Review: Hillary Clinton’s announcement video is surprisingly bold, fascinating filmmaking Updated by Todd VanDerWerff on April 12, 2015 , 6:50 p.m. ET @tvoti In her ad, Hillary Clinton positions herself as just one of the many, many people in America with big dreams. Screenshot Hillary Clinton's video ( https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLRYsOHrkk5qcIhtq033bLQ) announcing her run for president in 2016 is a fascinating piece of filmmaking, and it does something I haven't seen a political campaign ad do in quite this way. The video attempts not to minimize Clinton's placement in her campaign, but to portray it as a natural outgrowth of a mass, populist movement. The story of Clinton's campaign as expressed by this ad isn't one of an inevitable, indomitable candidate. It's one that attempts to portray Clinton's run as an idea she had a couple of months ago that she's been saving up for. And if it works, it could change how these sorts of announcements are approached for the foreseeable future. How campaign trailers usually work The "presidential campaign trailer" is a relatively recent phenomenon. All you need to do to see this is to look back at Clinton's announcement video from the 2008 campaign, which is shockingly bad. (The camera keeps shifting back and forth, like it's
22
Embed
Review: Hillary Clinton’s announcement video is surprisingly bold, … · Review: Hillary Clinton’s announcement video is surprisingly bold, fascinating filmmaking Updated by
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Transcript
Review: Hillary Clinton’sannouncement video is surprisinglybold, fascinating filmmakingUpdated by Todd VanDerWerff on April 12, 2015, 6:50 p.m. ET @tvoti
In her ad, Hillary Clinton positions herself as just one of the many, many people in America with big dreams.
And this young woman has a car. (We don't know much else about
her.)
(screenshot)
Notice the framing again. All of these people are close to center but
just off of it. We're meant to be pleased that they're taking control
of their lives — everybody in the ad has some big goal they're
working toward — but also think that we could just walk up to them
and start having a conversation.
(screenshot)
Like we could with all of these people!
(Side note: the compositional weight of the vast majority of images
in the ad is to the center left, which is a great, sly visual joke that I
refuse to believe is an accident.)
(screenshot; photo illustration by Todd VanDerWerff/Vox)
Look who else is starting something. Look who else is just off-
center, so we can still approach her with our concerns and
questions:
What this accomplishes is twofold. First of all, it reaffirms that
Hillary Clinton has big, big goals, and she's going to do anything she
(screenshot)
can to accomplish them. And second, it subtly reinforces her
connection to everybody else in the video. They're all part of the
same movement, the same goal. The woman who's moving so her
daughter can go to a better school has a dream that is no better or
worse than Clinton's ambition of running for president.
Indeed, the final image we see is literally Clinton's logo made up of
all of these other people:
To a degree, Clinton can get away with this because she doesn't
need to introduce herself to the American public. If you are of voting
age and an American citizen, there is a very good chance you
already know who she is, as Jonathan Cohn points out.
(screenshot)
One advantage Hillary has: She can use her announcementvideo to set a theme and tone, rather than introduce herselfyoutube.com/watch?v=0uY7gL…9:38 PM - 12 Apr 2015 · Ann Arbor, MI, United States
18 16
Jonathan Cohn @CitizenCohn
Follow
YouTube @YouTube
But Clinton's ad also hits at something fundamental to her 2016
message — and, indeed, to her message throughout her career.
It takes a village
Remember Clinton's book It Takes a Village (
http://www.amazon.com/Takes-Village-Tenth-
Anniversary/dp/1416540644/ref=sr_1_1?
s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1428875558&sr=1-
1&keywords=it+takes+a+village+hillary+clinton)? The book,
published while she was first lady, took its title from the old
aphorism that it takes a village to raise a child. There was, at the
time, much mockery of it in right-wing circles for being the sort of
thing a hippie might say.
And after the publication of It Takes a Village, Clinton pivoted into a