In Åsa Lundell’s “The design and scripting of “unscripted” talk: liveness versus control in a tv broadcast interview”, she raises the topic of the constant battle between appealing to the audience with exciting liveness and having strict control over the process. I was surprised by the amount, and diversity of areas of the production that need to be managed in a specific way to create the desirable “unscripted script”: the clothes, the studio design, the camera work… I was particularly impressed by the careful and throughout choice of interviewers’ outfits:

” The male political news reporter epitomizes public service ‘hard news’ journalism, clad in a suit but no tie to signal that he is serious and professional yet also more casual. The female journalist gets to represent the ‘soft news’ talkshow side of public service, clothed in dressy pants of colourful skirts and tops that give an air of casual flair without being too over the top”.

A.K. Lundell p. 274

Even though it makes total sense when it is explained, I don’t think I would have noticed and/or questioned the clothes of the hosts. It got me thinking of clothes style choices in other talk shows and it was quite interesting to find out that, just like in the example in the reading,  most of male hosts wear very formal clothing, even though their talk show formats are relaxed and targeted to make the audience laugh.

The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon

The Late Night Show with Stephen Colbert

The Late Night Show with James Corden

Dr. Phil

Conan

The female hosts, on the other side, tend to wear much more casual outfits.

Oprah

The Ellen Show

Chelsea

The Wendy Williams Show

I can’t really explain this observation, but I would guess that the producers are trying to make their hosts look as appealing as possible, and it’s always attractive for men to wear a costume. With the women, however, it’s more complicated: you can’t have all female hosts wear dresses and skirts because it might be considered sexist and your show will get blamed for sexualisation of female body. So, my guess would be that female hosts are more in charge of their wardrobe: Ellen and Chelsea (as seen in the pictures above) clearly prefer casual outfits, while Oprah and Wendy Williams are in favour of bright and colourful clothing.

Another topic that Lundell touched on and that I found especially interesting is interview scripting.  I always assumed that talk show’s hosts don’t have a strict script and mostly improvise to get the best out of time with their guest. But, apparently, scripting is essential and takes a lot of time to prepare.

“It is not possible to be spontaneous really, to pose spontaneous questions. You have to have a really good script. The last time we did this kind of interview, one of the interviewers had a kind of special mission to be a little spontaneous  and, you know,try and instantly pick up on what the politicians said, but it doesn’t work that way. I mean, you have to be well-read and eloquent or it will go wrong. So, for me … a well-written script is the key.”

p. 280

I partly agree with that opinion. Even the most successful and professional hosts can lose it sometimes: the famous Jimmy Fallon’s interview with Bradley Cooper, for example. Even though Jimmy Fallon is a highly skilled host, he totally messed up this interview, 90% of which had to be cut to air. I also really got to appreciate the script during the filming of our Q&A this week. I was asked to be one of the talents but I realised that I am not ready to improvise on a loose script, or even worse, be a guest without any script at all. I absolutely need to know what is going to happen and when to do a good job on stage. During the filming of assignment 2, for instance, I had no problems acting because I had a script.

On the other hand, I think that everything depends on the personality of the host as well as the format of the show. If the host is professional and experienced, and has a quick wit as well as an outstanding sense of humour, I think producers can trust him/her with a loose script and room for improvisation. And, if the talk show is relaxed and fun-orientated, then improvisation is welcome and even expected. For instance, the famous Nicole Kidman’s visit to Jimmy Fallon show. Now of it was scripted, and it remains one of the most well-known episodes of talk shows exactly because of that unexpected, unpredictable revelation. Not to mention, that, as discussed Scannell, Gadassik, and Mariotte in previous readings, the whole purpose of liveness on TV is the excitement, the feeling of “real” and the intense moment of now. What’s the point of going through all the trouble of live TV if you are going to make it boring and dull?

”  Everyone can immediateLy hear the difference be twee n scripted and unscripted talk. To our ears scripted talk sounds flat, dull, lacking in spontaneity and immediacy in comparison with what we take to be the real thing: spontaneous, natural and, essentially, live talk”.

p. 280

All in all, I genuinely enjoyed Lundell’s work. There’s a lot that can be said and commented on, and that reading definitely deepened my knowledge of the talk show’s production and pre-production. I think all of that will be extremely helpful for assignment 4, and I can’t wait to dive right into it.