livedesignonline.com: A staple of American politics, the Democratic and Republican National Conventions give each party an opportunity to present its candidate in an engaging environment. This year, both conventions showcased production designs that had strong video elements and also brought unconventional twists to the traditional convention look.
6 comments:
It seems like the designers and crew for Film and theater get a reasonable amount of credit for the work they do in production design but whenever I see a concert or complicated conference set up or any real production design I always want to know who designed it, how it was built, and how it works. But unless the design is somehow unique it tends to go unnoticed. It seems like the design for this years RNC was a unique one and I hope to see more distinguished designs go into events like this in the future.
The large amount of media in the RNC does not surprise me at all. Every event seems to go as far as they can with media, which I really think is the direction that shows and events are headed. With the national conventions I think these designs are really cool because they allow for the flexibility of live feeds of the speakers, advertisements, quotes, pictures, and all sorts of pictures and videos. Also, audiences love to see productions with "new looks". for example if someone goes to see a production of Hairspray, one would hope that it is not exactly the same as every other hairspray before it.
Though not often thought about as noteworthy designs, the physical staging for a political platform has tremendous influence on the the voters. I remember 4 years ago when Obama and McCain kept one-upping each other on where they would each hold heir respective acceptance speeches, Eventually driving Obama out onto the 50 yard line in front of a stadium of supporters. Even Roosevelt dazzled his audience by riding around on his own train.
There is a reason designers exist in theatre: every choice that is made in a production makes a statement. This applies to the real world as well, and, in this case, if a political party wants to make themselves seem rich, powerful, popular, or whatever, the design of their headquarters should represent that. The interesting designs of the headquarters was something I noticed while watching the election results. And it makes a difference.
the use of media to make the candidate appear larger than life is extremely effective. the convention is a huge part of the election process and it has been interesting how each party chooses to magnify their respective candidate. i thought the republican convention though was not successful in making their candidate appear large. BUT their design was conservative in line of their political views - so at least everything was consistent.
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