Speaking of the moon: Gingrich v. Kennedy

Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich has told us that, by the end of his second term (about 2 minutes into the above), there would be Americans living on the moon. With enough of them there, they'd even be able to become a state of the USA.

And why not?

After all, in 1961, President Kennedy had made the first of two famous speeches about American plans to send a man to the moon. The first was to Congress (below), followed up a year later by his "We choose to go to the moon" speech at Rice University (HERE).

So if Kennedy could get away with such an ambitious goal, why not Gingrich?

Er, at least 3 reasons:

1. Kennedy had already been president for more than a year when he went public with his proposal.

2. Before that, he'd already had time to consult with the relevant experts and no doubt had a pretty good idea that a man on the moon within a decade was entirely possible.

3. Kennedy never made any colonial claims on the moon. Nor, though he may have left a US flag there, did Neil Armstrong - or anyone else.

Obama's State of the Union speech: (2) Enhanced by PowerPoint?

When I first started watching the version of President Obama's State of the Union speech posted on YouTube by the White House, I wondered what the blue rectangle on the right hand side was for.

But all quickly became clear: it was for PowerPoint style slides and they, presumably, were what transformed it into an 'enhanced version'.

So we got to see a picture and the wordds MORE THAN 1 MILLION AMERICAN TROOPS SERVED IN IRAQ BETWEEN 2003-2011

Then a wanted poster for Osama bin Laden with a big red cross through it.

Then more pictures of US troops followed numbers of how many of them had fought in various wars.

And so on and on and on, through pictures, bar charts, graphs, diagrams lists of bullet points, on the US economy, education, etc., etc., etc.

Enhancement or distraction?

Watching this, I was left gasping, wondering who on earth in team Obama believes that his speeches are actually enhanced by such distractions, unless it was the same person who thought that background musak 'enhanced' the film of his speechwriters preparing the speech (see previous post).

Does it mean we can now expect President Obama to take a slide projector along with him during the forthcoming presidential campaign?

I think not - for the obvious reason that he's a good enough communicator to know that the words in his speeches and the way he delivers them are enough on their own to get his messages across.

What's more, I very much hope that this White House model of an 'enhanced presentation' doesn't give other lesser speakers (e.g. most British politicians) the idea that this is the way to improve their own speeches 'going forward'.

See for yourself

If you haven't seen it yet, it's well worth watching all the way through - and coming to your own conclusion as to whether the visual aids enhance or distract from what he said.

Obama's State of the Union speech: (1) Behind the scenes with the speechwriters

Few British political speechwriters though there may be, anyone who writes any kind of speech is likely to be interested not only in this film but also by the fact that it had nearly 400,000 views on YouTube within 24 hours of being posted there.

A cunning part of team Obama's communication strategy perhaps, but there's something very refreshing about a top politician openly admitting that he gets help with his speeches and being willing to give a public platform to those who help him.

So far, I've only watched it once and found the most annoying part was the awful background musak - but the producers of the film maybe know something that I don't about how distracting noises can enhance the impact of such propaganda...

The State of the Union address itself seemed to go down pretty well. But the video posted by the White House had another major distraction - on which more shortly in Part (2).

Birdsong: open-mouthed acting by a male of the species

Last night, Mary Ann Sieghart (@MASieghart) tweeted 'Does this actor in #Birdsong have any look other than a long meaningful one?

I knew exactly what she was referring to, as last night's hero (Eddie Redmayne) had already reminded me of a question I'd asked back in 2009: Is there an open-mouthed school of acting?

'...I don’t know if it’s just me (and the small, unrepresentative sample of people I’ve consulted so far), but it does seem that film and television actresses are spending more and more time with their mouths open – both when there’s no dialogue and when they’re listening to one of the other actors saying something – than used to be the case. Nor are those of us who’ve noticed it particularly impressed by it' (more HERE).

Men too?

Whereas I'd been prompted then by the likes of Keira Kinightley, Eddie Redmayne has now shown that men can do it too - and his open mouth is featured in 17% of the short BBC trailer posted on YouTube (above - or full version HERE).

I was intrigued to discover from the comments that I wasn't alone in having noticed the trend, and some interesting discussion emerged. If you've any more thoughts, here's a reminder of the five main questions I posed then:

'For one thing, once you’ve spotted someone doing it early on in a film, it becomes a big distraction - because you go on noticing the same actor doing it again and again. For another, it can be quite confusing trying to work out just what emotions and feelings all these open mouths are supposed to be conveying

'So here are five questions on which I'd welcome feedback:

1. Has anyone else noticed it?
2. Is it a recent trend?
3. Am I alone in finding it irritating/distracting?
4. Is open-mouthed acting being taught in drama schools?
5. If so, why?'

And another thing: an inappropriate continuity error

In the background to the pastoral scenes in early 20th century France, the only birdsong to be heard was the cooing of a dove that didn't arrive there until the 1940s (HERE).

