ABSTRACT
When you invite someone to appear in front of the camera, that is only the beginning of the story. Their performance can have a considerable influence on your program’s success. So you will need to help them, to make their contribution as effective as they are able. Their particular role may be a major one, or it may be slight, but the impression they make on your audience can decide whether that part of your program wins or fails. The television camera is a great debunker. Under its scrutiny, brashness, pomposity and false bonhomie are weighed and found wanting; while sympathy goes out to those who are shy and ill at ease. For all practical purposes, we can divide talent into the professional performers, who are used to appearing in front of the camera, and the inexperienced, for whom your program is likely to be a new, strange, exciting yet worrying event. Professional performers usually work to a prepared format. Some, like an actor in a play, will learn their lines, their moves and the mechanics of the production. Others work from an abbreviated cue sheet near the camera, or a running text projected onto the screen of a prompter. Some will extemporize from guide notes, others will read from a printed script. The best professionals can be relied on to repeat, during the actual taping, the dialogue, the moves, the pace and the timing that they gave in rehearsal. One knows what they are going to say, and that they can modify the delivery of their piece to suit the occasion, showing enthusiasm, vigor, calm detachment, patience or reverence. They can take guidance and instructions, and follow this through without being confused. They can improvise when things go wrong, and remain calm and collected if the unexpected happens.
