Time is running out. For democracy. For the planet. And nobody's going to save us but us.
That's long been the premise of this newsletter. It's also the theme of "Tomorrow Is Too Late," the latest viral video from Eleven Films.
At a time when billionaires and dark money donors are responding to Trump's attempted coup by going all-in on funding the GOP's fascist takeover of America, "Tomorrow Is Too Late" is an appeal to "everyone with a cellphone" to get involved in fighting back against the right-wing propaganda machine.
It also represents the first new work from Eleven Films since its founders Jim and Tiffany Drastic—perhaps most famous for February 2020's "Midnight in Washington" video—announced they were suspending "ALL client work to focus solely on producing original Eleven Films content that will make a real impact in the 2024 election."
I reached out to Jim and Tiffany with a few questions by email to hear about their plans for the year ahead—and what you can do to support and share their work on social media and beyond.
Q&A with Tiffany and Jim Drastic of Eleven Films
What is Eleven Films and where do you fit into the political activism ecosystem?
Eleven Films is an award-winning, Portland-based production company. My husband and I started Eleven Films in November of 2013 a few days after getting married in our old middle school. We were childhood friends who lost touch in our 20s and then re-met at a mutual friend’s wedding on 11/11/11. Hence the name.
James was always interested in national politics and video editing and I was heavy into local protesting. When we met again in 2011, I had been attending Occupy Portland protests. In 2013, we began making short internet films about various protests that we would attend or coordinate and released them on Facebook. We would get anywhere between 500 and 5,000 views and for local Portland activism on Facebook, that wasn’t too bad.
In October 2018, we decided to take a stab at national politics and made The #BlueWave Trailer, a digital short film featuring many Democratic candidates who were running for office during the midterms. We were desperately trying to flip the House blue again. And we decided to release it on Twitter, which was a new platform for us. The response was absolutely overwhelming. It went viral on Twitter garnering over 6 million views and was shared by countless celebrities, politicians, and pundits.
We continued releasing viral videos throughout 2019. Both original Eleven Films (The DonFather & White Nationalist Domestic Terrorism) as well as client videos. In February 2020, we released Midnight In Washington. Midnight In Washington has reached over 28 million views on Twitter and is generally considered the gold standard of modern political digital videos. We followed it up with The Dangerous Ones (14 million views), The #BlueWave2020 Trailer (6 million views), and other original and client videos.
Since November 2020, Eleven Films continued to release additional viral videos, most notably, The #AmericanWoman Trailer in 2021 which was nominated for a Webby Award, and #AwakenDawn in 2022, which was featured on MSNBC’s The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle.
On November 9, 2023, we announced our #DraftElevenFilms campaign on social media with an accompanied launch video. Then on November 16, 2023, we launched our first video, #TomorrowIsTooLate, that was funded by supporters of our efforts.
What is your mission for the next 12 months—and why?
Our mission for 2024 is to help Democrats win the digital war by creating the most original and impactful pro-democracy content that focuses on getting Joe Biden re-elected, taking back the House, maintaining the Senate and to get every single American we can to get out and vote! We want our content to do a combination of three things: educate, energize and entertain. This presidential election is the most consequential of our lifetime. You hear that phrase thrown around a lot during election cycles but I doubt any Democrat or Republican would disagree that 2024 is for all the marbles.
When it comes to social media and technology, what are you more worried about—bot armies swarming our feeds with AI-created content or X in the hands of Elon Musk?
Bot armies and troll farms are a real problem. In October of 2020, Vanity Fair asked us to be part of an article they were writing about how pro-blue videos were getting fraudulent “sensitivity” labels slapped on them as a result of bots that were mass reporting in an attempt to suppress the videos’ reach. And the truth is, it worked. To an extent. It was certainly something we had to deal with on a daily basis.
"We are teetering on the brink of fascism and the propaganda that is attainable now with AI should scare EVERY voter."
