Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

I’m talking about breaking the rules, the norm, the convention of pretty much anything. If they’re broken with a lot of savvy, yeah, it could lead to a whole new level of craft, but more often than not, the people breaking the rules are just plain ignorant or simply full of themselves.

Case in point: MSNBC.

They started doing this new-fangled thing, I guess to “up” their coolness factor, and it involved cutting to the production room close to the commercial break, where suddenly you see all the video screens on the wall and all the people staring at them, and you hear the producer counting down and cuing the next tape.

I don’t know who in hell first thought it was cool to show that, but H.E.’s early years were in radio and TV broadcasting, and had he done that on air, his bosses would have fired his ass for making a colossal mistake, and he would never again have worked in the business. Whatever you do, you never—and I mean NEVER—reveal the backstage, or even let on that there is a backstage. All of that is supposed to be invisible to the viewing public.

So what is up with MSNBC showing all that stuff? It’s almost like they hired a bunch of amateurs who were so flushed with pride that they were actually producers that they had to show the public, “See? We’re producers. We do neat work, cuing the cues and timing it all just right. We’re so cool! Look at us go!” Why in heck should the average viewer care?

Another thing they do? They refer to their series of documentaries as “Doc-Blocks”. Who on earth outside of broadcasting refers to them as doc-blocks? Only broadcasters use that term, and the average viewer doesn’t know what that means. This is MSNBC saying, “We’re so cool, we’re not going to use the layman’s term that everyone else is familiar with: documentaries. We’re going to use the term that we TV producers use, doc-blocks, because we’re so cool, you should learn our lingo.”

Heck, why not point out all the Voice Overs (marked as “VO” on the scripts) and all the Teasers (those annoying little announcements they make before the break to keep you watching the channel) while you’re at it? Heck, talk about your Rundown, too! Make it one big teaser, why don’t you.

On the other hand, a guy who breaks the rules with savvy on MSNBC? Keith Olbermann. Him, I like—adore, even. The production of his show is tight and smooth, and when he breaks the barriers, he does it knowingly, with subtlety, and with a lot of good humor. Know why? Because Keith is old school. He knows the conventions. He knows what is good broadcasting, and he knows what is bad broadcasting.

OK. Another case in point: shaky, off-angle camera shooting.

I’ve seen many commercials where the camera is way off to the side or below, and the subject is talking and looking at a point somewhere, but not directly into the camera. Then they cut to another angle, and another, while the person is still talking and looking at the place. Maybe once in a while, they cut to a camera that’s actually directly in front, but whatever is going on, all the shots are off center or cropped too close.

Again, H.E. was a cameraman both for stills and live-action; had he done this kind of shooting, he would never have been hired. He was taught from the very beginning that this kind of choppy shooting is amateur. You do that kind of shooting, you look like a wannabe who is in no way any good.

Now … I understand that a lot of these things are considered a new style—probably the Picasso of film and video. But—and here’s the thing—while I know his paintings can fetch a lot, I still don’t like his paintings. You have a nose here, an eye there … another nose here, and an ear right underneath it. Seriously, his paintings freak me out and look nothing at all like the paintings’ actual subjects. And this is supposed to be good?

One thing I will give Picasso, though. When he paints in a realistic style, he does really, really well, so I know he knew he was breaking the rules. I just don’t see the point in him breaking them the way he did. Perhaps he simply wanted to say, “Not enough of you would buy my paintings before, but now, NOW, you will buy this piece of shit because this…? This is fine art. This mangled face? It means something. Something deep. You will pay millions for this. I guarantee it. Because I am so cool now. Look at me go!”

Now having said all this, I will admit that I fear making the same freaking mistakes, breaking long established rules and conventions, looking like a fool who thinks she’s too cool to do things the right way. I don’t want people like me harping on, well, ME … simply because I don’t know what I’m doing.

So I try to read up on things and ask a lot of questions.

Here I am, an artist who has never had any formal art training, a graphic designer who never attended a graphic design class. I don’t even know what I don’t know, so how can I even tell if I’m breaking any rules?

The few things I’ve learned? For print, a serif type is best for body copy, and a sans-serif type is best for headlines. For web, it’s the other way around. Bleeds and margins are your friends. Same goes for leading, kerning, and tracking. The golden rectangle is divine, so are thirds and fifths. Sharpness and saturation can help make a subject pop from its background. Et cetera, et cetera.

I had to listen well to the certified graphic designers around me, and I found out the things that I didn’t even know I was doing wrong.

“Oh, God. Will you close that huge gap between the letters I and O? That looks hideous!”

“Ugh. Don’t use that font. It’s so ’80s. Use something more classic and timeless. Go with Helvetica.”

“Just because you can easily add a drop shadow and beveling on that text in Photoshop doesn’t mean you should. It looks so … Photoshoppy. Get rid of it.”

And that’s how I learned that just because you can doesn’t mean you should. It appears to be the essence of old school versus everyone else, and the lesson is, before you do your own thing, make sure you learn how it’s done old school first.

I wish more people knew that. Then I wouldn’t have to watch H.E. roll his eyes at bad tape!

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