Inside the arena, Springsteen is walking around the empty seats, a microphone in his hand, giving stage directions.
Empty House, Big Microphone Mr. Gingrich's arrival in Congress coincided with the rise of C-Span, the cable channel that televised House proceedings, and he figured out early on how to combine his gift for oratory with the power of the camera.
At one point, the players ceded the stage to Mr. Bracken, whose corrosive "REAL ADULT" repurposed a snare drum as a resonating chamber for feedback made with an empty mixing board, a microphone dangled from Mr. Bracken's teeth, and other rude implements.
In between weather, traffic and headlines came the occasional peek at an empty lectern bristling with microphones.
A film of birds eating now plays in her otherwise empty studio, while live microphones pick up ambient outdoor sounds, including the cry of gulls wheeling around the Clocktower.
Next to the microphone was an empty canvas chair with "Stanley Kubrick" painted on its back in fading black letters.
Mrs. Clinton's statement, which she delivered standing before a microphone in an empty hotel conference room in Louisville, Ky., came later, and was shown far less often.
Meanwhile, teachers' union officials took the list of scheduled speakers — mostly earnest and unhappy parents and teachers — and called them to the microphone to speak to the empty board seats.
In "Father and Sons," filmed at the Rev. Al Sharpton's National Action Network House of Justice, a group of African-American teenagers and a police officer stand at a microphone in a room of empty chairs.
He stood near the wood railing overlooking a dozen rows of reporters, hoisting an empty bottle in one hand and a microphone in the other.
