Category: scott sforza, wh producer

A photo I’ve been waiting to see from the RNC in Tampa, unidentified source via brian boucher
factchecking update: you know, I’m gonna go with: this debt clock photo is as true as this one.

One of Karl Rove’s objectives for his Sforzian backdrops was “to set up picture so that if the television sound is turned down, that it gets across what it is the President wants.”
With this new ad, “Firms,” [direct YouTube link, in case you’re seeing a freakin’ Swedish bike helmet fashion show up there instead, which, #iframewtf?], the Obama campaign has turned Rove’s formula on its head.
Sure, the sound-off visuals get the point across just fine: dolly shots of news stories of Romney’s outsourcing and, apparently, job-destroying history set into depopulated locales: closed factories, empty conference rooms, and abandoned parking lots–and then headlines about his Cayman Islands accounts are tucked into shots of isolated beaches.
But the only sound is Mitt Romney himself singing “America the Beautiful.” Which they’ve tweaked ever so slightly to match the ambient aural quality of each shot, giving the sense that Romney’s singing in each place. Even without the visuals, you get a visceral feel of Romney wandering alone across a desolate America, singing to himself.
As a filmmaker/reader at Talking Points Memo describes the effect,

[P]lacing Romney’s voice in the various locations builds the implication in the mind of the listener that Romney is present and witnessing it. It’s almost like he’s in America’s front office, singing into a PA microphone while the building rots. This highlights another feature of sound design: it’s a good way of giving people information in such a way that they don’t even know how they know it. You see the ad and there’s no cognitive speed bump to keep you from concluding that Romney was there in that empty factory, or there in the abandoned conference room, or there sipping Coronas on a beach in Grand Cayman.

Well, I know that’s the ad it most resembles, but he probably wouldn’t be sipping a Corona. But it’s a good point. And I think I may have a new ringtone.

Here is Mitt Romney deplaning in Las Vegas, where he met with Gingrich’s bank, and where reality [sic] TV personality Donald Trump is hosting a fundraiser for him.
Suffice it to say, Romney is either actually courting the Trump Birther Faction, or his campaign has yet to master the stagecrafting subtleties of Sforzian backdrops. Either way, it’s win-win for the wire service photographers. [AP via tpm]

The Japanese blog Itai [Painful] News has a nice photo roundup showing how North Korea’s missile rocket control room compares to those of other spacefaring countries. I think it’s safe to say that Japan is cowering in fear at North Korea’s state-of-the-art powerstrip technology.
痛いニュース | 北朝鮮、発射施設公開　コントロールルームがひどすぎると話題に/ On The Subject of North Korea’s Ridiculous Launch Control Room [dqnplus via @camcavers]

R-M-O Oh my heck! N-E-Y
This awesomely remixed version of this AP photo [by Gerald Herbert, below] from a campaign event in Elko, Nevada last Friday makes me marvel at the many lost opportunities for Sforzian hacks in the past.

I mean, why should wire service photographers have all the fun? But then I read all the way through the Democratic Underground forum thread where the Photoshopped version first appeared, and where dozens of armchair politicos oneupped each other with their media acumen:

Mark D.
63. Romney is an anagram for R Money
As this photo made me realize that.
Tweet what I’d said-go viral with it.
JI7
43. a quick or even long Glance still looks like “money”
if i was adivising them and saw this i would have recommended against it.
illinoismike
59. Something else
What bothers me more about this picture is that all the participants are male and white. That doesn’t seem to bother Mitt at all!
silverweb
3. Is that real?
Ohhhh, please-please-please-please let it be real so we can bury him with it!!!
MrScorpio
74. R. Money, Mitt’s new rap name. nt
SemperEadem
19. :: very slow golf clap ::
you couldn’t make this shit up.
“r” “money” our money… yep.. can’t make this shit up.
[barrage of slow clap animated gifs deleted]

And then while trying to find the source info for the original photo, I came across Bryan Snyder’s shot for Reuters of the Fisher family waiting to meet The Man behind the curtain, and doing the wave or something.

And then there was another shot, by another AP photographer, Ted Warren, of the Fishers meeting Romney again. Or for the first time. This is from the front of the flag, where the Fishers had been waiting from the get go–and photographing themselves. And being photographed by Warren in turn.

And so somewhere in between these photos, after the event, Mitt put his bomber jacket on, the Fishers got invited backstage, and they got a private [sic] photo-op.

Y? Because we like you!
And then Snyder–and Proud Mom–both snapped a photo of Romney autographing the shirt of the most disinterested little Fisher of them all. Actually, look at “E”; his shirt’s signed, too.

And then there’s the kid whose dad–given the BYU hat, I’m gonna guess he’s a supporter–drove two hours to the event with a Romney bobblehead [above]. And the shot of Mitt reflected in a thickset supporter’s aviator glasses, and the soft focus cowboy hats in the foreground signalling The West.

via apimages.com
And I realized all these images exist on a hacking continuum between real and faked, homebrewed and happenstance. Whether it’s the inkjetting family, the pack of weary photojournalists, the local handlers, or the messageboard trolls, people are just trying to do the best with what they’re given. Given all the stars that have to align, and all the fingers in the pie, I guess we should be lucky to get any shots at all.
Pic of the moment [democraticunderground.com via @akaczynski]
Everything else from AP & Reuters via Yahoo News.

See, this is the kind of frugal Sforzian stagecraft that Mitt Romney learned from his Mormon pioneer ancestors: just use the replica sets from The Music Man and con a local into holding your chair!
There’s no trouble in Mason City with the end cut flooring, though; I’d totally vote for that.
Campaign Photo of the Day [MSNBC’s @JamilSmith via Yahoo News’s @Chris_Moody via NYT’s @nickconfessore [yahoo]
“You’ll feel as if you’d rented a video of the movie.” [themusicmansquare.org]