Laurie, Where are you?

by Matt Martin | 17 Comments

Alright, so I’m honestly just wondering, does anyone else find something wrong with this ad (other than the blatant false statements, more on those later)?

Maybe it’s just me, but doesn’t it look like Laurie’s green-screened into this ad… Look at the shot 16 seconds in, it just looks off. Is anyone a video guy? The reflections and lighting seem way off.

June 18, 2008, 10:28 pm | Category: MN 2008: Senate | Tags: Norm Coleman.

17 Responses to “Laurie, Where are you?”

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Michael B. Brodkorb
June 18, 2008 at 11:20 pm

Matt: what are the “blatant false statements” in the ad?

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Flanagan
June 18, 2008 at 11:40 pm

Sorry, but it is a great ad. Try something else. You lose attacking her.

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TwoPuttTommy
June 19, 2008 at 12:09 am

This commercial looks as phony as ol’ Smokescreen is.

I’m guessin’ it’s the same brainiacs that brought us “Little Marke At A Bus Stop” last cycle.

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Chris Truscott
June 19, 2008 at 12:40 am

I like the ad. It’s a bit corny, but I think they do a good job dealing with the attacks Norm will face.

Is it total crap? Yep. But still a good ad.

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Noah S Kunin
June 19, 2008 at 12:41 am

The poor quality of the YouTube encoding makes it almost impossible to come to a full conclusion. I would say we should be able to see Laurie’s reflection (at least a bit of it) in the kitchen talble. Regardless the cut at :16 does seem screened by any reasonable analysis. Unless Laurie Coleman is now 9ft tall and/or Norm is 4 ft tall and/or their house is on an extreme slope. The perspective/angle is wrong at that point.

Even more interesting to me is the cut from :10 to :12 of nothing but Laurie’s wedding ring, her cup of coffee and Norm’s reflection the table. Not even a subliminal reference there… “This guy is a FAMILY MAN.”

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tim
June 19, 2008 at 12:44 am

It’s definitely a greenscreen, or “chroma key” as we say in the biz. At :16 the angle that she was shot at is too high and wide and she appears too small…unless she’s really about 3 feet tall and sitting on the kitchen island.

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Uosdwis
June 19, 2008 at 3:51 am

Some preliminary research: Congressional Quarterly is subscription, I’ve never tried to find anything there, so I’ll withhold judgment for the moment on her or their assertion that Norm is “one of the most independent senators.” It could be “he’s in the top 50 of Republican senators,” or meaningless, in other words. Govtrack.us does place him toward the middle in their political spectrum cloud and call him a moderate Republican.

Those vote references are misleading. ALL of them are cloture motions, and he voted aye on 07 rollcall 416, nay on 222 and aye on 223. These are identical to Klobuchar, by the way. So they aren’t REALLY votes to take away oil company tax breaks. Also, “SA” (senate amendment) 1704 only applies to RC 223, not 222, which is SA 1733 (GovTrack is wonderful and much easier to use than thomas.loc.gov). Yes, he voted with the majority Democrats to pass HR 6. I haven’t looked too hard for a comprehensive analysis of his voting record, but I’ve seen statements that he voted with Bush 98% in his first year. For all of us, the single most important vote he absolutely did vote in lockstep with the Republicans and George W. Bush is the authorization to use force in Iraq. No other vote got 4100+ American soldiers killed.

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MovieFan
June 19, 2008 at 6:40 am

I’ve checked with a couple people who work with film and video, including one who has done a lot of greenscreen work. Both felt the same thing: Laurie has been greenscreened in on this ad.

The lack of a reflection in the highly reflective island may or may not mean anything due to the angle, but could be a clue. The strange perspective/angle is another bit. But to me, the giveaway is that Laurie is standing in the lower right corner of the screen the whole time. The entire point of this ad is that Norm is a good, family guy. So if that’s the point, why not have them right next to each other, putting their arms around each other, touching hands, anything… the sort of thing you see a husband and wife do on a regular basis. There’s none of that here. There are other technical things that make this seem greenscreened, but that’s the biggest factor, for me.

It seems a very strange choice for an ad. They must know the percolation out there about how Laurie lives in LA and is only out here a couple times a year and other, umm, oddities of their marriage, to be polite. Why for heaven’s sake would they want to even invite scrutiny of that? Wasn’t she willing to come back here for at least one shoot of an ad?

Usually, I’d say that a politician’s personal life is his or her own business. But when they make a point of selectively cherry-picking quotes designed to be offensive to women, then perhaps it might behoove them to be a bit more careful when their candidate might not have the most pristine record towards women, not in admittedly ill-considered jokes, but in real life.

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Hal
June 19, 2008 at 7:23 am

Indeed Noah, I caught the wedding ring shot as well. Interesting ad, starting off a lot like Mark Kennedy in 2006. We’ll see how nasty this thing gets…

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IoannesMagnumus
June 19, 2008 at 7:37 am

I support Norm Coleman, for garbage man.

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skyblue
June 19, 2008 at 7:49 am

oh, it’s definitely a composite. They missed the lighting and the camera angles. Oh, and yes, I’m a video guy with 30 years in the game.
What stupid content besides.

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Sean2
June 19, 2008 at 8:37 am

Anyone else feel ‘so what if she was green-screened in the ad’ ?

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Danno
June 19, 2008 at 9:39 am

That’s unfortunate for Coleman. The camera bungling totally takes away from the ad. Otherwise, I think it may have been fairly effective, even though it is ultra corny and false.

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Zach (the other one)
June 19, 2008 at 9:46 am

I wonder how many Minnesotans are ignorant enough to buy this line of crap? I am willing to bet it’s less and less every day. Sorry Norm, a few key votes isn’t gonna remove your deserved rubber stamp title. It takes a little longer than that to rewrite history.

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Kathy
June 19, 2008 at 10:15 am

After seeing the ad several times, it is quite obvious that Norm and laurie Coleman ARE NOT together in the same room.

The lighting and perspective is way off. While the message is the main thing with this ad, those who know the Colemans will know differently.

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Tim O
June 19, 2008 at 2:34 pm

Creepy and Smelly!

Is the impression you want to leave in your ad one of the candidate standing over a smelly garbage can? Smiling? Like he’s enjoying himself?

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Swiftee
June 19, 2008 at 4:01 pm

Someone needs to greenscreen Eva Young and her pet hampster Ken Weiner popping out of Norm’s trashcan. *That* would be great a spot!

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