Contact: Trevor FitzGibbon
or Jessica Smith, on premises,
or Kawana Lloyd, (202) 822-5200x228
Monday, Jan. 12, 2004
“CHILD’S PAY” AD BY CHARLIE
FISHER
WINS MOVEON.ORG VOTER FUND’S
“BUSH IN 30 SECONDS” TV AD
CONTEST
“If Parents Acted Like Bush”
is Funniest;
“Bring It On” Wins Youth
Category;
“What I Been Up To” is Best
Animation
A 30-second TV ad that focuses on George W. Bush’s
trillion-dollar debt
legacy to America’s children is the winner in
the MoveOn.org Voter Fund’s nationwide search for the best spot to tell the
truth about the Bush Administration’s policy failures. The ad also got the
highest rating from members of the public, who gave it the “People’s Choice”
award as well.
“Child’s Pay,” by Charlie Fisher, 38, of Denver
features young children working in difficult service and manufacturing jobs –
washing dishes, hauling trash, repairing tires, cleaning offices, assembly-line
processing and grocery checking – followed by the line: “Guess who’s going
to pay off President Bush’s $1 trillion deficit?”
The
overall winner is an advertising executive who was a registered Republican
until the end of the first Bush administration, in 1992. He is currently on assignment in Denmark and
flew in to attend the awards ceremony with his camera man, P. Dreyer. The ad he produced will run nationwide
January 17-21 sponsored by MoveOn.org Voter Fund, coinciding with the
President’s State of the Union address on January 20.
“I was thrilled just to participate
in this contest,” Fisher said. “When we
finished editing ‘Child's Pay,’
I felt it was nice—maybe a little too nice. Perhaps I learned that you don't
have to paint a bulls-eye on someone’s forehead to be effective. Most
importantly, my Republican father said this when I told him I was making an ad
for this contest, not knowing what his reaction would be: ‘I am proud of you for taking part and acting
in the world around you.’”
A panel of celebrities and political experts helped
choose the winners after more than 110,000 people came to the Web site www.bushin30seconds.org in
December to rate the more than 1,000 ads posted. Over 2.9 million viewer ad ratings were
submitted. The contest was created by
MoveOn.org Voter Fund to try to make the political process more accessible to
ordinary Americans unlikely to be hired to create advertising in traditional
political campaigns.
Three additional categories were created because of
the high quality of the projects submitted.
The public also was invited to vote on four finalists in each category.
Best Animation
For best animation they selected “What I Been Up
To…,” by Ty Pierce, 25, a videographer, and Mark Wolfe, 24, a graphic designer,
from Columbus, OH.
According to Pierce, the hardest part of making their ad was “deciding
which Bush screw-ups to include.”
In the 30-second ad, a familiar laconic cartoon Bush
figure stands at a podium while “Hail to the Chief” plays in the
background. Reporting on his
accomplishment, the president says: “I turned the biggest economy in history
into the biggest deficit in history. And
lost over 2 ½ million jobs. My good
friend, Ken Lay, was in charge of that whole Enron thing. I invaded two countries, made a joke of the
United Nations, broke the Geneva
conventions and I still managed to take more vacation than any other
President.”
Funniest Ad
“This has been an
amazing experience in grassroots engagement, and all of us have been thrilled
to work with such creative people,” said Eli Pariser, campaigns director for
the MoveOn.org Voter Fund. “These ads
give voice to the deep concerns our millions of members have with the direction
our country is headed.”
The idea behind the contest,
he said, was to make active involvement in politics more accessible to people
who would be unlikely, in the normal way campaigns work, to be hired to create
political TV advertising. “What we see,
year-after-year in politics, is the same old approaches practiced by a small
cadre of mostly Washington-based political consultants. And each year the enthusiasm for politics
becomes dimmer and dimmer. We want to
reverse that trend, by bringing ordinary people and new faces into the
political discussion,” Pariser said.
The winners were recognized
at a gala awards ceremony Monday night at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City. Most of the finalists were present, along
with a star-studded crowd of artists, entertainers, political activists and
supporters of the MoveOn.org Voter Fund.
SATELLITE FEED COORDINATES FOR "Bush in 30
Seconds" Loop
First Feed:
Date: Tuesday, January 13,
2004
Time: 07:15 ET to 07:30 ET
Satellite:Telstar 5
Transponder 14
Satellite type: C band
Orbital position: 97
Degrees W
Downlink Polarity:
Horizontal
Downlink Frequency: 3980
Audio: 6.2/6.8
Second Feed:
Date: Tuesday, January 13,
2004
Time: 13:30 ET to 13:45 ET
Satellite:Telstar 5
Transponder 14
Satellite type: C band
Orbital position: 97
Degrees W
Downlink Polarity: Horizontal
Downlink Frequency: 3980
Audio: 6.2/6.8
The MoveOn.org Voter Fund is a “Section 527” political committee created to
comply with the new federal campaign finance laws. It runs ads and engages in other efforts to
expose the policy failures of the Bush Administration. Move information can be found at
www.moveonvoterfund.org
and at www.bushin30seconds.org.
The voting is
over, the judges have decided and tonight the winners will be announced and
honored by a stellar list of celebrities and political activists and the other
finalists who were among 1,512 participants in the “Bush in 30 Seconds” contest
to produce political ads that tell the truth about George W. Bush.
The selected
winner’s ad will be broadcast nationwide Jan. 17 – 21, coinciding with the
President’s State of the Union message.
In
addition to an overall winner, the judges decided to honor winners in three
distinct categories: funniest ad, best animated ad and best youth-focused
ad.
