How much TV is faked for effect?

[John Fenna]

OK - this is not about so called "Survival" progs... that has been done to death ... but other TV.
Over the past year I was involved with Channel 4 filming "Time Crashers" where the bowdrills I supplied were sabotaged to make it impossible to use them efficiently (bows snapped in half to make them too short for the string set up/ cords untwisted and reknotted to do the same) and I have been filmed for BBC news progs loading gear for the Nepal and Refugee appeals.
Even the BBC clips were faked (for example I was asked to load up my van with previously delivered donations of gear so the Beeb could film them being unloaded and put straight into the container to send off - not how it works as everything going in the container has to be sorted and weighed first!) for effect and to show how donations are arriving!
So how much TV - reality, entertainment (quizzes etc) and "News" is actually faked?
Is there anyone in the business with statistics - or are they "damn lies" as well?

If this is seen as inappropriate for the forum remove it please Mods

 

[mick91]

I know from first hand experience that some health statistics are either "tweaked", deliberately biased or use projected data instead of collected data sometimes. And IME the speakers you see on tv are often carefully selected and don't give an accurate representation of the consensus within the demographic being studied.

One example springs instantly to mind, a healthcare institution I was practicing at was asked to collate data on type 2 diabetes, the survey took place on a bariatric unit!

 

[mountainm]

OK - this is not about so called "Survival" progs... that has been done to death ... but other TV.
Over the past year I was involved with Channel 4 filming "Time Crashers" where the bowdrills I supplied were sabotaged to make it impossible to use them efficiently (bows snapped in half to make them too short for the string set up/ cords untwisted and reknotted to do the same) and I have been filmed for BBC news progs loading gear for the Nepal and Refugee appeals.
Even the BBC clips were faked (for example I was asked to load up my van with previously delivered donations of gear so the Beeb could film them being unloaded and put straight into the container to send off - not how it works as everything going in the container has to be sorted and weighed first!) for effect and to show how donations are arriving!
So how much TV - reality, entertainment (quizzes etc) and "News" is actually faked?
Is there anyone in the business with statistics - or are they "damn lies" as well?

If this is seen as inappropriate for the forum remove it please Mods

The BBC has very strict guidance on this kind of thing (I had to take a test to make sure I understood it all when I worked with them).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/editorialguidelines/page/guidelines-accuracy-avoiding-misleading-audiences/

 

[Mesquite]

There's 'for the camera' and then there's faking.

For the camera might be doing something 2 or three times to get the best shot or filming an interviewer separately after an interview nodding wisely so it can be spliced in to the interview sequence.

Faking it is like your bow drill experience John, or setting people up to have rows on camera because producers know that's what sells really. Not the fact that they did something really well and reasonably easily.

Either way it's all faking to one degree or another.

 

[John Fenna]

The BBC has very strict guidance on this kind of thing (I had to take a test to make sure I understood it all when I worked with them).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/editorialguidelines/page/guidelines-accuracy-avoiding-misleading-audiences/

OK - I guess that the "unpacking" did fall within guidelines ... but it was still staged!

 

[dewi]

Difference between setup for a good reason and faked though isn't there?

What I mean is, we know when we watch the advert of the starving girl in Africa walking to get dirty water, the film crew isn't riding alongside her in their jeep with bottled water and food, ignoring her plight other than to film it. The minute a film crew get involved in anything, it is sort of setup... whether it be the cameraman's perspective on an incident (who does he/she choose to focus on) or just the reactions of the people who know they're being filmed.

Asking you to load and unload for effect wasn't fakery that was going to do any harm, in fact, it was to do the opposite. Illustrate a point to the viewer to reinforce what they were saying.

Messing about with perfectly good tools to ensure they don't work properly is fakery though and proves that even documentary-style programmes have to have the drama. That is probably the reason for most fakery... the drama.

 

[Will_]

A friend filmed me doing some bushcrafty things recently. I failed to get a friction fire going. I told him to ditch the friction fire footage and just use the cramp ball footage because it was only for a trailer. When he showed me the trailer though, he'd edited the 2 clips together to make the friction fire look successful. Now every time I see it I cringe because I know the truth! :11doh:

 

[sunndog]

I suppose the only thing nkt "faked" by this definition would a covert fly on the wall doco.......but then the footage will be edited, so..........

 

[Goatboy]

Remember my old English Master initiating a discusion about morals with the same points as Dewi. Started with should a photographer intervein with a starving child or rely on his photographs changing matters. Then it progressed onto non participation of war photographers. Made for an interesting afternoon and spurred much thought. Age, circumstance and experience colour all our views on these matters. All the kerfuffle about the polar bear footage on David Attenborough's program. It would've endangered both bears and camera folk. A lot of the footage of fish stuff is done in tanks as it makes the footage quality better.
I do think that if it proports to be reality then it should be and any deviation should be owned up too.
I don't have a telly but since it's inception in 1977 with the program about living in the Iron Age where it seemed very true to life, any proported reality shows I've seen are pretty pants.

Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.

 

[Hammock_man]

Next you will be say East Enders is not live filmed real folk!!!!
Having seen some youtube vid's where a great 3 minute lesson results in a 30 minute monologue I am up for a bit of editing. However, TV newspapers and the like are about sales first, 2nd and truth a poor 3rd. 9 times out of 10 freedom of the press is just freedom to sell more.

I would say that the vast majority of folk on here know that "cavemen" where highly skilled, anglo saxons made awesome products and such like. A program that says "oh look, with a hint of help these "stars" can feed themselves" just is not good viewing.

 

[boatman]

Built a boat for Time Team that had an annoying leak that I could have fixed properly but the director thought it more fun to have me banging in nails to no real effect for the ten seconds of screen time, ignoring trading post set up on banks of the River Wye and the construction of the vessel and how it was typical of the time. BUT, I enjoyed the experience and its insight into the skills of the TV crew just the reason I was there was frustrating.

 

[santaman2000]

......I do think that if it proports to be reality then it should be and any deviation should be owned up too.....

Agreed. In John's example a simple statement at the beginning of the film/report such as, "The following is a recreation (or representation) of the actual events, using actual donated items."

 

[dewi]

Remember my old English Master initiating a discusion about morals with the same points as Dewi. Started with should a photographer intervein with a starving child or rely on his photographs changing matters. Then it progressed onto non participation of war photographers. Made for an interesting afternoon and spurred much thought. Age, circumstance and experience colour all our views on these matters. All the kerfuffle about the polar bear footage on David Attenborough's program. It would've endangered both bears and camera folk. A lot of the footage of fish stuff is done in tanks as it makes the footage quality better.
I do think that if it proports to be reality then it should be and any deviation should be owned up too.
I don't have a telly but since it's inception in 1977 with the program about living in the Iron Age where it seemed very true to life, any proported reality shows I've seen are pretty pants.

Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.

I'd have liked to have sat in on that discussion GB, especially the latter part of the discussion as it is fascinating.

Remember the one with the polar bear and the whole spectacle that followed could have been avoided by a couple of seconds explaining during the show... their explanation wouldn't have taken anything away from the amazing footage they had.

 

[GGTBod]

All i can say on the subject is tv made Jimmy Saville and Rolf Harris seem like good honest folk who like to help children

 

[Goatboy]

Dewi, that polar bear program did have one of those "extra" sections, a sort of making of that was broadcast just after the program. In it they did say how the section of the sleeping bears was filmed. Think it was just the papers having a pop at David Attenborogh as he's a bit of a national treasure. They always seem to like to try and bring folk down a peg r two.

Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.

 

[wingstoo]

Even Michael Palins adventures are "staged" When he went "Full Circle" he came home for a couple of weeks and skipped how they got to Australia from some island.

 

[dewi]

Dewi, that polar bear program did have one of those "extra" sections, a sort of making of that was broadcast just after the program. In it they did say how the section of the sleeping bears was filmed. Think it was just the papers having a pop at David Attenborogh as he's a bit of a national treasure. They always seem to like to try and bring folk down a peg r two.

Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.

I didn't know they did an extra section after the show, but with the papers, nothing surprises me. They're after Jim Carrey today because the girl he dated committed suicide.

 

[MartiniDave]

I did hear a rumour that the starship Enterprise is actually only a model! Outrageous!

 

[John Fenna]

I did hear a rumour that the starship Enterprise is actually only a model! Outrageous!

And I bet the transporter is a fake too!
I can see fiction being faked and not worry - it is "fact" being faked and sold as reality that worries me....

 

[mousey]

And I bet the transporter is a fake too!
I can see fiction being faked and not worry - it is "fact" being faked and sold as reality that worries me....

How do you watch the news or read a newspaper? everything is presented in such away to convey certain ideas/ points even the selection of written words - exactly how to phrase something to get the best 'impact' perhaps.

It's a sad state for me to be in, to have to think about who is telling me what and why? what agenda to people have, governments, the medical profession, - workmen, mechanics. At least part of it is me being very cynical and not believing or trusting what people say to me... but then I suppose that's what the division of labour is about, I have to trust someone else to do a good job of something [or tell me the truth] because I haven't got time to do all the research for myself, just the same as others have got to trust me to be good at my job because I've been trained and have experience in it.

perhaps a bit of a rambling post but there you go...