Sarah Palin and her magic hockey stick set the issues ablaze!

THE NAKED CAMPAIGN is a satirical reflection of the political process by editorial caricaturist and campaign veteran Steve Brodner. In Attack of the 50 ft. Woman, Brodner discusses the transformation of Clinton supporters and the relationship between Obama and Biden.

THE NAKED CAMPAIGN is:
*a multi-media, multi-platform exercise in filmmaking and reportage, incorporating the internet, cable or broadcast television, print and daily on-line blog and ultimately a documentary film on the trajectory of the 2008 presidential campaign;

*a combination of animation, live art, commentary and both original and existing footage;

*periodic dispatches from the field, intended to immediately reflect as well as put a lens on various aspects of the campaign - the candidates, the issues, the gaffes, the asides, the electorate, etc., etc.;

*effortless in its ability to reach across demographics and be relevant to each constituency of the media population...

In other words, it is a modern day "fear and loathing" style yelp for the online, youtube, ipod/iphone generation as well as an original, idea filled take on the 2008 presidential campaign that can be digested equally by the television watching, newspaper reading, and film generation, stripping everything down to it's underwear!

Who's who in the production...
We intend to follow the machinations of the 2008 campaign through the pen of editorial caricaturist and campaign veteran Steve Brodner. In the rich tradition of the great social commentators of history - the Thomas Nast's, the Honore Daumier's -- who have used their eye and their brush to capture just that essence of humanity which so propels the political dialogue, Brodner can create in a line the entire attitude of a culture. He can capture in a well placed wash of color the prevailing mood of society - immediate and pithy takes on the many nuances of presidential politics. These drawings will morph into animated sequences that combine with real time video -- animated documentary vignettes. An always original voice and eye, observing all the antics of campaigning - everyone fair game for Brodner's canvas.

Gail Levin, seven-time EMMY winner and a Peabody award winning documentarian, with work also honored by THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, will work in tandem with Brodner to both produce and direct these small pieces and to simultaneously collect and refine the larger tapestry that will finally present the bigger picture -- the film which ultimately documents the trajectory of what we think will be one of the most pivotal campaigns in US history, using all the while the various anecdotal elements we have accumulated and dispatched throughout this campaign year.

Animators Brian O'Connell and Richard O'Connor bring their humor and wit to this enterprise as the third piece of the NAKED CAMPAIGN pie. Their company, Asterisk, has won numerous awards including Clios and EMMY's and their work has been honored with shows at the Museum of Modern Art and the Art Director's Club of New York. And they have also created animation for numerous television series including SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, Comedy Central's TV FUNHOUSE, Nickelodeon's KA-BLAM.

THE NAKED CAMPAIGN is an effort to create an enduring comment on the political process in this country. But, as importantly, it is intended as an evocation of its time technologically, emotionally, poetically, passionately and courageously with the true heart of the satirist. It is style and substance, fact and art, a way of observing - not intended to polarize nor to preach to the converted, but to present its moment boldly, unapologetically and as it is... then, you decide...

Steve Brodner.

Steve Brodner has been a satiric illustrator for 35 years. Born in Brooklyn, NY in 1954, graduated Cooper Union in 1976, he got a cartooning job on a small newspaper, The Hudson Dispatch, in Union City, New Jersey. In 1977 The New York Times Book Review began tapping him for illustration assignments. This launched his freelance career. In 1979-82 he published his own journal, The New York Illustrated News. In 1981 he became a regular contributor to Harper's magazine with the monthly feature, "Ars Politica". In the 1980's more magazines asked him to contribute regularly. These included the National Lampoon, Sports Illustrated, Playboy and Spy. In 1988 Esquire brought him in as an unofficial house artist. It was there that he did portrait caricature, art journalism and a back-page political cartoon, "Adversaria". His caricatures of pop and political culture have appeared in every major publication in the United States.

