Walk on red — stand on green

Many peo­p­le are not used to it, some igno­re it com­ple­te­ly: the tal­ly light. A small light abo­ve the came­ra lights up in eit­her red or green and indi­ca­tes the per­spec­ti­ve from which the pic­tu­re is or will be taken. Red means “recor­ding”, green means “pre­pa­ra­ti­on”. And it’s not like in road traffic.

Desk­top micro­pho­nes are often also equip­ped with a small signal lamp. The spea­k­ers the­r­e­fo­re know whe­ther they are “on air” or not. Nevert­hel­ess, it some­ti­mes hap­pens that — despi­te pri­or infor­ma­ti­on about the mea­ning of the signal lights — a ques­tio­ning look (“Whe­re do I have to look again?”) or a tap on the micro­pho­ne fol­lo­wed by a “Do you under­stand me?” inter­rupts the trans­mis­si­on pro­cess a litt­le. For the per­fec­tion­ists among us, this may be a serious mista­ke, but ulti­m­ate­ly it is an expres­si­on of ten­si­on — and this needs to be released. Not­hing makes a pro­gram more exci­ting than authen­tic peo­p­le. This some­ti­mes includes a ques­tio­ning look and a gent­le knock. It will be bet­ter next time.