How Shonda Rhimes and Morgan Freeman combined to give 'Hillary' a Hollywood makeover

The industry celebrities worked on a 12 minute film about the candidate

“Andy crawled to freedom through 500 yards of s**8 smelling foulness I can’t even imagine, or maybe I just don't want to. Five hundred yards – that’s the length of five football fields, just shy of half a mile.”

If the narrator introducing Hillary Clinton at the Democratic convention sounded familiar, that is because you have heard him speak many times before. And if the video of her life’s highlights and achievements looked like it had been put together by a major director, well that’s because...

The Democratic candidate received a complete Hollywood makeover on Thursday night, courtesy of a number of the A-list names that are backing her campaign.

Ms Clinton pitched herself in sharp contrast to Donald Trump (AP)

The voiceover that accompanies the film, entitled simply Hillary, comes courtesy of Morgan Freeman, who played the prison inmate who spoke about the character Andy Dufresne escaping by crawling from a sewer in The Shawshank Redemption. And the 12-minute film itself was created by Scandal director Shonda Rhimes, and producer Betsy Beers.

The film includes interviews with former President Bill Clinton, President Barack Obama, a survivor of the 9/11 attacks and a member of the emergency response teams. It also features a childhood friend of the candidate, and talked response about the impact of her Ms Clinton’s mother, Dorothy.

Morgan Freeman provided the narration

“Here is a woman. What does she dream of? When does she feel proud,” begins Freeman, over bubbling, cinematic music. “How many times will she leave her mark? How many times will she light up the world.”

The films contributors include Mr Obama, who says there is a “joy and a mirth” to Ms Clinton that the public does not normally see. Debbie St John, a survivor of the al-Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington, says she remembers Ms Clinton, at the time just nine months into her first term as a New York senator, holding her hand. “I remember she tried to soothe me.”

The intention of this week’s convention has been not only to create an image of party unity after a hard-fought primary campaign from which some Bernie Sanders supporters are still smarting, but to promote the party’s candidate as a woman of action, compassion and humanity. For all her grasp of the details, for all her being “best qualified” for the White House, many people still fail to see the real person behind her sometimes robotic appearances.

Because of that, the film’s creators included interviews with Ms Clinton, dressed smartly but casually, looking friendly but determined.

Ms Rhines, whose credits as a writer and producer also include Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice, said she felt “honoured” to be involved in the production of the film. She told People: “I wanted everyone who sees it to feel like they were sitting with a friend, drinking coffee, so that had to be authentic.”

She added: “Hillary drank tea, actually. You can’t drink coffee for five hours and expect her not to bounce off the walls.”

Shonda Rhimes produced the film (Rex)

JJ Abrams, the man behind Star Wars: The Force Awakens, produced the introduction video for First Lady Michelle Obama that was shown on Tuesday at the convention.

Actor Jon Voight narrated a similar video for Donald Trump when the billionaire businessman accepted the Republican presidential nomination last week in Cleveland.

Ms Clinton’s film concludes with piano scales, and then the candidate intoning: “I hope to unify the country. I hope to bring people together.”

Then, as orchestral strings rises to a climax, it is Freeman who has the final words. “How many times will she leave her mark? How many times will she light up the world. This is the woman.”