Patrick Erin Murphy is running for Congress.
I know this because I keep getting emails from him telling me so.
He is, in fact, running for Congress in Florida. Why he is emailing me is beyond me, but I keep getting the emails.
Patrick Erin Murphy seems like a nice enough guy. And he sure is trying hard.
Yesterday, he sent me another email, this one with an embedded video.
It’s nice that Mr. Murphy is using video.
Unfortunately, he is using video all wrong.
Not that the embed is wrong, it’s the way it was shot and produced.
Take a look at this.
Mr. Murphy never makes eye contact with you.
You are sitting at home watching this, but you are also sitting across from him at the table. Â That’s how it’s shot.
Yet he never looks you in the eye.
What kid of politician (or used car salesman, for that matter) refuses to make eye contact with you.
What is he trying to hide.
Viewing video on the web is a very intimate and personal experience. Â It’s just you and the laptop (and the video). Â Yet when Mr. Murphy talks to you, he doesn’t look at you. He’s distracted. He’s looking at someone else, over your shoulder. Â Watching it, I have the urge to say, “hey Patrick. I’m over here…”
Next, where they chose to shoot it.
The miracle of video is that you can take the viewer anywhere.
Patrick wants to talk about the environment. Â So he should take you to the Everglades. (He’s in Florida already for crying out loud. What would it take? A rental car? One of those air boats? Â Come on Patrick, get off your ass and get out there). Instead, Patrick is sitting in some coffee shop somewhere (refusing to make eye contact with me). Â This does not scream ‘man of action who cares about the environment’. Â This screams lazy slob who won’t get off his a** (and who won’t bother to look me in the eye).
Bad Patrick. Very bad.
Not that he’s a bad guy. But I spend less time listening to what he says that watching him. This is the nature of TV.
Patrick. Show the video to a dozen people on the street and ask them what they remember. Â Probably about 2% of the content and about 50% of what it looked like. That’s TV for you.
As for the still shot of the Florida Keys….. oy. Â And the ‘cut away’ of the hands. And don’t get me started on the guitar music. It’s like I am sitting with him at the table, trying to concentrate on what he is saying and an annoying Marriachi band keeps strumming by. Â I can’t really hear you Patrick, someone is strumming a guitar in my ear.
I don’t know who made this for Patrick Erin Murphy, but it looks like it was made by a recent graduate of some second rate journalism school.
Not too terrible, but not too good either.
I have written to Patrick Erin Murphy twice about this, but recieved no response.
If he can send me emails, it seems to me, the least he can do is answer.
No?
Patrick, are you there?
3 Comments
Klay Anderson February 27, 2012
All your observations are correct but you missed shaky-cam and stupid quick-cuts. A digital camera and a Mac do not a film-maker make. Hey! Mr. Murphy! I’m over HERE!
Michael Rosenblum February 27, 2012
For this you need only go to nyvs.com or buy my book, iPhone Millionaire – Six Weeks To Change Your Life, which will tell you DNMTC – or DO NOT MOVE THE CAMERA!
Tom Weber February 25, 2012
It’s basically an old-school TV news interview, where the subject is told never to look directly at the camera, but rather at an interviewer who is off camera. Looking straight at the audience is reserved for the all-knowing and all-powerful TV news reporter, who tells the audience all that it needs to know.
A lot like the Catholic church, if you think about it, with the TV news reporter as priest.
Fine for third-party interviews, like news stories or documentaries. But a commercial is not a TV news story, it is a pitch. It is persuasive communication, where eye contact with the audience is all-important.
Murphy is like Nixon, looking at the studio audience and coming across as shifty-eyed. Kennedy plays to the cameras, has a one-on-one with viewers at home. Who won the election?