THE ACCIDENTAL PRESIDENT Trump won. That’s a fact. How did he do it?

INTERVENTION MEDIA PRESENTS IN ASSOCIATION WITH MAKEMAKE ENTERTAINMENT ASSOCIATE EXECUTIVE A JAMES FLETCHERFILM ‘THE ACCIDENTAL PRESIDENT’ PRODUCER TED GUARD PRODUCER KENT KUBENA EXECUTIVE CREATIVE MUSIC DIRECTOR OF PRODUCER ANGUS WALL DIRECTOR GRAHAM CLARKIN BY DOMINIC LEWIS PHOTOGRAPHY JEZ THIERRY EDITOR NOAH BENEZRA

THIS FILM IS PRODUCED PRODUCED & NOT YET RATED BY EVE KORNBLUM DIRECTED BY JAMES FLETCHER © 2020 Intervention Media LLC. All rights reserved COMING SOON PUBLICITY CONTACT JIM DOBSON Indie PR [email protected] SYNOPSIS

As America began to try and come to terms with the surprising (and for many voters, horrifying) results of the presidential race of 2016, the subsequent rapid-fire speed of events and jam-packed news cycles meant that nobody would ever have the opportunity to truly and properly reflect on what exactly just happened -- and how did it?

THE ACCIDENTAL PRESIDENT is British filmmaker/journalist James Fletcher’s quest for those answers. In it, he not only uncovers a detailed play-by-play from all angles on how it all went down, but also the state of America that led to the results, what the electorate was really motivated by, and how a former game show host with an elevated understanding of the media and entertainment was able to connect with voters from all walks of life and stage a takeover of Washington D.C. -- whether he meant to or not.

Featuring an impressively diverse and balanced set of fascinating interviews from both sides of the aisle, Fletcher has taken what could have simply been a “Trump-bashing” film and has instead created something for a much larger audience: everyone. An educated examination of the most controversial election in modern history, and one that every future campaign - most notably the one currently in play - should study with an electron microscope.

THE ACCIDENTAL PRESIDENT is executive produced by multiple Oscar and Emmy-winner Angus Wall (Icarus, Ava DuVernay’s 13th, Netflix’s Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez, etc.)

ABOUT THE PRODUCTION

I moved to the US in early 2015 when I met my now wife. I produced TV spots and online campaigns for David She works for CNN (Newsroom with Brooke Baldwin) and Cameron up till his election in 2010. I also did the same it was an election year. There was the added presence for Boris Johnson’s lift-of when he became Mayor of of Apprentice star Donald Trump that was throwing London. Over the same stretch of time I worked on political Washington and the media of balance. Initially dismissed campaigns in Europe, the Middle East and beyond. As TV as little more than a publicity stunt, his presence in the field producer, you have to be with the candidate all the time. You was unsettling the established expectations and outcomes. get the same access as their most trusted aides, you see all Firstly, if you asked anyone in the media or polling the polling data, and design TV campaigns to respond to organizations, which candidate was the likely winner of the the negatives, and amplify the positives. So for 2-3 years, I election - they all pointed to Hillary Clinton, and that was in was with two future Prime Ministers of the UK, which gave the context of a Republican field dominated by experienced me an understanding of how elections are won. How does serious people ready to lead. a person wanting power build their name and reputation with the public? What are the qualities that sell beyond all My own experience of politics goes back to the early 2000s others? What does an electorate tolerate? And what do they when, as a junior producer, I was at a think tank in London reject? And how would new media afect campaigns? for an event discussing how politics had fallen behind the technology curve, and what needed to be done to catch So as 2016 unfolded, and I was in the USA, and Trump’s up and reconnect with voters, especially younger voters. A numbers defied all conventions - i.e. his cardinal errors number of us spoke up and said that fundamentally it wasn’t bumped his numbers whereas for another other candidate, that difcult to catch up - but political managers needed they would have crashed to an immediate and miserable to understand the potential and seize it with enthusiasm if campaign suspension. Another world event happening they were to succeed. The following day, a staf member on the other side of the Atlantic was Brexit. My old friend of a newly elected leader of the Conservative party - David Dominic Cummings (now Chief of Staf to PM Johnson) Cameron - called me. He’d been in the room the evening asked me to make some films for his Brexit campaign. And before, and suggested that we could use the time in while I voted Remain, I’ve always treated campaigns as a Opposition, with its reduced media scrutiny, to experiment lawyer treats a client - it’s business and my own beliefs have with online media and see what impact it may have on no part to play, and never should. Our animations run any Mr Cameron’s fortunes. This was 2006. Pre-smartphone. time there is any recollection of the campaign. When Brexit Pre-Facebook. Pre-YouTube. Pre-Instagram. And at a time happened, it was permissible to say Trump might win. I when the internet did little more than deliver email and never called it for Trump, but my position was that the world news headlines. Online shopping was in its infancy and was reacting diferently and that it would be a mistake to Blackberrys were the height of technology. write of a man that can fill arenas when few voters could manage to name his opponents.

