The article below is from the Video Ideas email list.
The UK journalist John Rentoul maintains a “banned list”: cliches that he wishes other writers would stop using. The Washington Post has a similar list, and websites about writing are full of warnings against jargon, mixed metaphors, and even the word “very”.
However, I can find little for video. The few rules I’ve come across (for example, the 180-degree rule that instructs filmmakers to keep their camera angles on one side of an imaginary line) are more for fiction work. So I decided I might take this opportunity to start on a similar list for factual video.
1. The record scratch
John Rentoul’s banned list was inspired by George Orwell’s famous essay, “Politics and the English Language” (you can read it here). One of the things Orwell criticises are “dying metaphors” which “have lost all evocative power” because readers have forgotten what they refer to. For example when we say someone is “flying off the handle”, we just hear that someone is angry. We don’t visualise the original metaphor: an axe blade flying off its handle.
While a good metaphor evokes a visual image, these “dying metaphors” evoke nothing at all. They’ve become disconnected from what they once referenced.
In video terms, one device which I believe has become disconnected from its origins is the record scratch — when we stop the background music and play a sound effect of a vinyl record scratching to a halt, usually to signal something surprising. (Above is an example from a film I made about Europeans learning about American life.) As well as being a cliche, as few people hear a real record scratch in their lives anymore, this feels like one of Orwell’s disconnected “dying metaphors”.
2. VCR graphics
I’m adding VCR graphics to the banned list for the same reason as the record scratch: it is no longer connected to reality. People don’t use VCRs anymore, and no-one now encounters those visuals in real life. Why not reference the way we watch videos now like on Netflix or YouTube? I prefer something like this from Carlos Maza (around 1:57).
3. Breaking eye contact with second-camera cutaways
I hate it when a presenter is talking to camera, making eye contact with the audience, and then the film cuts to another camera where they aren’t looking down the camera.
The whole point of looking down the lens is the connection it makes with the viewer and this is destroyed when you then see a shot of them side-on. As a viewer it feels like they’ve broken eye-contact with me, and this just feels rude!
I realise no-one agrees with me on this but hey, it’s my banned list.
In my book, if you want to use second-camera cut-away just have the interviewee look at the interviewer in both shots.
4. Marimbas
There’s a whole category of cliched music used on journalistic videos. I’m not sure how to identify it all (maybe anything which is a “neutral bed”?), but the most prominent thing that stands out for me is anything with a marimba — this for example. I can’t take it anymore! Banned.
5. Timelapse stock footage
One day I hope to be able to ban all stock footage, but for the time being, I’m just going to go after time-lapse stock footage. I hate it because it’s cliched, corporate but also because it’s used as wallpaper. The beginning of the Economist video above is a good example.
6. Subtitles and on-screen graphics clashing
In this example, the subtitles are clashing with the on-screen text because they have been added as a reluctant afterthought. Learn how to use on-screen text creatively. Your audience deserves a lot better.
A star (⭐) means particularly recommended. While all the films I include in these emails are worth knowing about for some reason, these are the ones you definitely don’t want to miss watching.