P
Parks Stephenson
Member
I've now heard twice how superior English documentaries are over American. This, I believe is a generalisation that does the argument no good. Certainly, some documentaries are better than others, but dividing quality along nationalistic lines is jingoism, pure and simple.
Why do I say this? Because I have worked for production companies on both side of the Atlantic. Frankly, the least informative documentary that I have ever advised on was made by a major UK production company. I was also not impressed by the recent "Building the Titanic" programme, the one that kept referring to the panelling in the Swan Hotel as being from Olympic's dining room. That programme seemed to follow the same formula that I laid out in my lengthy post above, despite the fact that it was made entirely in the UK, for UK audiences.
I also just this past week happened to read a legal ruling by the British Broadcasting Standards Commission against BBC Horizon for their biased reporting methods.
During lunch today, I sat through a few minutes of Ken Burns's "The War" documentary. From what little I saw, it looked pretty good.
I offer these examples only as counterpoint to a generalisation made in this thread. I don't see the nationality of a production company as a factor in the quality of a product. Both the USA and UK -- along with any number of other countries -- have the ability to produce both good and bad documentaries. I will concede one advantage that the UK has over the USA...USA broadcasts require more time be given over to commercials. When editing a programme originally intended for UK audiences for a USA audience, much programme time (and possibly substance) has to be cut to fit the same time slot.
So what keeps companies from producing bad shows? The market. If the show does not bring in the audience, then the show will die and the responsible production company will have a harder time with their next pitch to the networks. Evidently, these Titanic shows are finding some response from the audience, because they continue to get green-lighted.
Now, for a perplexing anomaly: The Discovery Channel really botched the broadcast edit of Cameron's "Last Mysteries of the Titanic." Cameron took control of the show and edited it to his liking. The resulting edit had more footage from inside the wreck than was originally shown on TV. In addition, more attention was paid to the meaning of what he found inside the wreck. Overall, Cameron's edit was so far superior to that shown on TV that it was almost an entirely new programme. Discovery Channel promptly shelved the edit after they received it from Earthship Productions. They provided a cut-down version of Cameron's edit for consideration in the Emmy Awards, but even that has never been publicly broadcast. For whatever reason, the Discovery Channel does not see worth in airing what in my opinion is a really informative documentary. Go figure.
Parks
Why do I say this? Because I have worked for production companies on both side of the Atlantic. Frankly, the least informative documentary that I have ever advised on was made by a major UK production company. I was also not impressed by the recent "Building the Titanic" programme, the one that kept referring to the panelling in the Swan Hotel as being from Olympic's dining room. That programme seemed to follow the same formula that I laid out in my lengthy post above, despite the fact that it was made entirely in the UK, for UK audiences.
I also just this past week happened to read a legal ruling by the British Broadcasting Standards Commission against BBC Horizon for their biased reporting methods.
During lunch today, I sat through a few minutes of Ken Burns's "The War" documentary. From what little I saw, it looked pretty good.
I offer these examples only as counterpoint to a generalisation made in this thread. I don't see the nationality of a production company as a factor in the quality of a product. Both the USA and UK -- along with any number of other countries -- have the ability to produce both good and bad documentaries. I will concede one advantage that the UK has over the USA...USA broadcasts require more time be given over to commercials. When editing a programme originally intended for UK audiences for a USA audience, much programme time (and possibly substance) has to be cut to fit the same time slot.
So what keeps companies from producing bad shows? The market. If the show does not bring in the audience, then the show will die and the responsible production company will have a harder time with their next pitch to the networks. Evidently, these Titanic shows are finding some response from the audience, because they continue to get green-lighted.
Now, for a perplexing anomaly: The Discovery Channel really botched the broadcast edit of Cameron's "Last Mysteries of the Titanic." Cameron took control of the show and edited it to his liking. The resulting edit had more footage from inside the wreck than was originally shown on TV. In addition, more attention was paid to the meaning of what he found inside the wreck. Overall, Cameron's edit was so far superior to that shown on TV that it was almost an entirely new programme. Discovery Channel promptly shelved the edit after they received it from Earthship Productions. They provided a cut-down version of Cameron's edit for consideration in the Emmy Awards, but even that has never been publicly broadcast. For whatever reason, the Discovery Channel does not see worth in airing what in my opinion is a really informative documentary. Go figure.
Parks
