The Today Show Makes A Mess With iPhone Video

Posted December 17, 2020

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You will not find a bigger fan of shooting video on an iPhone than me.

But like any piece of technology, you have to know how to use it, and clearly the people at The Today Show do not have the vaguest idea.

This morning, they did a live shot from Grinnell, Iowa (which they mispronounced, by the way) with a nurse whose husband Steve had nominated her for a 'special series' they are doing called 'Spreading the Cheer.'

I won't get into the details, you can watch it yourself here.

On the one hand, it is great that they understand that they can go 'live' from the hospital where Judy works, using just iPhones.  

They put together a nice suprise bio package using Steve, her husband, as a narrator.  They did an interview with Steve on Skype to get the audio track, which is a mess, and I assume that he sent them the photos.  Next time, Today Show, let him do the interview part on his phone and then WeTransfer the file to you. This was not live. 

But the worst part comes at 02:33, when Judy leaves the meeting and heads into the hall for the 'big surprise'. 

If you watch is, at least as a video producer, you can see that once we get to the live part in the hallway, there are feeds coming from about 3 other iPhone or iPad sources. You can see them as the producer pans the room.  

The producer's shooting is A MESS.

There is no excuse for this.

It looks like really terrible home video.

It astonishes me that in 2020, someone can be a producer for The Today Show and not have the vaguest idea of how to show some pretty basic video with a phone.

Now, don't get me wrong. This is a lovely story; a powerful story; a great story. It is just executed very badly because the people doing it do not know how to shoot with an iPhone 

I would cal this Video Illiterate.

Well, this just reaffirms my deep belief that the networks simply are never going to get it.  

Never.