I'm on TV!
As promised, some background information on the TV report about furries on German television.
The first thing I heard about it was a chat log sent to me on May, 9th. Nuka was contacted by "the ARD" about a planned report on furries. After talking to him it turned out that it was in fact Kobalt Productions working on a small report for Polylux, a late night "Zeitgeist" (as they put it) magazine. They cover various subcultures, popular culture, music and a satirical view on political issues. Granted, it is an entertainment magazine, but one of those where you don't have to be ashamed of having appeared there... Anyway, since the production company already did the Arte Tracks report, which turned out rather nicely with exception to some really awful fursuits, I thought that it could be a good idea to give it a try. Thus, I told Nuka to tell them to contact me.
Which they actually did. I provided some basic information about the furry fandom and collected some fursuiters and folks who were willing to do an interview. The author of the report obviously didn't read the information and I had a hard time to convince her that we are not all thinking that we are animals born into human bodies who want to strip away their humanity. She was however aware that fursuits are just a minor part of the furry fandom. Unfortunately, and I have to agree on this, the other aspects as the comic and pen-and-paper role plays are not really suitable for a TV report. It is a visual media, after all. It was even harder to clarify that most fursuiters do not have anything to do with LARP at all. I suspect that she tried to base her report on an article in the weekend supplement of the Süddeutsche Zeitung from May, 7th, which supposedly had exactly that precondition. But since apparently nobody of the German furry fandom has even seen that article I don't know for sure.
There is one thing you need to know about journalism: the author of a report often has no influence on the general theme or even the assertion of it. The editor requests the reports and sets the scope, the author delivers it. Hence, even if we convince the author that her assumptions were totally wrong this won't stop the production team to create something acknowledging these assumptions. Luckily, their assumptions weren't totally wrong at least, the author didn't even mention sexuality or esoteric lifestyle issues while I was talking to her. Of course I was aware that she knew about these things, though. And another good thing was that she isn't really familiar with how to use Google... Which is another interesting side aspect: many journalists aren't very good at cross-media research. They almost eclusively concentrate on print media such as newspapers and magazines for their research. This is one of the reasons why printed matter has much more impact on TV. I'd even say that TV has become irrelevant with 30 channels, mostly transmitting rubbish with less content than a test pattern...
But back to the actual incident. I've started to discuss the planned report with some folks who I believe are capable to perform in front of a TV camera without talking nonsense, getting carried away or acting stupidly. The home story was done by Atalon, who is a professional mascot builder, the shooting of a suitwalk was scheduled on Thursday before the MMC -- basically because it was the only chance to get a group of fursuiters together within one week of planning. The fun thing about TV production is, that it is always done in a hurry, even if it does not seem to be necessary. We won't vanish from the face of the earth within one week, after all. The reason is pretty simple, though: the schedule of the camera team is extremely tight. They get assigned to a certain project or team way before even research on a topic starts -- and thus they'll only have a couple of days to actually do the shooting.
So we were shooting on Thursday. They scheduled the shooting to 16:30, I scheduled the meeting with all fursuiters and folks that were willing to give an interview to 15:00 -- without the camera team of course. In that meeting I presented them with what I knew about the production, the production company and the show. Furthermore, we talked about what pitfalls to avoid in an interview situation. What we did not discuss were concrete answers to expected questions. This would have looked as if we weren't honest to them or, worse, trying to manipulate them. Journalists sense this very well and won't play fair with you anymore if you do this (since you do not play fair anymore, as well.) The most important thing to remember however, is that they want something from you in the first place, and that you do not have any obligation to deliver that. Thus, if they want something from you that you do not want to give them, just say no.
Anyway, I already asked Eisfuchs, Somewolf, Skunki and Lynard before and recruited Tioh and Wolffire on the spot, then we met tanidareal at the pier at 16:40. The camera team arrived twenty minutes later, as they were on the wrong side of the river Rhine (even though I told them how to get there without having to use the ferry.) After a short meeting they started by interviewing me for twenty minutes. In the meantime Tani and the others had gathered a crowd of childrem around them, which resulted in some very cute footage. Finally, some individual and group shots were made. The next location was on the meadows of the Loreley rock where they interviewed Eisfuchs and took some more group pictures and some fillers. The fursuiters vehemently refused to act like animals in the woods ("that's not us, we don't do this",) much to the dismay of the author ("but we talked about doing this up here" she said, I just said "all we agreed on was doing an interview here") and I guess she saw the whole report going down the drain, as she mentioned that here editor wouldn't be too happy... But I guess they were pretty impressed who professional and consistent we have presented ourselves.
Well, of course the report was broadcasted. Lucky for me, they did not use the interview with me (Eisfuchs told them basically the same as I, just in better words -- and so did Atalon.) But I'm on some short shots of the general footage. I hope I get the order right here: the report itself starts with some excerpts from music videos that use (rather poorly made) mascot style costumes, switches over to Atalon in his mascot construction shop, interview with Atalon (with DrCroc reading the newspaper in costume in the background), adding some excerpts from the Tracks report, using the footage from the pier, then some excerpts from a Tracks report on cosplay, the footage and the interview with Eisfuchs in the meadow, and finishing with some American fetish photographer taking photos of a couple in something that does not even remotely look like a fursuit (WTF?)...
Sounds worse than it actually was. In fact, I think it was quite good, even despite the "want to escape from reality", "fursuiters want to be an animal" and the usual "all furries are fursuiters" routine. We did not make an ass out of ourselves (pun intended...), we had excellent fursuits and folks that can actually play in them -- and the comparison to the poor American costumes of the Tracks report came out rather postive for us (but obviously is quite unfair to the American fandom.) But finally some excellent fursuit action on TV. All in all, it was way better than expected. And don't forget: if we hadn't done our part, they'd probably have staged things with people completely unrelated to the fandom.
But most important: I want to say a big thank you for doing a great job to all who have been involved, especially: tanidareal, drcroc, Atalon, Eisfuchs, Lynard, Nuka, Skunki, Wolffire, somewolf and Tioh. Excellent job, folks!
Comments
lynard-.livejournal.com 18 years, 11 months ago
Same to you, mr. wolfie ;)
What do you think, should i set the pictures i made during the report set up for public in my gallery?
cu
Link | Replylynard
tanidareal.livejournal.com 18 years, 11 months ago
We thank YOU, o'wolf :)
Lynard: For me it's OK to make the photos public. There aren't much different from a normal suitwalk / con. It might be interesting for the others to see the camera team with us.
Link | Replywoelfisch.livejournal.com 18 years, 11 months ago
Sure, why not?
Link | Replytioh.livejournal.com 18 years, 11 months ago
I really want to see those pictures.
Link | Replylynard-.livejournal.com 18 years, 11 months ago
Ok, pics are online now
Link | Replyhttp://gallery.lynard.de/thumbnails.php?album=11
woelfisch.livejournal.com 18 years, 11 months ago
Oh, cool, danke! Die Filme habe ich mir noch nicht angesehen, aber die Fotos geben schon einen guten Eindruck, was da am Anleger abging :-)
Link | Replyanonymous.example.com 18 years, 11 months ago
Das wär' alles :)
Link | ReplyNew Comment