The Making of "American Shaman" Part 1: Stop The Steal
Canceled on social media. Investigated by the DOJ and FBI. Audited by the IRS. After 4 years we've finally made it to Apple TV. This is a four-part article series on the making of the film.
I didn’t vote for Trump in 2016. I was a libertarian, and voted for Gary Johnson.
And while I wasn’t a Trump supporter in 2016, I found it absolutely hilarious that he beat Hilary Clinton.
But once Trump got into office, and I saw the establishment in Washington D.C., and mainstream media, going after him, I started to pay attention.
I started asking myself: “What were they afraid of? Why were they lying about Trump?”
So by the time the election came around in 2020, I planned on voting for Trump.
I didn’t consider myself to be MAGA, and didn’t really even know anything about the MAGA movement. But I knew that Joe Biden would be bad news for America.
WATCHING THE 2020 ELECTION RETURNS
Like many Americans I watched the 2020 election returns on television. I watched Trump’s lead vanish in real time. I watched the unexpected vote dumps in the middle of the night. I watched the “Red Mirage” give way to a Biden victory.
And I wasn’t sure how I felt about it immediately. But I knew something was “off.”
INTRODUCTION TO STOP THE STEAL
It was only a few days later that a friend of mine told me about Stop The Steal.
I didn’t know who Ali Alexander was. I didn’t know who any of the major MAGA political commentators were. I just knew that there were some election integrity rallies that were starting to happen around the country, and it sounded interesting.
So I went onto Twitter and started checking things out. I saw people posting about the problems with the 2020 election.
Some of it seemed believable. Other things seemed crazy.
What really happened on November 3rd, 2020? I just felt compelled to dig into the issue and find out for myself.
I DECIDED TO MAKE A MOVIE
I own a commercial video production company as my “real job.” I own tens of thousands of dollars worth of camera equipment. And I had a few weeks of downtime.
So I decided to pull my camera gear together, along with another cameraman named Paul Escandon, and we decided to head out to a Stop The Steal rally in Georgia.
On a whim I send a DM to Ali Alexander on Twitter and asked if he would mind a documentary crew capturing some footage of what he was doing.
After a bit of back and forth, he told me to come out to the rally and we’ll see how it goes.
We ended up filming for seven weeks straight.
SEVEN WEEKS ON THE ROAD
We travelled to cities all over the country, embedded with the Stop The Steal team, filming events and interviewing people.
It was the first time I had met people in the MAGA movement. It was the first time I hear what they believed, and what they wanted for this country. It was an eye opening and wild experience.
The first Trump rally I ever attended, I was in the front row.
“THE STEAL” DOCUMENTARY
The original plan was to produce a film about the election integrity protest movement called “The Steal.”
By the time the end of December had rolled around, we had interviewed dozens of people, and captured footage at 7 or 8 rallies across the country.
We knew we had an interesting film developing, and decided to put out a trailer for it.
We took a week off for the Christmas holidays and were getting ready to film our final rally in Washington D.C. The plan was to spend 2 days filming in D.C. in the lead up to one final rally on the day of the election certification.
January 6th.
And that’s when this story gets really crazy…
This article is continued in The Making of "American Shaman" Part 2: January 6th