The Definitive Screaming-As-Good-For-TV Thread

[MyrddinsPrecint]

Many Many Many conversations have been had here about screaming.

The debate is still open for whether or not it's personally tasteful, sportsmanlike, or any of a number of other adjectives.

When it comes to "good for media coverage," however, we have


NEW INFORMATION.


That's right, boys and girls, there's actually reason for a new thread on the topic.

NBC has released a few "wrap ups", personal stories of growth (including one where they screwed up the aspect ratio and squashed Becca...).

But what else have they posted?

"Top 8 Reactions: Women's individual sabre"
and
"Best reactions: Day 2 in men's fencing"

(women's sabre is much better).

Clearly Some producer at NBC has decided that screaming, weird close epee touches, and physically contorting your body in weird ways in celebration do make good TV.

On this matter, there may be no more arguing.

[fatfencer]

Myrrd...

Of COURSE it makes good tv. Anything that has emotional reaction of any kind makes people wanna watch.

People actually watch 'reality' tv right?

People wanna see people triumph, suffer agonizing defeat, etc.

Good for TV? Of Course.

Fatfencer

[MyrddinsPrecint]

Myrrd...

Of COURSE it makes good tv. Anything that has emotional reaction of any kind makes people wanna watch.

People actually watch 'reality' tv right?

People wanna see people triumph, suffer agonizing defeat, etc.

Good for TV? Of Course.

Fatfencer

Don't tell me, tell Inq.

[Guymelef]

Fatfencer has hit upon it. NBC is treating this Olympics like a reality show, more than ever before. There are extensive bios on the competitors with appropriate mood-enhancing music. Ridiculously enough, the stories about the competitors are often longer than the actual competitive event. They are creating heroes and villains, favorites and underdogs. ABC may have coined the phrase, but NBC wants to capture and enhance that "thrill of victory and agony of defeat." So, you can expect that primal scream to have a long, long history in our sport and many others. After all, these days we are not satisfied about the athletic achievements of sports men and women. We want victory and loss, tragedy and triumph, controversy and redemption. What we (and Sportscenter) want above it all is drama.

[DJ Apostrophe]

Fatfencer has hit upon it. NBC is treating this Olympics like a reality show, more than ever before. There are extensive bios on the competitors with appropriate mood-enhancing music. Ridiculously enough, the stories about the competitors are often longer than the actual competitive event. They are creating heroes and villains, favorites and underdogs. ABC may have coined the phrase, but NBC wants to capture and enhance that "thrill of victory and agony of defeat." So, you can expect that primal scream to have a long, long history in our sport and many others. After all, these days we are not satisfied about the athletic achievements of sports men and women. We want victory and loss, tragedy and triumph, controversy and redemption. What we (and Sportscenter) want above it all is drama.

This is why almost all the coverage I've watched so far has been online.

I'll watch the coverage on TV too, but with the multitude of channels, when they start doing a background story, I change the channel to something that is actually showing the competition.... If I can't find something good on TV, I'll go watch the online videos.

Devil's advocate moment: A guy on another forum I read was mentioning what he was watching and he said he watched the WS coverage, but that the screaming was silly. He said he enjoyed watching it, but did so on mute (Don't know if he was serious or not). Of course, it's only one guy's opinion, so who knows.

-w

[Falchion]

Fatfencer has hit upon it. NBC is treating this Olympics like a reality show, more than ever before. There are extensive bios on the competitors with appropriate mood-enhancing music. Ridiculously enough, the stories about the competitors are often longer than the actual competitive event. They are creating heroes and villains, favorites and underdogs. ABC may have coined the phrase, but NBC wants to capture and enhance that "thrill of victory and agony of defeat." So, you can expect that primal scream to have a long, long history in our sport and many others. After all, these days we are not satisfied about the athletic achievements of sports men and women. We want victory and loss, tragedy and triumph, controversy and redemption. What we (and Sportscenter) want above it all is drama.

Asside from the fact that there has been way too much volleyball, I think the coverage thus far has been great.

Sports is about drama. The thrill of victory and defeat is its foundation and the bios substantiate the long road the competitors traverse to arrive at the Olympics. To carry your idealism further, why have any commentary, interviews, or background information of any kind?

Perhaps more than any other sports venue, the Olympics are about the stories. The free style swimming relay wouldn't have been nearly as exciting without the background knowledge that the French had trash talked before the race. That is in part what makes the gold so sweet (for Americans obviously).

Is it so odd that human nature tends to dramatize something that inherently consists of drama? The Chinese spent 50 billion dollars on these Olympics. That in and of itself is dramatic. If you don't like drama, why watch sports at all? Why not go play scrabble or something at a retirement home down the street. There I'm sure you'll get a heady dosage of reality and you'll be far away from that bad drama.

