Although The Last Broadcast seems to delve within the psyche of a solitary man and perhaps unlikely murderer, in the end the writer seeks to purposefully display his thoughtful deception to the audience, and thus confuse the use of analog video with that of a rather cinematic and film-inspired documentary. To create believability and an aura of realism, the narrator addresses the days leading up to the murders of the “Fact of Fiction” hosts, with hours of home video interviews and show footage. The context of analog video lends various connotations to the viewing audience, all of which differ from those inferences made from film or digital video.

The apparent vibe of the film begins as a documentary would, with a deep-voiced narrator who seems to offer an omniscient and somewhat objective perspective to the audience about an incident that requires further investigation. Also, the “special visual effects” used between shots and the choice of music, suggests that The Last Broadcast is a low-budget documentary of an otherwise localized murder mystery. The writer uses two forms of analog video. One involves the interviews with locals who knew Sam and shots of the community as well as the Jersey woods. The other uses actual footage from the “Fact or Fiction” show, including the various outtakes, and home video footage recorded while Locus and Steven are in the woods preparing for the Jersey Devil broadcast. While it is possible for a filmmaker to shoot on analog video, the context of the situation and the characters involved suggests that the footage is indeed real and uncut. Yet, if this is true, the notion that these people (not characters) were actually murdered causes fear and anxiety to be no longer only created by the narrator, but also by the viewers themselves. While death can exist in a comical context, a situation such as that posed by The Last Broadcast prohibits laughing. All of this is accomplished by simply shooting on analog video in a documentary-style format.

Another point of discussion involves the minor clues that encourage realism and believability. For example, in many cuts of the unused footage from “Fact of Fiction,” the word “play” as well as a time tracker appears on the screen, as it would when one looks into the eye-piece of a video camera. Also, when Locus holds the camera to record Steven, he often turns it back to himself when adding a comment of simply wanting the camera to acknowledge his presence. This also allows the audience to be involved in ways that are impossible in film, due to the direct address of the camera and thus the direct acknowledgement of the audience. While this remarks on the quaintness of the show, the audience also believes they are watching the hosts act both as characters as well as real people with real emotions. Especially when Locus and Steven seek out Sam to help them locate the Jersey Devil, during the initial interviews the audience plays witness to the uncomfortable nature of Sam as he fidgets with cigarettes and cannot seem to sit still. Also, due to the camera and its limited sound-gathering capabilities, certain conversations, while they may be seen on camera in the background, cannot be heard beyond muffled voices, which only elevates the mystery of the situation. Through this, the audience is able to form opinions, not only about the roles each person plays, but somehow viewers may have the sense that they know the true story because they see the people for who they really are.

In contrast, perhaps, is the footage used from the police investigation during which a camera was set up to record the site. This is the only instance during the documentary that the analog video is completely ignored by those being recorded, and is simply used as intended—to record events. While the police choose to not interact with the camera, when Locus and another head into the forest to search for the missing Steven, we lose complete visual ability from the camera’s perspective. While this may seem annoying, due to the violent sounds of running and fear in Locus’s voice, the audience is made more uncomfortable by not being able to see anything. The sound creates the threatening vibe, due yet again to the idea that these events are real.

The Last Broadcast uses the analog format to exploit the associations a typical viewer has regarding a film. Since the inception of motion pictures, the standard for filmmaking has always been high and on the cutting edge. As styles grew and changed and the process became more reflexive, filmmakers began experimenting with different techniques to enhance their storytelling. The filmmaking process also transcended feature film production and went public. Among the advancements in public film production was analog video, seemingly the choice medium for amateur and home-filmmaking during the 1980s and 1990s. Camcorders ruled the day prior to the advent of digital video recorders and the analog format was standard.

With The Last Broadcast and the use of analog video, the viewer perceives an element of factual reality from the text. The reality-effect associated with analog can be linked to two different aspects of the technology, both of which appear in The Last Broadcast. First, there is the presentation aspect. Analog may have seemed revolutionary at its inception, but with advancing technology its flaws become more evident—flaws such as scan lines and noise. In the film, a particular scene, repeated multiple times as the narrative unfolds, exemplifies the noise aspect. The small quartet of men is some miles into the forest when Jim Suerd, the accused murderer and self-proclaimed psychic, is belittled and criticized by Rein Clackin, the sound engineer. The snow-covered ground contrasts with the dark trees, diminishing their color, and creating a black and white effect. The noise is visible when the plane of the dark tree meets the bright snow. At this point is a jagged and crackling line that exemplifies a flaw in the technology. The image, while fairly decent, is in no way crystal clear.

