It was a video that was supposed to elicit soaring patriotism and real emotions about the Pledge of Allegiance. But to do that, it used fake soldiers and a staged military funeral instead of the real thing.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday night, 15-year-old Victoria Blackstone, a sophomore at the St. Agnes School in St. Paul, led the crowd at the Xcel Energy Center in the Pledge of Allegiance. The audience heard her 434-word essay, \u201cPledging myself to the Flag of the United States of America,\u201d an essay she\u2019d entered in the \u201cWave the Stars & Stripes\u201d essay contest and won. The RNC turned that essay into a three and a half minute video, a visually stirring montage rolling over Victoria\u2019s words about sharing the Pledge with Americans who have stood at important moments in history.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s the Continental Congress\u2026A real WWII vet\u2026Photos of workers at Ground Zero. A close-up of a folded flag presented to a grieving widow at a military funeral\u2026 profiles of soldiers swelling with pride in slo-motion.<\/p>\n
But CBS News<\/strong> found that the footage of the \u2018funeral\u2019 and soldiers is what is called \u2018stock\u2019 footage. The soldiers were actors and the funeral scene was from a one-day film shoot, produced in June. No real soldiers were used during production.<\/p>\n The footage, sold by stock-film house Getty Images<\/a> was produced by a commercial filmmaker in Chicago. Both Getty and the production company, Mr. Big Films, confirmed that the footage was shot on spec and sold to the Republican National Committee<\/a>.<\/p>\n One of the actors, Perry Denton of Chicago, Ill. also confirmed that he was hired on a day-rate as an actor for the shoot and told CBS News<\/strong> he was surprised to learn the footage was shown at the convention.<\/p>\n