Sarah Palin, Gibson Interview -- Camera Angle

Part of me can't believe that I am down to blogging about such minutia. On the other hand, Google searches similar to "Palin Gibson interview camera angle" keep leading people to this post I made about the Sarah Palin ABC interview. In light of the shocking editing that ABC did with the interview, I suppose they deserve a closer look at other details at well. If they had earned our trust, I would have dismissed calls of unflattering camera angles as partisan strategy. Now I guess everything is fair game.

A blog called NostradamusLives (at Townhall) had this to say about camera angles:

These "edits" had the effect of watching a tennis match whereby the camera angles went left - right - front - back - side - side up it was TERRIBLE. There is no other reason, for these edits, than to attempt to manipulate Palin's responses.

The first commenter of this story at Free Republic posts:

They inserted jump cuts, which are never used in TV journalism. That’s when an edit is made without the camera angle changing. That technique creates a feeling of uneasiness because it is jarring to the senses.

The rhythm of the edits were uneven , the camera angles were horrendous and the audio at times was cut off during some answers in a very jarring manner.

The producer and editor did everything in their power to present a disjointed and visually unflattering portrait of Palin.

The Washington Times questions the camera angle and specifically wonders why a random person distracts from the presentation by wandering around the background.


I do have to admit it is odd occurrence.

Finally, I searched pretty hard for a liberal view point on the camera angle ... er angle and I couldn't really find much. Not even anyone decrying peoples discussing it as whining by Republicans--take that for what you will. The closest I could come was a comment on the Hilary Clinton Forum. The commenter compared Gibson's interview with Palin with that conducted with Obama.

Even the camera angle was designed to be prejudiced against Palin. She is filmed from the side and slightly with her back to the camera. Although there are close ups of her face the long shot shows her back to the camera. It seems filming her with her back to the camera was meant to make her appear less likeable. In contrast, the film crew placed the long shot camera facing Obama so at all times when he is speaking the camera looks him in the face rather than looking at his back.

My final thoughts? The interview is over, Gibson was biased, the editing was beyond questionable, Palin did OK on night 1, much better on night 2, she isn't strong on foreign policy, she committed no major gaffes, and trying to hang her based on this performance is doomed to backfire.

Despite the fact that I said 'final thoughts', I have a feeling I will be posting on this topic again.