You’ve heard about slow food. Now here’s slow … TV? In this very funny talk, Norwegian television producer Thomas Hellum shares how he and his team began to broadcast long, boring events, often live — and found a rapt audience. Shows include a 7-hour train journey, an 18-hour fishing expedition and a 5.5-day ferry voyage along the coast of Norway. The results are both beautiful and fascinating. Really.
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Glossary
- coverage – the reporting and subsequent publishing or broadcasting of news
- footage – the sequences of filmed material
- broadcast – (noun) a single radio or television program; (verb) to transmit (programs) from a radio or television station
- grip – (here) to take hold on the mind
- buzzword – a word or phrase, often sounding authoritative or technical, that is a vogue term in a particular profession, field of study, popular culture, etc.
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Think about it
Answer the questions below. Pause at times indicated in brackets.
- What does is special about the show? (1:38)
- What were the editors unable to get right about the show’s length? (3:03)
- What were the TV ratings for the Bergen Railway show? (4:45)
- How did the second show differ from the first one? What preparations were made beforehand? (7:50)
- What was all the waving about? (11:23) :)
- Who were the viewers of the show? (13:08)
- Whose attention was drawn to Norwegian slow TV? (15:28)
- Who makes the story on slow TV? How is is achieved? (17:29)
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Practice makes perfect
Fill in the blank spaces with the missing words. Use ONE word per blank space.
So you have to ________ the viewers make the stories themselves, and I’ll ________ you an example of that. This is from last summer, and as a TV producer, it’s a nice picture, but now you can ________ to the next one. But this is Slow TV, so you have to keep this picture until it really starts hurting your stomach, and then you keep it a little ________ longer, and when you keep it that long, I’m sure some of you now ________ noticed the cow. Some of you have seen the flag. Some of you start wondering, is the farmer _________ home? ________ he left? Is he watching the cow? And where is that cow going? So my point is, the longer you keep a picture like this, and we kept it for 10 minutes, you start making the stories in ________ own head. That’s Slow TV.
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