The famous phrase ‘The play’s the thing’ is fine so far as it goes, but how well would the play succeed if the script were blasé beige?

In the oft-underrated world of trade industry journalism, where some reporters fear to tread lest the plume fall off their prose, the writing, finally, is the thing. We thrill to the sight of news, features, even financial results wherein turns of phrase pack visual punch.

Trade reporters in the film and tv niche rarely get to write with the adjectival or metaphoric abandon that’s de rigeur for, say, critics and analysts in the daily papers. The challenge for trade journalists is amplified when they have to deliver informative and entertaining prose on the tumbleweed dry world of technology. When the writer conquers that challenge, time to celebrate.

Playback’s Technology Editor, Teressa Iezzi, has given us reason to celebrate often, to grin, marvel and delight in her near one-ness with things technological. But her ability to show what the machine can – or cannot – do among real people, that’s Teressa’s special power. In this issue’s Virtual Innovations, she explains a complicated technique used to shoot a scene in which a priest (played by David Schwimmer) dreams he’s a pinata. And then, she pulls back for the bigger picture:

‘The scene was shot at 1 a.m. on the last day of shooting, with just about every star in the movie assembled in the desert blackness to beat the pinata. . . .The shot was over a minute long, and perhaps it was the extreme desert temperatures over the course of the shoot, but when the director yelled ‘Cut!’ the crowd just kept on beating. . . . the frenzied bloodlust only quelled when (the dop) turned the lights out on the mob.’

Sometimes, she grabs you with Zen. Some industry mags explore what’s new and trendy at trade shows by detailing jazzed-up features and applications. Teressa can do that. But she can also lead you into that world like this:

‘Like life does, nab happened in moments this year. nab moment: Sitting on an outdoor patio 51 floors above the blinding excess of the Las Vegas strip enjoying a post-show libation and taking in the legendary view – a scene to be duplicated nowhere in the world. From this vantage point, where the garish lights of a surreal cityscape are seen in their entirety, one is awed by the brashness of the spectacle. Observing the scene one industry player is moved to utter: `Wow. It’s almost like hd.’. . . The comment indicates the extent to which hd has penetrated the mass consciousness. Is it real, or is it Vegas?’

What wondrous text-ure you have given to our understanding of prod. tech in its universe and ours. Now that you’re written into the Associate Editor role at Playback’s new sibling mag, Boards, you can hand the world of commercial production a fascinating and unconventional script, too.

Thanks for being a thoroughly dynamic section editor, for knowing the writing’s the thing, and cheers!