6 things the GOP can learn from the virtual DNC
Shorter is indeed sweeter, but pay attention to those transitions
Good political conventions borrow, great political conventions steal. And in 2020, as both the Democrats and Republicans attempt to navigate putting on their first entirely virtual presidential nominating conventions, it was an unenviable position to be the first to go.
The Democrats, though, were mostly praised for their smooth and tightly-edited event last week — and hopefully the Republicans were taking note ahead of their own convention, which begins on Monday. Here are six things the GOP should learn from the Democrats' virtual success.
1. Shorter is indeed sweeter
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The Democrats ran a tight ship, managing to fill their two-hour nightly event while also ensuring nothing felt like filler. The effect was achieved largely by limiting the amount of time guests were allowed to speak. With the exception of keynote speeches from Michelle Obama, Barack Obama, Kamala Harris, and Joe Biden, most of the nights' segments were limited to only being a few minutes long. While the Democrats' rising progressive star, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), was controversially only given 60 seconds to speak at the convention, the short time slots prevented viewers' attention from ever flagging, and meant only the most distilled talking points made it on TV. Additionally, it resulted in easily-shareable clips that still managed to get the Democrats' takeaways — chiefly, that Biden is a swell guy — across.
The Republicans go into their convention in a trickier position, in part because their runtime will be a half hour longer every night (events will start at 8:30 p.m. ET, as opposed to 9 p.m.). Additionally, President Trump is scheduled to speak all four evenings, and he isn't exactly the briefest or most concise of speakers. Since Democrats delivered a crisp performance, Republicans run the risk of looking sloppy (a particularly touchy subject for them).
2. Decide on a tone and stick with it
Actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus was put in the losing position of having to MC an event on Thursday that never settled on what tone it wanted to strike. The fourth night of the Democrats' convention fluctuated between trying to be upbeat and funny with Louis-Dreyfus' awards show-esque monologues, while also airing somber tributes to the late John Lewis and clips of Biden discussing the death of his son Beau. The contrast was not only jarring, it felt uncomfortably close to mockery. "Politics is serious business," observed Damon Linker for The Week, adding, "to try and mix that up with howls of laughter shows stunningly bad judgment."
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Tonal consistency would have helped. The Republicans will have to decide on the mood they intend to strike night-by-night: Uplifting? Cautionary? Serious? Celebratory? Fluctuating between touting America as doing great and America being a lawless mess will only give audiences whiplash.
3. Make even the "boring" shots interesting to watch
Prior to the Democratic National Convention, critics fretted that watching the virtual show would be akin to sitting on a two-hour Zoom call, and nobody wanted that. The producers of the convention landed on a great solution: don't make the convention look like a Zoom call. Make it look like you're watching TV instead.
When filming TV and movies, directors use subtle techniques to keep exposition scenes from growing stale; think about the "shot-reverse-shot" technique that directors use during a conversation between two people, which always gives viewers a new face to watch speak or react (during a normal convention speech, this might be replicated by using crowd shots). Because the Democrats, though, weren't talking to anyone, the convention kept the speeches fresh by changing camera angles, like when Michelle Obama and Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto were speaking.
Even the tiniest bit of movement can help, though. When former President Obama was delivering his 20-minute speech, the camera slowly zoomed in on him, "enhancing the effect that he was speaking directly to you about something of grave importance," journalist Timothy Burke pointed out:
Something as simple as an interesting background could potentially be enough to keep people engaged at home. Even if the content of speeches is gripping, though, a fixed shot of a person talking still might put you to sleep.
4. There's no dishonor in pre-taped segments
President Trump bashed the Democrats' decision to use occasional pre-taped convention segments, slamming Michelle Obama in particular for her recorded speech. "Frankly, she should've made the speech live, which she didn't do," Trump said. "She taped it." But as CNN points out, "In insisting almost everything happen live … Trump risks what some GOP convention planners fear could be technical issues or timing awkwardness that can't be edited out."
The Democrat's convention went almost seamlessly due in large part to their use of pre-taped segments, which cut down on the complicated orchestration of varied personal video feeds from around the country. After all, even something as simple as the reliability of an individual person's internet connection on a given night could lead to low-quality sound and footage that takes away from the overall polish of the event.
While Trump surely wants his convention to feel organic, there is no shame in erring on the side of caution, especially when the Democrats have already set the bar high for production levels.
5. Even the best-produced infomercials are still glorified commercials
In pivoting to their virtual convention, the Democrats relied on video segments that covered topics like gun control, the economy, and America's clean-energy future. Using glossy stock footage, the ads felt a little like inspiring Super Bowl commercials, with soaring music and iconic shots of waving grain and burly construction workers.
They also were the most disposable parts of any given night.
Conventions are supposed to feel like necessary viewing for voters, an occasion that has the same fleeting appeal as live sports — and the same urgency to be watched in real time. That usually isn't a problem in normal years, when the speeches are live; running infomercial segments between speakers, on the other hand, gave the 2020 convention the feeling of an endless advertisement. And an advertisement isn't urgent; you'll probably see it again the next commercial break.
The ad-like segments also failed to have the same influence as a person speaking compellingly about a given issue. The gun control video, for example, featured footage of various sites of mass shootings, with a voice-over by student activist and school shooting survivor Emma González. But González is a fantastic speaker; the DNC did themselves a disservice by not just having her on as a regular guest.
Plus, as The New York Times' Charlie Warzel notes, "There is a LOT of time to fill and a lot of montage opportunities and I really have no idea what [the GOP's] version of this looks like beyond like five 'antifa is coming to your town' videos." Please spare us.
6. It's not going to feel like a live convention no matter what you do — so don't force it
Trump dragged his feet, but finally conceded that Republicans couldn't hold an in-person convention due to the dangers of COVID-19 (he will, however, still accept the Republican nomination in North Carolina, where the convention was set to take place before Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper said he couldn't guarantee a full-capacity event due to mounting local cases). But trying to pretend like the convention is something that it's not only serves to exacerbate the weirdness of the times, not overcome it.
The Democrats learned this the hard way. Kamala Harris delivered her vice presidential acceptance speech from a gapingly empty auditorium; she was applauded at the end by a screen of Hollywood Squares-style faces set up beside the podium, which made all her waving and pointing (at whom?) even more awkward. While conventions normally conclude with applause and balloon drops, creativity was missing in this case (Joe Biden's parking lot of honking cars the next night was a cute, if still not quite perfect, improvement).
The good news is, a virtual event opens up possibilities that never could have been executed at a normal convention — the Democrats' roll call of states, with participants appearing from locations all around the country, was one particularly delightful improvement, for example.
Now it will be up to the Republicans to see what they can make of their own opportunity.
Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.