The "Star Wars" school board commercial is 1 year old today

It was one year ago today - on October 6th, 2006 - that the now-(in)famous first commercial from my campaign for Rockingham County Board of Education started broadcasting on WGSR in Reidsville...

I had just finished it that morning, and while the video was doing the final render I ran out to find Debbie Moore so that I could give her the check for a month's worth of airtime. Then I got home, burned it onto a CD and drove it over to WGSR and handed it to Matt Smith. Right after that I had to go to Greensboro for an errand, then got back home and after seeing Lisa I went back to the station to see if the commercial was running yet.

Ooh-boy...

Y'know, this commercial, I had to make it. If I didn't produce it for my school board run, I would have regretted it for the rest of my life. It was one of those "vision things" that when it overtakes you, you're compelled to see it through. So I did it and thought that it did a pretty good job conveying who I was and what I believe in, so that should be the end of it, right? Right?!?

Instead I get to the station and Matt not only tells me that it's already running, but general manager Charles Roark tells me that my commercial is going to be the topic of discussion for the 5 o'clock show: "I've never seen a commercial like this before in my life!" he told me. So he started the show and he runs the commercial and the phone lines began lighting up like a Christmas tree. Quite a few people actually said that they would vote for me. About the same number said things like "I think this Christopher Knight has a mental problem" and "he looks evil" and "who does he think he is, blowing up a school right after those Amish children were shot?" etc.

Probably the best moment of it all was something that nobody saw on television, when Tyler Richardson walked into the front lobby just as the commercial started airing: the incredulous look on his face is something that I will remember for the rest of my life :-)

And then Mark Childrey started off his newscast talking about it, and during his Talk Back segment people were still calling in to either praise or rant against my commercial.

I got back home from the station and started uploading the commercial to YouTube, with the innocuous title "Christopher Knight for School Board TV Commercial #1". Along with some tags like "Star Wars" and "Death Star" and "lightsaber". I put it on YouTube mostly so that I could post about it on this blog and share it with a few friends.

Then the following week the News & Record ran a story about not just mine but the other wacky commercials in the Rockingham school board race. And then The New York Times featured the commercial! And over the next few days it would also wind up in the pages of The Reidsville Review (with a huge color pic of me wielding the lightsaber on the front page), the News & Observer in Raleigh, the Charlotte Observer, and a few other places. I didn't see them but people told me that Fox 8 WGHP and WXII (the local NBC affiliate) also ran the commercial during their newscasts.

So then there was the election, and I didn't win a seat. But was that the end of the commercial? Far from it: things were just getting ramped-up! A few months after I put it up on YouTube it started getting a lot more notice. This past June it was screened at the Pixelodeon film festival at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles.

And then VH1 featured it on their show Web Junk 2.0. Which ummmmm... led to quite a lot of commotion. But there's already been enough written about that.

So here it is: my very first commercial is one year old today. And what a long, strange trip it has been since then because of it. Y'know, I really did make this mostly for the local audience in mind, 'cuz those were the voters that I was trying hardest to appeal to. That it wound up going this far and being so widely discussed and apparently rather popular was something I never imagined would happen to it. And oddly enough, out of the three commercials that I made for my campaign, the "Star Wars" one isn't my favorite: that honor belongs to the third and final one.

But I'm still rather proud of this one. It was a lot of hard work (and not a lot of time to make it in). It uses a lot of humor to convey a very serious message. The commercial was even discovered by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, which called it the "Best Campaign Ad Ever!"

Not too bad for a guy who used the Death Star to blow up a school while trying to win election to Board of Education :-)

Read More

Crazy good weekend! Report from Pixelodeon and the Ron Paul video becomes a YouTube hit!

