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Wardrobe Malfunction: President's Tie Produces 'Moire' Effect on TV
Newhouse News ^ | 4/15/2004 | Dru Sefton

Posted on 04/15/2004 12:14:35 PM PDT by Incorrigible

 
 

Wardrobe Malfunction: President's Tie Produces 'Moire' Effect on TV

BY DRU SEFTON
 

WASHINGTON -- Necktie patterns can behave in strange and mysterious ways on television. President Bush's tie at his Tuesday evening news conference is a case in point.

His selection, navy with small white dots, produced a moire (pronounced mwa-RAY) effect. Simply put, that's when a pattern being photographed interferes with the grid pattern on television screens, creating an eerie, shimmering visual.

Call it a wardrobe malfunction.

Many viewers puzzled over the phenomenon.

Nancy Mathis, a former television anchor, was watching when her phone rang. It was a friend who said, "Oh my God, it looks like his tie is on fire!"

Mathis knew exactly what the caller meant.

She now heads First Take Communications, a Washington, D.C., media training firm, coaching politicians and others on how best to get their messages across in important public appearances. As far as neckties go, some small patterns "end up having a life of their own" on camera, Mathis said. "And if it's something that distracts the viewer, it detracts from the message. The bottom line is, if you want to look solid, wear a solid."

She added, "I'm really curious as to why they didn't look at that tie on camera ahead of time."

A White House spokesman said the president's choice of ties "is not something we generally talk about."

But tailor Georges de Paris, with a shop near the White House, is very familiar with that tie. He said the president purchased it from him.

"It is a wonderful tie, he has worn it before," said de Paris, who has clothed presidents for 40 years, since Lyndon Johnson.

The tie is de Paris' own design, a fine silk with "very teeny polka dots." If it looked different on television, he added, "it's because of how the light reflects off of it."

It's a bit more complex than that, said Kenneth Brecher, a Boston University astronomy and physics professor who heads Project LITE (Light Inquiry Through Experiments), teaching students about light, optics, vision and perception. In physics-speak, the moire effect is "a beat frequency between two other frequencies creating an interference pattern," Brecher said.

Think of two transparent pages, each with an identical grid of lines. Place one transparency on top of the other and line them up; it appears as one pattern. Skew one slightly, and there's another pattern.

Moire is French, meaning "watered pattern," Brecher said, because the effect sometimes shimmers like it's wet. The phenomenon was discovered by British physicist Lord Rayleigh in the late 1800s.

A TV camera pixelates images, "producing dots in rows to create the picture," Brecher said. The dots are horizontal, which interfered, in this case, with the dot pattern on Bush's tie.

Voila, moire.

(For an animated example of moire, go to www.bu.edu/smec/lite/moire/moire_rot2_5.html)

April 15, 2004


(Dru Sefton can be contacted at dru.sefton@newhouse.com)

Not for commercial use.  For educational and discussion purposes only.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
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To: MrB
I, being above avg intelligence and looking at 16:9 HD's for a while, proceded to shut up.

Just keep in mind that liquid crystal HD TVs are NOT repairable, but the larger (non-slim/non-liquid crystal) HD TVs are repairable.

I talked to a local Sear's store manager I know. He's a nice guy and I would trust his advice.

By the way, the correct technical term for what happen on the screen to Bush's tie is called a 'rainbow effect', you get this same type of problem sometimes on DVD movies, but it is rare for it to be that bad.

21 posted on 04/15/2004 12:29:34 PM PDT by Paul C. Jesup (The Motto: 'Live and let live' is a suicidal belief...)
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To: mabelkitty
He is the Commander in Chief. I'd love to see him in a military uniform. They would go absolutely apoplectic!
22 posted on 04/15/2004 12:30:45 PM PDT by RetroSexual
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To: Incorrigible
While it didn't affect any of Bush's words, lots of folks were distracted seriously by this tie and the strobing it caused on TV screens. That's a bad thing.

I hope that future appearances on television by Bush are not marred by this easily-preventable problem. Surely there's someone on the staff who consults on television appearance matters.

It's not a truly big deal, but it's a problem, nevertheless. Let's hope it doesn't happen again.
23 posted on 04/15/2004 12:30:46 PM PDT by MineralMan (godless atheist)
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To: Incorrigible
It puzzld me why he deliberately told the press to "pick out a blue or red tie".

Possibly he knew his would be both colors.

24 posted on 04/15/2004 12:31:22 PM PDT by DainBramage
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To: princess leah
It's called a bolo tie.


