File under "How Low Can You Get?".

February 21, 2002 1:59 PM

File under "How Low Can You Get?". Las Vegas TV station dubs in sound and gunshots on a video tape showing an attempted robbery at Harrah's. Original footage had no sound so it had to be made more "dramatic".
posted by KevinSkomsvold (6 comments total)

Props to Obscure Store for the link.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 2:07 PM on February 21, 2002

Hey, they do it for those "Wildest Police Videos" shows. Ever notice how the helicopter pilot always has the same voice (no matter what city/country he's supposed to be in?) Ever notice that all the tire sqeals and sirens are precisely the same?

Granted, it may "enhance" the video, but it's for entertainment. Of course, that's what the news is for as well.
posted by phalkin at 2:08 PM on February 21, 2002

Point well taken phalkin. I disagree however with a so-called "hard news" station taking artistic license with footage that according to others, stood on its own. I have come to expect "Wildest Police Videos" and others of that ilk to play with the sound.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 2:20 PM on February 21, 2002

Well, they should of just made it clear that the audio being dubbed was a dramatized version of the sounds they believed were most likely taking place. All of this hoo ha could have been avoided.
posted by banished at 2:23 PM on February 21, 2002

ABC did this on their show "Downtown" last night. There was some story about a man who murdered his entire family and then fled to Colorado by train. So they had some nice footage of a train going through the mountains in Colorado.

Yeah, as if the guy recorded his travels. I've been seeing this sort of thing a lot lately.
posted by Qubit at 3:30 PM on February 21, 2002

Does the inability for the TV audience to distinguish between (contrived) fantasy and (uninteresting) reality really matter that much? I mean, it isn't like psycopaths have trouble with that, and that the entire country is becoming desensitized by its own crime being replayed over its own media.

Yes Qubit, me too. Far to goddamned many. It is the worst on nature programs - Monty Python did a sketch where Michael Palin was out in the jungle struggling with malaria and uncooperative luggage handlers when he stopped and said "wait a minute...who's filming us now??".
posted by Settle at 4:22 PM on February 21, 2002