Coming soon: Meet John Crispin, Demopublican for U.S. president

Eight years ago, I made a short film and it had a successful run at 20 smaller film festivals. It even won a few awards. Since then, it’s been viewed more than 300,000 times on YouTube. It’s finally time to make another one.

I never dreamed I’d wait this long to get serious about making another film, but work has finally begun.

The working title is “John Crispin for President.” It’s a short parody of a political film for a presidential candidate of the “Demopublican Party.” Not only is Crispin willing to promise absolutely anything to anyone in order to pander for votes, but he also has a very serious and glaring physical flaw — which everyone completely ignores since he’s a powerful man.

The primary point is to satirize candidates who are willing to promise the moon to voters, but the secondary point is that a candidate can be completely flawed in obvious and serious ways, but few in the mainstream even seem to notice.

I’ll be launching a fundraising campaign on Indiegogo to raise some money to make it, so you’ll be hearing me talk about that when the sample footage is shot and we have a promotional video. Indiegogo is similar to Kickstarter, but I like the way the service works better.

I’m not going to spoil what Crispin’s major flaw is, but bringing it to the screen requires very specialized special effects makeup. Finding the person who can produce the look I need has been holding the project up for a couple of years, but I finally found a makeup artist recently who specializes in what the character requires. I think you’ll find the candidate’s look funny and outrageous at the same time. It’s something that might help in making the piece go viral online when it’s out. I have my fingers crossed.

I’m meeting Saturday with the actor I hope to cast for the lead role. I’m not going to mention who he is until he’s on board for sure, but I’m really excited about what he can potentially bring to the film. In addition to being a very talented actor, he’s also a director himself, so he will bring a special understanding of the acting required to pull off this part.

I know who I’d like to hire as director of photography, but I don’t yet whether she’s going to be available or interested. Other than the lead actor, the cinematographer is the most important person to making it what I need it to be. I’ll be looking for a production manager, video editor, sound recordist and various other people, but unless the fundraising is successful, none of the rest will matter. So that’s what I’m focusing on first. I have in mind a short sales piece involving Crispin that I think might be funny and compelling.

Can you tell I’m excited to finally talk about this? Yeah, I really am.

The process of making a film feels like launching yourself over a high cliff and building an airplane as you’re falling, while trying to conceal from others that you didn’t bring airplane plans or parts with you, so you’re improvising the whole way. We’ll see soon what it produces this time.

Most of us know that there’s little difference between the mainstream statist parties, so why not support a candidate who fits on either side? I’m really looking forward to introducing you to John Crispin in the months ahead. I hope you’ll eventually be almost as excited about it as I am.

I’ll let you know when there’s more to tell.