PUBLIC ACCESS SITCOM
If you don't fit you'll fit in here.
The year is 1992.
Based on a true story
PUBLIC ACCESS TRAILER
Adam
“Public Access” is the story of early 30’s Adam Shaffer, a struggling New York City filmmaker. Adam borrowed money from everyone he knew in order make his arty masterpiece, “Love in the Loveless City.” The film was a complete failure and now Adam, swimming in debt, has been evicted from his apartment. He survives by couch surfing at friends’ apartments for months, but has run out of friends and couches. By the time Adam is offered the job of director of Public Access Channel 18 in Iowa City, Iowa, he’s run out of choices. He leaves the skyscrapers for the cornfields. Bewildered and unprepared, he must fight battles for people he has only just met and barely understands. Stacy Smith, the CEO of CableCorp Iowa is driven by one goal, to shut down Public Access Iowa City. Stacy despises the PATV crew for their strange behavior, obsession with sci-fi movies, and knee-jerk commitment to social justice for all.
THE WORLD OF PUBLIC ACCESS
The People:
In the 1970s, in the name of free speech, the federal government created Public Access Television Stations and provided PATV with fully functioning studios, valuable equipment, and a small, dedicated staff. In a single brilliant legislative stroke, seers and lunatics were given equal access to the airwaves. By in large, the seers had better things to do. By default, outsiders, nut jobs, and crazies were given entrée into the same cable that the big networks occupied.
PATV gives social outcasts a family, a dream, and the one place on earth they can feel at home. Attention, American television viewers! Welcome to a world where everyone can be a star. Welcome to a place where all you need is love, and no one will ever tell you to clean your room or take a bath.
PATV Must Die:
Cable companies are required to fund Public Access Television Stations. No advertising is allowed. Cable Corporations lose millions of dollars funding Public Access Stations. Armies of well-paid corporate lawyers search for loopholes in the contracts. Are the Public Access crazies fighting a lost cause? Will Adam Schaeffer, with his Big Apple attitude and lofty filmmaker dreams be able to save PATV?
Stacy Smith
Stacy Smith, the CEO of CableCorp Iowa is determined to shut down Public Access Iowa City using any means necessary. CableCorp wants the bandwidth but Stacy wants blood. Public Access is the home and playground for the Iowa City misfits. Stacy is disgusted by the PATV crew for their strange behavior and obsession with sci-fi movies and social justice. Adam will have to fend off Stacy at every turn if PATV is to survive. Back in New York life hit Adam with a string of punches that weakened his confidence in himself. As director of PATV Iowa City Adam must find the strength to defend his unruly band of outcasts from the iron fist of CableCorp. Adam will give everything he has to save the station and its members. As he fights for PATV Adam will find his own inner strength and overtime the rogue band of misfits that make up the PATV membership will become his family.
There is a world where the ability to speak Klingon fluently makes you a god among men. It is a universe where there are no conspiracy theories, only conspiracy facts. It is a place where the Armani business suit has been replaced by the tie-dye T-shirt and Birkenstocks. Congratulations! Turn on your TV! Twenty-four hours a day and at no cost to you the citizens of PATV fill your screen with third rate sci-fi epics, blurry images of big foot, and the “Taxidermy for Kids” show.
There is no better place to set a sitcom than Public Access Iowa City. At PATV Iowa City there is no quality control, only big dreams and low budgets. The spaceships may be made of styrofoam and Christmas lights and the actors may be as wooden as trees but the PATV producers believe their sci-fi productions rival the best works of Kubrick and Lucas. Yes, the citizens of PATV Iowa City taken as a whole could act as a comprehensive guide to the various flavors social awkwardness but there is so much more to them. Failure is in the eye of the beholder. The outside world sees eccentrics and weirdos but in reality PATV Iowa City is populated by brave souls who are deeply loyal to each other, their work and the station that is their home.