“If you’re in the communication business, communicate.” — Jay Payleitner
Dear Friends:
I’m on record promising my Substack posts would fall into one of three categories:
- Family: Some assembly required.
- What if God wrote your bucket list?
- How to live a defiantly optimistic life.
Today I’m straying from that promise to make a request. But it’s probably not the one you expect.
Sure, pulling out your phone in a theater and lighting up the audience is a crime against humanity. But there’s an even greater offense being committed by film and television producers.
That is, they routinely expect us to read text messages on the screen.
In contemporary dramas, directors and cinematographers frequently show a character receiving or sending a text that’s supposedly essential to the plot. Then they frame the phone too wide, tilt it at an odd angle, and leave it on the screen for about 1.3 seconds. We’re expected to read tiny type, figure out who sent it, understand the context, and keep up with the story—all before the next line of dialogue.
At home and in movie theaters alike, someone inevitably whispers, “What did that text say?” or “Who was that from?” Which, of course, means everyone misses the next line of dialogue anyway.
I understand they don’t want to interrupt the rhythm of the scene. But the rhythm has already been interrupted.
The solution is simple: frame the phone a little tighter and hold the shot a little longer. Everybody wins.
Am I the only one frustrated by this? I doubt it. If you work in film or television, please pass this along.
And yes…be kind to your family, contemplate God’s bucket list, live with optimism, and silence your phone at the movies.
Stay cool!
/jay
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