Obama
Watch This: GOOD Magazine Breaks Down Fundraising for the First Billion Dollar Race for the White House
Fundraising flunkies and compliance junkies:
Check out this great motion piece breaking down the who’s got the bucks and where the cash comes from in the first $1,000,000,000 campaign.
Brought to you by the great folks at GOOD Magazine.
Talking Shop: My Appearance on Wilshire & Washington’s BlogTalkRadio Show
Shameless self-promotion alert!!!
Tonight I bellied up to the pundit bar and appeared as a guest on the BlogTalkRadio edition of the excellent blog Wilshire & Washington.
Maegan Carberry, who I met on the Obama campaign invited suckered me into a rough Q&A by herself and Variety Editor-At-Large Ted Johnson.
I don’t know who keeps telling people that I know what I’m talking about (It’s me.), but I can’t say I dislike the attention.
For a refresher course on my past punditry, take a look at the clips below from my appearances on KNBC Los Angeles’ NewsConference…
Back With A Vengeance
I took a little while away to go work day-to-day on the Obama campaign in California.
Now I’m back.
The video above is the last piece I released, capturing the excitement from Barack’s supporters outside his debate with Senator Clinton at the Kodak theater on January 31st.
A Stirring Coda – Will.I.am’s Yes We Can video
Though the contest will continue on all the way to Denver, we are just days from 22 states casting their votes and going to caucus.
This contest has been elevated by great candidates, two of whom remain.
However you vote, wherever you stand, watch the video above.
Take a moment to think between now and Tuesday – or whenever your state votes – to think on the direction you wish for this country and this world.
Then please go vote.
The hopes of the little girl who goes to a crumbling school in Dillon are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of LA; we will remember that there is something happening in America; that we are not as divided as our politics suggests; that we are one people; we are one nation; and together, we will begin the next great chapter in America’s story with three words that will ring from coast to coast; from sea to shining sea – Yes. We. Can.
Kid and Play were NOT in attendance, but Barack was on the phone.
Ah. The house party. Staple of organizing.
What once was a time for community to draw together in discussion, is now a chance for neighbors to sit and listen to a conference call together.
Because nothing forges neighborly bonds like deciding who gets to say their name before pressing pound.
Press one if you are fired up. Press two if you’re ready to go.
Presidential Debates and the Special Olympics…
…What are places where everyone is the winner, Alex?
Wait! Before you think Edwards ran away with the debate, here’s a clip saying how great Obama was:
And since everyone was the winner yesterday, here’s a clip that the Clinton campaign has put out:
So, in three clips from three campaigns – all culled from the same news segment – we have three winners. Rashomon, anyone?
BONUS!!! Here’s a clip from Fox News where Edwards is the winner!
Since he has clips from two networks, does that make Edwards the real winner here?
Obama “Green Gathering” Trailer
I’ve been going through old videos, looking at the campaigns’ work with an eye toward a year-end wrap up. One that I just watched that I had missed before was this piece from the Obama camp.
This video (like their Iowa J-J invitation piece, and others) shows the great creativity that every campaign draws. Even (perhaps especially) the Gravel operation has created interesting, different and creative work.
Campaigns without resources can make up for it in creativity online.
The lower resource barriers of web video production make adventurous pieces like these a lot less risky. A “why not try it” spirit not only makes for interesting videos (though they won’t all be winners!), but also fits well with candidates who a selling “freshness.” Heck, they can even help candidates selling “experience” not seem so stale…
So why not more of them?
InfoMania on Presidential Vids
InfoMania – a series of “pods” on Current_ – takes a look at campaign videos in this segment that I saw on thre tube a day or two ago.
As the year – and primary season – head down the stretch, I expect a lot of these video roundups.
I may even have to make one of my own.
Five Candidate Pile-Up: Hillary Clinton’s “Politics of Pile On” Video
Following up on last nights Democratic debate in Philadelphia, Senator Hillary Clinton’s campaign released this video where a bunch of mean male Senators gang up on her. Not included in the video: the portion of the debate where the near-perfectly disciplined Clinton got banged around a little on the issue of drivers licenses for undocumented workers.