Most of this weekend was spent in Raleigh. I left Reidsville at about 4 p.m. on Friday afternoon and reached my friend Chad's place a little after 6. For the past five weeks I've been studying my brains out for the Praxis exam: that's the big series of tests given to prospective teachers. It was actually two exams that I took on Saturday: one that morning for content knowledge, and the second later that afternoon on teaching methods. And, I think that I did pretty well on them! The first was over a hundred multiple-choice questions that you had to use a number-2 pencil to fill in those little bubbles for your answers, but the second was stuff you had to think about and write out. Basically that exam provided two knowledge areas that you had to make lesson plans out of. Even though that was the harder of the two, I had more fun doing that one. I left the testing center at St. Augustine's College feeling pretty upbeat about it. I should find out in a few weeks how well I did.

And later that evening, Chad and I went out for pizza and then drove to a theater to watch 300: his first time seeing it and my second (here's my review from when Dad and I saw it in April). I drove back home later on Sunday afternoon.

Meanwhile, other stuff had been going on all weekend...

This was the weekend that the first annual Pixelodeon Independent Video Festival was going on at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. Three-hundred-some selected videos were screened at this thing... including that first commercial from my school board campaign! Wish I could have flown out for this thing, but I had to stay and take the Praxis exam. But I did receive some great news about the kind of reception that my commercial got at the event: one of the curators told me that "It was fantastic!" He said that people loved it and that they were "disappointed" when told that I hadn't won the election. I told him that if people enjoyed it that much, then I'd have rather had that than have won the election (not that I wasn't trying my best to win, 'course :-) So hearing about the feedback from Pixelodeon has definitely already made my week...

...as has the reaction to my first pro-Ron Paul for President video: it made it all the way to #10 on the "Top Rated News & Politics" videos on YouTube for this past Saturday! At one point it was the third highest-ranked Ron Paul video for that day. A lot of people have left some awfully nice comments about it on the video's page. And quite a few of them have one burning question above all others: "Did those photos clog-up your toilet?!?" Miraculously, they did not... but it was definitely a concern that I'd had. And there've been a few more ideas for Ron Paul videos that I've had in the past couple of days. Might make another real soon.

And, that was my weekend. Between the serious task to overcome and the groovy response to those videos, and the great fellowship that I had with a lifelong friend, and the conscious choice to completely abstain from blogging or any other routine activity that I usually involve myself in and what a refreshing respite it was, this weekend pretty much had it all.

If only it could last... 'cuz tonight is going to be one insane school board meeting, if the last two were any indication :-P Will report on that later tonight.

And there's something else I'll be posting about later on today: my own lil' way of celebrating the weekend's success :-)

Read More

My first commercial will be shown at Pixelodeon at American Film Institute this weekend!

Just one more post before I really absolutely do take a self-imposed sabbatical from blogging for the next few days: it was first mentioned last week that the first commercial from my school board campaign - the "zany" Star Wars-inspired ad - will be screened this weekend at the first-ever Pixelodeon Independent Video Festival at the American Film Institute... in Hollywood! So if you're in Los Angeles for the next few days, I guess you can stop by and watch the Death Star blow up a schoolhouse.

Hey, it helped get me almost forty-seven hundred votes, didn't it?? :-)

Read More

PIXELODEON 2007: See my commercial at the American Film Institute!

Next weekend, on June 9th and 10th, the American Film Institute in Los Angeles will be hosting the Pixelodeon 2007 Annual Independent Video Festival. Over 300 independently-produced videos and short films will be shown. Well, guess what: the "Star Wars"-themed first commercial from my school board campaign has been given the honor of being one of them! It really amazes me that all these months later, it's still seems to be rather popular. I just made it because (a) the idea was too good not to do and (b) with 16 candidates running, I really did have to try to stand out a little. But lo and behold, it's something that became bona-fide viral... which I never expected to happen. And now it's being shown at the AFI!

Pixelodeon 2007 sounds like it's going to be a lot of fun! I won't be there unfortunately (there's a teaching exam that I have to take that Saturday in Raleigh) but if you want to check out something really cool and happen to be in L.A. next weekend, head over to Pixelodeon. Visit the show's website for tickets and other information.

Read More