19th Jun 2002
What Do You Feel Is
What Do You Feel Is Essentially American?
I had the pleasure of lunching yesterday with Vanessa Amador, whom I met via the funky online networking community Ryze (listed among my favorites). Vanessa wants to hear how people answer that question: “What do you feel is essentially American?”
It’s pretty much her obsession these days. But in a good way. She moved to NYC from Florida (where she was/is an actress, model and real estate marketing specialist), arriving a few months before Sept. 11. But her pursuit of this question, spurred doubtless by the country’s introspection in the wake of that awful day last fall, is now approaching a full-time occupation, or at least so she hopes.
The idea is a TV show, shot documentary style around the country out of an RV, a la Charles Kuralt. She would engage people with the question (the fact that she’s easy on the eyes certainly helps her case; I don’t think I’m over-stepping to post her picture here (lifted from her Ryze page), as she also uses it on her business card), and then she’d build the show around their responses. As they share their thoughts, she would weave in images and background on the themes they are talking about: family farmers, jazz music, the founding fathers, Christianity, diversity, civil liberites, New York City, fried chicken, Elvis, etc.
At first blush, it seemed a bit schmaltzy to me until I actually tried to give her a straight answer. I found myself blathering on (imagine that) as thoughtfully as I could on a range of topics till she changed the subject back to her idea for the show.
One thing you can’t doubt is her determination. She sold me. I think that if done well (tightly edited, thoughtful, balanced, honest, down-to-earth), it could be quite an interesting show. There’s a lot there to the question: really probing what it means to be an American and what America represents in the world. Everyone in one way or another has already been having that same conversation for the last nine months, all around the world. Having an ongoing TV dialog to just discuss that one theme could prove tremendously stimulating, if you think about it. Perhaps even good for international relations (I could see it having an avid international following). She also envisions a rich and lively Internet component, which could be great. I think the whole package could also be very attracitive to advertisers.
In short, it’s a crazy dream, baby, but it just might work! She’s a great saleman (in the Malcom Gladwell “Tipping Point” sense). Problem is, all that I know about producing a TV show I learned from those “Show About Nothing” episodes of Sienfeld.
If anybody out there has any ideas or contacts in the TV industry, or even if you’d just like to answer her question, you can drop her a line at vanessa@bruner.net (not her actual address; I’ve set up forwarding for her to remove her one layer from the weirdos among you).
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