Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Vice-Precedence to Interview VP Walter Mondale!




Vice-Precedence Fans we have BIG news.

We have been working on Vice-Precedence for a long time. We have had some great successes. Like our interview with Gore Vidal, the amazing praise from fans like you and especially from Mr. Paul Zaloom, and my meeting with Sarah Palin and the subsequent blog that got a lot of attention.

We have also had a lot of frustration and setbacks. There is no denying it. I have talked about it before. I don't want to repeat myself, except to say, along with the refusals from people for interviews, there has been the idiotic remarks from TV executives -- specifically the History Channel saying in early March of 08:

"It doesn't matter who McCain picks as his running mate, no one will care, everyone will be bored by the election by September. Plus our president hates comedy."

3 months later they're showing "The History of Comedy" hosted by Lewis Black and later in the year--everyone is talking about and is obsessed with Sarah Palin.

So you can probably guess how I feel about the History Channel.

After my divorce I made plans to see my daughter in Minnesota. On my first visit here I looked up former Vice-President Walter Mondales contact information. It actually wasn't that hard, just did a Google search as I recall. I spoke with his secretary right away. An interview was a possibility but not that year since the former VP would be spending most of that year in Japan, where he had been our Ambassador. They love him there. I was just happy to have established a link to his office and secretary, Lynda Pedersen.

After I moved here to be closer to my daughter after missing her so much, I wanted to try to schedule an official interview with VP Mondale. After some more polite conversations with Ms. Pedersen, and explaining what we want to do, I sent a formal request to his office:

Dear Mr. Vice-President,

My name is Matt Saxe, I live here in Minneapolis, and I am the creator/executive producer of the comic-documentary film "Vice-Precedence". After speaking with your assistant Mrs. Lynda Pedersen, I am formally asking if I could have the opportunity to interview you for our film.

I have been producing award-winning theatre and films for over 8 years. For the last four years my company has been working on a documentary film devoted to the Vice-Presidents who were never President, focusing on the unique and strange history of the office. As you know, there have been documentaries made on individual VP's, but never one devoted to the office as a whole.

We have already filmed a two-hour interview with Gore Vidal for the film, who called us "Better interviewers than Ken Burns." You would be the first Vice-President we have interviewed. Your own experiences as Vice-President and with Vice-President Humphrey would be invaluable to our film.

We are happy to fit our interview around whatever fits your schedule best. We would want to wait at least until next month so we can make the proper arrangements. We want you to be comfortable and completely at ease for the interview. Thank you very much for your consideration. I sincerely hope for the opportunity to meet and interview you. Please pass my thanks on to Mrs. Pederson for taking the time to talk with me, I truly appreciate it.

Best to you,
Matt Saxe
Banded Artists


Within a couple days I received the following reply:

Dear Matt:

I have talked to Mr. Mondale about your request for an interview for the comic-documentary film "Vice- Precedence." Unfortunately, Mr. Mondale is extremely busy this summer and has several trips out of the country and he just doesn't feel he would have the time to be interviewed by you. I will keep your request in mind and if things quiet down, I will be sure to give you a call. He wishes you all the best with your project.

Lynda

Lynda L. Pedersen
Executive Secretary to Walter F. Mondale


It was disappointing, but I understood, and it was so polite. I decided I need to let time go by and had so many other things to do for work, Vice-Precedence, plays, life, and Caitlin. So time passed.

Then on May 27th of this year after writing the Hubert Humphrey Birthday blog, I decided enough time had passed to send another request to his office. Also, in case you didn't know, Mr. Mondale was Humphreys Chief of Staff and successor as Senator of Minnesota and then to the Vice-Presidency and Democratic Presidential Nomination. Humphrey was his mentor and his career followed Humphreys almost exactly. So I decided the date seemed serendipitous to send another request.

So here it is:

Dear Ms. Pedersen,

This is Matt Saxe, of Banded Artist Productions. Last year I asked if it would be possible to schedule an interview with former Vice-President Mondale for my documentary film. At the time you informed me that Mr. Mondale was too busy to schedule something. I am hoping that this year we will be able to schedule it and decided that since today would be the 99th birthday of Mr. Mondales mentor and friend, the late Vice-President Humphrey, its an appropriate day to resend my request. Please pass this on to the Vice-President with my highest regards.

Thank you and Best to you,
Matt Saxe

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Banded Artists


Dear Mr. Vice-President,

My name is Matt Saxe and I am the creator/executive producer of the comic-documentary film "Vice-Precedence", and after speaking with your assistant Mrs. Lynda Pedersen last year, I am on this day, what would have been the 99th birthday of your mentor and friend, the late Vice-President Humphrey, again formally asking if I could have the opportunity to interview you for our film.

I have been producing award-winning theatre and films for over 8 years. For the last four years my company has been working on a documentary film devoted to the Vice-Presidents who were never President, focusing on the unique history of the office. As you know, there have been documentaries made on individual VP's, but never one devoted to the office as a whole.

We have already filmed a two-hour interview with Gore Vidal for the film, who called us "Better interviewers than Ken Burns." You would be the first Vice-President we have interviewed. Your own experiences as Vice-President and with Vice-President Humphrey would be invaluable to our film.

We are happy to fit our interview around whatever fits your schedule best. Thank you for your consideration. I sincerely hope for the opportunity to meet and interview you. Please pass my thanks on to Mrs. Pederson for taking the time to talk with me, I truly appreciate it.

Best to you,

Matt Saxe
Banded Artists

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A week later I received this:

Matt,

Mr. Mondale would be happy to meet with you. However, he can't do it this summer. Any chance, sometime in the fall would work?

Lynda


As the kids say: OMG!

After dancing around the room for about 15 minutes I called Jason to let him know the good news. It was one of the happiest phone calls I have ever made. We were both ecstatic.

After a flurry of emails dealing with the scheduling and all, we finally decided that the interview will take place in a conference room at Mr. Mondales law office on October 18th at 10AM. It will be our first interview with an actual VP. Not just any VP, but our oldest living VP and former Presidential candidate! Truly an American living legend. When Norm Coleman was forced to run against Mondale after the tragic death of Senator Paul Wellstone in a plane crash he said it was like

"...running against Mount Rushmore."

Well, now we're interviewing Mt. Rushmore. After all the refusals, it feels so amazing to have a true success. Its truly the biggest thing to happen for our film. Now we need your help. We are going to establish a fund thru PayPal to get Jason a ticket to come here to Minneapolis for the interview. We also need to find great HD equipment since we want this interview to be perfect. If all of you who LIKE us on Facebook give us just $5 to $8 or more...wow! We'd easily have enough to get Jason here and some for the equipment we want. We've never really asked for your help before, just to join our Facebook page. Which we still also want you to encourage people to do.

This interview can truly help make our film, because if VP Mondale has agreed to do it, then his fellow Democrats Al Gore and Joe Biden may agree to do it. And the Republicans won't want to be left out (and we don't want to leave them out -- we want to give people the WHOLE story) so VP's Quayle and Cheney might agree too. Please help us out. When we post the fund-raising page, please help us out and make whatever donations you can.

October 18th can't come soon enough for us.

Thanks Everyone.

Matt

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