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2016: Obama's America review


Tim M

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Yipe just saw my name on this one. Hoping the check was the last I would hear of it. This was a " what am I doing here" gig. Got the call the night before and had no clue what the topic or who the players were. Nasty propaganda shoot....not my cup of java.....

I have no idea what the rest of the movie is like. I did one quick interview and out. Lav only was required. Dinesh D'Souza was clean, his guest was not. Bad suit, bad tie, bad beard. I had a clip COS, mole skinned back and wire, and three furry overcoats pushing the suit out and off as much as possible. (Suggestions welcome.)

My impression was this was a one man crew for most of the filming. Unsteady camera ...that day it was a DSLR on a two foot slider moving continuously. They had made some choices.

So it was...... toxic interview, tight time line, Washington work. Told it was for a TV broadcast piece. Movie?? Never crossed my mind. Any body else cashing PAC checks?

Tim.... Dinesh had no interest in anything other than poisoning the water..... Nice guy? ????..... Ahhhh NO!

I'm sorry, but is anyone else having a hard time reading this? It's like some of the words that need to be in a sentence aren't there. Is this the product of serial texting?

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Speaking of Obama, I saw a piece of that Entertainment Tonight story that got a lot of publicity, and it was the absolute worst sound I've ever heard on a nationally-syndicated program. Horrendous, like a lav strapped to the top of the camera. My bet is that a wireless failed, nobody monitored it, and they opted to use it as-is in lieu of nothing. Worse than student-film sound. I wish I had kept the clip, because it literally looked like a behind-the-scenes shot that got dropped into the "real" show.

Do you mean this? (Just an excerpt on YT)

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Yipe just saw my name on this one. Hoping the check was the last I would hear of it. This was a " what am I doing here" gig. Got the call the night before and had no clue what the topic or who the players were. Nasty propaganda shoot....not my cup of java.....

I have no idea what the rest of the movie is like. I did one quick interview and out. Lav only was required. Dinesh D'Souza was clean, his guest was not. Bad suit, bad tie, bad beard. I had a clip COS, mole skinned back and wire, and three furry overcoats pushing the suit out and off as much as possible. (Suggestions welcome.)

My impression was this was a one man crew for most of the filming. Unsteady camera ...that day it was a DSLR on a two foot slider moving continuously. They had made some choices.

So it was...... toxic interview, tight time line, Washington work. Told it was for a TV broadcast piece. Movie?? Never crossed my mind. Any body else cashing PAC checks?

Tim.... Dinesh had no interest in anything other than poisoning the water..... Nice guy? ????..... Ahhhh NO!

It does beg the question. If you really felt like "WTF am I doing here," then why didn't you walk out on the job? Taking part in the creation of propaganda tends to indicate your complicity or sympathy with the content. Or perhaps that's just overthinking, and a job is a job.

Also, does the fact that this doc is doing so well on the eve of the RNC in Tampa translate into producers watching it and thinking to themselves, "the sound is garbage, but people are paying to see it; must be that sound doesn't matter after all."?

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Hmmmmm.... I seem to be on the firing line here.

Texting?? No... Realllllyy??? WTF ... and I will save my classroom grammar for..... nuts, forgot where I was going.... anybody??

Walk off the job??? .. after you start the interview and you figure out what is going down?? .. anybody else want to chime in on walking off jobs and what their threshold might be. That gets us all hired again. Round here you better have a raised pain threshold or don't play!

Do I like the fact that I did a straight forward sound job (for Washington) which was represented as a bit part of a minor TV or web funding program and then find it is a baseless propaganda movie with my name attached as a major crew player? Would I have done the job had I known. No. But that is not the way it played out.

So my more critical companions...... bug off!

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I think it's good to get close to the enemy.You learn what the b#stards are up to.I worked on the Reagan presidential campaign and found out what unscrupulas Rats the republicans are.The democrats aren't perfect, but the republicans will do ANYTHING to get into power because of the billions of dollars to be made.......Greed

J.D.

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" If you really felt like "WTF am I doing here," then why didn't you walk out on the job? "'c

ause it is not professional to behave that way.

it is a gig, a job, and you do it...

I've worked on crap, major CRAP, and stuff that I didn't believe in, took the check, cashed it, and sleep very well.

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Would I have done the job had I known. No. But that is not the way it played out.

Reid,

I've said no to gigs that somehow offended my sensibilities or sense of ethics (two adult gigs come to mind), but If I committed to something I would have ensured that my word remained good and completed the job. Somehow, I don't classify your gig with these people as being too far down on the "sold myself out" chart of misery.

You've got one inexperienced sound peep behind you (plus a Senator I see).

Best

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It does beg the question. If you really felt like "WTF am I doing here," then why didn't you walk out on the job? Taking part in the creation of propaganda tends to indicate your complicity or sympathy with the content. Or perhaps that's just overthinking, and a job is a job.

IMO, as with others, I think it's overthinking a hair. I've did a job for a Political Action Committee that was just meant to feed money in order to change policies I didn't personally agree with. But, I'm here to record sound well, not to propagate my political leanings.

If stuff crosses the line, like being outright indecent or gets into hateful stuff, then yeah I can see just walking on moral grounds, but it's a fine line. Besides, if all you see is one interview, how much depth do you really have into the full piece? I haven't seen the mentioned film, but I think Reid is probably the best judge of the situation, having been there.

I've recorded crap audio with scratchy lavs. If someone told me all I could do was use a lav, gave me one go at it and and said OK now we shoot, sit down and shut up, then I probably would get clean audio. BUT if I got scratchy audio and that was the one thing that made it to a movie screen, I wouldn't feel awful about it. There is more that goes into a soundman's product than just his own merits. The situation he is dealt contributes, and at the end of the day, being an activist doesn't pay the rent. Doing the job and going home does.

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As well they should have. Hence the success of the film and that whole Nobel Prize thing.

Nobel Prize? Please, that thing stopped meaning anything years ago. Especially when they gave it to Obama for....what was it again? That's right! Nobody really knows. There was a time you had to do something extraordinary to win it.

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I've worked for both parties and had no problem doing so. I'm being paid as a professional and I expect myself to act like one.

As far as people who'll do whatever it takes to get elected, BOTH parties sling their fair share of slop -- it's a toss-up. They're both on the same playing field playing the same game. If you think calling it a game is off the mark, you've obviously spent very little time around professional political types.

One of the saddest things is how smug some people are about their opinions. No one has all the answers. People who act like they do only make themselves appear narrow-minded.

Unfortunately, we live in a time when people think it's necessary to choose up sides. As a result they lose perspective. But <sigh>, life's so much simpler when you don't have to think.

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Propaganda sells. Look at "An Inconvenient Truth". People bought that hook, line and sinker.

I'm not catching the comparison Mirror.

This recent Obama movie presents an opinion to forward an argument against a politician's value. An Inconvenient Truth (although worthless as anything other than a compelling power point presentation, certainly not worthy of Oscar or Nobel interest) presents statistics and science to forward a theory about climate change.

In your opinion, where is the propaganda?

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I'm not catching the comparison Mirror.

This recent Obama movie presents an opinion to forward an argument against a politician's value. An Inconvenient Truth (although worthless as anything other than a compelling power point presentation, certainly not worthy of Oscar or Nobel interest) presents statistics and science to forward a theory about climate change.

In your opinion, where is the propaganda?

I'm too tired to answer this question, but you're right, power point is one hell of a program.

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