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!


Even Eurosport has gone down the tubes in this way.

Previously, it was pure bliss, from a sportsviewers POV. Hour upon hour of only sports coverage, with the only disruption being some ads (I can accept that, since they are not a PPV channel, or state-supported) and a few minutes of background screen between each 58-minute block. Extremely little reruns, highlights, and other time-hogging garbage. Also, they showed all sorts of sports

This OG, they have endless reruns, recaps, "Fun stuff" (aargh!)clips, and focus on the marquee events. Even the first tryouts of the swim events - containing only no-hopers - get preferential treatment over finals from fencing and other 2nd-tier sports.

Falchion: You have your kind of sports coverage all the time outside of the OG. Is it too much to ask that us serious sports aficionados can get pure sports coverage, once every 4 years? Why do you want to deny us that?

I do not want to know the personal stories of the competitors, or see previews! That is what the web does best! TV should do what it is best at, real time event coverage!


I hate it!

Peter Gustafsson

[fencerbill]

This is why almost all the coverage I've watched so far has been online.

I'll watch the coverage on TV too, but with the multitude of channels, when they start doing a background story, I change the channel to something that is actually showing the competition.... If I can't find something good on TV, I'll go watch the online videos.

Devil's advocate moment: A guy on another forum I read was mentioning what he was watching and he said he watched the WS coverage, but that the screaming was silly. He said he enjoyed watching it, but did so on mute (Don't know if he was serious or not). Of course, it's only one guy's opinion, so who knows.

-w

I wish venues had a mute button.

[wwalkerjr]

Fatfencer has hit upon it. NBC is treating this Olympics like a reality show, more than ever before. There are extensive bios on the competitors with appropriate mood-enhancing music. Ridiculously enough, the stories about the competitors are often longer than the actual competitive event. They are creating heroes and villains, favorites and underdogs. ABC may have coined the phrase, but NBC wants to capture and enhance that "thrill of victory and agony of defeat." So, you can expect that primal scream to have a long, long history in our sport and many others. After all, these days we are not satisfied about the athletic achievements of sports men and women. We want victory and loss, tragedy and triumph, controversy and redemption. What we (and Sportscenter) want above it all is drama.

As I breathlessly celebrated the women's saber results, and forced friends to watch in a sports bar, the fact is that nobody understood the action. They couldn't for the life of them figure out why one time Marial got the touch and another time Sada got the touch. Nobody at NBC helped in the explanation either. They quickly became bored and wanted to seek the basketball schedule. If we really want to capitalize with "Ten Thousand Fencers", we really need to figure a way to communicate the rudimentary rules of our sport. Maybe the replay camera could be available to the audience with our most telegenic FIE Director.
I know that this, of course immediately leads to the other threads on this forum discussing ROW.

[KD5MDK]

Devil's advocate moment: A guy on another forum I read was mentioning what he was watching and he said he watched the WS coverage, but that the screaming was silly. He said he enjoyed watching it, but did so on mute (Don't know if he was serious or not). Of course, it's only one guy's opinion, so who knows.

I heard a bit of the same on Ars. We don't read the same sites, do we?
Still, lots more people there reported they watched the WS than I expected.

[Falchion]

Hi!


Even Eurosport has gone down the tubes in this way.

Previously, it was pure bliss, from a sportsviewers POV. Hour upon hour of only sports coverage, with the only disruption being some ads (I can accept that, since they are not a PPV channel, or state-supported) and a few minutes of background screen between each 58-minute block. Extremely little reruns, highlights, and other time-hogging garbage. Also, they showed all sorts of sports

This OG, they have endless reruns, recaps, "Fun stuff" (aargh!)clips, and focus on the marquee events. Even the first tryouts of the swim events - containing only no-hopers - get preferential treatment over finals from fencing and other 2nd-tier sports.

Falchion: You have your kind of sports coverage all the time outside of the OG. Is it too much to ask that us serious sports aficionados can get pure sports coverage, once every 4 years? Why do you want to deny us that?

I do not want to know the personal stories of the competitors, or see previews! That is what the web does best! TV should do what it is best at, real time event coverage!


I hate it!

Peter Gustafsson

I don't want to deny you anything, and I really don't think you're being denied anything. After all, I stayed up till after one o'clock in the morning watching live coverage of women's foil. No commentary, no interruptions, no problem.

If you're interested in watching other sports it isn't really that difficult to get access to them. In addition to the televised broadcast, I've been watching fencing, judo, rowing, sailing, and any number of other events since Friday.

