About a week ago, the Mark Udall for Senate campaign put out a call for some veterans to help participate in an ad featuring vets.  They wanted the vets to schmooze with the candidate.  This afternoon was the appointed hour.

It took over two and-a-half hours.  The first 45 minutes was unloading and setting up the lighting and sound equipment, since it was shot on location at a VFW hall.  Then almost two hours of shooting.  They did ten takes of just "I'm Mark Udall and I approved this message."  For "To defeat Al Qaeda, we have to go where they're based, in Afghanistan, and hunt down Osama bin Laden" they did 16 takes.

Udall spent the whole day on two 30-second spots.

Why so many takes?  Well...the director, the video guy, the cameraman, and the sound guy all had suggestions.

I suspect that a studio-shot ad takes less time, though.

I got probably as much if not more individual face time with Mark with the camera rolling than anybody else.  Maybe it was because I was better dressed than most of the others.  They weren’t taking audio – those shots will be background with Udall voiceovers.  I had to take off my Hillary buttons and Wes Clark…American Hero dog tag, but they didn’t ask me to remove my gold four-star lapel pin.

As near as I can figure out, the camera never broke while they were taping Mark and me.  We did one segment at a table, one standing up first with another vet and then one with just me, and then the same routine outside.

Maybe another fifteen seconds of fame.

As we chatted, some of it nonsense just so it’d look like we were talking, I asked Mark if he’d talked with Wes recently.  He said he hadn’t, but added that he sure would like him to come out and campaign for or with him.  I’ll work on that.

If you get this kind of opportunity, I recommend it.  The process and the behind-the-scenes stuff is fascinating.  I’ll share a couple of photos as soon as I figure out how to upload pics from my cell phone to my computer.  It’s been a mystery so far.

Stan Davis
Lakewood, CO
Wes Clark -- Make America All It Can Be!