I’ve never actually seen the Tom Cruise movie in question, but I knew what my colleagues from the comms department were talking about when they asked me whether I would help out with a Minority Report style corporate video. They were looking for a native English speaker, perhaps a little bit of acting experience, and ideally a young attractive female. As Meatloaf said, two out of three ain’t bad.
The video was used at last week’s EBU General Assembly in Strasbourg. The European Broadcasting Union, for which I work, is the organisation that represents all of the public service broadcasters in Europe, i.e. the BBCs and RTEs of this world. It does a lot of things covering everything from technology research and guidance to legal advice and lobbying, exchange of news and other content, and the purchase of sports rights. Oh, and it runs the Eurovision Song Contest.
Over the last couple of years the EBU has been undergoing a process to try to clearly define the values that public service media should strive to embody. I think they’ve done a pretty good job in summing up the things that should differentiate public broadcasters from their commercial counterparts. The video below is a summary of a longer declaration.
It was shot in the building where I work. I was standing in front of a window that looks out onto a corridor from a meeting room. This made it easier for the graphics guy to map the graphics onto my gestures. I’ve been informed that the graphics were animated frame by frame. The video was produced by Jeroen Depraetere.
It’s a bit odd for me to watch it, as I don’t really look or sound like me to myself, if you know what I mean. But it was fun to be involved in it, and I happen to agree fully with the values themselves. While I think we’d all be better off if everyone watched less TV, it’s really important that public broadcasters continue to exist and have the support of people and governments. You only need to look to the USA to see what can happen to media in the absence of strong support for public broadcasting.
5 replies on “My Minority Report moment”
Or even SRG SSR? Or given you’re almost living in France that should be France Télévisions? Seriously though: good job, good message.
Well said Eoghan.
Well done all around really. And it is a shame that public broadcasting is looked by some in the US as passe or worse, a tool of ‘the Left’.
PBS/NPR/PRI are the only places at home I feel I can get an objective view of what is going on.
I feel that it is laziness on the part of many in the US, that they’d rather watch or listen to something that is being tailored and targeted just for them.
And the outright hostility felt by some toward public broadcasting is just the ends of the means used by certain sectors of politics to poison the pot and really get people to vote against/abandon yet another thing that is available to ‘the people’ to protect themselves and be informed. (the 2 go hand in hand here really)
So keep up the good work. Hope this rant was clear-minded enough at midnight…
Charlie
A very clear-minded rant Charlie – and a reasonable one too. I couldn’t agree more.
Thanks Mairéad also…
Hey mate very cool, and I think if there is and another Mission thats oh too much for Tom then you could be there in the wings ready to snap up the role.
@doddsie Thanks Neil – glad you like it. I think Tom’s mind is on other things these days though!