Posted on 12/20/2007 8:59:16 AM PST by Travis McGee
"THE TODAY SHOW"
MEREDITH VIEIRA: Let's talk about this Christmas ad, because it comes after you have taken some hits from the critics, first for calling yourself a Christian leader, then for questioning whether Mormons believe Christ and the devil were brothers, something you did apologize for.
Now in this ad you are say people should be celebrating the birth of Christ while the shape of a cross appears to take shape behind you. And that has led some to say that this is another overt religious appeal to voters. What do you say about this ad and about those criticisms?
MIKE HUCKABEE: That floating cross is a bookshelf, Meredith. We were all amused -- the production crew I think probably more than anyone, who put the spot together.
VIEIRA: So you didn't see that image when you put the spot together, that it might be confused?
HUCKABEE: Absolutely not.
These are movie camera "tracking dollies."
There are two reasons to use tracking dollies when directing a film. The most basic use is when following a moving subject and keeping them in the same plane. The classic use is to follow a walking actor in profile.
The other use of the tracking dolly is to move the background in a controlled way, while keeping the foreground subject in one place by simultaneiously tracking and panning the camera.
That is how the Huckabee team contrived and executed the shot, in order to move the glowing white (spotlighted) shelf/cross from the left side of the shot to behind Huckabee's head, in exactly the 30 seconds of the ad.
The use of the tracking dolly is the smoking gun, the proof that the moving cross effect was deliberate, and that Huckabee is lying about it being an unnoticed coincidence.
They didn't just come out and "find" that a tracking dolly had magically appeared on the set, and decide, "Aw shucks, why don't we stick the camera on this here funny contraption, and slide it from left to right while aiming at Mike's head, just for the heck of it."
Every aspect of this political advertisement was deliberate, down to the placement of the three ornaments on the glowing white spotlighted empty shelf.
The proof that the moving cross effect was deliberate, is the use of the tracking dolly to move the cross in the background in a perfectly controlled way.
I’m not shocked. Disgusted. But not shocked, nor even surprised. I expect politicians to lie. I expect certain politicians to go overboard and bring God into their lies. It doesn’t surprise me when they do. But it doesn’t make me vote for them either. Now, if Duncan Hunter put out an ad this disgusting, I’d be shocked.
Yeah, I understood that much. If Huck were really this “genuine” guy that he keeps telling us he is, he would have admitted to it. Of course the cross was there on purpose. On top of that, wasn’t Silent Night playing in the background. I’m not in Iowa, NH, or any of the early primary states, so I haven’t seen many of the other candidates Christmas ads. If someone knows, what were the songs being played in the background in the other candidates ads? Secular “Holiday” songs?
“I don’t care about the use of the cross.
I care about a former preacher LYING about intentionally using the cross.”
I’m in total agreement here. I’m just astonished at how the media is trying to crucify the guy for having a cross in his ad. They always bring up the cross, but have you noticed they seem to skip the part with the Huckster saying that the birth of Christ is the reason for the Christmas season? That is the more important message to me. Not some bookshelf in the background.
If no one involved in the filming of the ad, neither the set designer, nor the art director, nor the producer, nor the director, nor the cameraman, nor the representatives from the Huckabee campaign nor especially Huckabee himself noticed the great, big, honking cross design on the book shelf in the background, then they’re incompetent. And someone who is too incompetent to produce a 30-second ad without an obvious, unwanted subliminal message embedded in it has no business being leader of the free world.
If, however, they put the cross in the ad deliberately, they’re obfuscating, to put it nicely. So, your choice—incompetent or obfuscating, one or the other.
LOL Cross design?
O NOZ! A Cross design....
Actually my choice also includes people, such as yourself, with a big ol ax to grind seeing a rather standard book case and screaming cross!
I, as a devout Christian, have no problem with a cross in an ad about Christmas. I do, however, have a problem with another devout Christian lying about the patently obvious.
As you of course know, the book shelf didn’t look anything like a catalog page in the commercial. It did, however, bear a striking resemblance to a big, white cross positioned perfectly over the candidates’s right shoulder.
Incompetent or obfuscating, one or the other.
B F D
That way the costs can be kept way down.
She’s too stupid and ditzy to tell the difference ~ Freud’s words would have been wasted wouldn’t they.
HUCKSTER IS NOTHING BUT A WIMP...
Truly, it is the sort of thing we expect out of the ACLU, not a bunch of Freepers.
How many bookcases are made with triangles, circles, pentagons, spirals? NONE! They are made with horizontal and vertical boards and where they meet is a cross. Nothing spiritual about it. If a candidate wants to use a 100ft cross behind them, fine!
The media wants to make something out of this don't give them any more ammo!
Look out its coming right at us... 6 Crosses, 3 on their side!
As you of course know, the book shelf didn’t look anything like a catalog page in the commercial.
Sure as heck looks like a segment of such a shelf to me.. There is even stuff on the shelves.
I heard that he had a gastric bypass as well. The photos of him at his lowest weight are just ghastly.
I just have to laugh at all the grinding of teeth over one of the more common bookshelf designs ever seen..
Yea Huck would mention Christ by name but shy away from a cross?
This has got to be the ultimate yawn non-story.
Good point, I didn't see that.
Please forgive my reaction to this thread, which is zzzzzzzzz...
It goes straight to his true character.
An ex-preacher who will purposefully use a cross image in a political ad, AND THEN LIE ABOUT IT, will lie about ANYTHING.
Based on the information in this piece, how do we know a tracking dolly was used in Huckabee’s commercial?
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