in what has mostly been a demoralizing presidential race, there has been at least one reliable bright spot: <u+201c>bad lip reading.<u+201d> <u+201c>blr,<u+201d> as it is known, is a collection of popular dubbed-over youtube videos featuring the candidates made to sound as if they are speaking gibberish. a video from the first presidential debate between the republican presidential nominee, donald j. trump , and the democratic presidential nominee, hillary clinton , are made to appear as contestants in a game show hosted by lester holt, anchor of nbc<u+2019>s <u+201c>nightly news.<u+201d> that video, which has been viewed nearly seven million times, features a segment of <u+201c>i can do this!<u+201d> in which mr. trump makes bird calls and mrs. clinton sings. a video from the second presidential debate portrayed the candidates as being in a slam poetry contest. (<u+201c>there was always parts of birds in our ice cream,<u+201d> are the opening words from a poem put into the mouth of mr. trump.) <u+201c>bad lip reading<u+201d> does not limit its parody work to politics. the videos have also skewered sports , television shows and movies . but the presidential race has provided a bounty of material for the creator of <u+201c>bad lip reading,<u+201d> who works in several fields and does not reveal his identity for that reason. in an email interview, he discussed the presidential race, sources of inspiration and life after election day. in an interview in august 2015 , you said: <u+201c>maybe some of the new g.o.p. batch will grow on me, but as of right now they seem slightly less interesting. though i guess trump has enough color for the whole group.<u+201d> how has this presidential campaign surprised you? this election has certainly provided a lot of material to work with, which has been great and a little overwhelming. there was just so much footage. i still think the candidates from the last presidential election were more interesting in general, though i had fun tackling this batch. i was surprised to find that bernie sanders and ted cruz were the candidates i had the most fun with. bernie, in particular, is such a distinctive character. interestingly, i<u+2019>ve found it more of a challenge to work with trump footage. i think part of it is that he is already somewhat comical and broad, which can make bad lip reading a bit less effective from where i<u+2019>m sitting. it still works, but just not as well as it does with say a ted cruz or mitt romney. the more serious a person<u+2019>s public persona, the better the results are when putting nonsense in their mouths. at least that<u+2019>s how i feel from a creative standpoint. how do these candidates stack up in terms of their mannerisms, facial expressions and gestures? would you have preferred to see a different matchup for comedic purposes? hands down, bernie sanders is the king of gesticulation and provided so much good material. his mannerisms and speaking cadence were a dream to work with. i actually ended up basing an entire segment around the physical gestures he made while simply listening to hillary clinton talk; he wasn<u+2019>t even speaking, he was just physically reacting to what she said, and it resulted in one of my personal favorite pieces from the election ( <u+201c>time to act<u+201d> ). i enjoy working with hillary footage, primarily because it<u+2019>s just nice to have a female character in there for a change. good to have the contrast with all the male characters. i actually would have liked to have done more with ben carson. i feel like that was a missed opportunity. his sort of gentle, halting speech pattern was fun to work with. where did you find the inspiration for some of the nonsense sentences and noises for the debates? as with most of my videos, the inspiration comes from simply spending time staring at the footage with the sound off until certain phrases emerge. simple as that. those phrases can then inspire an overall direction for the piece or segment, and then i start digging for related lines. or completely unrelated lines. anything goes. in the case of the first presidential debate, the game show concept was largely inspired by the format of the debate and the stage design, as well as the general tone of this entire election. in the second debate video, the idea for a poetry slam came primarily from trump<u+2019>s initial cadence that night. at the start of the evening, he was clearly trying to restrain himself, which resulted in a sort of stiff and measured line delivery that was very atypical for him. when reviewing the footage, it occurred to me that he looked like he was reciting something, and his poem <u+201c>my garden<u+201d> was born. what will you do after the election? it will be a little sad to see the election season end, but i have so many projects in the works, bad lip reading and otherwise. i think i currently have something like 10 or 11 bad lip reading videos in various stages of completion. i<u+2019>ll just be working to finish those. some of them are things my fans have been asking for for a long time, some of them are surprises. this interview has been edited and condensed.
creator of <u+2018>bad lip reading<u+2019> videos says 2016 election has defied parody
christopher mele