Another aspect of the analogue technology that connotes reality is the video timestamp. Nearly every shot of the supposed raw "Fact or Fiction?!" footage contains the typical hour/minute/second bar in the upper-right quadrant of the image. Common to camcorders, the timestamp is a device that displays the date and time for organization purposes. Seasoned camcorder users tend to use the timestamp at the start and end of a particular clip, but many people (including The Last Broadcast’s fictional hosts) leave the timestamp running throughout the video. The marker connotes a level of amateurishness in the video. No doubt many people have watched long, dull home movies of seemingly nothing important, yet the ever-present time stamp trudges on second after second.

Both of these factors are relatively small and easily overlooked yet, when combined with the idea of a cable access show, internet addresses, segments on video reconstruction, and the existence of an actual myth of the Jersey Devil, The Last Broadcast utilizes the viewer’s perceptions and twists them. The label of film does not seem to accurately capture the text, but, instead, it seems like a genuine piece of documentation and toys with manipulates the audience.

When a text is produced, the creators have very specific ways they want the audience to feel about that particular text. For example some films are supposed to make you think, and some or just supposed to make you laugh out loud. When screenwriters develop a screenplay they develop their characters to create a specific signifying chain, therefore creating a certain type of movie. In romantic comedies the signifying chain calls for a best friend who the main character can discuss their current love life with. This best friend must elicit specific emotions from the audience. However the different types of characters are not the only things that are used to create a specific signifying chain. The type of media that is used also contributes to the creation of the signifying chain, and the type of emotion that the audience has towards the film.

Throughout the years the entertainment world has used different types of media to create certain signifying chains and emotions from the audience. For example, when someone watches a home video that is made with analog video they do not get the same feeling of perfection that they would get if they watched a home video that was made with digital video, or even film. Through the use of these three types of moving pictures, producers can manipulate an audiences feelings towards a film, sometimes getting them to forget they are watching a film, and to believe the impossible.

It would appear that with the use of special effects producers can achieve this goal of deception and make an audience believe anything they see onscreen. For example, in the film Scream, the audience is taken into the fictional town of Woodsboro where, with the use of special effects, they are witness to several murders. The use of special effects does take the audience into a believable world of murder but it does not really make them forget they are watching a film. At no point during the film Scream does the audience actually believe that the characters are being murdered. Given that the movie Scream is shot only using film it appears too perfect, making it hard for the audience to fully believe they are watching something that actually happened. Therefore if the producers wish to deceive their audience they need to allow for slight flaws in the medium. For example, the producers of the movie The Last Broadcast do not only allow for slight flaws, but they actually create them using analog video. By doing this they achieve the ultimate deception when they make a "documentary" about their own death.

In the film The Last Broadcast the audience is led to believe that they are watching a documentary about the deaths of Steven Avkast and Locus Wheeler, the two hosts of Fact or Fiction. To make the documentary very believable, Avkast and Wheeler, with the use of analogue video, added many flaws to the movie. The first flaw was the fact that when Avkast and Wheeler were asking Sam Woods to direct their film, the camera was not still. This made the film seem more like a home video that was put on a larger screen, making the audience forget that they were actually watching a movie and not a home video of something real.

The second flaw the producers added is the fact that even if analog video is flawed, it can still be played. When the audience watches the "lost" tape of the murder victims campsite, it drives home the fact that they are watching home videos of the "murder victims." The audience is once again reminded that this is not a perfect film. It is not flawless because part of the movie utilized analog video that had been destroyed and therefore had to be restored to a somewhat viewable version of the original.

With the help of these simple "lost" home videos that were taken by Avkast and Wheeler themselves, the audience is asked to decipher between what is fact or fiction in their murders. This proves to be difficult because with the use of analog video the filmmakers take the audience directly into the campsite where the hosts were "murdered." It is because of the believability that comes with analog video that the audience truly believes the "lost" video diaries of the campsite are real. It is this use of a simple home video camera that allows the audience to forget they are watching a movie, and truly believe that these two people were brutally murdered. To the point that when it is "revealed" that the narrator of the film David Leigh is the murderer, the audience does not question the absurdity of this new fact until they are rocked back to reality when they are told that this is a film by Stefan Avalos and Lance Weiler, and no one was actually murdered.

