56
Television Production & Broadcast Journalism
special effects:
Anything the audience
sees in a video picture
that did not really
happen in the way it
appears on the screen.
Special Effects
An entire book could be written on special effects alone. In simplest
terms, special effects are anything the audience sees in a video picture that
did not really happen the way it appears on the screen. Special effects alter
the reality perceived by the viewer.
Production Note
One of the cardinal rules of television production and
fi lmmaking: “It does not have to be, it only has to appear to be!”
Editing
Placing the individual scenes in logical order on another tape is called
editing (discussed in Chapter 24, Video Editing). When writing a research
paper, you make notes on note cards. One of the next tasks in the process
is to arrange the note cards in an order that makes the paper fl ow logically.
The process of arranging note cards corresponds to editing a video program.
The scenes of a program are not usually shot in the order seen in the
fi nished product. All the scenes that take place in one location are shot at
the same time, even if they appear at different times in the fi nished pro-
gram. Imagine that scenes 25, 41, and 97 of a movie take place in Egypt
at the Sphinx, and scenes 24, 40, and 98 take place at the Eiffel Tower in
Paris, France. To shoot the scenes in chronological order, all the people
and equipment would need to be transported back and forth three times
between these distant locations. The increased production cost in provid-
ing such travel arrangements is unreasonable and, most often, not possible.
Setting up once at each location to shoot all the necessary scenes requires
that the scenes be edited together in the proper order in post-production.
Duplication and Distribution
A master program is copied to multiple media formats, such as tape
or DVD, for distribution and viewing. The programs may be individually
sold by a retailer, used as informational material for a specific workforce
or company, cablecast, or be broadcast and viewed on televisions in mil-
lions of homes. Programs may also be streamed and downloaded using
the Internet. The fi nished product is viewed on millions of televisions and
computer screens around the world almost instantly.
Assistant Activity
• Watch 20 minutes of the local or national news with the sound turned
off. Can you still follow what the newscasters are communicating? Why?
• Watch 10 minutes of a sitcom with the sound turned off. Can you still
follow the storyline?
• Try watching a commercial that you have never seen before with the
sound turned off. What is the commercial trying to tell you
about the product? Can you fi gure it out without the audio?
Be prepared to discuss your experience with each of
these scenarios.
editing: The process
of placing individual
recorded scenes in
logical order.