“Grassroots” is always a positive term. Whenever I hear about a “grassroots campaign” or “grassroots support” for a candidate, my interest is automatically piqued: somebody cares enough to do something themselves, to step out on a limb.

In the same vein, in Hollywood, there’s a lot of respect for the “indie” spirit: the real do-ers who grab a camera, get their friends together and make something original. I got my start in entertainment in the 90’s, when there was a palpable sense that the true artists were the ones who didn’t worry what people thought and didn’t bother following the rules or waiting for a studio to give them the go ahead.

But the truth is, actually being grassroots or being indie yourself — it’s terrifying.

I’ve never been either. Sure, I’ve acted in independent films and I’ve protested plenty…but I’d never exhibited the sort of self-motivation that a grassroots or indie project, by definition, requires.

So when I got a mass e-mail from MoveOn.org announcing their “Obama in 30 Seconds” contest — an open call to make a campaign commercial in support of Obama — I read it with a vague kind of dread. This was something I was probably well equipped to do. Something I believed in.

I brought up the contest with my girlfriend and my brother, who are also in the industry and also fellow Obama supporters. We brainstormed. We doodled storyboards. We talked about the amazing people we could enlist to help us out.

But we couldn’t actually pull the trigger. We’d stop every few minutes to ask one another, “Wait — are we really going to do this?”

Because there were lots of reasons not to. The three of us were busy: auditions, jobs, school. None of us could afford to pay anybody, so we’d have to solicit a lot of favors (i.e., beg).

But I don’t think any of that was truly holding us back. It was something else.

When I was honest with myself, what I really wanted was to have a good idea for an Obama commercial, and then have an even better excuse to not be able to film it. That way, I could click on MoveOn’s website, watch the videos that did enter the contest and think smugly, “I could’ve done one, too….you know, if I just hadn’t been so busy that week.” It would be safer, in terms of my ego, to not do anything.

And that’s the real barrier to endeavors that are grassroots, or indie: the personal fear of failure. You’re terrified no one will want to join your project. It’s one thing to have a political conviction but it’s quite another to go knock on your neighbor’s door and tell them about a candidate you support. Just like it’s one thing to have good tastein movies, quite another to grab a camera and direct one. People are afraid to take political stands the same way that they’re afraid to take on artistic endeavors — both run the risk of alienation.

In this instance, these two fears were stacked on top of one another, and they formed a pretty intimidating wall. We went to bed after our day of brainstorming without a decision.

But in the early hours of the morning, I realized that the only way we could fail would be to not film something. In politics, and in art, real failure is not following through with your convictions. Which at its mildest, leads to asad compromise and at its worst, a tragic hypocrisy.

Which meant that if I actually believed in the phrase “audacity of hope,” I should probably have the audacity to get off my ass.

It was time to put my camera where my mouth was. It was time to follow through with my convictions.

And here was the crazy thing: once we decided to do it, it was the most satisfying project I’ve ever been a part of. Everyone wanted to help. The moment we said we were in production, it was like a magnet; we started getting phone calls from friends of friends asking how they could jump on board. We had a full soundstage, two cameras, 12 actors, a lighting package (and yes, a baby chicken) all for free. We only had to pay for pizza.

MoveOn registered over 1,100 videos in their contest. Considering each video probably had at least 10 crew members, that means a lot of people were going through the same process we were — a perfect marriage of a grassroots campaign and indie production.

We ended up making a comedy *commercial but what I got out of the process was completely earnest: the knowledge that the hardest step on the way to anything grassroots, anything indie, is the first one…getting over yourself.

–Rider Strong

*Strong’s entry, “It Could Happen to You,” won the Funniest Ad award in MoveOn’s contest