In The Last Broadcast, analog video is used to give the “footage” from Fact or Fiction a look of fact. Analog video in the context of a film connotes realness. When the boys take their camera with them to ask a soap director to direct their live broadcast, we are asked to believe that these boys recorded everything including their meeting and proposal to this director. I find that hard to believe, but the faces go dark when the camera is pointed toward the window and I can’t help but think it is real. Natural light is used except when filming in the dark. The natural light can create imperfections, moments when the picture is not so good. That means it is real, because if it weren’t real they should have tried harder to make it look better. The video suggests amateur camera work and so also suggests a sincere reality.

The film also relies on the concept of video as an artifact. The fact that video can be played whether in good condition or bad allows for the display of badly “damaged” mystery footage. This footage is even more real because it is damaged. The events are so violent and mysterious that the film as artifact and witness is highlighted. It is the real key to the truth of the case. The details of the case and their reality are based on the footage and its realness, along with the reality created by the editing. The host of the documentary The Last Broadcast says that his hypothesis and drive for making the film is based on the footage that needs reconstructing. The damaged video was there. It saw everything and experienced the destruction too. It was hurt and we can see that. The poor quality of the damaged video attests to its credibility as a witness. Its truth-value is high because video can be played after extensive damage; we can see the damage. The visible damage connotes realness because it doesn’t seem like something that someone would do deliberately. Had they been making this video deliberately, perhaps they would have made the picture clean and steady. Video allows us to see the lack of deliberation. Had this artifact been digital, it wouldn’t have worked and The Last Broadcast would not have been possible.

The interrogation video is even more real. There is a small amount of interrogation video and it is evidence and an artifact as well. The camera is in a fixed position. This suggests the authenticity of the video as a video from an interrogation. The camera does not need to move around because it is only there to record the facts. This video is also super-real because the picture is black and white and really grainy. The picture looks like an impressionist painting where shapes are formed from small dots. This is bad picture quality, but because it is bad suggests that it is a real video from an interrogation. This video is used for utility purposes and so doesn’t need to be of great quality. Had the interrogation video been of high quality and definition it would be unbelievable because there is no reason a police station would use high quality they are just doing a job. They don’t produce films; they record facts. The poor quality of all the video suggests the record of facts and not the construction of fiction.

When most of Hollywood’s directors wish to make a top-notch film, they choose to shoot the feature film with, well film. Digital video is also becoming a very popular alternative media solution. Slowly, as the movie making world continues to evolve further into the high tech era, analog video has begun to lose its appeal or its practicality for that manner. If analog video is used in film making, you can bet it was used for a specific purpose; it was implemented in the hopes of achieving a certain emotion or a system of emotions from the viewers.

The Last Broadcast is one such film that not only utilizes analog video, it exploits the connotative values of the medium in all the right ways and all the right places. Analog video is associated with realism. It was the popular form of home movies, low budget documentaries and as this movie suggests, it was also used in some television shows. Bob Sagett made a career out of showing America’s embarrassing moments caught on tape—analog video tape. The Last Broadcast sets up a feeling of realism right from the beginning with the use of on-location news footage that appears to be shot using analog video. Whether the viewer realizes it or not, the footage is immediately decided to be real news coverage for the simple fact that it’s not shot on film. Film is associated with movies, not reality.

The analog video provides another effect for the movie that adds to its success of blending film and analog video. The video has a usually undesirable effect of color bleeding and a shaky-cam quality. These two things only supplement the creepy feeling the director was going for at the beginning of the movie. When Sam, the director for the Pine Barrens episode, is interviewed about his position, the color bleeding is so glaring it’s as though Sam is not of this world, but some kind of weird spirit with sunglasses. The out-of-focusness that comes along with the shaky-cam effect only ads to this creepy visual image, putting the viewers more at unease with the movie and it’s subject matter. It draws them deeper into the belief that this is in fact a true murder mystery story.

The best use of the connotative values of analog video comes at the end of the movie when analog video is not used. The lack of the above mentioned properties jolts the viewers into believing something else, the truth about the movie. When the shots of the investigator suddenly turn to film and not analog video, that sense of reality is lost and twisted up into the moment. At first the viewers are confused, and then when film is continued to be used to shoot the scene of the investigator in the woods, it suddenly clicks. There was never a murder on the set of a semi-popular television show. The whole movie up to this point was a hoax. The raw truth feeling is lost when the colors are where they’re supposed to be and the characters stay in focus the entire time. Suddenly the real truth is realized which leaves the viewers with an uneasy feeling since what they always considered to be signs of truth were in fact, fiction.

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Last update: 1/22/2005