In July, my friend Tim Watkins from Renegade Productions called and said “We’re going to be filming another Americans for Life event in Chicago. Are you available to produce another video for us?” And I said “I’d love to!”
About a week later, I got an email that said the footage was available and that we should meet to discuss the project. It concluded with
“Illinois is disgusted and embarrassed with its tired corrupt political apparatus. The Daleys, Blagojevich, Obama. They have sold their soul. Using what we shot of small town/middle America we have a couple parades where people hope for a better future, one that does not threaten the life of our children and their future.”
“Well, that sounds easy enough,” I thought to myself. And so it began.
I met Tim and got the footage and began the process of reviewing and cataloging the shots. Good stuff. This was the Lions Club annual Independence Day parade in Darien, IL and this year they were honoring those who serve — Police, Fire and Service personnel. The “Americans For Life” were participating in the parade. 
Renegade had two cameras running. There were some interviews with participants, some candidates running for various elected offices, and kids; happy kids.
So what about the whole political corruption thread? Of course I had heard of Rod Blagojevich, but since I am not from the Chicago area, I knew very little about the history of the politics in Illinois. It did not take much research to uncover a bunch of documentation about the political corruption in Cook County and the state of Illinois. A report release in Feb 2010 by the University of Illinois at Chicago and the Better Government Association documented over 140 years of corruption! Well, that wasn’t long after Abraham Lincoln served as President of the US!
Well, after a rather lengthy and intense on-the-job training session in Adobe After Effects, and some welcomed feedback and direction from Tim, I had an intro that set the scene for the parade footage. When I found a clip of Ronald Reagan from the Republican National Convention in 1984 talking about celebrating Independence Day, I felt we were making good progress. But what really galvanized the story for me was to find a clip from just this past July of the current US president talking about ‘rights‘ of Americans.
That’s about all I’ll say. And although it proved to not be quite as easy as I first thought, I think it turned out pretty well.
Enjoy the video. And exercise your right to Vote this November.