To my favorite people in the world, the memers, Donald Trump probably didn’t use a green screen for that White House lawn video he posted yesterday. Please, if any memers need to grab a glass of water for those hard to swallow the time.
Yesterday, the president posted a video shot from the White House lawn, in which he plugged Regeneron, the “antibody cocktail” doctors prescribed the President for COVID-19. In the video, President Trump promises to disseminate the drug for free to seniors and claims, without evidence, that the drug is a “cure” for the virus.
TO MY FAVORITE PEOPLE IN THE WORLD! pic.twitter.com/38DbQtUxEu
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 8, 2020
However, the content of the video took a backseat to its look. Many online believe that the video was shot in front of a green screen. This plays into theories that the President’s health is worse than he says.
If we did green screen work this bad on a TV show our DP would resign in disgrace. https://t.co/Za3XD8OMCI
— Ken Tremendous (@KenTremendous) October 8, 2020
Some put this theory into practice, replacing the background of the video with various locations. For example, Media Matters Editor-in-chief Parker Molloy turned the video in an ad for a used car dealership.
Come on down to Typhoid Donny’s Auto Emporium! pic.twitter.com/iuv5hvC7PD
— Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) October 8, 2020
Unfortunately for Trump critics, it looks like this one was shot on location. In a thread on Twitter, Dylan Reeve took the site to film school. He explains, “The background ISN’T looping – here is a gif of the first frame and last frame – look at the shadow of the columns in the background.”
And here’s the whole video sped up to about 3 seconds. You can see the movement is continuous. The sun is moving across the sky for the whole duration of the video – as it tends to do. pic.twitter.com/3nNU3IXTd7
— Dylan Reeve (@DylanReeve) October 8, 2020
Another way we can tell it’s very unlikely to be a green screen is the lighting.
He is lit with a high, very strong, hard light source with a fairly parallel beam… Like the sun.
Do to this with electric lights would require a very power source quite high up and far away. pic.twitter.com/Y2gydsBooT
— Dylan Reeve (@DylanReeve) October 8, 2020
So if they shot a real background, and shot the President in front of an outdoor green screen with similar lighting, they could still be green screening it.
But they’re not.
Look at the motion blur here – it’s heavily compressed, but is the same over his jacket and the BG pic.twitter.com/XGkbctspKx
— Dylan Reeve (@DylanReeve) October 8, 2020
Still, just because the video wasn’t green-screened, that doesn’t mean you can’t meme it. Go on, be our guest.
I know everyone thinks Trump did his latest video in front of a green screen but honestly I don’t see it pic.twitter.com/dLhBFs5VpH
— Matt Novak (@paleofuture) October 8, 2020
Source: https://news.knowyourmeme.com/news/donald-trumps-regeneron-commercial-likely-not-greenscreen