In 2016, Donald Trump was elected President. All kinds of and just texted her. After some emails, she said yes… institutions, media, pundits and the rest were collectively especially as I was just interested in hearing her story. I stunned. They reacted to Trump as it if had been a natural made it clear I wasn’t planning a hostile TV-style interview. disaster. They didn’t want to understand or accept why so After filming, I downloaded the footage onto two portable many experts had missed the warnings. They talked about Glyph portable USB C drives. I’d take one, Jez kept the Hillary’s win of the popular vote, and while true, it doesn’t other. And when I could get access to fast internet, I’d put you in the The White House. You have to win the upload it to Dropbox too. And when back home in NY, I Electoral College and strategists for two hundred plus years copied footage to a Glyph 4TB master drive. have put that at the core of a winning campaign. Our editor Noah Benezra is from the mighty post production operation - Rock Paper Scissors in New York City. This is his As the dust settled, and after Trump was inaugurated, it first film and he is more than ready to be a principal editor. was clear that in government, he was going to carry on Just as we were about to start post production, the COVID with incessant media bait and attention domination… which pandemic swept the world and we were confined to our meant that the normal post mortems and period of reflection homes. So the edit started remotely, and I thinking that about the 2016 election just wasn’t going to happen. before long, we’d be able to meet in the edit room… but Journalists told me they had never had so much new data sure enough, that never happened, so I created a remote and story fodder right out of the gate. workflow. All creatives communicate via Slack - a total game-changer. We upload our cuts to Frame.io which So I thought: I’m an onlooker, I don’t have a vote, I know allows you to leave comments on the timeline, meaning very few voters nor do I belong to a US political tribe. What no more lists with timecode. Comments on Frame can if I make a documentary looking at this election? then be imported into Premiere and After Efects. Dropbox is the pillar of all file sharing and distribution. No raking I sketched out ideas. The Defiant Ones had just been through inboxes or wasting time looking for things, carefully released and I thought there was an opportunity to versioned files on Dropbox saves hours. approach politics away from the starchy treatment aimed at beltway insiders. I wanted it to be kinetic, and exciting, and As we realised that lockdown was not coming to an end diferent to other political documentaries. any time soon, we gradually added other contributors to the workflow. Some had never used Slack or Frame, and saw I went to see my great friend Jez Thierry, a British the immediate benefits. We added Graham Clarkin based in cameraman living and working in LA. He’s my age (47) rural Sufolk in the UK. He’s our Motion Graphics producer and learnt his craft from the good old days of film, and who’s worked on the Olympics, for FIFA (soccer) and other has embraced the new technologies as readily. I told him I major sports events. His work is often seen on the Graham wanted to make a film in a way that breaks the conventions Norton Show (BBC America) and countless commercials of large crews and excessive budgets. I wanted the two of and other TV shows. He designed our opening credits and us to go and find various characters in their habitats and other elements in the film, using Adobe After Efects and a hear from them what they thought about 2016. He said yes multitude of Plug-Ins, posting to finished work to Frame and and so we had to work out how to approach it. saving all files on Dropbox.