25 posted on 04/15/2004 12:31:49 PM PDT by Xenalyte (I may not agree with your bumper sticker, but I'll defend to the death your right to stick it)
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To: aculeus
I thought everyone knew by now that you don't wear houndstooth, checks, tiny stripes or anything the camera reads as houndstooth, checks, or tiny stripes, when dressing for TV.

People still goof up, though, even the pros. I saw Laurie Dhue in some striped turtleneck the other day, and it was moraying all over the place...

26 posted on 04/15/2004 12:32:48 PM PDT by hellinahandcart
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To: MineralMan
While it didn't affect any of Bush's words, lots of folks were distracted seriously by this tie and the strobing it caused on TV screens

Yep, blame him for your distraction. I didn't even notice, because I was listening to his words.

27 posted on 04/15/2004 12:33:18 PM PDT by w1andsodidwe (Jimmy Carter allowed radical Islam to get a foothold in Iran.)
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To: PBRSTREETGANG
He is just lucky he didnt wear my Jimi Hendrix Are you Experienced Tie.
28 posted on 04/15/2004 12:35:54 PM PDT by No Blue States
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To: Incorrigible
He should have worn a Rush Limbaugh tie. That would have made liberals see spots.
29 posted on 04/15/2004 12:36:05 PM PDT by anonymous_user (Only fools trust the partisan media.)
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To: Incorrigible
Ah ha! The tie was a mistake. Bush should apologize.
30 posted on 04/15/2004 12:36:14 PM PDT by mtbopfuyn
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To: Thinkin' Gal
Yes, I hear that there's already been some success on that front...Cheney's daughter will be voting for Bush.
31 posted on 04/15/2004 12:37:21 PM PDT by pookie18
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To: w1andsodidwe
"Yep, blame him for your distraction. I didn't even notice, because I was listening to his words"

I'm not blaming him for anything. The tie, however, was distracting, and the distraction was unnecessary. Bush needs to get the word out, and distracted viewers aren't hearing it.

I'm criticizing the tie, and the failure of someone not to catch this bonehead television error. I'm not criticizing Bush or his message.

This just shouldn't have happened.
32 posted on 04/15/2004 12:37:45 PM PDT by MineralMan (godless atheist)
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To: Incorrigible; Poohbah; Howlin; Miss Marple; PhiKapMom; veronica
Actually, I thought the effect was pretty neat.

*shrugs*

Maybe he ought to wear a tie like that more often...
33 posted on 04/15/2004 12:37:52 PM PDT by hchutch (Tommy Thompson's ephedra ban STINKS.)
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To: Paul C. Jesup
I'm not looking at a plasma or lcd.
A 32" 16:9, HDTV will be just fine.
34 posted on 04/15/2004 12:39:13 PM PDT by MrB (You can't reason people out of a position that they didn't use reason to get into in the first place)
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To: Incorrigible
Every tye I own is paisley :)
35 posted on 04/15/2004 12:40:23 PM PDT by UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide (Rumble Thee Forth...)
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To: w1andsodidwe
This one might actually be Bush's fault."

ROFL! Nice try, but really, the White House should have someone bright enough to check this. Any of us old enough to remember Johnny Carson and the way pieces of his wardrobe showed up on television know all too well what some patterns can do.

36 posted on 04/15/2004 12:40:40 PM PDT by FourPeas
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To: princess leah
"with one of those western dangly things holding it? (I want to say bolerio?)"

Do you mean this? If so, it's called a 'Bolo'.

BTW, there was nothing wrong with Bush's tie on my TV, it's a Sharp and the colors were fine.

37 posted on 04/15/2004 12:42:08 PM PDT by Condor51 ("Diplomacy without arms is like music without instruments." -- Frederick the Great)
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To: Incorrigible
bmp
38 posted on 04/15/2004 12:43:26 PM PDT by shield (The Greatest Scientific Discoveries of the Century Reveal God!!!! by Dr. H. Ross, Astrophysicist)
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To: Incorrigible
George and the Amazing Technicolor Tie

FMCDH

39 posted on 04/15/2004 12:44:04 PM PDT by nothingnew (The pendulum is swinging and the Rats are in the pit!)
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To: hellinahandcart
You should also stay away from red and fuschia on air. It tends to bleed into the screen.

So when I woman I can't stand was going on a local cable access show thinking that it would be her big debut, I told her " Wear red dear, or better yet that flaming bright fuschia, you will really stand out".

Then I laughed all the way home.
40 posted on 04/15/2004 12:44:30 PM PDT by Hillary's Lovely Legs (I am trying to stop an outbreak here and you are driving the monkey to the airport!)
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