My contribution to the national discourse…
…making the Federal Reserve Chairman sound sloshed.
Obama: Debt Ceiling Deal A Prime Example Of Democrats And Democrats Sacrificing For The Greater Good
You’re welcome, America.
We could only use a few seconds of the soundbite I made in the video, so here’s the exclusive full version:
ONN – Zombie Reagan Raised From Grave To Lead GOP
Watch/listen closely during the Hannity interview section for the “ear candy.”
Zombie Reagan Raised From Grave To Lead GOP
I spent longer than I want to admit on the sound of Zombie Reagan’s leprous ear. (It’s actually two noises: his ear ripping off and the sound of it rolling down his suit, but it’s a pretty subtle effect and sort of lost in the final mix. Oh well.)
Again, all the non-dialogue sounds were done in post production. The zombie noises themselves were made by processing the actor’s screams through pitch-shifting, time expansion, and formant-modifying effects. I recorded the more subtle grunts, snorts, and lip smacks myself in my bedroom one morning. (I was actually just coming down with what may or may not have been H1N1, so I had the right mucousy quality to my voice–which I also processed through the same effects.)
Also, I’ve started triggering certain sounds through a sampler rather than manually lining them to specific visual cues. So during the “press conference” scene, for example, instead of pasting individual camera sounds to each flash, I just “performed” the sounds directly from my keyboard (musical, not computer). I imported a few different camera sounds into the sampler, then set the sampler to slightly vary the pitch, tone, and duration of each camera sound. The result sounds more convincing–like a herd of photographers at a press conference–AND it took less time to create.
Lastly, I want to give a shout out to The Onion News Network’s graphics team. Almost all the scenery in these videos is green-screened, and it’s really cool to see the visual effects evolve from story-boards, to mock-ups, drafts, and then the final version. Their motion graphics in particular have been really good lately, and as a sound designer I’m always looking to work with those little visual cues.
I’m no economist, but instead of giving these banks a “get out of jail free card,” it ought to more like “we’re taking you off death row and putting you on lifetime probation.”
I can understand the need to keep markets liquid for the greater good of the global economy. But I can’t comprehend how anyone can defend, for example, letting executives who were supposedly overseeing these failed banks–people who have already gotten filthy rich off the backs of others–walk away with a single cent of public money. There need to be consequences for bad behavior built into any bailout.
I also have the same kinds of reservations about this bailout bill that I had (and still have) about the awful FISA legislation. Namely, it gives Secretary Henry Paulson sole discretion to use up to $700 billion public dollars as he and he alone sees fit. Again: no oversight, no courts, no questions.
“Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.”
AND it’s being rushed through without close public scrutiny. Patriot Act? Iraq war authorization? Have we learned anything?
Of course the economy is complicated, and I don’t pretend to gave a comprehensive understanding of it. But I do know that complex problems DON’T have one solution and one solution only. There must be real and reasonable alternative solutions to the bailout bill in its current form, but I haven’t heard anyone in the media asking experts what those solutions might be. I also haven’t heard any news reports about the possible consequences of taking on $700 billion in debt–just that whatever they are, it’s not as bad as a global economic meltdown. I need to know what’s in the box before I buy it… Not that we have much choice in the matter.
The New Yorker Out Loud: Escalation
Date: July 7, 2008
Description: Seymour M. Hersh talks about the Bush Administration’s secret campaign against Iran.
Role: Content and audio editing, working through Curtis Fox Productions
Last Thursday I edited an audio interview with journalist Seymour M. Hersh. Hersh has an article in this week’s New Yorker about how the Bush administration already has secret operatives in Iran hooking up with dissident groups to try and destabilize Tehran.
As cool as it was to be privy to Hersh’s findings a few days before the official publication date, the story has been on my mind all weekend. This is seriously scary stuff. Almost as worrisome as the approaching conflict itself is the degree to which the media here may either avoid this story or superficially report but play it down. Let us hope–and pray to the higher power of your choice– demand that they take this seriously.
Hersh (who as it turns out is a delightfully brusque character when the tape isn’t rolling–something like a film noir P.I.–and I don’t fault him based on what I’m sure he’s had to go through to tell this and the other important stories he’s broken during his career) had some great lines that I wish could have made in in the final edit, but alas the podcast is designed to get people to read the article, and it’s all in there.
One of the quotes in the final edit comes (via Hersh) from Sec. of Defense Robert Gates during an off-the-record meeting with Congress:
“If we bomb Iran, our grandchildren will be fighting jihadists.”
Got that? It’s Bush’s OWN secretary of defense breaking with the administration and giving his own (off-the-record) opinion on the dire consequences of going to war with Iran.
If there’s ever a time to NOT soften the edges in our reporting on Iran (as if there ever weren’t one), it’s now.
That was a nice set of civil liberties we had there…
Here is the bill that will effectively give the administration the power to spy on American citizens (think: your phone calls, email, and internet usage) without accountability. In other words, it’s not illegal if the president says it ain’t. No warrants. No courts. No questions. This isn’t conspiracy theory, this is really happening. (e.g. Act II of last week’s episode of This American Life.) And regardless of the fact that Democrats now control BOTH houses, it looks like this thing is still going to pass. (I know it’s naive, but for a while I really thought they were going to derail it.)
I’ll leave the most of the commentary to Glenn Greenwald, a constitutional lawyer and writer for salon.com who’s been sounding the alarm on this issue for a while now. (If you haven’t already, seriously go read him now.) But I do wonder: what would Mrs. Kregness, my 9th grade civics teacher, say?
How do you even teach civics to kids these days? Aside from all the other wrenches this administration has thrown at the constitution, I would think they’ve seriously undermined a civics teacher’s lesson on the system of checks and balances.
“But Mrs. Kregness! You told us that the constitution was written to specifically to stop abuses of power.”
“Well, yes in theory it would…if the other people elected actually oppose those abuses.”
My parent’s generation saw Nixon get his comeuppance. (Well, sort of, if resigning in shame counts.) People my age grew up seeing the president getting impeached for perjury about a non-criminal act between two consensual adults–like, on a technicality–and even as redonkulous as that whole thing was, at least we saw the system in motion, goldangit! But what if we have a generation of kids who grow up seeing there really aren’t consequences for very serious breaches of the law? Will they–like I sometimes find myself doing–shrug their shoulders saying “well, that sucks but whachagonna do?” and wait for the next power-grab?
Yes, the constitution is malleable, is subject to ammendment and reinterpretation. That’s why they call it a “living document.” But what if you gut it of the very qualities that make it that way? What if everybody gets it wrong and nobody cares? If the constitution is a living document, can you kill it? Kill it dead?
And lastly, I want to echo Greenwald: where’s Obama on this? He had been a vocal opponant of telecom imunnnity and supporterd of Sen. Dodd’s revision of the FISA bill. I’m not in any way suggesting that Obama could wave his hand and make the problem go away (I know folks who hate when he’s characterized as some kind of Messiah, and so do I). But if he got the Democratic party to follow suit and reject money from lobbyists–no small feat–could he rally the party against this bill?