Dear Directors/Editors of Workout Shows/Videos,
As a woman who's watched years of workout tapes, DVDs, and shows, I think I speak for many women when I ask, Do you ever actually watch the show you put together? If so, what's up with showing close-ups of the instructor just as she/he's changing up the moves?
Almost every day I tune into a show on Fit TV or pop on a video, and it never fails: The camera zooms in on one of the cast, the instructor yells out a move change that makes no sense to me, and I end up spending a couple of beats pausing while I figure out what the hell to do with my feet. It throws me off, and I spend the next several seconds muttering and feeling frustrated that I'm off, and, more importantly, not burning the calories I sorely need to burn. And I'm fairly adept at picking up choreography! I can't imagine what people who have problems picking up steps do to compensate for bad camerawork and editing.
I understand the need to focus in on a person to demonstrate proper form, but you also know the workout, right? Can't you figure out better timing on when to actually edit in the zoom? Or maybe put in a split screen? There's got to be a better way to put together the workouts so that everyone doing them only has to suffer through the pain of not working out, not the pain of a bad edit job.
Do that, and fitness show fans around the world will sing your praises.
Thanks!
Your pal,
Jill
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An issue I also face. I'm one of those people who has trouble picking up steps. In fact, I don't do any cardio/aerobic workouts on video at all, only weights, because I am so uncoordinated that anything with actual steps and moves is beyond my capability. And to get the weight moves down, I watch the video through once before trying it, and then spend the next several workouts stumbling through until I get it.
ReplyDeleteI have a favorite video where I kept getting off count in one particular spot. I couldn't figure it out--I hadn't messed up, but my left leg was up when their right legs were up. Finally I stopped and watched it closely...and their was a cut in which the editor had screwed up, jumping ahead enough so that the count was off in the video itself. Later I also noticed that the editing had completed eliminated a change of moves, so the group was doing a slightly different move than I was with no apparent explanation.
Agreed that there needs to be better editing. Working out is miserable enough, don't make it harder!