Did I forget anyone? Musicians, maybe.
Ever think that there might be more talented and creative libertarians in Hollywood* than just Drew Carey, John Carpenter, and Kurt Russell? I hope so. If you aren't quite that famous yet and you want to practice your craft or learn a new one, we hope you'll join us.
Introducing FLICC (Freedom Loving Individuals Creating Content)
The daring concept: That we can get more done together than separately.
During last year's Super Bowl, the government debuted their offensive "drug use might help terrorists" campaign. Within two weeks, I had written, filmed, edited, and presented a Public Service Announcement (PSA) to counter the government's propaganda. It helped that the Libertarian Party of California had their convention two weeks after the Super Bowl and I had people readily available and willing to read my lines and the only thing I needed was a black backdrop. If you see the spot, http://homepage.mac.com/ebowers/iMovieTheater1.html, you may recognize Doug Scribner (co-creator of the award-winning South Park/Kubby for Governor spot) and Mark Selzer (host of the Libertarian Alternative TV show and guest of the June Cain Miller show Sundays on KRLA 870). This was the premise of FLICC in action: Folks used to producing their own stuff were helping someone else out by reading a line or working the camera. The same teaming of resources was evident at the national convention where we interviewed a number of LP luminaries and up-and-comers, including a Clinton impersonator.
Unless you have your own camera with tripod and are Rich Little or Eddie Murphy playing all the roles, you need some help. Otherwise, great ideas for entertaining and provocative PSA's, Saturday Night Live-type skits, Daily Show-type news bits, or whatever else creative that you can think of are just going to remain visions in your head, unrealized, when they could be actual cool works of (dare I say) art for all the world to see.
FLICC will be a talent pool that we can all draw upon for media projects. Simply tell us who you are, what your skills are, what your interests are, and give us your contact information. Soon we hope to put you to work (or be working for you). At this stage, we are mostly at the There is no pay/Public Access level. To quote the email auto signature of Mark Selzer, "Public access is the basic grass roots minimum we should be doing." But that is just the beginning. When we create something worth looking at we need to be able to deliver it to more than a few hundred websurfers or a few thousand cable access aficionados. Public Access is an avenue that is available to us now and still underutilized. But that should be the training ground, not the destination. After all, cable is losing viewers to satellite. We want to raise our level of exposure. Raising the quality of the product will do that. It is my hope that FLICC will have creative people practicing their craft and getting their ideas realized on a regular basis, so that they develop their talents and build their resumes and get us to the point where people's definition of libertarian doesn't depend on Bill Maher or even Larry Elder.
At this point, I should let you know that while I am the head of the Media Relations Committee of the Libertarian Party of California and as such I have informed the Executive Committee of my intentions in creating FLICC, this is not an LPC subset. This effort will be independent (love that word) of the LPC and of other media endeavors such as libertarianTV.com or Watchdog Network News or The Third Wheel Group. If you want to make commercials for a candidate's campaign, that's great and our resources may help. But keep in mind that the kind of media we produce does not necessarily have to be limited to something that you would feel comfortable tagging the Statue of Liberty logo or www.lp.org on the end of. (<--Ending a sentence with a preposition; just an example of the kind of literary license you will have when you join FLICC!) You don't have to belong to the Libertarian Party, just be ... well ... a creative freedom loving individual.
Current project needs include: a location that looks like a TV or radio studio; people (male and female) to play the roles of producer, director, script girl (or person), make-up person (could even be played by a make-up person!), mother, and young (adolescent or pre-adolescent) son (possibly to be played by an actual mother and son). And we could always use a Clinton impersonator. (Who doesn't?!)
*Hollywood is Southern California or anywhere else creative people are creative. We will be centered in the L.A. area, but not necessarily exclusive to it. We have no intention of limiting ourselves or, as Mel Gibson so eloquently put it, "our FREEDOM!"
Thank you,
Edward Bowers