Former WWE Vice President of Global TV Production Mike Mansury was recently interviewed by Conrad Thompson as he spoke about how The Shield inspired camera cuts throughout all WWE television events, pay-per-views, and so on. He said,
“I will choose to protect the nameless person, but I will say the rapid camera cutting, to my recollection, that came into play when The Shield debuted. The whole purpose behind it, was to make what you see on-screen with the three characters of The Shield and the push, was to make it seem all that more chaotic. At the time, it worked. I can see now, after so many years of doing it, a lot of viewers feel like they’re on a queasy thrill ride, but that was the intent of it initially. A lot of it is done to protect the magic. You don’t want to expose the business. A big part of the business is how it’s done on TV. If you’re exposing the magic, you’re killing the fun for everybody. That’s the approach and the rapid camera cut situation, it was born out of creating an exciting and chaotic feel for when The Shield were doing the three-on-one beatdowns early in their run. It’s hard to break some habits, but shoutout to the gentleman who shares my initials who created that concept.”
