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Our provocative, funny 1-minute video, “I Am a Liberal,” is now available online.
Making this was just a blast. I produced and directed. Producing is all about the team, and we had great people. I just want to go on and on talking about all of them, but I’ll try to be brief. Via Geoff Lancaster of production company Shoot LA, we found Director of Photography Christian Hurley. Christian was awesome. The lights, the colors, the camera moves—this show really looks great. On the second day of our 2-day shoot, Christian had a “real,” aka paying job, and he brought us Scotty Battle, who did fantastic stuff. The strip club we shot in on that day looks great.
Moxie did Assistant Producing. That’s right—many of you just read her, but I actually am friends with her. She was great. Everything she said she was going to do happened. She cast the really hard-to-cast part of the Activist Guy (see Cathy’s blog for more info—let’s just say Luke Ford wasn’t available.) In addition to Assistant Producing, she handled Costumes, Hair and Makeup—and took killer stills for publicity.
Our web site is being handled by Elliot McGucken, of the Jolly Roger web sites. As many of my readers know, these sites discuss great books and philosophy, and get 500,000 unique visitors a month.
Bob Gould was our location guru and gave an outstanding performance as The Professor. Bob’s been a professional Location Manager for many years, and has appeared as an actor in many films, including 9 for director Alan Rudolph. I can’t tell you how much Bob did for the show. The production values we got due to his locations are wonderful. He found us a parking lot to shoot the carjacking sequence in that was empty all day, and had the perfect seedy look. He recommended the strip club, which looks supercool, and the perfect place to shoot the Activist Guy scene, a street that was almost an alley where we wouldn’t get too much attention.
Our Line Producer was Clark Baker. Clark is a former Police Officer, and current Private Eye. He’d never done film before but he’s run many operations including up to 40 people, for both the police and for the military. He coordinated to make sure everyone had what they needed and was in the right place at the right time. You can’t even imagine how key this is until you do one of these. The entire day before the shoot Clark and I were the nerve center of the production, instant-messaging throughout the day and solving every question and tracking every detail. One of the biggest compliments I got on the shoot was when Clark told me he’d managed teams that had actually taken weapons fire—both in the military and with LAPD—and some of them weren’t as cohesive as the team I put together for this.
I wish I could go into this much detail about every single person. Brooke Dammkoehler handled our contracts, and made sure we did everything necessary to be fully SAG-compliant, which was key to getting our actors, many of whom are SAG members. Scottie brought Key Electrican Darryl, who made it possible to move quickly on lights and get the special camera moves we were looking for. Robert Light heard about what we were doing at the Ann Coulter event and decided he wanted to be part of it. Coming back to LA after 7pm the night before the first day of the shoot, he scored us some key equipment we needed for a cool shot in the carjacking sequence. It wasn’t exotic equipment but we needed it big-time for the shot. I’ll tell you what it is later after you see the spot.
And that brings us to the cast. I’ve already talked about Bob Gould. We were all just kind of in awe of what he was doing.
Casting Mike Kimmel as the Carjacker was inspired. I got so many compliments from people just for casting him. I’ve known Mike for years, and he’s a great comic actor. He does a lot of skits on Leno.
I wish I could go on in detail about all the actors. James Elden nailed the Activist Guy. Ed Dyer was so funny as the Driver in the carjacking scene. When Lance Frank showed up to be the Heroin Addict, he came straight from the set of JAG. He looked totally army—buffed, straight hair, etc. We thought, no way. He’ll never fit the part. But Clark had the exact kind of Pendleton shirt that addicts wear to hide the marks on their arms. Clark’s arrested quite a few of them, and he was able to train Lance in how to act like a real addict. Moxie did perfect makeup to give him hollow eyes and cheeks. Then Lance nailed the performance.
Paul Lauden and Kerry Stein came to the production via my friend Brad Heller, who teaches acting, and they both did us proud. Doris is a wonderful, sweet girl from Georgia, and nailed the part on the first take. Nia, our exotic dancer, had all the moves, and was a real trooper over multiple takes of the shot where she winds up upside-down. She’s acted in several TV movies and she did the part just right.
We found Paul McKellips on the East Coast near The Leadership Institute, a journalism school, that provided our news desk set. I’m on the West Coast, and I actually had to direct that shot—the performance and the camera move—long distance, by phone. I was on the phone listening all the time they were doing takes, talking to Paul and the crew. Amazingly, it came out great. Paul gave a perfect performance.
Then we were lucky yet again in finding our editor, David Harris. He knows Ann Coulter, and Ann recommended him. I had a rough assemblage of picked takes, and I called him up. At first we thought we wouldn’t be able to work with him, because we were cutting on Bob’s Final Cut Pro installation, and David’s an Avid editor. But I had learned Final Cut Pro the day before—astonishing both David and Bob, who’d never seen anyone learn it that fast. (I’m good at software.) So David came over, and told me what cuts to make. It was a revelation to me. Every cut he made was brilliant. I kept telling him that too the whole time.
We had a great time making it. We try to be funny, but we also have a serious point to make. It’s not that the people we show are representative of typical Liberals. It’s about poking fun at some of the pronouncements of the Left.
I hope you enjoy seeing it.
#1
#2Our spot was made before the national debate on values, and almost seems to have predicted it. From a post-election article by Al Rantel:
In sum, the American people see the very values that they want their children to grow up with and that made America the greatest nation on Earth not only devalued and derided, but under full assault by nihilists on the left from the counter culture that sprung up during Vietnam. John Kerry was part of that counter culture and most Americans knew that in their gut.Most American voters imagined what a Supreme Court would look like with three of four Justices appointed by the liberal Senator from Massachusetts and they acted. They imagined a country where the likes of Michael Moore and amoral Hollywood are the heart and soul and they revolted. They imagined a country whose motto went from "In God We Trust" to "If It Feels Good Do It."
It's cool to be on the same wavelength as this great LA radio pundit.
#3Charlemagne, thanks for viewing the spot. How do you see Abe Lincoln as a liberal? He was not a Democrat. Do you see him as a liberal in some other way?
I'm not laughing at your "cleverness", btw - because it's lacking.
Abe Lincoln was a liberal. now, get real - and for good measure, get a clue.