Welcome to Overanalyzing Campaign Videos. A new, occasional feature where we do just that: Overanalyze (and ultimately judge) the TV spots and viral ads the candidates for office have unleashed on the unsuspecting public. We'll be using the classic Roger Ebert thumbs-up/thumbs-down scale, of course, and we begin this week with Joanna Rees starring in: "Innovation Capital". Let's watch it one time through:

First of all: AMAZING. Second: Easy there, Jojo. How many campaign dollars did it cost to get Pixar to do that opening whole-Earth zoom-in shot? Was it all of the campaign dollars? Because that looks expensive. Better tone it down a little with a snappy montage:

Russian director Sergei Eisenstein, once wrote that the purpose of montage was to create an idea through "the collision of independent thoughts." Basically, by violently editing snippets of film the director can associate two different ideas by smashing them right in to the passive viewer's passive brain. In this case, Rees' team is beating us over the head with the idea that she has, at various point in her campaign, talked to several people of various ethnicities and backgrounds.

But the camera loves Joanna as well. It can barely keep itself away from her. Just look at this slick camerawork:

As an example of by-the-book local TV camp, this is an admittedly well made video. The problem with that is, Joanna Rees wasn't going for campy. She's going for Innovation. She shot for "Next Level", but ended up with "iMovie Template". Mrs. Rees can afford deserves better than that. If she were really pushing for innovation she would have been on the phone yelling: "WHO'S THE JAMES CAMERON OF CAMPAIGN VIDEOS?? GET THAT GUY IN HERE" while gnawing off an intern's head, because of how that would be awesome. But we digress: We have to question her ability to produce results in City Hall if she can't even produce a compelling 30 second TV spot. Local politics isn't all greased lenses and walking off in to the sunset, after all:

Final rating: One thumbs-down, and we can already sense Joanna's disappointment:

But we're still gonna watch it 3 more times, because that narrator is spot-on.

Next time: John Avalos' Bike Porn.