Did ABC & Gibson Use Camera Trickery To Belittle Gov. Palin?

NewsBusters ^ | September 13, 2008 | Warner Todd Huston

[nuconvert]

“The key isn’t that HE looms over her, it is that the camera (and viewer) looks down on her.”

To me, it isn’t so much anyone looking down on her.
It’s that she looks small, like a little girl.
And everyone knows that a little girl can’t be President of the U.S.A.

[waus]

In the second photo the legs on Palin’s chair appear to be shorter than Gibson’s chair.

Seriously, did they cut off part of the legs on Palin’s chair?!!

[snoringbear]

“This begs the question why did the Palin handlers let this happen?”

It is a good question and I don’t have a clue why Palin’s handlers let this happen. Personally, if I were one of her handlers I would ensure that she had a chair that was at a minimum the same height as the person’s conducting the interview - even if I had to haul her own chair out or bring a phone book for her to sit on.

[9YearLurker]

Looks to me like they were exploiting perspective to make the difference: Charlie’s chair is up closer to the camera and angled to a closer area than Palin’s chair is actually set up in. Makes everything about him and his chair to look larger and more commanding.

[9YearLurker]

The way her chair is facing space off to Charlie’s right and vice versa, any halfway decent handler who was there should have picked up on the difference.

That photographer who copped to bias in taking McCain’s photo for the Atlantic cover, I think it was, said that McCain’s handlers weren’t very sophisticated about the camera trickery she was using, so it may be a gap in competence on the McCain team.

Either that or they let ABC tangle itself up in their own bias. Whichever the case, you can assume the McCain campaign won’t get caught flatfooted on these issues again.

[Yollopoliuhqui]

They put the chairs closer together to make Gibson more intimidating, to have Gibson invade her space, legs almost touching, in an attempt to throw her off, part of the setup for the “gotcha” questions, nothing more than a media mugging. She and McCain need to travel with stage set consultants to make sure that the lighting, set-up, makeup, background and studio/interview ambience are neutral if not flattering.

[GOP Poet]

Since nothing in a high-visibility television interview is left to chance, you can be very sure that decisions about camera angles and such stuff were made by producers before the interview took place. In particular, the decision as to how to frame Gibson and Palin was most definitely not some sort of random decision by a low-level camera operator.

As a previously director as well as camera person this is EXACTLY what happened--completely intentional.

Another point that I have not seen brought up in this article, which is actually very important, is how the right frame is naturally dominant. Thus you can place two things of equal value one on the left side, one on the right and the right will register with more weight to the viewer.

It is important in framing and if you truly want them to have equal weight you have to accomodate the natural dominance. Notice Obama is given the right frame even though he and Charlie are somewhat equal in the frame. It still gives Obama more weight and prominence.

They played all sort of BS shot games in the set up for this interview. It is horrible and ABC should be embarrassed. Charlie G is a joke.

[snarks_when_bored]

That's a good point you make about the right-left positioning of the interlocutors. I agree that that, too, was no accident.

The MSM idiots are getting less and less able to resist constructing the story rather than just telling it.

[thulldud]

Somebody should remind that guy about the TV show “Get Smart” with Don Adams and Barbara Feldon. You’d never know that Adams was a couple inches the shorter of the two from what was shown on camera.