Google Works With GOP Video Maven to Tell Story of Paul Ryan's Young Guns

Tampa, FL – Later this week Republican National Convention goers attending a Google event will view a video presentation by a rising star in GOP web video and film direction. The film – which could end up online eventually – will highlight Google products along with showcasing a group co-founded by presumptive Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan.

YG Network – short for Young Guns – was co-founded by Ryan, a congressman from Wisconsin, along with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia and Republican Whip Kevin McCarthy of California. The video feature was created by Lucas Baiano (below) for Google in collaboration with YG Network.

Digital politics junkies will recognize the young film director’s name; he created some of the most viewed and talked-about videos of the early presidential primary campaigns last year for Tim Pawlenty and Rick Perry.

Since leaping from the Pawlenty to the Perry campaign in a matter of hours in August 2011, Baiano has continued working with various Republican Party groups and PACs, but he’s also entered the corporate branding scene, developing videos for firms including BMW.

The YG Network film is expected to combine those two worlds, highlighting YG Network and its goals of supporting young, edgy conservative congressional candidates, and spotlighting Google and its myriad web offerings including Maps, Search, YouTube, Google+ and Google+ Hangouts.

Though Baiano made a name for himself in the political sphere through his action-flick inspired campaign videos, the work he’s done in conjunction with the Google event can be expected to be more reminiscent of Google’s own ads than the intense web films that won him a slew of awards from the American Association of Political Consultants in 2011.

In fact, he likens it to the ad Google ran during the Super Bowl that tells the tale of an American finding love in Paris, France through Google search terms and results.

“It is quite entertaining as a director to decide exactly how you want the story to build and be told, utilizing Google’s framework and showcasing every component within their platform to connect with your new age audience. For this ad, the entire story is told through the eyes of the Google user,” noted Baiano.

Baiano got his start in political video backing Democrat Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential bid and later supported Republican John McCain in that election once Clinton lost the Democratic primaries. Since then, he’s worked with GOP candidates and groups.

Working with political clients isn’t much different from working with corporate clients, Baiano said.

“The number one objective is really being inspirational,” he told ClickZ last week. “It’s really connecting and engaging with that audience and really producing something that no one has ever seen.”

It’s unclear whether Baiano’s video is only for the eyes of the seemingly exclusive group who will attend the Google party to be held Thursday evening or if it will eventually make it’s way onto Google’s YouTube or elsewhere.

The YG Network will have a separate presence here at the RNC in Tampa. The group has a Women’s Pavilion in support of its Woman Up initiative which aims to “research, communicate and prioritize the issues most important to women,” an extremely important voting group Republicans need to woo away from the Democrats in order to win the 2012 presidential race.