Election Cycle (found Kyle Kallgren short film; 2013)

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Election cycle short film.jpg

Thumbnail used for the Kickstarter trailer.

Status: Found

Date found: 5 Aug 2023

Found by: The American University Research Archive

Election Cycle is a short comedy/sci-fi film written and directed by Kyle Kallgren, a.k.a. OanCitizen, best known for his webseries, Brows Held High, where he reviews arthouse films. He was formerly featured on the reviewer-comedian website Channel Awesome (back then known as That Guy With The Glasses/TGWTG) until he left the site in early 2015, along with Allison Pregler (Obscurus Lupa), Phelan Porteous (Phelous), Andrew Dickman and Lindsay Ellis (The Nostalgia Chick).

The film was made in a partial requirement of a college degree in Master of Arts Film and Video while Kallgren was attending the American University School of Communication. In order to make the film, he began a Kickstarter campaign on January 24, 2013, to raise the $9,000 budget. The campaign met its goal within a day and totaled $16,192 when the campaign ended in March 2013, with over 300 backers.

Plot

Kallgren described the film as this on the Kickstarter page: "Washington, D.C., 2024. Jack Simm has been playing a losing game as the campaign manager for a Senator’s bid for the White House. Fed up with his gaffe-prone candidate, he has managed to get a hold of the latest prototype for a cutting-edge technology – a working time machine. During a key presidential debate, the manager, armed with the ability to jump back several seconds at a time, corrals his frustrated campaign staff to erase and revise potential gaffes before they become talking points. But as in-fighting mounts and personal interests get in the way, their attempts to control the dialogue begins to collapse in this satirical political science fiction story."

Availability

The film was supposedly screened in September of 2013. People who donated at least $40 or more were given the completed 22-minute film on DVD around the same time. In total, 218 people own copies of this film. Despite this decent number of copies, little to no footage, stills, or press has been found for the project. In a Tumblr post in October of 2013, Kallgren answered a question about the possibility of a digital release or selling copies online. "Other than the copies I’ve sent out to my Kickstarter backers," Kallgren replied, "I doubt it. I finished the film, the backers have gotten their rewards, but I don’t think it’s my best work. I think I’m done with it."[1]

The film's director of photography, Scott Bastedo, has uploaded footage of the film to his Vimeo. On March 13th and 14th, 2013, during principal photography, Bastedo uploaded two alternate copies of a short, one-minute scene (the difference being that the green screen effects are more polished in the second copy). On November 2nd, 2015, Bastedo uploaded a demo reel to his Vimeo that contained scenes from Election Cycle as part of a montage. However, the entire reel is dubbed over with Beethoven's "Egmont Overture Finale." So far, these videos are the only existing footage of the film online, with "Green Screen" being the only footage retaining the film's audio.

On August 5th, 2023, The American University Research Archive made the whole short film available on their website.[2]

Gallery

The second copy of "Green Screen," a one-minute scene from Election Cycle edited during principal photography.

Bastedo's demo reel, which contains clips of Election Cycle as part of a montage.

See Also

External Links

References