Being a bloke, I watch a lot of documentaries: history, facts, non-fiction.
And a lot of b&w footage exists of those things that actually happened.
So making those documentaries should be an easy job for someone: link the right pictures to the right facts.
But they don’t seem to be able do that.
If I watch a documentary about, say, the Battle of Britain, the Spitfires usually have huge black-and-white stripes across both wings.
But black-and-white stripes were only used after D Day, and D Day was in 1944, four years after the Battle of Britain.
So what, a mere detail to most people, they won’t care.
But most people won’t be watching documentaries like that, and the people who are watching do care.
So those details are important if you’re a producer being paid to make historically accurate programmes.
But I’m getting used to the fact that the producers don’t care about the audience, because the producers don’t care about the subject.
They don’t care about the subject so they can’t be arsed with details.
That’s why they make b&w documentaries showing Russian T34 tanks and calling them German Panzers, showing little destroyers and calling them giant battleships, I’m used to the fact that whoever is making these programmes doesn’t give a damn.
But last night, I saw a clip that actually made my jaw drop.
The VO was talking about the Blitz, when the Luftwaffe mounted it’s biggest raid on London, and the visual was b&w footage of a United States Air Force B17 Flying-Fortress dropping its bomb-load.
And I thought, “Surely, no one can be THAT stupid”.
But there it was, proof that whoever is cutting these programmes together literally doesn’t give a flying fuck.
German bombers have 2 engines, American bombers have 4 engines, German bombers have big black crosses on them, American bombers have big white stars, it’s not difficult.
But so what, it’s just some boring old crap for old geezers, no one cares.
And yet remember, this channel is called the Discovery HISTORY channel.
People don’t turn it on to watch Love Island, or I’m a Celebrity, or Keeping Up with the Kardashians, or hip-hop videos, or zombie-alien-robot movies.
This channel sells itself on historical accuracy, that’s what people watch it for, that’s what the people who work there are being paid to deliver.
And yet the people who are paid to work there treat it with contempt.
They couldn’t care less about the facts, or the audience, and they don’t care who knows it.
Which is pretty much the attitude of people in advertising.
People who work in it couldn’t give a damn about the product (what’s being advertised) or what the audience wants, or delivering any factual information.
The people who are making the ads are bored with all that, so they assume everyone must be bored with all that.
The people making the ads just want awards for emotion and mood, so they assume that’s what everyone wants, emotion and mood.
If you like the mood in our little film you’ll buy whatever we’re selling.
You don’t need to know the name, or what it does, or who it’s for.
These people don’t like advertising, so they try to change it into something they do like.
My feeling is if you hate the job, then don’t do that job, go somewhere else and find a job you do like.
But don’t ruin this job for the people who do like it.
Too right Dave. I’m in the business of getting these WW2 shows developed and financed , really irritates me as a History geek. Checked out the JU87B shots in the Dunkirk ep of ‘that in colour show’ on Netflix? You and I know that model was much later . It’s ok the so called cool urban streamer viewing types just want a bite sized guide with the wrong archive….Actually , don’t watch it, you’ll get as annoyed as me .
To say you’ve hit the nail on the head would be grossly understating it Dave. And what also pisses me off is my 5 year old daughter may be watching something like this, telling me German bombers have 4 engines in the Blitz and will insist it’s true as not only was it on TV, but also a bone fide historical channel. Who ever is making these are drawing money under false pretences, and it needs complaining about.
History Channel lost it a long time ago with all the Alien and UFO programmes.
Dave, treat yourself to a visit to the Tank Museum Bovington. No Tigers on T34 chassis’s there. Always shocking to come face to face with the real deal.
Something the best CGI can never reproduce. Having said that Fury used the real tanks as much as possible, so refreshing to see.
Pete, I reckon the main tank (FURY itself) was a Firefly, judging from the length of the barrel. In which case it would have been British not American (I think they all had the 75mm not the 17 pdr). We need to ask a Discovery HISTORY producer
You’re bang on the button Dave. And you’ve given me an excuse to watch Fury all over again_____to see if the 17 pdr gun/breech was on its side. Detail is everything.
Read that and it felt like a Kendall Roy speech. Fight the power. Nice one Dave.
As a long time history TV producer, exec producer, and author (with credits ranging from Simon Schama’s A History of Britain, to series presented by Ben Macintyre, Dan Snow, Mary Beard, David Olusoga, Niall Ferguson, to last year’s Lost Home Movies of Nazi Germany, I can promise you we all cared a lot about accuracy! But archive is slippery. There is virtually no useable Battle of Britain footage — it was too early in the war to have the means of shooting it; hence, yes, often it’s the wrong model of Spitfire. But absolutely, B 17s ‘standing in’ for Heinkel 111s or Dornier 17s, is an egregious error – and borderline unforgivable.