Attending Holy Mass via stream
Day 8: Disintermediated television
When you watch live events on television you can quickly forget how extensively they are produced. There are lots of cameras with operators and a control room where the output stream is mixed. There are VT inserts and cutaways to hosts and commentators. The greatest fear is “dead airtime” when nothing is happening.
Sometimes this need for a well produced stream gets in the way, and the producers get into an arms race of presentational devices. On “Strictly Come Dancing” they've introduced steadicams – devices that stabilise the output from a hand-held moving camera. The operator will run around the dancing couple pointing the steadicam at them. Perhaps it improves the atmosphere for some viewers, for me I have to look away or I'll feel queasy.
I also remember the BBC coverage of the river parade for the queen's diamond jubilee in 2012. A parade of significant vessels sailed down the Thames past a pavilion where the queen and other dignitaries watched (and poor Prince Philip got a chill). The BBC coverage was so full of “now over to Fern Cotton who's with XYZ” inserts that we didn't actually see much of the flotilla, and those of us who wanted to know the significance of each vessel were left in the dark.
There is already a reaction to this with the advent of “Slow TV”, where something is filmed and shown at the speed it happened. Last year I enjoyed the trip of Flying Scotsman on the Severn Valley railway, enough interpretation was added that you knew, for example, when the train was climbing or on level track.
Today those of us who are churchgoers can't attend in person. While the Church of England has (until very recently) instructed its clergy to not enter their churches, Catholic clergy have been saying mass alone in their churches. A proportion of churches have been kitted out for live streaming of Mass to housebound parishioners, and these streams have come into their own during lockdown.
In most cases the live steaming is done to a decent standard. The sanctuary area of the church is well lit, the cameras have decent optics that have been well set up, and the clergy are used to using microphones so the sound quality is good. And there is no production suite between me and what's going on in the church: there is no chit-chat before mass, just dignified silence; there is no cutting between cameras, for example to close-ups of readers; and there is no cutting away to insert segments, breaking the flow of the mass. Better still, at mass I can listen to the organ voluntary without interruption from a continuity announcer telling me what's on next.
The hallowed Reithian values are to “educate, inform and entertain”. Perhaps to these should be added “To show events as they are”.