Thursday, April 24, 2014

WALK-ON ROLE. E! News on E! Entertainment's perfect opener as Terrence Jenkins and Giuliana Rancic do an off-side walk on.



Now this is perfection.

The opener intro of the daily E! News Thursday night at 20:00 on E! Entertainment (DStv 124) was faultless as co-anchors Terrence Jenkins and Giuliana Rancic tried something new: an off-side walk-on, talk intro which they did brilliantly and flawlessly.

Television, like a symphony orchestra, has many different parts which all has to come together.

You might hear one symphony but when its perfect, it's because a lot of different sounds come together correctly at just the right time.

E! News more than pleasantly surprised Thursday night with a terrific off-set, walk on intro, immediately upping the dynamic energy and visual feel of the entire day's broadcast.

Thursday's edition of E! News literally kicked off by bringing the viewer in from the "outside" so to speak, to the inside (making the viewer feel like "the insider").

Notice the perfect backstage studio start to on-set transition. The perfect and constantly adjusting overhead camera angle and the perfect tracking and panning with the jimmy jib.

Notice the anchors placing their hands on the desk at the same time without looking at each other like faultless, synchronised swimmers in a team, the measured, yet natural looking pace of their walking and talking.

Notice the welcoming, complementing to the viewer arm movements and hand gestures which are extroverted, yet not wildly over-the-top as most South African TV presenters over do, and those perfect smiles.

A whole group of people worked together, and their work to make this piece of television was perfect - for all of 9 seconds.

But those 9 seconds are the intro.

Because such a powerful opener manages to "wow" the viewer subconsciously on a visual level, and because the viewer is visually drawn to the dynamic perfection of the scene setting opener, it's my guess that a viewer will most likely will also stay watching.