There’s no trick, it’s just a little trick
By Scott Keith on 20 October 2023
In your WM IV review, you mentioned something about noticing that Andre didn't look as tall after seeing matches between Hogan and Big Show. As I've gotten older and smarter about the production tricks, I've noticed how brilliant WWE was with filming Andre with that “Andre shot” to really enhance his size (I also think the dimensions of Andre's features from the acromegaly added to that to). Are there any other WWE production techniques that you notice, especially now that you're probably more knowledgeable about how they do that stuff?
Yeah, for example the Kevin Dunn direction team used to be really great at shooting matches and doing cuts at exactly the right moment to make it look like something was far more impactful that it appeared to the live audience. Unfortunately over the years they got increasingly more lazy with it and it turned into the nightmare “zoom and cut” style that made the product literally unwatchable at times. But before it turned into that, they used to be amazing at disguising botched moves, as well as focusing on something else when someone was blading, or having just the right angle when a Jeff Hardy would be on top of the ladder in order to make it look like he was 40 feet in the air. That's the kind of stuff I really notice and appreciate in the boom years of the Attitude Era, and it's also the kind of stuff that WCW was never able to replicate properly and why their shows eventually looked so low-rent compared to the state of the art WWF ones in 2000. Which is funny because it was the exact opposite in 1996, with Turner's TV production people giving Nitro this sleek and updated look that still holds up today, while Vince was stuck in the garish 80s with RAW. But once Vince figured it out, WCW had no chance.