He suggested we buy the Sony FS7 4K camera. He selected Dominic Lewis is a British composer based in Los Angeles. Fujinon lenses, so we got those too. The B&H photo/video He was previously based at Hans Zimmer’s Remote Control superstore in New York was the source for audio, lighting, Productions where he worked closely with Henry Jackman. grip, all the accessories. I used a MixPre3 sound recorder At his private studio in Santa Monica, he received edits and Sennheiser MKH416 boom-mounted microphone via Frame. They were converted into an Avid Codec for to record all the interviews. I didn’t want to see lav ProTools. His score is brilliantly appropriate to the subject microphones clipped to anyone’s clothes. Between us, we matter and drives the pace and energy we wanted for the hauled the equipment to locations in Washington, Cincinnati, final edit. He got it right away and his music is magnificent. Los Angeles, New York, and London. Just the two of us. Over in London, Steve Speed and James Evans at The Farm My wife Brooke introduced me to a number of people she in Soho, pressed on with the business of sound design and knows - Van Jones, Michael D’Antonio, Steve Schmidt, Mary the final mix. They both have extensive film, television and Katherine Ham, April Ryan, Matt Schlapp. Others responded advertising credits - and I had sought them out having seen to a TV anchor with more speed than they would (if ever) to Formula One: Drive to Survive on Netflix - One of the best a random person from London (me). Others I knew already: sound mixes I’ve ever heard. At times, they were using 200 Joe Trippi (we’d worked together), Richard Miniter, John tracks to re-create the voltage and mayhem of a Formula Avlon. Some I cold-called or emailed… and it’s amazing One race. And for us, they have dived into the challenge of how often people will engage with the right approach and arena speeches, archive footage, sit down interviews with subject matter if it interests them. I saw Piers Morgan in a a treatment rarely used in documentary. Their remarkable London pub - asked him and he said yes. We filmed the work is being presented in Dolby Atmos. Again, very rare in following week. I was given Kellyanne’s cell phone number the documentary world. In New York City, colourist Mikey Rossiter (The Mill, NYC) is handling the grade. The film was almost entirely shot on a Sony FS7 with Fujinon prime lenses - with the exception of Kellyanne Conway (Canon C300 4K in C Log). It turned out that Mikey had headed down to Texas with his grading equipment, so PostWorks sent the conformed 4K files down to Mikey where he graded. They were sent back to New York City to be completed at The Mill and delivered in spectacular Dolby Vision files.

And so, as we come to the final stretch, Technicolor/ PostWorks are handling the final assembly with Jef Cornell and Ryan Rolandelli, produced by Patriciana Tenicela. They are the exact place you need overseeing the assembly. They’ve seen it all before and are unfazed by the various requests from buyers. Their deep knowledge and experience makes operating in these times, far less trying than it could be.

James Fletcher September 2020

Angus Wall [L], Jez Thierry, Graham Clarkin, James Fletcher ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS

JAMES FLETCHER [Director, Producer] James Fletcher is a UK television producer/director currently based in New York City. He started out working on commercial and music videos, before being hired by a number of political campaigns to produce TV ads (spots) including UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and former Prime Minister David Cameron. He has also worked on European elections, campaigns in the US, and the Middle East. He has written articles about the business of politics, and increasing deployment of technology, especially social media as prime channels of voter communication. He is directing his first feature The Accidental President which simply seeks to answer ‘How on earth did Donald Trump win the election of 2016?’

JEZ THIERRY [Director of Photographer] Jez Thierry Originally from the UK now living in Los Angeles, he started out as a TV Cameraman and Director/Cameraman creating hundreds of hours of programming for all the major UK networks and production companies including: BBC, ITV, CNN, MTV, VH-1, Discovery, National Geographic and Channel 4. He filmed the biographical documentary Manny about the boxer Manny Pacquiao, and more recently the documentary Ignite - a visual wonder showing the Burning Man festival through night and day over its week in the Black Rock desert of Nevada.

ANGUS WALL [Executive Producer] Angus Wall is the founder and CEO of MakeMake, which consists of MakeMake Entertainment, Elastic, Indestructible, Jax, Rock Paper Scissors, and a52. Wall has won three Academy Awards, a BAFTA, Five Emmys, and several Clios for his work, which includes editing The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and , Executive Producing the Netflix documentaries Icarus (Academy Award for Best Documentary), 13th (Emmy Award for Best Documentary), and Kevin Hart: Don’t F*** This Up (2020 Emmy nominee), and directing the title sequences for and Carnivàle. FULL CREDITS

Director James Fletcher

Producers James Fletcher Eve Kornblum

Editor Noah Benezra

Director of Photography Jez Thierry

Associate Producer Ted Guard

Executive Producer Angus Wall Kent Kubena

Camera [Kellyanne Conway] Aiden Korotkin Camera [Piers Morgan] Gary Rogers Gafer [Frank Luntz] Drew Moe Sound Recordist James Fletcher

Main Title Design and Motion Graphics Producer Graham Clarkin Art Directors Sian Rance Emil Dacanay

Composer Dominic Lewis All Instruments Dominic Lewis Vocals Dominic Lewis Score Mixer Amanda Marsh Technical Score Engineer Amanda Marsh

Sound Designer James Evans Sound Mixer Steve Speed

Audio Post Producer Dave O’Callaghan Colorist Mikey Rossiter Grade Producer Evan Bauer Supervising Conform Editor Jef Cornell Conform Editor Ryan Rolandelli Finishing Producer Patriciana Tenicela Account Executive Pete Olshansky INTERVIEWEES

