Bakersfield big part of Rick McMann’s production

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — Bakersfield High graduate Rick McMann has been a working actor for years mostly in small independent projects. While he was living in Bakersfield, there were opportunities to go to Los Angeles for work or acting classes. Now that he lives in Denver, there are less options so McMann finally decided to take the leap and produce his own independent project that would serve as a pilot for a potential TV series.

That initial effort, “Livin’ in Black & White,” is now available on YouTube. The streaming service is a way to get attention to his project around the world while dealing with a limited budget.

The story unfolds in Denver’s Cherry Hills suburb where a successful Black Republican music executive from Denver’s inner city ends up living with a struggling high school football coach from rural Bakersfield. The country-music-loving Democrat with small-town roots takes up residence in the luxury home of the music executive, setting up a clash of cultures, ideas and politics from very different points of view designed to flip expectations of race and party identity.

McMann not only created the pilot and wrote the script, but he also directed and produced it.

“The concept came really over years of thinking about what I might want to do about the divisiveness of the country, I think that helped solidify it for me,” McMann says. “Little did I know when I wrote the show roughly a year ago where we are today, which is probably even more divisive than we were even a year ago.”

There are plenty of political elements in ‘Livin’ in Black & White’ but McMann did not create the program with a particular agenda. His approach is to poke fun at both sides of the political aisle while also posing questions as to why people of various backgrounds can’t close the divide and treat each other’s differences as strengths rather than weaknesses.

“It’s pretty timely. The message really is of unity. Of finding the middle with differences, whether it be culturally, racially, economically, politically.,” McMann says. “I don’t want to make this show about politics, and I want to take sides one way or the other.

“I want to show that actually there’s two characters in the show that are really lovable characters and they’re both completely different. That kind of says something about our society that we, no matter what side of the aisle you’re on, no matter what racial background you have or cultural background, there’s lovable characters on both sides of the aisle.”

The pilot was created using a lot of local and regional talent both in front of and behind the camera. The cast includes TK Russell, Mark Dwyer, Nick Steitz, Charise Hayward, Paxton Dwyer, Delores Schaack, Mia Berlin, Michelle Roberts, Rebecca Williams, Olivia Moody and Alex Toderica.

McMann’s plan was to concentrate on the production elements but ended up casting himself in a small role. His wife, Nadia McMann, and their dog also appear in the project.

His structure of the production from the start was to film the project in Denver but make sure there was a heavy dose of Bakersfield in the story.

“I’m very, I’m very proud of Denver, just like I’m very proud of Bakersfield and that’s the reason I wanted to weave it in. When it’s been mentioned by comedians, or any TV series, it’s usually in a negative connotation,” McMann says. “I wanted to make it show that there’s actually a really great positive connotation here to Bakersfield.”

His main nod to Bakersfield is with the character Big Hoss who is a salt of the earth kind of a guy. He shows how there’s a lot more to Bakersfield than the oil wells and agricultural fields that surround it.

The episode is a test balloon for McMann to generate interest in the project. He is open to any idea of keeping the story alive from the show getting enough funding to produce the 10-episode first season to a studio buying the concept and making it with a different cast and crew.

It is now a matter of waiting to see how much response the pilot gets. Those who want to see it can go to YouTube @LBWSitcom or do a Google search for “Livin’ in Black & White” to get a link. Until he knows the outcome, McMann is continuing his day job that came from his study of Finance at California State University Bakersfield.

He says without a day job he would be a starving artist.

“The big dream would be. Somebody picks this up. That’s huge enough for me,” McMann says. “I don’t necessarily need the money for it, but at the end of the day, if I had the money for it. I would love to be able to pay my cast and crew what I really think they deserve.

“I’d love to be able to see this thing really take off around the country and around the world on YouTube.”

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