You can't honestly expect the telivised broadcast to give equal time to the more marginilized venues and the marquee events. These stations are after shares, in the end. The idea of the big networks streaming live events with little commentary in interweb-like presentation is, frankly, absurd.

If being a real sports afficianado means constantly complaining and nitpicking then you can keep the title. All you're really doing is surrounding the Games in a haze of negativity in a blase, half-empty cup manner which diffuses the excitement and exoticism of the Olympics. Its a shame. But oh well, I guess I'll go back to watching the events on the web with the exact type of coverage that you sports afficianados so long for, while also enjoying the drama of the televised broadcast that we psuedo sports fans so adore.

[DJ Apostrophe]

I heard a bit of the same on Ars. We don't read the same sites, do we?
Still, lots more people there reported they watched the WS than I expected.

I read Ars on rare occasions, but this didn't come from there.

I'd be willing to bet large sums of money that you don't read the forum I was referring to... I don't imagine people in Texas, in the middle of August, would be spending time on a site which discusses Northeast Skiing.

Anyway, I came back into this thread to report that one of my coworkers reported the same sentiment. "It was cool to watch, but those girls are annoying."

-w

[Allen Evans]

Part of this may be the experiance NBC has with covering fencing (which is little to none). The NBC video of the final that I saw had some very poor editing...for example, on at least one of the shots I saw was a hard cut to Sada and Muriel both screaming after the touch, but not the actions leading up to finish. This speaks to very poor editing (remember that even for fencing there are usually multiple camera angles to chose from).

I'm encouraged at the amount of coverage, but I was disappointed by many of the angles. Perhaps with time, the networks will get better at this.

Or not. It's something they only do every four years, and without much practice at it, I think we can expect some ham-handed work on the coverage.

AE

[KD5MDK]

At this time of the month, I could be very interested in Northeast skiing. However, as it happens I haven't been.

Do you think we could get NBC to do a poll about it?


AE - I agree that the editing was awkward, and especially that many times replays covered the next touch. They really need to trim them down. The problem of not showing the replay for the exact sequence you most want it is shared with football, so I don't expect it will go away soon.

[the ancient one]

The editing certainly could be improved, but something is way better than the usual non-coverage.

I just wish they would could block all of that silly fist pumping on every single point.

It is as bad or worse than the overdone volleyball high-five-group-hug.

[Guymelef]

Shamelessly using skimpy costumes and and girl-girl embraces for ratings?

It's...it's...THE WWE!

PS, great signatures AO.

[fencerbill]

Part of this may be the experiance NBC has with covering fencing (which is little to none). The NBC video of the final that I saw had some very poor editing...for example, on at least one of the shots I saw was a hard cut to Sada and Muriel both screaming after the touch, but not the actions leading up to finish. This speaks to very poor editing (remember that even for fencing there are usually multiple camera angles to chose from).

I'm encouraged at the amount of coverage, but I was disappointed by many of the angles. Perhaps with time, the networks will get better at this.

Or not. It's something they only do every four years, and without much practice at it, I think we can expect some ham-handed work on the coverage.

AE

I think we are easily spoiled. Here we have 3 cameras each on 4 strips, probably 15 or so NBC cameras in the fencing venue and we are getting picky on the editing, closeups and dissolves. I for one have never had access to video, much less live video like this. Makes getting Verizon Fios TV/Internet, installed a week ago, worthwhile.

[crquack]

Devil's advocate moment: A guy on another forum I read was mentioning what he was watching and he said he watched the WS coverage, but that the screaming was silly. He said he enjoyed watching it, but did so on mute (Don't know if he was serious or not). Of course, it's only one guy's opinion, so who knows.

Ah, make it two guys...

Some of the stuff in men's epee was also downright embarrassing, including red cards for spiking a mask etc. The eventual winner showed class in the matches I watched (did not catch the semis or the final) unlike the theatricals coming from others.

Mute is a useful buton in general: If you had to listen to the idiotic Canadian commentary on their only boxer losing his bout 20:1 you would agree.

[mrbiggs]

Clearly Some producer at NBC has decided that screaming, weird close epee touches, and physically contorting your body in weird ways in celebration do make good TV.

I was just thinking of this. Perhaps fencing will gain some popularity through the intense reactions fencers display--the NBC videos certainly imply that the television stations are considering this as a good idea.



Whether or not this is how we want people to view our sport is, of course, still up for debate.

[gatsby]

every other sport has these kind of reactions.

people fight for their wins and feel like crap when they lose. you want them to stop expressing their emotions because it "annoys" you?

not everyone can just quietly flip off their masks and shake hands, much less so in the olympics.