| March 11, 2003 Movie men add special effects to media war |
| THE Pentagon has enlisted Hollywood to help to present its daily briefings to the world.
Fresh from the latest Michael Douglas film, one of Tinseltown’s top art directors has been hired to create a $200,000 (£125,000) set for General Tommy Franks and other American commanders to give daily updates. George Allison, 43, who has designed White House backdrops for President Bush and worked with the illusionist David Blaine, has been flown into the US Central Command base in Qatar as part of a reputed $1 million (£625,000) conversion of a storage hangar into a high-tech hub for the international media. Mr Allison’s credits include the set for ABC’s Good Morning America as well as Hollywood productions for MGM and Disney such as the Kirk and Michael Douglas film It Runs in the Family, due to be released next month. His work in Qatar reflects the Pentagon’s realisation that it needs to look good on prime-time television, especially given public disquiet about the war, which is being led by some Hollywood personalities such as Martin Sheen, Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon. Gone are the easel and chart, solitary television and VCR machine with which General Norman Schwarzkopf showed fuzzy images of smart-bomb raids during the 1991 Gulf War. On a set that will become instantly recognisable, generals will present updates from two podiums at the front of a stage adorned with five 50in plasma screens and two 70in television projection screens ready to show maps, graphics and videos of action. Behind them will be a soft-focus elongated map of the world, as if to suggest that the world is united behind them. The set was built in Chicago and reputedly shipped over by Federal Express at a cost of $47,000 (£29,000). Besides looking good on television, the presentation conveys another message — that American technology is second to none and far outclasses anything possessed by the Iraqis, who will be watching the briefings on the Arab broadcaster al-Jazeera. President Saddam Hussein’s generals are likely to present their updates in Baghdad at a table in front of their national flag. The technology gulf will be part of a psychological campaign abetted by the media, which is here in droves. US military planners have ensured that their footage will be instantly available in the eight most common video formats. Mr Allison said: “This is about bringing the level of technology up from the flipchart to the modern age. It is trying to send a clear message about the technology and our use of it.” Not all is running smoothly. Organisers have discovered that they are several hundred telephone lines short. Nor is the spirit of openness towards the media unrestricted: photographs of the set are banned. |