“Post convention bumps show Hillary back in command of the election, but because of widespread voter dissatisfaction with the major parties, there’s still some room for shakeups between now and November,” says ‘Third Candidates’ co-creator John Farrell, adding “Green Party candidate Jill Stein has caught the eye of former Bernie supporters and Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson has been polling in double digits for months now and could make a push to be included in the debates”.
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Jill Stein takes a moment out of her DNC schedule to take a photo with supporters in Philadelphia on July 27th |
As the DNC kicked off festivities in Philadelphia last week, filmmakers Farrell and fellow co-creator Jake Simms, hit the road towards the City of Brotherly Love, but not before releasing the first teaser trailer for “Third Candidates,” a new internet documentary series that outlines their attempt to explain the world of third party politics to a new generation of voters with cloudy or no memories at all of Ross Perot or Ralph Nader.
“I’m 31, and for my entire voting life, politics has actually been a pretty stable thing,” says co-creator Jake Simms, “for anyone around my age and below, an election this chaotic is a new thing. I was 15 for Gore vs. Bush, and I was 7 when Ross Perot was in the debates. If what we’re seeing right now is a real, true, cry for some change, we thought we’d explore the nuts and bolts of what it’s like to try and enact that change from the outside instead of going the Trump or Bernie route.”
The series will be a four part effort, released online, during the course of and immediately after the 2016 election. It will look into subjects such as debate and state ballot access, go behind the scenes with some non-major party candidates including Gary Johnson and Jill Stein, and also take a look at possible electoral reform issues such as implementing Ranked Choice Voting.
In just one week, the docu-series has raised 40% of their filmmaking budget on the online crowdfunding platform Seed & Spark, and has approximately 3 weeks left to meet their goal. The trailer and more project information can be found at https://www.seedandspark.com/studio/third-candidates
Simms and Farrell hope that by exploring the relatively unknown parts of third party politics, they can educate an electorate and round out political discussion. “We know there’s a hunger out there for this type of information. Our recent live chat session on getpurple.io had a much higher participation rate than their average. People are curious why having a third or fourth option is a rare thing and not normal. People want to be informed beyond character issues come November,” says Farrell, with Simms adding, “by looking into these parts of the system, we’ve gotten to appreciate the often blurred distinction between parties, politicians, campaigns, and policy a bit more. I think this leads to better discourse and debate when we talk politics.”
As incentives for backing this project Simms and Farrell are offering traditional items like bumper stickers and hats, but also have some unique incentives for those supporters who want to vocalize themselves via a custom-made quote graphic of the core issues you care about, and interactive Q&A via snapchat.
