How ABC Manipulated Viewers with Cinematography

Reader Mail....

A reader sends me the following insight:

“Hollywood” knows how to manipulate and guide emotions anyway they want when scripting a show, and use of lighting and camera angles, visuals, when to be in split screen and when not to be, and all sorts of other subtleties usually unnoticed by the viewer feeds our senses while we watch to create the desired emotion.

This debate was professionally and tediously choreographed precisely to discourage Trump voters and see him in an angry, incompetent light while the angel effect was placed on Harris. It was not aimed at Harris supporters as much as it was aimed at us and the undecided. They had to create more hate for Trump.

It’s no wonder so many of us went to bed discouraged. Our own anger over the unfairness we noticed, that they WANTED us to notice, coupled with their cinematography was purposefully crafted to discourage us and give the world the illusion of a Harris win. It deserves an Oscar in all departments: sound, lighting, script, costumes, set, etc.

But … when I woke up yesterday I saw it with fresh eyes. Sound bites on social media removed the full movie “effect” that had a hold over us and allowed me to hear things he said that I never caught the night before when my senses were so ambushed.

My conclusion was: Trump won on substance and merit; Harris won on bullying, gaslighting, and evading.

Here’s my answer:

I’m not sure I noticed the lighting thing.

What I did notice was that they kept Trump and Harris in a tight two-shot, meaning, they never pulled back to show just how much shorter she is than him. That makes a big difference. Their camera showed them to be of equal size 95% of the time. I know that was deliberate because everyone knows height matters in elections.

As a contrast, the Trump and Hillary debate which shows them both in full body shots — they didn’t dare do that with Harris.

Look at how tiny Harris is when she first greets Trump and she’s wearing heels. But you didn’t see that for the majority of the debate:

When they did pull back it was a strange perspective so as not to notice the height difference:

But most of the debate looked like this:

I will also note that the only viral story that has emerged from the debate is the “eating cats and dogs” story. While the Democrats are trying to spin this as a major negative on Trump, I am not so sure that is what people want for Harris. I think they wanted her to come out of it with some viral bump.

We will not know the debate’s ultimate impact until the polls come out later this week.

But the memes will live forever.

Hope you have a great weekend.