The distinctive repetitive cooing of the collared dove has been an irritating distraction in large numbers of televised dramas set in periods long before this annoying bird had arrived and settled in the UK.

Presumably producers of television drama and nature programmes never bother to communicate with each other about such things.

Needless to say, I think it's high time that they did.

Is it wise for Ed Miliband to play snakes and ladders with Jon Snow?

I'm grateful to Neill Harvey-Smith (@nhs999) for drawing my attention to this fascinating video clip via Twitter, where he tweeted "From the Ed Miliband treasure trove, media training lesson #24: don't do this."

The board had already been set up for the game by Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls with his Fabian Society speech and related interviews over the weekend (HERE) and now, three days later, his leader lands on this whopping snake - posted on YouTube very soon after the end of the Channel 4 News on which it appeared (as for what I mean by 'snakes and ladders', see HERE).

It vividly demonstrates the risks faced by an inexperienced interviewee when trying to hold his own against an old hand like Jon Snow and I suspect that Mr Miliband and the Labour Party must be very glad that Channel 4 News doesn't reach a mass audience.

I also think that a more technical analysis of Mr Milband's performance may well reveal some of the reasons why he's so far failed have a more positive impact on the wider public.

Watch this space...

Continued (18 January)

Jon Snow turned out to be one of several top political journalists who had been queuing up to take it in turns to interview Ed Miliband yesterday - all, judging from the background on the BBC, ITN, Sky News and Channel 4 News, in the same room.

ITN was able to edit out Tom Bradby's questions from the version posted on YouTube (below) - which would hardly have been possible with the frequency of Jon Snow's interruptions on Channel 4 News (above).

In the absence of any such things to irritate or distract Mr Miliband, he was able to produce a performance that came across as a good deal more articulate, coherent and assured than in his joust with Jon Snow.

YouTube scorecard so far:

Channel 4 News version: 3,201 viewers (22 Jan)

ITN version: 167 viewers (22 Jan)

The 'John Lewis economy': What to make of today's speech by Nick Clegg?

Regular readers will know that I worry about how little from political speeches are shown on prime-time television news programmes these days - as compared with interviews (examined in more detail HERE).

In the discussion after my UK Speechwriters' Guild Christmas lecture last month, someone made the interesting point that was it's no longer necessary for TV companies to do this in the internet age, because keen anoraks can watch as many speeches as they like online.

Another innovation is the close coordination of 'on message' speeches and interviews, as was demonstrated rather skillfully over the weekend by Ed Balls (HERE).

But does anyone watch the speeches?

One problem with some of the speeches that appear online is that they are so earnest or uninspiring (or both) that it's difficult to imagine prime-time news programmes - even in the glory days of the past - managing to select suitable quotable quotes for transmission to a wider audience.

One such example was Nick Clegg's speech at the Mansion House earlier today. It seems to have generated two main sound bites:

1. a John Lewis economy
2. The 1980s was the decade of share ownership. I want this to be the decade of employee share ownership.

But what he actually meant by either of these (not to mention the rest of the speech) was a question being widely asked on Twitter during the day.

As I've noted before (HERE), Clegg's communication skills continue to interest me - and this video and transcript look like promising data for closer analysis - comments and suggestions welcome...

Text of this video-clip from the speech:

...we don’t believe our problem is too much capitalism: we think it’s that too few people have capital. We need more individuals to have a real stake in their firms.

More of a John Lewis economy, if you like.

And, what many people don’t realise about employee ownership is that it is a hugely underused tool in unlocking growth.

I don’t value employee ownership because I somehow believe it's it's “nicer” - a more pleasant alternative to the rest of the corporate world. Those are lazy stereotypes. Firms that have engaged employees, who own a chunk of their company, are just as dynamic, just as savvy, as their competitors. In fact, they often perform better: lower absenteeism, lower staff turnover, lower production costs. In general, higher productivity and higher wages. They even weathered the economic downturn better than other companies.

Is employee ownership a panacea? No. Does it guarantee a company will thrive? No of course not. But the evidence and success stories cannot be ignored, and we have to tap this well if we are serious about growth. The 1980s was the decade of share ownership. I want this to be the decade of employee share ownership.

Britons win gold and silver in the transatlantic rowing race: an omen for the Olympics?

BOX NUMBER 8 WINS AND ANDREW BROWN BREAKS A WORLD RECORD from Talisker Whisky on Vimeo.

On 5th December, we watched 17 rowing boats leave the harbour at San Sebastian La Gomera at the start of a transatlantic rowing race and, after getting home, have been following its ups and downs ever since.

Last night (40 days later), first and second places went to British rowers who arrived in Barbados 26 minutes apart - with the next boat more than 100 nautical miles away.

Rowing across the Atlantic may have yet to qualify as an official Olympic sport, but it would be nice to think that their success will be an omen for more medals for our competitors later in the year.

At the time of writing, the bronze medal contenders are only 47 nautical miles from the finish and you can keep up with the race HERE.