned-and these remain the mainstay of all dramatic work-you can use more than on radio since visual identification is easier, but again the general rules as suggested in previous chapters apply and should not be forgotten. 

        Again the general principle: study your market, write to the required formula-and try to add that little bit of something the others lack. 

 

June 30, 2009

More about television plays

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With a play set in a city tenement, the locality in the theatre would probably have to be indicated in the dialogue or programme notes, whereas on television an initial sweeping pan shot of the neighb’ourhood would immediately establish the locale as well as give the interior a greatly reality. Your dialogue will also vary from theatre dialogue, usually by way of greater omission and by brevity. Those camera work will enable your characters to betray themselves by an eye flicker, by muscular twitches, shrugs, minute bodily movements, as they do more in real life, rather than having to spell out every such content as in the theatre. 

 

 

June 28, 2009

Mixture of stage and cinema techniques

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A television play, usually turns out to be a mixture of stage and cinema techniques. I don’t wish here to play down the genuine achievements of television, for certainly some programmes are of the highest standard and would never-could never-be seen anywhere if it were not for television. I have in mind here some of the feature programmes, documentaries, scientific research, travel, anthro¬pology, sociology, etc. But, note, these are basically informative or educational and do not claim to be the equivalent of the creative art of the cinema or theatre. Hence, if you write a television play you must be aware of at least some of the techniques of film making. 

 

June 24, 2009

Plays for television

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Is this the special art, distinct from writing for the theatre or cinema, that the BBC suggests? I would say no. The best plays on television are from the theatre-Ibsen, Chekhov, etc. The best films on television are from the cinema. This is not to say that good plays are not written for television, merely that those that are, are good precisely for those qualities you will find in a good ‘theatre’ play. 

      It is true, of course, that television does not-or should not -simply produce a representation of a theatre set. Almost always pieces of film are inserted, and there are close-ups of faces, eyes, expressions that are impossible -in the theatre. Consequently, you might say they have achieved something here that you could never get on a theatre stage. But patently all they have done is to include some of the techniques of the cinema.

 

June 5, 2009

Short stories and plays for radio

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The short story:

At least two short stories are read on the radio every day, and here the usual advice applies: listen to what they have in mind, determine the formula, then write to a similar one, only not quite; add a little plus quality of your own, giving it, we hope-though not too obviously-an explosive potential the original formula lacks. Read it out. Tape it if possible. Play it back. Cut. Time it. Cut. Send it. 

Plays for radio 

Now here we do come into combat with television. I don’t think many would deny that it is easier to watch a play on the television-at least initially-than to hear it on the radio. But we may also be conscious that much can be missed this way, particularly where dialogue plays a significant part.