Loyola graduate Dan O'Meara, '98, producer of the HBO documentary By The People: The Election of Barack Obama, visited Loyola's campus on Tuesday, Nov. 10 to talk about his experience working on the film.
By the People, which premiered on HBO on Nov. 3, is a two hour inside look at Obama's campaign for the presidency. Directors Amy Rice and Alicia Sams began following the little-known senator from Illinois in 2006, but as his popularity spiked and he became a big contender in the 2008 presidential race, the two-person team was no longer enough. That was when O'Meara and his production company, Green Film Company, stepped in.
"We got involved and helped them with things like the budget and scheduling," O'Meara said. With each turn of the race, creative and financial plans had to be reworked to fit the story.
What originally began as a small film following an African American senator became a larger and more demanding project as Obama winning the presidency became a strong possibility.
Throughout the film, there are scenes of people, young and old, calling homes and going to rallies to get Obama's name out. From Ronnie Cho, an instrumental member of campaign events, to a 9-year-old boy calling people to inform them about Obama, By the People captures many moments from the campaign of people from all walks of life supporting the Obama cause.
There are also scenes that show Michelle Obama and the two Obama daughters, Sasha and Malia. While his family is always supportive of his run for president, the toll it takes on them is shown.
"It's cool sometimes," Malia says at one point. "But, you know, I wish we could spend some more time with him."
By the People also acquaints viewers with the chief members of Obama's team. Current press secretary Robert Gibbs and current senior advisor David Axelrod are often seen working with campaign manager David Plouffe to keep Obama up-to-date and focused on the campaign trail. In fact, the By the People team faced some opposition from Obama's team as they tried to film each and every move of the presidential candidate and his advisors.
"At first, David Axelrod was against it, and Gibbs was not for it either," O'Meara said. "[Producer] Edward Norton reached out to the then-senator Obama and convinced him to allow the documentary."
That did not mean the documentary team had free reign over covering the campaign - anything filmed when no one else was filming had to be reviewed by Obama's team before it could be used. However, Obama felt it was only fair to allow the documentary to continue.
"Ultimately, we took a leap of faith on him, so he wanted to take a leap of faith on us," O'Meara said.
By the People shows just how challenging and exhausting elections are, but it also shows the emotion and excitement that comes with winning in the end. The sight of long lines stretching around corners and grown men and women crying as they cast their vote for president conveys just how monumental the 2008 election really was.
"This is momentous," said one Obama supporter on election day. "Win or lose, the game has been changed."
The documentary ends with Axelrod and Plouffe going to Obama's room, where By the People captures a short glimpse of the 44th President of the United States for the first time before he says, "All right guys, let's do this," and closes the door.
In addition to airing on HBO, By the People was played in theaters in Los Angeles and New York in July in order to make it eligible for Academy Award nominations. A DVD of the documentary will be released in January, with about three hours of extra footage that did not make it into the actual film. With over 780 hours of material, not everything could make the cut.
O'Meara and his company are currently working on other projects, such as a documentary based on the book Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, and a film on gerrymandering. The main focus of the company is on creating documentaries, but that does not mean other projects are off limits.
"Now that we've done this, I think we'll try to get in to the more scripted series."
O'Meara's main message for Loyola students was to be open to taking the small steps to success. After teaching high school English for a year after graduation, O'Meara decided to change paths and explore the film industry. An internship with Sony gave O'Meara the experience he needed to break into the field.
O'Meara referred to his nine-month internship at Sony as his "full-time, living at home with my parents unpaid job," though he informed students that they must be prepared to be in similar situations.
"Once you get something like that on your resume, you're on to the next step," O'Meara said.
The value of taking the small steps necessary to gain experience and knowledge about a profession is evident through the person of O'Meara, who went from being a Loyola student to an English teacher to a film company owner chronicling the election of the first African American president of the United States.
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