Art Journalism
In visual essays Steve Brodner has covered eight national political conventions for Esquire, The Progressive, the Village Voice and others. His article, "Plowed Under", a series of portraits and interviews with beleaguered farm families in the Midwest ran in The Progressive. Shot From Guns, an art documentary about the Colt Firearms strike in Hartford, Connecticut appeared in Northeast magazine in 1989. For The New Yorker he covered Oliver North and the 1994 Virginia Senate race, the Patrick Buchanan presidential campaign, the Million Man March and an advance story on the Democratic Convention in Chicago, 1996. The Washington Post asked him to profile the Bob Dole presidential campaign in 1996. In spring 1997, he drew and wrote an eight page piece on the South by Southwest Music Festival for Texas Monthly. That summer he climbed Mt. Fuji for Outside Magazine. That fall he did a piece on the New York City mayoral campaign for New York Magazine. His eight-page profile of George W. Bush appeared in Esquire in October, 1998. In 2000 he dealt with the difficult issue of guns in Pennsylvania for Philadelphia Magazine. Texas Monthly published his 10 page story on Colonias (Mexican Americans along the Texas border) called "In America", May, 2005. "Austin Powers" a 10 page tour of the Texas state capitol ran in Texas Monthly in July, 2007.

Books
His first book, Fold 'N Tuck, an outgrowth of his Esquire page, was published in 1990 by Doubleday. His animated film and book Davy Crockett was produced by Rabbit Ears Productions in 1992. He illustrated the book Sharing the Pie by Steven Brouwer which was published in 1997 by Henry Holt. His collected political work was published in Freedom Fries, by Fantagraphics Books, 2004.

Political Cartoons From 1992-97 his weekly feature "Tomorrow's News Tonight" was syndicated nationally. He is currently editor of The Nation's cartoon feature, "Comix Nation". And does "Person of the Day" here on Drawger.

Film
His documentary short "SEPTEMBER, 2001" was shown in conjunction with the SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL, 2002.

THE NAKED CAMPAIGN, a series of political animations appear on the New Yorker website and the Sundance Channel, 2008.

Miscellaneous
In 1996 Brodner was a commentator in PBS's Frontline documentary about the presidential election, THE CHOICE, in which he drew on camera.

In 1998 he designed and painted the movie poster for Warren Beatty's BULWORTH.

In 2004, guest appearances on THIS WEEKLY with George Stephanopoulos, THE LEONARD LOPATE SHOW, PBS CHICAGO etc. Organized Artists Against the War exhibition at the Society of Illustrators, January, 2008.

Subject of one-man show Raw Nerve at the Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, MA, summer-fall, 2008. He teaches narrative art at the School of Visual Arts, NYC.

Awards & Honors:
Numerous awards from the Society of Illustrators, Art Directors Club, SPD, SND, American Illustration, Communication Arts.
The 2000 Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism.
2005 Society of Illustrators Hamilton King Award.
2006 Reuben Award for best magazine illustration of the year, National Cartoonists Society.

Steve Brodner lives in New York City.

Gail Levin

Gail Levin is a seven-time EMMY award winning producer/director of both television and film...

Her particular projects over the years have included everything from original children's programming to network specials to collaborations with theatre and performance artists and the opportunity to be involved as the filmmaker in an original jazz opera, Lulu Noire, which premiered at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, SC in 1997... the work itself was a collaboration between Lee Breuer, a MacArthur "Genius" Grant recipient, who was the director/librettist of the piece and trumpet virtuoso Jon Faddis, then music director of the Carnegie Hall Jazz Orchestra, who composed the score... the filmed segments included portions for the performance as well as a short documentary on the Breuer/Faddis relationship (finalist Dallas Short Film & Video Competition)...

Her work has encompassed the glittering, hip world of celebrity and pop culture, it has run the gamut from politics and public issues to sports, from finance to fashion; it has included serious documentary and independent film... She has been cited for films with working artists, musicians, newsmakers and filmmakers and has created a style which is intimate and elegant, informative and comprehensive... She has worked with an array of artists including Cher, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Paul McCartney, Yo-Yo Ma and Bobby McFerrin -- Whoopi Goldberg, Joni Mitchell, Tom Stoppard, Franco Zeffirelli, Lou Reed and Robert Wilson, to name a few... Aside from the personalities, there have been the thinkers and doers of our time - George McGovern, John Lewis and Julian Bond, Archibald Cox, Seamus Heaney, "Red" Auerbach... she has produced and directed films on and for prestigious arts institutions as well, including the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Lincoln Center, the New York Philharmonic, the Guggenheim... and served as overseeing producer of the awards ceremony for the New York State Council on the Arts... Other projects have included Guys and Dolls/Off the Record for PBS' great performances, in conjunction with Miramax Films; The Tall Ship Lindo, a documentary film on crossing the Atlantic; Harvard, a video portrait, on the 350th anniversary of Harvard University, honored by inclusion in the Library of Congress' collection of significant historical films; and, Making the Misfits, for PBS' great performances... Making the Misfits has also been awarded a Cine Golden Eagle for filmmaking excellence and was included in the International Festival of Film on Art in Montreal, in March 2003...

