Ouroboros, or Subway foot-long Churro… can’t decide.
While it’s true that some on-air talent are failsons… many of them DO have skills and training and appearing on screen is actual work. And they’re not all pretty faces, but many have been reporters or done other jobs, and also happen to be good in front of the camera, which YES, is an actual skill that people go to school to learn how to do or have spent years improving. For example, go find a youtuber that you enjoy watching, then go watch their early videos compared to their more recent ones. You’ll likely see an improvement over time on how engaging their videos are. The on-air skills do improve with work and practice.
I really don’t understand this attitude that some jobs are merely things that any old hack can do, rather than all jobs take time, effort, and some skill to learn how to do well. That’s as true of blue collar, unskilled labor as it is of various kinds of white collar work… except investment bankers… Those guys are skill-less failsons.
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As someone who tried to go on-camera (and failed miserably), and who spent years observing anchors and reporters doing their jobs, I can tell you that it does require a particular talent (as distinct from skill or training, which they also have) to pull that off effectively, comfortably, and in a way that connects with a remote audience.
If it helps, they usually understand that it’s a collaborative process and have great respect for the crew and other behind-the-scenes staff, especially if (is is often the case) they started off there themselves.
So no-one in the TV news biz or show biz in general minds if they’re called “the talent”.
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That too… they very much work hand in hand with the crew, the reporters, and writers to make the show work.
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Ugh. I hate that this is even how it works at all really. We need a clear understanding of what is going on more than ever.
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This was you I take it?
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It wasn’t quite so bad. It was a try-out for a field reporting gig, with a mercifully brief on-air stand-up. None-the-less, after I got back and it aired I was informed with extraordinary grace and kindness by two of my anchor friends that perhaps this was not the career path for me.
I myself knew it when all I could think of when delivering my script was “I’m talking to a camera. Why am I talking to a camera? This is weird.” Again and again, running on a loop in my head.
Obligatory in this discussion:
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Either the camera loves you or it doesn’t.
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I don’t remember the exact wording, so this will be a paraphrase. Alton Brown was talking in an interview about hard things he had done, and being on “Next Food Network Star” was one of the hardest. He was one of the “current stars” trying to coach and nurture his contestants. He said that it was just obvious sometimes who could do the job of hosting a TV show, and who could not. And he said that frequently he could see the realization hit for those who could not. He said that you could look at them and watch them realize “Oh, this is a real job, and I don’t have the skills to do it.”. And that he just didn’t now how to give them the skills to actually do the job. He could coach people who had the basic talent to be better at it, but that they had to bring the skills to the table in the first place.
He also said that he didn’t know precisely what the skills were, which, you know, would make it hard to teach them. I remember him saying that if Bobby Flay could ever run a course that taught you to be as good a TV host as Flay is, that he would be the first one to sign up. He also said one time that that was something he admired so much about Anthony Bourdain, that he kept succeeding in so many ways. TV host, author, chef - he said that he felt that Bourdain never really gave himself enough credit for all the different fields he excelled in.
Again, this is all working from memory, so I’m hoping it’s accurate-ish at least.
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Excellent! Thank you!
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I had the opportunity once to appear on-camera for an interview. I declined, telling them “You’ve probably got plenty of rejected stock of people staring into the camera and saying ‘um…’ You can use that, and nobody will be able to tell the difference from me.”
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