Why I create Bernard Sanders videos and how you may be able to help.
By: Ben Hallman
Tags: Bernie2020, Nina Turner, 2020 Presidential Race, Bernie Sanders, Aoc

Photo of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that I took while standing on a folding chair in the press section at the Bernie’s Back Rally in Queens, NY on October 19th.

On the night of the fourth Democratic primary debate, I tuned in with a whirlwind of emotions that, in my mind, occupied two opposing camps.

At Camp Optimism, I was thrilled that Bernie Sanders had chosen to run again. Leading his one million+ volunteers, he had over 4 years of built-up name recognition, an improved campaign strategy, and his “extreme left” 2016 policies had become familiar enough to Americans for less progressive candidates to get behind, albeit in diet form.

Meanwhile, at Camp Disenfranchisement, I thought about how badly the DNC and superdelegates robbed Bernie in 2016. The cruel Mainstream media’s continued bias and blackouts since 2015. Despite a solid performance from Bernie at the debate, these conflicting feelings were still very strong. Then, something happened.

I was watching post-debate coverage on a progressive media channel and Nina Turner was asked about a recent news leak of a forthcoming endorsement by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Nina gave a spirited response combined with her masterful expression of Bernard Sanders and his political revolution. In this 80 second clip, I was absolutely floored by the news as her words sent shockwaves through my system. I felt all the pessimistic corrupt establishment reasoning for a 2016 repeat melt away.

I felt an undeniable urge to be creative.

I started ripping the video I just watched and pulling footage from Bernie’s vast YouTube channel and clips of AOC from Netflix’s “Knock Down the House” documentary. I wanted to take Nina’s encouraging message, enhance it with music and visuals, then share it with the Bernie world and beyond. Hopefully, the video would spread past my base of folks who don’t follow progressive independent media or know much about Bernie and break through the barrier of biased Mainstream media reporting (or lack thereof).

I reached out to a progressive media host, who retweeted my video to a larger audience. It did well, reaching about 10k views between YouTube & Twitter.

Roughly 10,000 views between social media networks

A few days later, I attended the Bernie’s Back Rally in Queens, NY, where AOC officially endorsed Bernie. The entire event was profoundly inspiring, but what really ignited my heart was Ohio State Senator and national campaign co-chair Nina Turner’s impassioned speech, where she artfully described the many reasons why Senator Bernard Sanders was the only one able to rise above his competition to lead his progressive grassroots movement to a presidential victory.

That evening, I burst into creative beast mode once again. I ripped the official live stream, camera angles from other media sources, campaign videos, debate footage, and even Bernie tweets. I stitched together b-roll, music, graphics, and captions. Then, I color-corrected footage, improved the audio, and exported the project. After tweeting out the new video late at night, I shared it with a few big Bernie supporters who I discovered after my first project. As I slept that night, the video spread far and wide, getting Nina Turner’s attention who retweeted it. I woke up early for a film shoot and saw that Nina had direct messaged me “Amazing! [3 fire emojis]” This was surreal. My video work was making a larger impact on people than anything I had accomplished in my decade-long career. I quickly realized that I need to find a way to do this full-time and still cover my living expenses.

Over 650,000 views between social media networks

When Rep. Rashida Tlaib and Jack White both endorsed Bernie at a Detroit rally, I was dedicated to releasing a highlight video within 24 hours of the event finishing. I sourced phone footage as it populated onto Twitter and YouTube, synced clips together, color balanced the various footage, and improved the music quality from the original live stream. Reaching my turnaround goal, the video went live at 6:27 pm the following day.

Over 90,000 views between social media networks

Video editing for a candidate you believe in can be a massive labor of love. Between researching ongoing news, organizing downloaded clips, reading threads, and curating the best messages to spread, there’s a constant juggle of work to be done. I’m also committed to captioning all of my videos. Not only to improve accessibility for the deaf and hard-of-hearing communities but also to get through to folks who browse social media without sound. When you combine all of this with a goal to turnaround a video of a recent event quickly, the work becomes even more intensive.

By writing this article and reaching out to the same community that lovingly shared my passionate work, I hope to find a steady gig with health benefits to offset my researching and editing time as I continue to focus on getting Bernie elected by sharing inspiring and informative videos to push back on media bias and lack of coverage. There’s never been a more important time to be actively involved in this progressive revolution of democratic socialism.

Here are some ways that you can help: Share this article with the campaign if you have a personal connection, suggest a lead or an offer to a shooting and/or editing job in NYC, support my creativity through Patreon or Venmo, follow me on Twitter / Facebook, or subscribe to my YouTube channel.

Bernie has been fighting for us for over forty years. It’s time to fight for him. He is a once in a lifetime candidate and there is too much at stake to allow the 1% to win this important victory for our collective future.

In Solidarity,

Ben Hallman

ben@hallmanproductions.com

Reel • Resume