Phrases/words that set your teeth on edge.

[teamsaint]

Production Values.

Useful phrase, if a bit millennial.

Why does if set peoples teeth on edge ? And FF, what do you not understand ?

Just a handy catch-all/shorthand surely ?

[french frank]

And FF, what do you not understand ?

Just a handy catch-all/shorthand surely ?

So does it not actually mean anything very much? The BBC is always talking about its quality production values. It doesn't set my teeth on edge, but it does Beefy's.

[Richard Tarleton]

I think it means quite a lot - a quick way of saying "the trouble a production [film, TV] takes to look authentic/period/realistic and meet audience expectations". There are several different components (grime and dirty clothes in westerns and period dramas, convincing looking sets in sci-fi, etc. etc. - early Dr Who and Star Trek had low production values (wobbly, unconvincing sets which didn't worry people too much at the time), later ones not. Audience expectations have driven up the standard. We know what they are - what else would one call them?

[teamsaint]

So does it not actually mean anything very much? The BBC is always talking about its quality production values. It doesn't set my teeth on edge, but it does Beefy's.

It does mean something concrete, if loosely defined .

In book publishing , it might include good quality cover with interesting design and textures, , good paper, photographs presented in colour plate sections, size and format based on quality rather than price etc. As I say just a shorthand for a description of a good quality physical product.So it means something concrete enough for us to be taken to task if we completely fail to deliver the promised values !

As for the BBC, well they ought to have good production values as standard.......

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

So ... "quality of the presentation"?

[vinteuil]

So ... "quality of the presentation"?

... in films, it seems to mean the amount of money thrown at it. So - a film with luscious photography, ditto frocks, make-up, special effex, locations, grandiose Musik, etc etc may win on "production values" - but be a complete turkey if the script/pacing/acting are lousy. But it'll still have great "production values".

I think it's a useful term of art.

.

[kernelbogey]

On the basis of a conversation I once had with a radio producer, I've assumed that it includes (although probably not limited to) such fads as adding superfluous music to a voice recording.

An example which repeatedly irritated me during recent Wimbledon broadcasts was that while Clare Balding updated us on other matches when the players in the one being broadcast had a break, there would be music running in the background. I have no idea* why producers think this is a good idea, but I assume that it is based on the asumption that it will encourage people to keep listening.

*Edit: well, just the one.

[LMcD]

I've never understood that phrase.

If a film or TV series has high production values, it's had a lot of money spent on it - which doesn't of course, automatically make it a good film or series.

[Lat-Literal]

At one end of the scale there is John Snagge etc wearing a bow tie. It's the radio but he is speaking so that everyone knows he is wearing a bow tie. At the other end of the scale, local American TV perhaps. 2018. Teenage lads telling the viewers not to go away as they will be back after a couple of hours at the Pizza Hut or a woman teaching knitting while dipping in and out to check that the kids are ok and the dinner's doing nicely. Everything on Freeview is between these two points. To really understand the BBC one needs to adequately know the others. Some channels are a bit like sticking on a bunch of DVDs and placing commercials between them. They might be re-running a programme from 1974 that you always enjoyed and no one else is showing it but somehow the lifeblood feels like it is drained out of it by what is - and isn't - around it. Beyond that point are the ones that have branding and style.

For those who miss the days when every political expert was male, grey, 75 and slightly controversial, it is RT. This is packaged in a visually zappy way so that all the flashing back and forth would make any viewer in that category seasick. They wouldn't watch it themselves and are there only to ensure that the kids - anyone under 40 - appreciates their brilliance. Then there are C4 and E4. Each have cartoonish figures that walk about strangely to tell you what those stations mean. The figure 4 in C4 is unusually moving on an emotional level, almost teddy bearish if teddy bears were silver, made of steel and likely to rip your guts apart if you cuddled it. Cathy Newman is similar in every way and may have been the blueprint. In contrast, the E in E4 is purple and it carries signs or walks past signs with punning words of a dubious nature. The sort that would be too risqué for the Carry Ons but too tame for The Inbetweeners. It is not emotionally moving in the slightest or intended to be as it is a mild inciter but nor is it dangerous on any level. It is simply a mascot for the adolescents.

Anyhow, consequently the BBC has to do branding to indicate its own production values. It's quirky because the others are quirky but not too quirky that it doesn't lose what it is trying to convey which is originality. Disabled sportsmen having fun. people in Wales or somewhere in kayaks, other folk, probably not originally from Britain, dancing. That sort of thing. The relevance to any forthcoming programme appears to be nil but each in its way is making a statement. Probably several statements actually. Reliability, trust, identification, accessibility, immediate knowledge that you are tuned in to the BBC purely because of the look of it, it's our nation. All those sorts of things. It can be overly done but there are worse things in life. Then there is the secondary question about the programmes themselves and their production values. They are an extension of what has been described and are worth retaining for now.

[Richard Tarleton]

Anyhow, consequently the BBC has to do branding to indicate its own production values. It's quirky because the others are quirky but not too quirky that it doesn't lose what it is trying to convey which is originality. .......people in Wales or somewhere in kayaks

Killyleagh, Co. Down, N Ireland. Another of these items features hill runners in Tollymore Forest (i.e. below the tree line on Slieve Donard in the Mourne Mountains, above Newcastle, Co. Down, N Ireland (a pedant writes).

[Beef Oven!]

I've never understood that phrase.

I think I might have once, but not anymore. Bandied around and now meaningless.

[Lat-Literal]

Killyleagh, Co. Down, N Ireland. Another of these items features hill runners in Tollymore Forest (i.e. below the tree line on Slieve Donard in the Mourne Mountains, above Newcastle, Co. Down, N Ireland (a pedant writes).

Ah well, I did say or somewhere, but thank you for the clarification.

For those who haven't a clue what I am going on about, this is Production 4 from C4 which in all honesty I do find peculiarly moving in a cuddly, jagged edge way, as described:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ei_XdwSghQ

And for those who enjoy driving through Shrigley taking pictures and on to Killyleagh, stopping off for Sunday papers at the Lecale District, it'd be great if it was always like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mn2CeHlKrTw

[Beef Oven!]

"heads-up"

[french frank]

"heads-up"

Thanks, Beefo!

[Beef Oven!]

Thanks, Beefo!