Are Audiences Stupid? Why Dumbing Down is a Dumb Thing to Do

In my decades-long video and meeting production career, there was one phrase that sent chills down my spine:

“Close enough for government work.”

This was another way of saying, “Good enough for those stupid people”, or “This audience doesn’t deserve my best work, or “I want to go home.”

What it said to me about that employee or colleague was that he or she didn’t care– about the audience or their own integrity. And that shortsightedness came from a stereotype of the average viewing audience: They’re impatient, stupid, and need everything spoon-fed.

Wow.

I mean, wow.

Is there any chance that these producers were right? Simply, are audiences stupid?

Look in the mirror. Are you?

The answer is no. Just because an audience doesn’t know the difference between a Red camera and a DVcam; Klieg lights vs. Kino-flo’s, or iambic pentameter from Mother Goose doesn’t mean they don’t know what is good. They are the audience. They are the biggest group of critics around, and they know what they like.

They like stories.

In Hollywood, they approve with their dollars. In business, they approve with action, commitment, or a bit of both.

They are us; we are they– if it’s too complicated for us, its too complicated for them. If it’s intriguing to us, it’s intriguing to them.

Examples? Christopher Nolan; Orson Welles; M. Night Shyamalan. Their work challenges the audience and keeps them intrigued.

Corporate examples? Videos that don”t preach, meetings that don’t pander, speeches that reduce the PowerPoint to clear, illustrative, intriguing pictorial elements.

Why simply say “We need better customer service” in a video, when kids in a Lemonade Stand can better or more arrestingly tell “the story?”

Why preach about miscalibrated machining equipment and the resultant costs when you can produce a film-noir-like mystery?

Why have the CEO of a corporation sit at his or her desk and lecture on building brand loyalty when interviews with real customers can make that case more convincingly and more humanly?

It’s the story, stupid.

Even the stupid audience knows that.

Norman Rockwell, Creative Director

The relationship of the well staged and photographed still image to creative direction in advertising and video / film is no more evident than in this article about Norman Rockwell from Photo District News.

Before he ever committed paint to canvas, he set up intricate photoshoots. These were as professional as any video or film shoot, and included casting, set design, lighting, and the directing of talent and expression.

It raises my estimation of Rockwell, perhaps because it makes clear that he wasn’t working from swipe files, but was in fact creating his own masterful photographic tableau’s. Take a look at the comparison of Rockwell photo to Rockwell painting. Each has their own genius.

He picked the right people. He directed the right expressions. He positioned them in a still life pose that rivaled the best photographers and painters.

Then, on canvas, he filled in the details, adjusted, added, enhanced, reimagined and yes, photo-realistically replicated what he had previously created in black and white.

It was quite a process. Probably not unique. But a definite unraveling of a great artistic process.

We need to imagine our own work in video and print as well as Rockwell did his. Great motion is made up of great moments.

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D-Day for Mercury Marine? Video as Corporate Culture

I was privileged to produce Mercury Marine’s 50th Anniversary video 20 years ago. It was a celebration of an entrepreneur’s vision,  a company’s impact on society, and, in much subtler ways, it’s impact on its surroundings– Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.

The local impact– on employment, community growth, local pride, freshwater recreation heritage– was never pointed out directly. It was there in the amazing visual documentation founder Carl Kiekhafer left behind of his surroundings through 16mm film and pictures. Mercury’s founding in Cedarburg. It’s purchase of the Coriam Farm in Fond du Lac to be the home of it’s amazing growth. It’s incredible impact on watersports, including Tommy Bartlett’s Water Show in the Dells. The national dealer celebrations Mercury hosted in Wisconsin.

I write this because today (Sunday, August 23, 2009) Mercury’s union rank and file will vote on whether to accept concessions in order to keep Mercury’s headquarters and plants in Wisconsin.

I don’t have a bone to pick or a dog in the fight. What I do know is this video demonstrates the incredible impact Mercury’s corporate culture has had on Wisconsin. To see it go the way of so many other corporations that have left, merged, been bought, or otherwise disappeared from the scene would be a distraught moment indeed.

We have short memories, and more and more companies seem to want to forget their past. The man who hired me for the Mercury gig, Ed Huck, often said “What’s past is prologue.” But what prologue is there if you ignore your past?

Here in slightly shortened form, is “50 Years of Leadership.”

“A Christmas Story” is only Part of the Story

Donald Fagan, co-founder of Steely Dan, has a great article in Slate about Jean Shepherd,  the author and narrator of the Christmas movie classic "A Christmas Story."

Fagan reminisces about growing up in central New Jersey listening to "Shep" on WOR 710 on your am dial in the sixties. (Sounds familiar.)

He reflects on his parents not thinking much of that weirdo Shepherd, despite Shepherd and the parents probably being about the same age. (Check.)

He describes the difference between the 5 night a week studio Shepherd– intimate, personal, one-to-one) with the live performer– bombastic, a bit too loud, a bit too desperate for approval. (Yup. Listen to any of Sheherd's "live shows" from night clubs or college campuses.)

And he contrasts thye almost treacly sentiment of "A Christmas Story" with Shepherd's other works…his radio narratives, his PBS films on which "A Christmas Story" was modeled, even his "short story" collections based primarily on his radio stories. Unlike "Christmas Story", these had an "edge."

Deep down, the real Jean Shepherd was far more complex, his story far more bittersweet, and he perhaps far more bitter than he let on.

The internet is a wonderful thing. By its very existance, I know now that some of the longing and loss so appealling to me in Fagan's music (New Frontier, anyone? Deacon Blues?) comes from a source of my own view on life. Central Jersey in the early sixties, Jean Shepherd, cold war paranoia….

I wonder if he watched Soupy Sales.

For more on Jean Shepherd, go to the comprehensive Jean Shepherd tribute site, "Flick Lives."

Also, grab a copy of Eugene Bergmann's incredible analysis of Shepherd and his works,"Excelsior, You Fatheads." 
Yup, that's the title. It's a quote from the enigma himself.