Watch The Kitchen’s delightful take on ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ in honor of Governor Markell

Imagine a Delaware without the job training, financial literacy and early education programs Governor Jack Markell helped introduce and bolster across the state. No gay marriage, no expansions for substance abuse treatments, no college access programs. What would Delaware look like if those programs and policies never came to be?
It might look a lot like this video produced by Wilmington production company The Kitchen. The clip is an homage to iconic 1946 film It’s A Wonderful Life and, as such, plays out those what-if scenarios in fantastic retrospect.
“Being Governor has certainly been a wonderful life,” Markell wrote on his Facebook, where he shared the video.

“The governor’s office came to us with the intention of leaving behind a piece that not only highlighted what they accomplished, but sort of encouraged everybody to continue with these efforts,” said Kitchen founder Zach Phillips.
Phillips said Markell and company originally wanted to shoot a talking head video, but the filmmaker, whose company screens It’s A Wonderful Life on 35mm film every holiday season, opted for something riskier.
“I thought it was likely going to be an utter failure,” said Phillips, who has now produced three of these clips for the governor (all of which, by the way, have to do with Markell leaving office).
Right now, the video has 87,000 views on the governor’s Facebook page.
“Our brains are basically wired to ignore anything that doesn’t have conflict in it. Conflict is what creates interest,” said Phillips. “If you want information to get out there to more people, you have to package it inside a story that has basic conflict and drama.”