Frank Luntz Republican pollster

Jerry Springer Talk show host

Joe Trippi Veteran Democrat campaign manager

Aaron Sorkin Creator of The West Wing

April Ryan White House correspondent

Matt Schlapp CPAC Chairman

Amy Chozick New York Times

Van Jones Dream Corps

Scott Adams Creator of Dilbert cartoon

John Avlon CNN

Prof. Allan Lichtman The American University DC

Susan Del Percio Republican strategist

Richard Miniter Zenger News

David Pakman The David Pakman Show

Steve Schmidt McCain ’08, The Lincoln Project

Mary Katherine Ham Journalist and author

Deb Roy Former Chief Scientist, Twitter

Anthony Scaramucci CEO, Skybridge

Jonathan Wackrow Former Secret Service agent

Michael d’Antonio Trump biographer

Molly Ball TIME Magazine

Piers Morgan Television host

Kellyanne Conway Counselor to the President FAQs

Are you coming at this from a left or right perspective? James Fletcher [Director] is from the UK and set out to look at the 2016 election with the distance of an outsider. There is no agenda. The intention was to present a balanced piece that considers the political landscape and the mood of the electorate before Trump came along and shook things up.

Did COVID cause problems for the production? In a word - Yes. We had almost concluded filming and were going into post production. In normal life, there is plenty of opportunity to meet up and discuss ideas with the time to run things by someone wandering past the edit suite. Everything was done remotely. Noah Benezra (editor) was in New Jersey. James Fletcher (director) in New York City. Dominic Lewis (composer) based in Los Angeles. Mikey Rossiter (colourist) in Texas, sending picture to and from The Mill, NYC. Graham Clarkin (Main titles and motion graphics) is based in Sufolk, UK. Sound Design and Mix was done at The Farm, London, UK by Steve Speed and James Evans. On one hand, thank goodness for the internet... on the other - distance and inability to travel was a delaying factor.

What camera and software did you use? Sony FS7 4K with Fujinon lenses. We edited on Adobe Premiere. Stored footage on Glyph drives and on Dropbox, which we also use for all file and asset sharing across the production. Frame.io is a video file-sharing and review platform that makes distributing content for comment much easier than looking at logs with timecode. Everyone on the production used Slack to communicate which was a total game changer because you save hours not having to rake through old emails.

How did you decide on the look and feel? I’d seen The Defiant Ones [HBO] and 13th [Ava DuVernay] shortly before production started and I wanted our film to feel diferent than a lot of political coverage... so I drew from those two projects - and asked Jez Thierry, our DOP, to think of a way we could achieve that look and feel. He specified the Sony FS7 and Fujinon lenses and a light weight grip package. He and I dragged that equipment across the country on and of Delta flights. Two man crew. Jez did lighting and filming. I recorded the sound on a MixPre3 with a Sennheiser MKH416, and conducted the interviews. We could set up in 45mins, ideally an hour. Film the interview and leave in 30mins. We could do up to 3 interviews in a day with local travel between locations. The hardest part is lining up interviewees in close proximity of time and space. Wait a minute... hasn’t this story been told before? Well, yes and no. History always needs diferent perspectives from diferent sources. That’s why there are over 50 biographies of Winston Churchill. While I am not saying Trump is the same as Churchill, he did however win a contest that landed him the most powerful ofce on earth and if that doesn’t warrant extensive examination, I don’t know what does. And the fact is, many people have yet to understand how it happened - or even accept that it did. No poll called it for him, supposed political experts didn’t see it coming, and many in the media missed it. So yes, we have a story to tell and it’s a damn good one!

What do you want the audience to take away? Even the most news addicted people may have forgotten the chronology, so it will be a refresher for them. And more than that, some of our interviewees shine light in a way it hasn’t been heard before, which is as interesting for the well-versed, and similarly less politically inclined. At core, it’s basically an account of a game show host becoming President of the United States... and it’s an outcome which has no single answer - more a confluence of events: the state of America, media, the way we communicate and a deep fatigue with the Washington system. Simple answer: I’d love to fire up the debate and hear people stress-testing their opinions as a result of seeing the film.

What was the most challenging aspect of production? Really - it was not seeing the creatives in person. Apart from looking forward to going and hearing/seeing their work in progress in their various studios... We missed out on the opportunity to experiment as much as we would have liked. I’ve still never met Steve Speed and James Evans at The Farm in London, because borders have been closed all year. We’ve spoken a lot... but I asked them to be their own client, meaning that I wanted them to push for the best result by their own standards. On past projects, when people have given me that role... I’ve done the best work and pushed even harder for quality. And that’s exactly what these guys have delivered. TECHNICAL INFORMATION

Country of Origin USA

Language English

Visual Format Dolby Vision 4K

Sound Format Dolby Atmos

Release Date October 2020

Runtime 107mins

MPAA Rating not rated

Ofcial US website link www.interventionmedia.com

Instagram @theaccidentalpresident

Twitter @theaccidental45 JERRY SPRINGER Jerry knows his politics and discusses the campaign and its outcome as a committed Democrat and advocate of electoral reform. At the time of the interview, he was considering running for governor of Ohio.

