Category: scott sforza, wh producer

 

Wow, if there was any doubt about where the contemporary art market is going, they were dispelled this morning at Christie’s Baghdad, where the US Government paid a record-setting $286 billion–plus $240 for framing–for this portrait of the dead Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. [Note: Sale price also does not include KBR’s premium of 17.5% on the first $200 billion and 10% thereafter or the 2,485 US soldiers killed as of press time.]

Congratulations, even though it’s gotta suck a little bit; the Administration had been offered the portrait multiple times in 2002 at much lower cost [estimated in the low eight figures], but turned it down. Of course, at the time, the market was more interested in Al Qaeda portraits, and Zarqawi was not connected to Al Qaeda. [thanks to matt for the pic]

“D.C. at Low Risk of Attack, Federal Agency Says”
– headline on the front page of today’s print edition of the Washington Post, an article about why cutting DHS funds to DC and NYC by 40% is just fine.

What we need in this scene is a very dramatic showdown over separation of powers. Perhaps we could all pretend to argue amongst ourselves over some picayune case, preferably one that involves a corrupt Louisiana Democrat. That way, not only do we get to look concerned over separation, Hastert gets to look separate, and Gonzales gets to look principled [maybe he could even threaten to resign.]
Then while that’s going, we can get provide cover for getting Hayden–who was behind the big executive branch abrogation of co-equal government in the first season–confirmed and still not have him have to answer to Congress for anything about it. AND we still get to hype a Democratic corruption investigation through the long weekend.

I realized when I grabbed this screenshot, I didn’t capture the actual GOP disclaimer, which disclaims any affiliation between the Republican National Committee and Apple Computer.
Still, given how hard it was to believe that such a thing as iPods for Special Republicans really existed, I thought my own interpolation was appropriate.
The Special Republican Edition iPod Video will be presented to the top 10 fundraisers who organize and host house parties on May 22nd using the RNC’s new social networking site, MyGOP [www.gop.com/mygop].
What, I wonder, would come loaded on such a rare edition iPod? [via gop.com/party]

I don’t know what was more hilarious: Stephen Colbert’s speech at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, or the not-at-all-amused faces on some of the folks in the crowd at his unflinching criticism, which was delivered, of course, wrapped in Colbert’s dumbly sycophantic supporter character.
There were, of course, obligatory “defending the American way of staging elaborate photo-ops” jokes.
I know what wasn’t funny, though: the interminable audition tape bit, which dragged on ten times too long and was lamer than the ending of a hundred SNL sketches rolled together.
I made a Fatal Attraction spoof in college that was supposed to be funny-suspenseful, too, and even some of our 100x-too-long scenes were shorter than this Helen Thomas bit.
Anyway, here’s the YouTube, in three parts. Do you get my point that you really only need to watch two?

The House of Representatives, that is. Here is a long lens snap of Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert climbing out of the hydrogen-powered minivan he’d just appeared in at a “we feel your gas prices pain” photo-op–and into his official SUV in order to, as the AP caption puts it on Yahoo, “drive the few blocks back to the U.S. Capitol.”
Sweet. Hats off to AP snapper Pablo Martinez Monsivais for the get, and thanks to the morning news for the tip.

When I heard the NPR report of all the pomp and ceremony and symbolism on display during Chinese President Hu Jintao’s visit to the White House yesterday, I expected the news service photos to show a classic Sforzian set, with all the carefully calibrated money shots: statesman-like profiles while the two men review the troops; dual podiums with a Sforzian Background of artfully fluffed flags. You know, like the kind of thing White House Prod. did when they went to China. And Mongolia.
Given the amount of preproduction for these events–which are designed to exist as and generate media, not as live experiences, remember–I was immediately suspicious when I heard a Falun Gong protestor turned up. And that she wasn’t hustled off for several minutes. And that she was a print reporter on the TV camera platform.
[After all, if there’s one thing Bush Republicans have demonstrated their competence in, it’s their ability to pack a crowd and the ruthless efficiency with which they dispatch any off-message disruptors.]
But in fact, the Hu Jintao slideshow on Yahoo News [my usual source for Sforza’s work, and the source of these images] totally shocked me. There were a couple of very tight portraits, but there was absolutely none of Sforza’s signature preset money shots. None.

The event was certainly large and stagey, with throngs of supporters and colonial marching bands and flags everywhere, but Sforza’s strength in imagecraft is in designing camera positions and backdrops and foregrounds that give photographers and cameramen gorgeous, easily read shots that are so easy to take, journalists don’t mind leaving the editorial decisions to the White House. There was absolutely none of that in the Hu-Bush images.

If anything, they showed the exact opposite. The images are tight and indistinct, shot from too close or too low. And the backgrounds are almost random.
Even without knowing the Falun Gong protestor was frogmarched out in front of everybody, it was obvious that WHP intended for this event to look different and to be read differently. [They knew it was being carried live in China.] Every other aspect of production seemed to be in place; so I can’t imagine Sforza falling asleep on the shot composition. The only other explanation is that every wire service sent an intern to shoot the event. And you’d have to be a pretty big conspiracy nut to believe that.

