Seven films. Cut from one production block. A campaign that argues local politics matters more than national politics, and films made to embody the argument.
Manny Kess is a Naval Academy graduate who survived the 2008 Recession, moved to Las Vegas in 2011, built a hospitality group from scratch in 2012, and posted his real cell phone on the internet when he declared his candidacy in December 2025. He answers it.
He has made fourteen years of payrolls. He has fought permit boards. He has fired people. He has hired people. He has looked someone in the eye and said no when they wanted him to look the other way. He is not a career politician and he is not for sale.
He sounds like himself when he talks. The films should let him.
"I do not owe favors. I owe people."
"Different background. Different commission."
"Try me. Seven oh two, two seven seven, one oh seven two."
"I read every reply. I answer my own phone."
"The post doesn't honor anyone. The visit does."
"Read the names out loud, if you can."
A surgical universe of eight thousand three hundred seventy-one Republican primary voters in Clark County, Nevada. They have seen every politician on earth and have a filter the films must clear in the first five seconds.
Plainspoken-American. Closer to Anthony Bourdain's voiceover than a campaign speech. Short declarative sentences. No Manny sentence exceeds fourteen words on camera. Specifics over abstractions. Em dashes forbidden. The word "very" never appears.
Each film below is the campaign's starting material. Your interpretation is the deliverable.
The campaign's hero piece. Two minutes that say what a working county sounds like when one of its working people decides to run.
A slow build of real Clark County images. Sunrises over Henderson rooftops. A kitchen line at six AM. A permit office under fluorescent overhead. An empty commission chamber at dusk. All of it moves under Manny's voice, naming the things most candidates have never done.
The film resolves to him on a sidewalk at golden hour, the music drops out, and he delivers the one line direct to camera. In silence.
"I am running because I am tired of watching people who have never built anything tell the people who built everything how to live."
The candidate's elevator pitch as moving image. Five named life chapters delivered to camera, each underscored by one archival or photographic image.
Naval Academy. The Recession. Vegas, two thousand eleven. The Kess Group, twenty twelve. And now this.
Single setup. Single take. A face holding a thought longer than is comfortable.
"Different background. Different commission."
One full weekday. From 5:30 AM until 9 PM. A camera with the candidate. No script. No questions. No staged moments.
The morning he actually has. The kitchen prep he actually walks. The meeting he actually takes. The drive between two locations alone. Lunch with whoever he actually eats lunch with. An hour somewhere unglamorous. Family dinner, until the moment the camera would stop being honest.
The footage IS the asset. Six months of cuts come out of one day.
"I read every reply. I answer my own phone."
The post that gets screenshotted. Tight chest-up framing on Manny against black. Three things people say about politicians. Three "nopes." One line.
Built to land in fifteen seconds on a phone with the sound off. Captions snap in like a Saul Bass title sequence.
"I do not owe favors. I owe people."
The single most ownable differentiator in the entire package. Manny is the only candidate in Clark County who posts his actual cell phone. The film makes that the entire message.
His real phone. His real contact card on screen. The camera pushes in until the number fills the frame. His voice plays off-camera.
One thing worth knowing: his phone will be live during the shoot. If it rings, he'll likely take the call.
"Name a candidate in Clark County who posts their cell phone on the internet. I'll wait."
A single recognizable Henderson exterior. Walk-and-talk. The camera tracks Manny as he names who he's actually running for.
Restaurant owners. Line cooks. The lady who fought a permit board for six months. The guy who hires every local kid he can.
The neighborhood behind him is the second protagonist. Place is character. A District E voter recognizes the spot without being told.
"That is who I see when I walk through here. That is who I want in the room when I am at the commission table."
The film that cannot be made by a crew. Selfie. iPhone. Vertical. Manny holds his own phone and records in whatever room he is in when he records it.
The aesthetic IS the message. This candidate does not need a production team to talk to voters. He talks to them on a phone like everyone else.
Released the morning before each event. Three template variants live in this format: event invite, news reaction, holiday acknowledgment.
"Hey. It is Manny."
Tonal final cut, in collaboration with the candidate.
Direct access to the talent. Seven oh two, two seven seven, one oh seven two. Answered personally, any hour.
A campaign that treats the work as work, not as ad inventory.
The films will outlast the result of this race. The campaign is looking for a director willing to make work that matters that long.
If that is you, let's talk.