----- Original Message ----- From: Tavia tavia@btinternet.com
Fiona wrote:
In many ways, modern television programmes seem to be trying to be more
like
cinema films, and as such to place more emphasis on the director than on
the
writer. This unfortunately makes for poor television in three regards; firstly because it fails to play to the real strengths of the medium, secondly because a programme lacks the budget of a film, and finally
because
most television directors are, unfortunately, mediocre.
Not sure I agree with your latter sentiment. The 'Inspector Morse' series seemed to get more and more cinematic in its conventions as time went on, and on the whole seemed to succeed (at least if you like pix of some mediocre provincial university town...)
But that's just it-- it's just filming Oxford, not reconstructing Stalingrad, or projecting Oxford into 2020, or doing a purely studio-bound story and making it work. They can make Oxford look cinematic because Oxford is there and you can't ruin it :), but they don't strike me as being particularly adventurous.
I also think film and television budgets overlap more than one might at first think; I've seen some excellent micro-budget films, as well as stuff like Morse, like the beeb P&P, that was big budget, popular, and on the whole relatively entertaining.
Yes, I'd agree-- what the beeb is often doing is making shows which could easily be low-budget films. But thing is, in a low-budget film you don't get fantastically-realised space battles and aliens either; notice that the programmes you mention are book adaptations. It seems like what's being made these days is either book adaptations or contemporary-set, mainly cop, series.
So what are the real strengths of the televisual medium? At least in the UK, high audience penetration must be important, surely? I'd imagine more people would watch something aired during the evening on one of the major channels than any but the most well-publicised cinema films, let alone a theatre production. Again specific to the UK, public subsidies to the beeb should allow them to take risks in a way that's rarely in evidence in
films
(not that one would notice).
The Beeb don't strike me as having taken a risk of that sort in years... it's interesting, the more innovative shows out of the USA (e.g. Buffy and B5) show signs of having been influenced by programming from the UK in the 60s and 70s, e.g. B7 and Doctor Who. Unfortunately, the BBC has been trying to do the reverse, but with rather less in the way of success; the sci-fi we've had in the past few years (Ultraviolet, Bugs, Invasion Earth) has all seemed like misguided attempts at imitating American television.
Fiona
The Posthumous Memoirs of Secretary Rontane Filmed in Technicolour at http://nyder.r67.net
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