KELLYANNE CONWAY We filmed this at The White House in March 2020, hours before the national lockdown was announced by Trump that evening. I pitched the interview as a non-confrontation and Kellyanne told stories about the campaign in a relaxed and candid way you’d rarely see in a live television interview.

ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI Famously the 11 day Comms Chief at The White House and CEO of Skybridge Capital. He tells is how it is - funny, knowledgeable, and insightful. This was filmed before he publicly abandoned Trump. FRANK LUNTZ Franks is one of life’s great story tellers. He’s a Republican pollster with encyclopedic recall and a deep understanding of the American voter, the decisions they make, and why.

APRIL RYAN As a White House correspondent, she’s been a thorn in the side of the Trump administration... She’s been listening and watching for years and has important things to say about what drove people towards Trump.

AARON SORKIN The creator of The West Wing is no fan of Trump’s and not afraid to say so. His observations are tough and the remedies he suggest are worth hearing. MOLLY BALL Molly is Time magazine’s National Correspondent and a brilliant political analyst and thinker. She notices everything and speak eloquently and extensively about the strengths and weaknesses of both the Trump and Clinton campaigns.

JOHN AVLON At the time of recording John was editor of The Daily Beast and part time CNN contributor. He’s now full time. A Democrat and writer of a number of political books. He delivers balanced observations of 2016.

MARY KATHARINE HAM MK is a Republican journalist and author who pays compliments where they’re deserved. She brings a levity and attack where errors and misjudgments in 2016 require them. She has excellent insight on campaigns and how they operate. PROF ALLAN LICHTMAN Prof Lichtman has been correctly predicting US elections since 1984, and when he called it for Trump a year prior - as he puts it - “people wondered if I’d lost my mind”. Well, he was correct and tells us why.

PIERS MORGAN Professional provocateur, journalist, and TV anchor was one of Trump’s 40 followed Twitter accounts at the time of the interview. He knows Trump well from The Celebrity Apprentice and has really interesting observations about the media, celebrity, and Trump’s understanding of the electorate.

STEVE SCHMIDT Steve worked on McCain’s 08 presidential bid and is a founder of the Trump-kicking Lincoln project. A great observer and explainer of 2016. While no Trump fan he adds clarity to how Trump succeeded. SCOTT ADAMS Scott is the creator of Dilbert and a lesser know fact is that he is a trained hypnotist and Republican. He is eloquent and amusing in his explanation of the media in 2016 and Trump’s ability to upstage his GOP rivals.

MATT SCHLAPP Matt is the Chairman of CPAC. His wife works in The White House. He gives us the inside track of flawed GOP machinations in 2016 and how their shock at Trump’s nomination caused turmoil in the GOP as they tried to unseat him.

VAN JONES Van founded Dream Corps and is a frequent media commentator on CNN. He was a Democrat surrogate during the 2016 but isn’t afraid to share his opinion of the Clinton campaign’s performance and how they handled the unexpected GOP nominee. JOE TRIPPI Joe is a veteran Democrat campaign manager. He explains the Clinton campaign and examines its efectiveness. He also understands technology in politics having famously raised big money for Howard Dean online.

AMY CHOZICK Amy is an NYT journalist and author of Chasing Hillary. She has spent two campaigns following Hillary and knows the Clintons well. She has great inside anecdotes and observations of the Clinton campaign and their response to Bernie and Trump.

DAVID PAKMAN David hosts The David Pakman Show online, attracting a vast array of people from the world of politics. He’s a sharp analyst of Washington from a Democratic perspective. MICHAEL D’ANTONIO Michael is a Trump biographer and delivers tough analysis on the Trump methods and their origins. He’s known Trump a long time, and has really thoughtful things to say.

JONATHAN WACKROW Jonathan was a senior Secret Service agent during the Obama administration and explains how Trump petitioned for - and obtained - Secret Service protection a year before the 2016 election... giving him not only the presidential optics, but also the logistical advantage which meant he could travel the nation at twice the speed of his GOP rivals. James Fletcher [Director] with Piers Morgan and Anthony Scaramucci Scott Adams creator of Dilbert

Jez Thierry Director of Photography Getting ready for Frank Luntz

Edit setup on the road