First, I want to thank everyone who watched our movie last night. I have seen it over 100 times, but last night watching it and knowing that so many people around the country were seeing it at the same time was amazing.
If you did see it and liked it, please go vote at the ITVS site for the audience awards:
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens / If you saw it and did not like it, thank you for taking the time to watch at least.
I am really interested to hear what people thought of it and to get ideas on how we can use this to inspire people to get involved in politics again.
We made the movie because we think that the story of Jeff's race tells a universal story about the influence of money and power in politics. The system is broken. The voting public does not pay attention to difficult issues; most people decide who they will vote on based on political ads (DUers are the exception to the rule). The media is more interested in selling ads than in informing voters about difficult issues. The existing establishment takes advantage of this because they have acess to the money to be able to compete in that environment. Special Interest Groups and large donors support the existing establishment because they want a return on their investment and fear politcal retribution.
When you put all that together, it is easy to see how we end up with a goverment that is bought and paid for by lobbyists.
We also think that the movie shows the power of committed individuals to overcome all of those obstacles. It gives a realistic look at the inside of an effective grassroots campaign.
So what are we doing with the film now?
We want as many people to see this film as possible. If you guys know of political groups, campaigns, school groups or others who may find the film inspiring, please encourage them to get a copy of the DVD and show it to their group. Even if someone just wants to show it to a group of neighbors, we want to see that happen. If groups want to do a showing and have us participate in a Q&A after the showing, we are willing to try to accomodate anyone who requests that. You can get in touch with us via our website www.mrsmithmovie.com.
We do have some very limited financial goals for this film. We need to make back our investment in the film (around $200,000) or my wife will not let me make any more films (same goes for my partners). Our next film is a movie about displaced New Orleans jazz musicians struggling to survive after hurricane Katrina. If we get back our investment on Mr. Smith, it goes right back into the next project.
We chose to show the movie on PBS and turned down significant amounts of cash to be able to broadcast on other outlets so that we could reach as large of an audience as possible. We also turned down money in distribution deals to be able to ensure the the film was available during the current election cycle. Distributors will often enforce a blackout period where the film is not on the market and we were not willing to accept that. We are marketing the film in the same grassroots manner that Jeff used in his campaign; direct word of mouth communication.
If you liked our movie, please help us spread the word about it. Encourage people to come to our website and buy the DVD or tell others about it. We really appreciate any help you can give us in getting the word out about this film.
Thank you DU!
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