Double-spaced Documentaries

Sunday, April 16, 2006

The biggest trick in the book for students is the double-spaced report, the art of making a small amount of content seem like much more.
This has become the standard for National Geographic Channel. Every time I watch a documentary on this channel, I'm struck by how they masterfully pad out a show. The first thing they do is reiterate, reuse, and repeat. The same footage will be used over and over, plot points are repeated several times, and the whole show is edited very long, almost to the point of being uncomfortable to watch -- you know something is not edited very tightly when you find yourself wondering when they'll cut to another camera angle.
Next, the "coming up" segment. Just before a commercial, they'll spend at least 30 seconds and sometimes as much as a minute telling you what is coming after the break.
Finally, after returning from the break, they rewind the narrative back at least 5 minutes, recapping what you saw before the break and repeating it again.
I swear, one day I am going to record of these National Geographic Channel shows and edit it properly. I'm willing to bet that easily 1/3 of it is extraneous, repeated, or loosely edited. Just think: two hours of show could easily become an hour.
Of course, then National Geographic would have all that time to fill.