Nearly a decade ago, we published an article with the headline, “Worst. Green Screen. Ever.” The scene in question came from the pilot episode of the long-forgotten CW series Ringer starring Sarah Michelle Gellar as… not Buffy? I have no idea, because the only clip from Ringer that I’ve seen is the one where SMG’s character and her twin (?) venture out to sea on a boat with a distractingly fake ocean background. Even Mad Men‘s notorious driving scenes look better than this. However, we were premature in calling it the “Worst. Green Screen. Ever.” Because little did we know that in 2020, Donald Trump would be president (the sentence could stop there), and he would record a message supposedly on the White House lawn to “vulnerable” senior citizens during a pandemic, but all anyone would be able to focus on is the green screen backdrop.
TO MY FAVORITE PEOPLE IN THE WORLD! pic.twitter.com/38DbQtUxEu
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 8, 2020
“We’re taking care of our seniors. You’re not vulnerable but they like to say you’re vulnerable. You’re the least vulnerable but for this one thing, you are vulnerable. So am I,” the president said in the clip above, nonsensically. He also touted mysterious “medicines” that would soon be available for free, without providing any specifics. But again, his usual stream of consciousness rambling was secondary to what was happening behind him, particularly in the looping upper right hand corner.
2/ Trump faked this video released today. It’s shot in front of a green screen, the background is fake & on 3-second loop. Is Trump so unwell that he can’t even step outside to film a video?
Attached is zoomed in video of the bushes to the right. On loop. pic.twitter.com/cVIUTu3qSk
— John Aravosis
(@aravosis) October 8, 2020
My “favorite people in the world” are those who had fun with the green screen.
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
This was shot in front of a green screen using stock footage from Independence Day. pic.twitter.com/WfqEwM0e8E
— ken olin (@kenolin1) October 8, 2020
At first I thought people were being conspiratorial, but this is definitely shot in front of a green screen. Watch the upper right and left quadrants and how the tree movement is on a loop. Why are they so bad at everything? https://t.co/H6TrupW3LL
— Rex Huppke (@RexHuppke) October 8, 2020
I don’t even need to watch the video. This is a greenscreen composite. He may be outdoors when they shot it, but he’s comped into that lawn shot. Focal depth is too deep and he has a hard rim shadow where he should be lit by ambient bounced sunlight out in the open like that. pic.twitter.com/5v5TYACjnl
— Steve Bowler (@gameism) October 8, 2020
Love that the homestretch of this election is just a sick man, roided out of his mind, desperately lying to voters he’s already lost in front of a shitty Tosh.0 green screen https://t.co/bsNfhnI6Vv
— Alex Blagg (@alexblagg) October 8, 2020
This feels like @timheidecker wrote up fake audition copy and asked an amateur actor to get himself camera ready and shoot it in front of a green screen. https://t.co/TBn3GQkWmD
— John Levenstein (@johnlevenstein) October 8, 2020
If you slow down the video, at 1:58 you can tell this is a green screen. https://t.co/Avhd2NjoPo pic.twitter.com/LYItrrChB2
— Female Orgasm Expert (@JarJarFan69) October 8, 2020
Wanted to see if the White House lawn could be used as a green screen. Turns out it can! But then I didn’t know what to do with it, so I decided to just put a compilation of animals humping at x 400 speed behind Trump. Enjoy. pic.twitter.com/cqdNmdyVaN
— Matthew Highton (@MattHighton) October 8, 2020
Marvel movies don’t use this much green screen. https://t.co/qlAboVmHMs
— Frank Conniff (@FrankConniff) October 8, 2020
— Douglas E. Fresh
(@dstorbe) October 8, 2020