Friday, August 14, 2020

SUBLIMINAL ADVERTISING
Trump used sound effects from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre for his latest campaign ad

Posted by Greg Evans in ents

With the 2020 election looming Donald Trump has been putting a lot of effort into attacking his opponent Joe Biden, most of which involves posting videos about the Democrat on Twitter.

Some of these involve calling Biden's running mate a member of the 'radical left' which, for anyone with basic knowledge of the former vice president, feels like a bit of a stretch...

... Or sharing really odd computer-generated clips of trains, which is inexplicably soundtracked by Eddy Grant's 'Electric Avenue' that look like they were made on a Playstation 2.

However, one video, where he accuses Biden of being a racist (which seems a bit rich coming from Trump, to be honest) has caught the eye for a different reason.

The sound of a flashbulb from an old camera going off followed by an eerie sound that you can hear throughout the video is not an original sound that the Trump campaign has concocted for this video. It actually comes from the classic 1974 horror film The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The sound of the flashbulb can be heard in the intro of the movie. Watch the below video and listen out for the identical sound at around one minute 40 seconds

Warning: Given the nature of the film this video does contain some gruesome imagery so, not for the faint of heart.


The use of the distinctive sound has been noticed by a few people on Twitter who, like this writer, might have watched the film a few too many times.

With all this in mind, we have to question why Trump's team decided to use such a specific sound for the flashbulb when surely a stock sound from an audio library would have been available to them. On the contrary, this sound effect could be a piece of stock audio that the movie originally used. This leads us to Google, where literally the first result for '
flashbulb sound effect' is a YouTube video of the sound effect, specifically listed as being from the movie.

From this, we can suggest that whoever made this video for Trump might have done the exact same Google search and used the first link that they found. That would make sense.

Using audio from other sources is not uncommon for Trump, who has had videos removed from Twitter for using songs from bands like R.E.M as well as movies like The Dark Knight Rises. And it's unclear whether Trump of the video creator obtained permission to use this particular sound in this video.

indy100 has contacted the White House for comment to clear some of these questions up. If they respond, we'll let you know.






It's hardly a secret that Friedkin used subliminal imagery in the film to unsettle viewers, though he likes to say there are a lot of “bulls—t theories” out there. The truth is, he used the sound of bees in some early sequences, which triggers an innate fear response in most people.Oct 31, 2012

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Oct 10, 2016 - The fleeting shots were part of Friedkin's strategy to unnerve moviegoers using both visuals and sounds that he felt stood the best chance of ...

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Oct 24, 2017 - Let's take a look at the history of subliminal messages in ads with six ... Coca-Cola had used subliminal advertising in movie theaters to drive ...
May 26, 2011 - The birth of subliminal advertising as we know it dates to 1957 when a market researcher named James Vicary inserted the words "Eat Popcorn" and "Drink Coca-Cola" into a movie. The words appeared for a single frame, allegedly long enough for the subconscious to pick up, but too short for the viewer to be aware of it.
Jan 20, 2015 - On 12 September, 1957, at a studio in New York, a market researcher in the Mad Men mould called a press conference. James Vicary astonished the assembled reporters by announcing that he'd repeatedly flashed the slogans "Drink Coca-Cola" and "Eat popcorn" throughout a movie, too fast for conscious perception.

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