The awards event at Manhattan’s Hammerstein
Ballroom will be hosted by comedian Janeane Garofalo and feature expected
appearances and performances by, among others,
Margaret Cho, Chuck D, Al Franken, Moby, Michael Moore, John Sayles, Rufus Wainwright, the Beastie
Boys, Alanis Morisette, Rob Morrow, Julia Stiles and Benicio Del Toro.
“This has been an amazing
experience in grassroots engagement, and all of have been thrilled to work with
such creative and artistic people,” said Eli Pariser, campaign director for the
MoveOn.org Voter Fund. “Through these
ads, we are giving voice to the nearly two million people who have joined us in
expressing deep concern with the way the country is heading and who want to
change the face of American politics.”
The public was invited in
November to submit ads, and more than 1,000 were posted on a special website, www.bushin30seconds.org. The public once again was invited to view and
rate them during December. More than
110,000 individuals visited the website and posted 2.9 million ratings and
comments in a period of about two weeks.
Last week the 15 best-rated
finalists were announced (although one withdrew because of copyright
considerations), and their creations were forwarded to a panel of celebrity and
political consultants who helped designate three new categories and select the
winners being announced tonight.
The contest was the creation
of singer-songwriter Laura Dawn, PR
executive David Fenton, the musician
Moby, MoveOn.org’s Eli Pariser, consultant Lee
Solomon, and lawyer-investor Jonathan Soros. Laura Dawn
coordinated the awards event.
The finalists in
the overall winner competition were:
1.
“Army of One,” by Penny Little,
Nick Green, Michael Stinson
and Julie Stigwart, Isla Vista, CA.
2.
“Bankrupt,” by Adam Klugman and Dave Adams, West Lynn, OR.
3.
“Bush’s Repair Shop,” by Eric Martin, Silver Spring, MD.
4.
“Child’s Pay,” by Charlie
Fisher and others, Denver, CO.
5.
“Desktop,” by David Haynes, Dallas, TX.
6.
“Gone in 30
Seconds,” by Eric Blumrich, Montclair, NJ.
7.
“Hood Robbin’,” by Nathania
Vishnevsky, Foster City, CA
8.
“Human Cost of War,” by Brian
Wilkinson, White Plains, NY.
9.
“Imagine,” by Mark Vicente, Los Angeles, CA.
10.
“In My Country,” by Harry
Katatsakis, Derek Rittenhouse and Chris Wight, New York, NY.
11.
“Leave No Billionaire Behind,” by Andrew Boyd, Brooklyn, NY
12.
“Polygraph,” by Rich Garella and Adam
Feinstein, New York, NY.
13.
“What Are We Teaching Our Children?” by Fred Surr,
Ted Page, and Janet Tashjian,
Needham, MA.
14.
“Wake Up America,” by Lisa M. Rowe,
Hollywood, CA.
Finalists in the Funniest Ad category
“Bush Sucks!” by Scott Runcorm, Andrew Wallace, and Peter Jacques;
with team Leigh Crow, Phil Dumesnil, Asa Sanchez and Maxine Tremendous, San
Francisco, CA.
“Greatest Hits,” by
Mandy Donovan, Rachel Houk Seeger, Mario Polastri, Ron Hayden, Dave Porter, and
Jim Sullivan, Somerville, MA.
“If Parents Acted Like
Bush,” by Christopher Fink, Sherman
Oaks, CA.
“If the Bush
Administration Was Your Roommate,” by Matt Kresling and Seth Toedter, Los Angeles, CA.
Finalists in the Best Animation category
“Brother, Can You Spare A Job?” by Tom Neely and Greg Saunders,
Glendale, CA.
“Yeehaw!” by Brent Knopf, Portland,
OR.
“What I Been Up To...” by Mark Wolfe
and Ty Pierce, Columbus, OH.
“School Yard Politics,” by David E. K. Abramson with Steven D'Arcangelo,
Ken Palmer, Kate Movius, Laura Cook, and Laura Wilthsire, Los Angeles, CA.
Finalists in the Youth Market category
“Bush Knew,” by Sterling Rainbolt, Chad Redmon, Michael Kane, and Aaron Raskin
Brooklyn, NY.
“Al Keyda,” by Trevor Murphy,
Joel Viertel and Alek Friedman with Patrice Lucien Cochet, H. Scott Salinas,
and Ann Sexton, West Hollywood, CA.
“Pop Quiz,” by Scott Stowell, New York,
NY.
“Bring It On,” by Jared Ewy, Angel Sexton and Drew Adams , Englewood,
CO.
The judges were film star-musician Jack Black, music video director Benny Boom, political strategists Donna Brazile and James Carville, comedian Margaret Cho, actor Hector Elizondo, author-comedian Al Franken, comedian and commentator Janeane Garofalo, political pollster Stan Greenberg, film producer Ted Hope, film and stage performer Jessica Lange, writer-filmmaker Michael Mann, recording artist Moby, author-filmmaker Michael Moore, filmmaker Mark Pellington, actor-producer Tony Shalhoub, hip-hop impresario Russell Simmons, musician-film producer Michel Stipe of the band R.E.M., film director Gus Van
Sant, critic and editor Katrina
vanden Heuvel and Pearl
Jam musician-activist Eddie
Vedder.
The MoveOn.org Voter Fund is a “Section 527” political
committee created to comply with the new federal campaign finance laws. It runs ads and engages in other efforts to
expose the policy failures of the Bush Administration. Move information can be found at
www.moveonvoterfund.org
and at www.bushin30seconds.org.