UPDATE: Hillary didn’t have her drivers license answer in that clip, but – staying mean – the Edwards campaign put it out there:
Not Just About Decorating and Dinners: Potential U.S. First Ladies sit down with Mrs. Governator
At her huge annual Women’s Conference, California First Lady Maria Shriver hosts a discussion with Elizabeth Edwards, Michelle Obama, Cindy McCain, Ann Romney, and Jeri Thompson. It’s a long piece, but – at least if you believe Shriver – it’s the first time anything like this has ever happened. So, if you’ve got an hour, take a look.
Despite being married to the man who bounced my old boss – Gray Davis – from office, I’ve never had a beef with Shriver. In fact, she sent the nicest gift basket the day after the Recall. Very classy.
Your Words, Your Supporters’ Mouths
After my frivolous post with the “Cooter” video, I felt I should pay respects to the great video work of the Edwards campaign by posting the clip you see above, instead of just being silly (and a little stir crazy).
Edwards folks have long done an excellent job of integrating real folks into their web video pieces. This video keeps up that tradition.
It’s not uncommon to see interviews with and testimonials from supporters in videos from most of the campaigns. Usually they’re talking about how great the candidate it. With this video (and the “We The People” project earlier in the campaign) Edwards has done things a little differently – using his supporters to carry his water in a more direct fashion.
The Obama campaign used this technique well not too long ago, putting the words of the Senator’s five-year-old speech denouncing the war in Iraq into the mouths of several supporters.
I like this clip, a lot – mostly because it is almost exactly how I would have made it. Or maybe I blacked out and made it – like Tyler Durden setting up franchises around the country. My dark side, at work! If I were to do anything differently, it would be to get more geographic diversity in the clip, and to share the peoples’ names and where they are from.
This is where ubiquitous use of video across your campaign’s many departments pays off. I’m guessing the Obama campaign knew long in advance that they were going to focus on this speech around the time of it’s anniversary. Whether it was Communications, Political…or whoever! Somebody knew this was coming.
Letting the BarackTV crew know ahead of time would allow them to grab a line or two in every city and town he stopped at in the few weeks prior. As it was release, most of the lines look like they were filmed in New York – where he made a big end-of-quarter stop in September. There are a few that look like Iowa. A few weeks notice could have turned this piece into a national chorus, singing in 50 part harmony to the tune of his speech.
Like any other department, campaign video outfits benefit from more prep time. Get them in early, and a better film will come out.
Their Change and Mine: Getting OffTheBus with Obama Canvassers
As part of their groundbreaking crowdsourced-coverage program, OffTheBus, the good folks at Huffington Post put out a call for coverage of the Obama campaign’s Canvass for Change over the past weekend. Here’s my contribution to their effort.
I’ve loved shooting the grassroots in this election cycle; at Edwards and Clinton events, at the California Democratic Convention, and at Obama’s Camp Obama in Burbank and national canvassing activities. While I’m used to turning my lens on the candidates who are the “head” of the movement, their is something tremendously inspiring about getting out there with the “body” of activists, after too many years at a desk in HQ.
I’ll stay “OffTheBus” (though the bus I was on was usually the candidate’s bus, rather than the press bus HuffPo refers to!), to cover what’s happening in the energized Democratic grassroots. Check back here for the latest releases.
My Dinner With Andre…actually, Barack
Last quarter the Obama campaign went through stories sent in by their grassroots contributors to form a quartet that would sit down with the Senator over dinner to discuss the race and our nation.
I sometimes want to doubt these things – that it may have been part gimmick, part list-building tool, or part fund-raising ploy – and I don’t know how much of Obama’s massive grassroots financing effort came through the Dinner With Barack contest. In the end the intent and the numbers don’t matter, as it made for great online viewing.
It became a unique time all of us got to spend with the Senator.
