Scales of Interest of the TV message

(from Chapter 6)  (page 103)

TV’s strong points

Catching the attention of the audience is the fundamental principle behind all acts of communication; it is the start of the process. We have to do everything possible for those watching us to maintain the audience’s interest so that they end up satisfied because they have understood it all. To do this it is vital to have the following principle very clear:

The domain of television is the definite and that which can be shown in images; its weak point is abstract concepts and intangible phenomena.

Television can’t transmit the smell of things, a person can say, “That smells nice,” or “That smells nasty”, or “What a smell!”, but if a person says “It smells,” we are dependent on their body language. If their expression is good the smell will be good, if they look disgusted it will be unpleasant. Smell is intangible for TV. There are many other concepts impossible to portray. The more abstract an idea, the more we need people and the subjectivity of their impressions. You have to bear this in mind, not only when choosing the topic, but also in the way you ask questions or appear in front of the camera in a report in the first person.

(See graph below)

Action and Emotion, Screen Magnets

On the following scale the capacity for attraction of the TV message is shown graphically, leaving aside any reinforcement we can add to each shot to make it more attractive such as music.

	Content of sequence	Talking about ...	Type of image
Spontaneous interest	Conflict in action	Definite things	Movement shots	
	The emotional situation		Close up of face	
 	The subjective declaration	 	Closeness	 
  	The announced and the explanation	  	Handheld camera	  
Paying attention required	Lists	Abstract or intangible things	Static and general shots	

Scale of interest of TV messages

There is no need to say that moving shots (where things happen) attract the attention of the viewer more easily than still shots, so any content will be more communicative if something is happening on the screen. When people are doing the actions the interest increases. The dullest of lists can be a bit more palatable if the person listing has expressive body language.

When it comes to animals, the more humanized they are, the more likeable they appear in our imagination: a dolphin, or a monkey awaken more interest than a praying mantis. The capacity of television to attract reaches its peak thanks to movement. You only have to watch a football match; most of the moves are similar and with a bit of luck there is a goal every 45 minutes but they attract more audiences than the radio. No fan that has a TV at hand will stop watching it, even if he is listening on the radio. The action is captivating.

Here we accept that abstract concepts are impossible to portray mentally with an image (the cryptic language of law or science, the names of people we don’t know etc.). The other scale on the graph is subjectivity. The more interpretive or personal a declaration is, the more value it adds. Subjectivity provokes the viewer to agree or disagree and this heightens his attention.

Lists

Of all the possible declarations, the least televisual is the listing of abstract concepts; for example “As first stated by Rodriguez and Smith in ‘The Month of May’ and corroborated in ‘Summer in the Monegros’” is deathly dull.

Objective listing is that relating to objects or things you can represent mentally. This factory produces 45,989 three-inch screws and 4,689 two-inch screws every day. This is unbearable but perhaps a little less so because we can imagine the shape of a screw and we understand that they make more large screws than small ones (all the same its thrilling, isn’t it?). Subjective listing is not very common because to introduce an evaluation the speaker tends to justify it with an explanation.