George Bush giving a tug to Chinese President Hu Jintao, Apr 20, 2006, image: Jim Bourg/Reuters via NYT
Add to that the announcer calling China the “Republic of China,” and the images of Bush tugging at Hu’s sleeve to stop him from going down the wrong stairs, an atypical gesture he had to know would set the shutters clicking, and there is no doubt in my mind that the event produced exactly the images the White House expected it would.
The White House went through all the diplomatic motions of producing a showy event, then they fed reporters stories of the Chinese penchant for showy events and symbolism, including their request for a state dinner, which was rejected. And then they sabotaged the whole thing in a few crucial but plausibly deniable ways to send a message that may or may not have ended up on Chinese TV.
And to remind China who’s still the boss around here.

Do I have readers in the Green Zone? Did somebody somewhere write a memo? Because Saddam’s crib used to be white, and now it’s painted brown. [image: ap/bob strong via yahoo]
Previously: American Dream: Astroturf and a White Picket Fence

Josh Marshall gets in on the Sforzian Backdrop fun by noticing the similarities between GWB’s post-Katrina speech in Jackson Square, and his nighttime speech to invited guests only at the zoo in New Delhi.

Here’s the AP’s Gerald Herbert’s shot of the set and the audience. [via yahoo news]

Meanwhile, no trip to the third world would be complete without some native dress, indigenous art, and dirt flooring. [image: reuters/jason reed via yahoo news]
Yet nothing can top this good old-fashioned Pakistani propaganda ministry welcome. I can’t imagine the Great Leader-style portrait cluster and the unadorned “PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH – A FRIEND OF PAKISTAN” banner is really Scott Sforza’s style. [image: reuters/jason reed via nyt]
Annals of Stagecraft [with bigger images, talkingpointsmemo.com]

1) That series of Maxwell House commercials featuring badlibs of Madness’s “Our House”? HOW DESPERATELY WRONG IS THAT? Someone in Madness’s family better need some super-expensive operations that require maximum sellout. Otherwise, they need to be taken to the woodshed.
2) The world needs to see the “Election Wars” Star Wars parody that was created for the GOP House offsite last week. From the baffling insanity of the clips on The Daily Show, it’s as if Scott Sforza has never existed.

It hit me again during the Super Bowl: the perpetual motion, 3D overkill design language of on-air TV graphics is in serious need of rethinking.
Sundance Channel did something about it, and now CNN International has, too. It’ll be interesting to see if/how other networks react. [I’m watching The Daily Show, and they’re using CNNI clips of the White House briefing. It looks great.]

Another Look At The New CNNI [tvnewser via kottke]

Unless this was somehow the on-message Backdrop for the day. Let’s go to the tape. Look at this wider shot, where the pre-existing monitors have been used for the Backdrop.

Somehow, this was intentional. Maybe that capuccino-skinned jester was supposed to read as Mayor Nagin? I don’t think it came off that way, though.
[image ap/evan vucci via cbc.ca, and eyeteeth]

Stockholm Syndrome? Job security? The White House News Photographers Association was so worried about the sharp increase of staged photographs, they undertook a study and filed a complaint about it with White House Productions.
Don’t get them wrong; they’re not complaining about the image control the White House exerts via Scott Sforza’s strategically placed backdrops and camera pens. They’re upset at the increasing number of WH events at which press was banned altogether, and the only pictures released were from WH staff photographers. Funny, because back in the day [aka 2001-3], the only way you could make out the artificiality of Sforzian Backdrops was via the inside-the-ropeline WH cameras.
Photogs Slam White House Use of Staged Pictures [e&p via mediabistro and man]
Previously: Will this be on the White House DVD?

Yesterday Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was shooting some b-roll at Georgetown Law for this week’s WH production [working title, according to the AP: “Bush to Visit NSA for Pep Talk”], but it looks like they ran into some problems with the extras.
You know, when leafblower-wielding hustlers were driving around, disrupting shoots in LA, the studios got some anti-nuisance legislation passed. Makes you wonder if WHP isn’t thinking that’d be pretty handy right about now.

Gotta admit, the rather mundane, unimpressive visuals of the NSA’s Threat Operations Center are a boost to the secretive agency’s credibility. The place looks like utilitarian Government, right down to the bald-ponytailed sysadmin on the front row.

The TOC had enough wallscreens plotting enough suitably important-looking, real-time metrics that the WH advance team only needed to dress a media meeting point for GWB–which turned out to be a hallway.

Looks like the doors were taken off their hinges, and the transoms were filled with blackout WHP graphics. Other than that, Sforza’s lighting buddy Bob DiServi swapped out a few floodlights to fill out the back, and that’s it. All in all, very narrowly focused, limited scope, and only what’s absolutely necessary. [which, conveniently, is identical to today’s message]. And the whole thing was authorized by the 9/11 congressional resolution.
A bonus set dressing tip: How do you get the flags to furl just so? A wire hanger, bent into a diamond and duct-taped to the flagpole underneath.
images: reuters/todd black; ap/evan vucci via yahoo