One day, all news will look like this

http://www.qwghlm.co.uk/2010/06/07/one-day-all-news-will-look-like-this/

by bensummers • 16 years ago

73 24 16 years ago

qwghlm.co.uk

ErrantX2• 16 years ago

I can't figure out if this article is in support of it happening or not...

He's probably right this will start to creep in. I completely hate it. None of the videos are at all accurate or particularly ethical. They all tip right over in sensationalism and bad journalism.

Besides; we already use animations on western news - for legitimate things (like the oil leak). Dramatizing events we don't know about? Bad idea.

axod• 16 years ago

Popular news channels (Particularly in the US) stopped being about news a long long time ago. It's entertainment. So this is inevitable on those channels. I agree though, I hate it. It's a shame.

stcredzero3• 16 years ago

Artist renditions of news events have been published in newspapers for a very long time. I know this has been happening in Japan since the 1800's. I suspect this has been happening in the Anericas since the 1700's. What's new here? Is it the risk of photorealistic fabrications?

ErrantX2• 16 years ago

Obviously enriching reportage with graphics/animations is a good thing.

It's this specific sort that I dislike; badly researched and, essentially, fiction made for mass consumption (and feed our voyeuristic needs :)).

Don't get me wrong; if they did the proper research into all of those things and showed a realistic interpretation (the sinking boat, for me, was the closest to this) then good, that's enriching.

But I suspect it won't happen like that... :(

india• 16 years ago

This is a very worrying trend. Consider this one from India - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtDb_vLZ0wc I find it wrong on many levels. It is a drastic oversimplification of the events of the day and in some sense, implicitly portrays the pilot's job as something the newscaster could have done better.

News media has so far been vastly deficient in how they present technical and scientific matters and stuff like this will only exaggerate that problem.

iamdave• 16 years ago

For what it's worth, some newscasters present reports about certain events with a tone of voice as if they could have done it better themselves, without the aid of an animation. Sometimes it's hard to tell if newscasters are reporting the news, or chiding and scolding the individuals being reported on for human error.

hugh3• 16 years ago

I did get a good laugh out of the Gordon Brown video. At around the 0:40 mark he punches some guy out in the corridor then throws a woman out of a chair and onto the floor, both accompanied by sound effects.

I'm not too worried by the idea that one day all news will look like this, though. These sort of animations are always going to be labour-intensive.

nerme• 16 years ago

What is labour intensive now is going to be rather easy to do in twenty years.

Just think of some sort of Machinima based "gaming" program. Have your basic set of gestures for the actors, write up a little script, have someone control a camera, some voice-to-mouth animation.

Forget about twenty years from now, you could probably rattle off something in an hour or two with a modified game engine.

DrSprout• 16 years ago

Or six years ago if you're willing to take some artistic liberties:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-april-22-2004/crash-at...

stcredzero3• 16 years ago

1 point by hugh3 3 hours ago | link | parent | flag

How about a GTA mod?

teamonkey• 16 years ago

If they were in-game cutscenes, at this level of quality I would expect it to take 3 people one work day to complete. Less if there's already a bank of props and animations. A production budget of maybe as much as $2500 (if produced in the US) and sold to half a dozen TV networks.

mikecane• 16 years ago

This will unfortunately happen. I'm old enough to remember the first time "simulations" were used in news programs and there was an uproar over the ethics of doing that. Now, they don't even label something as "simulation" or "dramatization" or "re-creation." Thus news bleeds into entertainment which bleeds into news ... and Neil Postman spins in his grave.

Tarski• 16 years ago

Somehow I can't see the BBC adopting this approach anytime soon...

xster• 16 years ago

lol, the brown video is actually well done

a1k0n• 16 years ago

The best one is the Conan/Leno story: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-y04H5mFUFM

ekanes• 16 years ago

Two thoughts.

a) Personally, I found that really informative, as well as entertaining. I didn't know the backstory of their feud.

b) I (still) have no idea if it's 100% true.

Yep, we'll probably see more of this.

dminor• 16 years ago

"...as shown in this dramatic imaginactment." -- Stephen Colbert on the Daily Show several years back.

moskie• 16 years ago

The Running Man.

lotharbot• 16 years ago

This is one side of the coin -- it's getting easier to fabricate news.

The other side of the coin is that it's easier for people who spot fabrications to spread the word on popular blogs and such. When 60 minutes broke a story on what were supposed to be memos about a politician from the 1970s, bloggers who thought they looked suspiciously like they were typed in MS Word (and not on a typewriter) were able to link up with typography experts, do some solid analysis, and force CBS to issue a correction/apology. I've seen several bits of photoshopped "news" coverage exposed in recent years.

krevis• 16 years ago

Not as new as you'd think. CNET did this 15 years ago, when they were just starting up. They ran an animation of how O.J. Simpson supposedly committed the murders: http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/spirit_trouts/mnookin/simpson....

Incredibly tasteless. This is still the first thing that comes to mind when I see the name CNET, although I'm sure nobody else even remembers it.

jcl• 16 years ago

Not as new as you'd think, either: In 1918, animation pioneer Winsor McCay created the silent short film "The Sinking of the Lusitania", showing the RMS Lusitania being torpedoed by German U-boats. With remarkably realistic drawings, the film was presented as a documentary, but the visuals were imagined, based on verbal accounts and supposition. It functioned largely as a propaganda piece to increase anti-German sentiment during WWI.

The simulated sinking of the Korean ship in the article has nothing on this. :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sinking_of_the_Lusitania

http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=ES&hl=es&v=nN-KdPBhy...

throw_away• 16 years ago

these look like some of the bumps that occasionally air on adult swim. I assume now that they are creating their own in the same style for laughs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kI0QTaM-mo4&feature=chann...

Oxryly• 16 years ago

Inside Edition, Hard Copy, A Current Affair...

One day, all news will look like this

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