Before releasing the clip of the actual dinner, the BarackTV team released a series of pieces talking to the dinner guests. We got a chance to meet them, to actually see their lives, to hear their stories, and to get a feel for what draws them to Obama.
Knowing a bit about the guests made the dinner video more effective, featuring the supporters as characters rather than props in the story.
The dinner itself went very well. This experience was quite different from what you usually get from campaign videos. It was quiet, personal, humorous, and conversational.
If there was anything I’d have done differently, it would have been to combine the guest footage with the dinner into a slightly larger piece, and to talk to Obama separately from the dinner, not unlike the talks with the guests. Get his point of view on what it takes to run a campaign from the bottom up.
Maybe a clip like that is still in the pipeline. Who knows?
But, bravo to the BarackTV folks! Bully for you for a cool project.
T&A at TBD: Looking for Obama Girl with Max Blumenthal at Take Back America
You may have seen Max Blumenthal’s words at The Nation or HuffPo. Or, if you were at this week’s Take Back America conference, you might have seen him conducting interesting interviews of such folks as Mike Gravel, Rev. Al Sharpton or “Obama Girl” Amber Lee Ettinger.
Actually, he never found Obama Girl at the event – but made sure to ask lots of people where she could be tracked down.
It appears the conference organizers were a little nervous about Blumenthal’s artistry, as he explains in this excerpt from his personal blog:
With over a thousand people waiting to view my film, my videographer, Thomas Shomaker, and I were whisked backstage. There, conference organizers told us “technical†problems made our screening impossible. I was finally told that our film was too “edgy.†In it I interviewed participants at the conference, including Ralph Nader, Al Sharpton, Mike Gravel, bloggers from Atrios to Matt Stoller, and activists. I suspect that its good-natured humor failed to meet a threshold of dull earnestness. Judge for yourself. Watch the film now. (MaxBlumenthal.com)
Don’t worry Max. Like all great artists, people will appreciate this video after you’re dead.
For a refresher on Blumenthal’s history in political conference filmmaking, check out his piece from CPAC:
Disappearing Edwards Videos – One Case for Brightcove
On Technology Evangelist, Benjamin J. Higginbotham…
…which reminds me of a story – my only known encounter with the CIA!…
…but anyway…
Higginbotham writes on the value of using Brightcove as opposed to YouTube for your campaign’s primary video outlet. While rightly suggesting the use ofall of the social video sites (including Blip.tv, Revver and Ustream.TV), he sites one major strength of Brightcove…the ability to post your videos on a time-delayed basis:
Being able to pre-record a message and schedule it to go live at an exact time can give your campaign the extra edge it may need vs waiting for YouTube to convert your video whenever it darn well pleases. (Technology Evangelist)
He is absolutely right. Brightcove has better control and quality – and the simple convenience of choosing your own thumbnail (long overdue from YouTube). But, in a world where timing is so critical imagine the stress relief of uploading on Monday, knowing that the video will appear – as if by magic! – at a predetermined time on Thursday!
One campaign wishing it had this ability may be the Edwards campaign – who have been cranking out videos lately…with some of them disappearing after they pop to those of us using RSS to monitor their feeds.
If you click on the player above, you find that the video has been turned private. But not before it turned up in my feed reader – and on the blog of Jeff Jarvis, PrezVid. Did Jarvis’ snark drive this video into privacy?
Another example popped up in my reader not long ago, going hand in hand with a push email the Edwards camp is making today urging people to demand him on Eventful.com.
The video has now been removed, but the cat is out of the bag. When will the clip reappear?
I suppose the moral of the story is that while YouTube is the biggest microphone in the online video world it has it’s drawbacks. So, consider Brightcove (or Blip.tv – which the Obama campaign has recently added…you can get Obama on iTunes now!). You’ll get better quality, more control, the ability to choose your still – YouTube really needs to fix this! – and the restful knowledge that you will control when people see your clips…not the unreliable speed of YouTube’s upload system.