Saturday, April 27, 2019

Tent City (the TV show)


Vets have distinct tents, like you see on the Portland waterfront at festival time, full of long tables and beer drinkers.

Get your food from the food carts, redeeming the crypto-credits you got for living in an experimental prototype community of tomorrow, a refugee camp of sorts, like a military base, for people fleeing the crumbling older economy.

We have much affinity for base personnel and actually film the TV show on bases around the world (with permission of course).

Ordinary Americans turn out to be quite extraordinary, as the famous TV show MASH helped us realize. Celebrities visit often, making cameo appearances. Product placement dominates.

One of the chief attractions of the show is no ads during broadcast. It's all paid for ahead of time. Something unusual in prime time.

I wonder if President Gabbard might help me with this. She's acting president from around now until 2020, when I'll pick someone new. I get to pick my own president from now on, letting people know up front that I'm a science fiction writer and Martian Math teacher, fully aware of the fact that my fantasy team is not actually the team in charge. 

The team actually in charge gets full time coverage and doesn't need my help.

We don't only film in military bases branded with US iconography (stars and stripes motif etc.) as we're frequently invited to the military bases of other countries. 

Product placement is such that many camps use the same products, and besides, we're making up our own decals and not presuming to take command of what the admirals and generals get to control, i.e. we're not staging military parades or pretending our campers are necessarily tied to a specific military. 

When we repaint a fighter jet for Quakers to train in, it's with permission from the manufacturer. Part of the product placement, which is intrinsic to the screen writing.