Photo Illustrations on TV

To those who might not know, a photo illustration is a photograph that has been somehow altered, usually to help to support a story or help convey an idea. It’s important to remember the ratio (and believability) of “photo” to “illustration” varies wildly with each particular case, but ultimately the piece is never anything more than a work of art, emphatically not a factual representation of anything. That said, photographic illustrations bother me. I’m not against the practice completely but when they are used to depict an idea or story as true there’s potential for crossing a line. Take the infamous fake hurricane photo illustration for instance.

Ok so we’ve been here already what’s this about TV?

I’ve noticed a common practice in TV sports coverage (NFL and NASCAR in particular) where a representation of a giant screen is used to give the appearance that a humongous video screen lives atop the stadium. These resemble large screens found at many sporting arenas, except they are quite a bit larger (perhaps 10-fold), and the engineering required to make something like this a reality would be astronomical. ESPN even makes the screen fold out as if it were the convertible top on an automobile. These pretend screens are almost always used when cutting to or from a commercial and (to me anyway) give the impression that the stadium experience is much more technologically advanced than reality would prove.

So what’s the big deal?

I can only answer that by saying nothing in sports is supposed to be “enhanced” or “altered”. Why then do we need a visual lie to somehow improve the viewing experience of an inherently “real” event? Also consider that these jumbo screen illustrations are so good, more than one person I know has asked “is that real?” I searched for the actual depictions I mentioned but came up empty handed. Perhaps this means nobody else notices or even cares. But I say if they’re willing to go through so much trouble to fool you here, who’s to say they aren’t lying to you about something else... oops, maybe they already did.