Now that Elon has control of X (formerly Twitter), we have much more to contend with. He’s practically saying pro-blue content will not be getting the same reach as extremist right-wing content. Not to mention multiple influencers, celebrities and a huge swath of democracy-loving users have fled the platform. Thus, we are making it a priority to grow our reach on all platforms including Threads, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and even smaller apps like Post News, and BlueSky.
And the AI issue is two-fold for us. It’s a powerful tool to assist in the creation of SOME content. But we are a very nuts and bolts, old-school GenX company and we would rather do the hard work ourselves. That is not to say that we won’t consider it like any other creative paintbrush in our toolbox but ya know…it’s the easy way out.
Discerning what is real and what is a deep fake is getting harder by the day and when you are doubting what your eyes are seeing, we are in dangerous political times. We are teetering on the brink of fascism and the propaganda that is attainable now with AI should scare EVERY voter.
Who will you be—or hope to be—collaborating with in the year ahead?
We’ve been very fortunate to have worked with incredible people including Shane Salerno, Don Winslow, Tracy Falco, Rep. Eric Swalwell, Nick Knudsen, and Jamie Carter from DemCast to name just a few.
For 2024, we will continue to work with the entire DemCast team, and we have a wishlist of collaborations that we hope to begin announcing early next year. Don’t want to jinx anything. Lol.
What do you expect to be doing differently in 2024 vs. 2020?
Our plan for 2024 vs 2020 is we will be launching ONLY Eleven Films original content or exciting collaborations. More than all of the previous years combined. We will be including a lot more filmed elements from podcast-style shorts, new weekly series, and game-changing cinematic videos like our new #TomorrowIsTooLate which trended on X, and has received an incredible response from people who want to get involved in the 2024 election. We wrote it together, hired the wonderful Raiyasha Paris as our lead character Robin, and also hired our son Blake, who is a viral content creator in his own right (over 335,000 followers and 10 million views on TikTok) to help with cinematography. We filmed the whole thing at our home. Even our cat Buddy makes an appearance! It was a real labor of love and it taught us that if we do it together, we can’t be stopped.
If people want to get a feel for your work, which three videos would you tell them to watch first?
We would suggest:
- Midnight in Washington. Released February 4, 2020 | Webby Award Honoree | over 28 million views
This video changed everything for us and helped spark a political content movement on Twitter. We were fortunate enough to receive a call from Adam Schiff out of blue one night a few weeks after the launch. He thanked us for making the “incredibly powerful video” and he believed it made a difference.
2. The Dangerous Ones. Released July 2, 2020 | Feat. on All in with Chris Hayes | Gold Telly Award Winner
With over 14 million views, no other song-forward political video was viewed more times during the 2020 election cycle. Including Taylor Swift’s “Only the Young” video (11 million views) which we helped produce with Eric Swalwell and producer Tracy Falco. “The Dangerous Ones” by Kasey Anderson became an election anthem and it marks the first time an original Eleven Films video was featured on television (MSNBC - All In with Chris Hayes) but it wasn’t the last.
3. Tomorrow Is Too Late. Released November 16, 2024 | NEW | Trending twice on X | Over a million views
This video really represents our artistic growth and commitment to raising the bar every time we make a video. The filmed elements, which make up about 85% of the video, were the first big step into a new era for us. And we believe the message is about as important as any… "if you have a cell phone, you are a digital activist. Create and share pro-democracy content. Start today. #TomorrowIsTooLate"
Where can people find you, follow you, and share your work?
You can learn more about us and the #DraftElevenFilms campaign on our website elevenfilms.com as well as our social media:
X (Twitter) - https://twitter.com/ElevenFilms
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ElevenFilms
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eleven_films/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@elevenfilms
Threads: https://www.threads.net/@eleven_films
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/elevenfilms
Post News: https://post.news/@/elevenfilms
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/elevenfilms.bsky.social
How can people support you?
Because we have stopped ALL client work to focus solely on the 2024 election cycle, we are 100% reliant on the generosity of democracy-loving people like your readers.
If you would like to make a donation to support the creation of more content, you can chip in here: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/draftelevenfilms2024
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