Other work includes Santa Claus for A&E biography; a series of half-hour documentaries on art and artists for GALLERY HD, a part of the VOOM network; James Dean/Sense Memories which opened the 20th season of the prestigious PBS series, American Masters, in May, 2005... and in 2006, Marilyn: Still Life, an homage to the resonance of Marilyn Monroe's image on what would have been her 80th birthday, also for American Masters... both this film and the Dean were honored in the Festival of Film on Art in Montreal as well as receiving the Cine Golden Eagle...

Now, projects include The Naked Campaign, a multi-platform animated documentary Take on the 2008 presidential race, currently on The New Yorker website, newyorker.com, distributed internationally by the NY Times Syndicate and soon to premiere on the SUNDANCE CHANNEL... and a film on high-functioning autism and asperger's syndrome titled, TWO WORDS ONE PLANET, recently named outstanding documentary feature at the ACCOLADE Film Festival and included in this year's Hot Springs Film Festival...

Awards & Honors:
Montreal International Festival of Film on Art (FIFA): MARILYN/still life, PBS American Masters, 2007 JAMES DEAN/sense memories, PBS American Masters, 2006 MAKING THE MISFITS, PBS Great Performances, 2003

CINE Golden Eagle for filmmaking excellence MARILYN/still life, PBS American Masters, 2007 JAMES DEAN/sense memories, PBS American Masters, 2006 MAKING THE MISFITS, PBS Great Performances, 2003

Northern Nevada Motion Picture Award MAKING THE MISFIITS, PBS Great Performances, 2001

Peabody Award CITY ARTS WNET-TV, channel 13 New York, member of award winning submission team, 1998

USA Film Festival 1996, finalist 18th Annual Short Film & Video Competition, LEE BREUER & JON FADDIS/A WORK IN PROGRESS

EMMY Award 1998, Outstanding Fine Arts Programming, CITY ARTS, "The Guggenheim", WNET-TV, channel 13 New York

1996/'97/'98, individual EMMY nominee and member of CITY ARTS team, winner of fourteen New York area EMMY's, WNET-TV

1986, Outstanding Sports Programming, THE STORY OF RED AUERBACH, WHDH-TV, Boston

1984, Outstanding Instructional Programming, SO BROOKLYN HAS HER BRIDGE, WNBC-TV, New York

1984, Outstanding Informational Programming, ATOMIC HIGH SCHOOL, WNBC-TV, New York

1982, Outstanding Children's Programming, THE GREAT EXPERIMENT, WCBS-TV, New York

1980, Outstanding Instructional Programming, CHANGING PLACES, WBZ-TV, Boston

1979, Outstanding Children's Programming, CHANGING PLACES, WBZ-TV, Boston

1981, THE TALL SHIP LINDO WBZ-TV, Boston, awarded two EMMY's for outstanding cinematography and outstanding sound...

Action for Children's Television: 1979 & 1980, GET OFF YOUR BLOCK, WBZ-TV, Boston

IRIS Award: National Program Manager's Award, 1981, THE TALL SHIP LINDO, WBZ-TV, Boston

Gabriel Award: Catholic Broadcaster's Award, 1981, THE TALL SHIP LINDO, WBZ-TV, Boston

New York International Film & Television Festival: Silver Medal, 1985, THE STORY OF RED AUERBACH, WHDH-TV, Boston Silver Medal, 1982, JUSTICE ENDANGERED, WNBC-TV, New York

Olive Award: New York Council of Churches, 1983, ATOMIC HIGH SCHOOL, WNBC-TV, New York

UPI Award: Outstanding Sports Report, 1984, WHEN YOU'RE A JET, WNBC-TV, New York

Library of Congress: Collection of significant historical broadcasts, 1986, HARVARD, A VIDEO PORTRAIT, WHDH-TV, Boston