Entertainment Industry Equality Team

The Courage Campaign’s Entertainment Industry Equality Team (EIET) is comprised of skilled professionals and committed volunteers dedicated to creating top-quality video campaigns to support Marriage Equality in California and throughout the United States.

Like all Equality Teams, EIET meets regularly to strategize and plan events, and to give each member of the team ownership of our goals, strategies and outcomes. Team members take on roles as Producers (event coordinators), First ADs (data managers), UPMs (resources coordinators), Casting Directors (volunteer coordinators) and Executive Producers (fundraising).

Our first campaign is “The Wedding Matters,” a collection of 2-3 minute videos, professionally shot and edited, telling stories of same-sex weddings from the perspectives of the couples, the families, the guests, the officiants and others who have experienced the ancient rite of marriage in a thoroughly new and transformative way.

The goal of the campaign is to remind everyone, both outside and within the LGBT community, how important a wedding is – how defining, not only for those who get married, but for those witnesses who share the experience. Every society has a ritual to mark the joining of two lives into one. It is self-explanatory. Family mandatory. Socially laudatory. And it is NOT the same thing as a commitment ceremony.

EIET’s second campaign, the much more ambitious “Say Yes to Love” campaign, will begin production in January, 2010 and continue throughout the year, creating compelling, “hearts and minds” PSAs to be used by Marriage Equality initiatives worldwide.

Because of the unique talent pool in southern California and deep bench of dedicated Marriage Equality volunteers, we have the ability to produce TV-quality PSAs, 26 seconds and 56 seconds in length, to be licensed and used by any organization wishing to get a particular message out within their community. The four seconds of black screen at the end of each spot will be for them to include their own slogan, messaging, or outreach.

The Courage Campaign has the ability to be at the forefront of PR regarding Marriage Equality, utilizing all of the research, talents and connections we’ve developed to create and control the message, and ensure that the most effective campaigns get the widest possible audience.

“Say Yes to Love” will focus primarily on same-sex couples experiencing the benefits of marriage. A daughter in her 40s walks her 70-year old father down the aisle and “gives him away” to his life partner. A young couple endures overwhelming trials on a road trip from California to Iowa, and yet, it’s the best trip of their lives. A man in a hospital has the chance to make medical decisions for the man he loves because he is, legally, his next of kin.

“Say Yes to Love” will give cash-strapped equality campaigns throughout the world access to a cafeteria choice of high quality messages to run on their websites or local television stations. Regardless of geography or finances, equality organizations will be able to reach the hearts and minds of undecided voters, and show their local audiences that when two people are in love, equality is the bare minimum that they deserve.

Following “The Wedding Matters” and “Say Yes to Love,” EIET will brainstorm, create, produce and launch further campaigns as necessary, until fighting for Marriage Equality is a thing of the past.