Adrian Baker on Animating Native American Oral History

Posted on March 13, 2013 by ITVS Staff

By Rebecca Huval
Originally posted on the Independent Lens Blog

Sometimes, the shameful chapters of our past deserve to be excavated through an animated short, the form du jour for oral history projects such as StoryCorps. From the PBS Online Film Festival, the short documentary Injunuity: Buried features the story of a Native American burial ground and shellmound recently built over by a Bay Area mall.

Adrian Baker, director of Injunuity, one of 25 short videos in the PBS 2013 Online Film Festival

Buried will be available on the PBS Online Film Festival webpage and the rest of the shorts will soon be available on the Injunuity website. The series captures field recordings of Native Americans who dissect issues such as Native American language preservation and education, remixed as three-minute animations in a variety of styles. The 25 films in the overall festival will be available between March 4 to 22.

Director Adrian Baker shared with us the inspiration for his cinematic collages and animations that capture modern-day Native American issues, as well as the stories of our shared past.

1. Why did you structure these stories in three-minute shorts?

There are so many issues to talk about and discuss, so many problems that need our attention. So rather than setting out to solve all of these issues or come to hard and fast conclusions, instead, I wanted to create starting points for discussions more than anything else. In three minutes you can create that foundation that’s necessary to begin meaningful dialog, but where it goes from there is up to the viewer, or the teacher who watches it with their classroom, or the parent who watches it with their child.

I also wanted to create pieces that fit into today’s quick twitch lifestyle where more media is being consumed in shorter amounts of time. The fixed running time model that we have for television is being replaced by the free form of the web, where time length isn’t dictated by commercial concerns or by what comes on before or after. And really, all you have to do is take a look at anyone’s Facebook feed to see that there are more and more shorter pieces of content being passed around and shared. Today’s viewer is on the go, watching a smart phone for ten minutes on BART [the Bay Area's commuter rail service]. So there is a growing market for shorter content. But what may be the best thing about the three-minute short is that, even if the viewer doesn’t like it that much, no matter where you are in the piece, even if it’s just beginning, it’s almost over. Continue reading →

Up Next From the Half the Sky Movement

Posted on March 4, 2013 by ITVS Staff

On March 4th, the Half the Sky Movement releases a wide-reaching Facebook game designed to inspire many.

The Half the Sky Movement is cutting across platforms to ignite the change needed to put an end to the oppression of women and girls worldwide, the defining issue of our time. Inspired by journalists Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s book of the same name, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide brings together video, websites, games, blogs and other educational tools to not only raise awareness of women’s issues, but to also provide concrete steps to fight these problems and empower women. Change is possible, and you can be part of the solution.

Last year, the movement released the documentary series as a special presentation of Independent Lens on PBS, making decisions along the way that would help the series reach a wider audience and bring awareness to the work of the nonprofits on the ground in 10 countries. This proved successful when the October broadcast garnered one billion mentions on social media – a true feat for a 4-hour long documentary on these sensitive issues. Continue reading →

So Long Black History Month. It’s Been Real.

Posted on February 27, 2013 by ITVS Staff

To celebrate the final week of Black History Month, Independent Lens is currently streaming More Than A Month on PBS video. In his documentary, Shukree Tilghman explains that relegating Black History Month to the coldest, shortest month of the year is an insult, and that black history is not separate from American history. In this update from the filmmaker, Tilghman officially resigns from Black History Month and explains his reasons for doing so.

Director Shukree Tilghman wears a protest sign in Harlem.

To Whom It May Concern:

It is with great sadness that I must submit my resignation and hereby retire from Black History Month, effective Thursday the 28^th of February 2013.

It’s been a little over a year since my film More Than A Month, in which I wrestle with the notion of ending Black History Month, first aired on the PBS series Independent Lens, which has been a tremendously gratifying and humbling experience. I still get goosebumps when a perfect stranger talks about seeing the film and enjoying it – even “Richie from Brooklyn,” the steamfitter who somehow found my phone number and called me to say, in his thick Brooklyn accent, “the black kids should be looking up to people like Oprah Winfrey. Maybe they wouldn’t get into so much trouble.”

I’m not sure Richie understood the film. That’s okay, I suppose. At least More Than A Month made him think (and go to great lengths to find my phone number). Continue reading →

Alison Klayman on Filming Ai Weiwei

Posted on February 22, 2013 by ITVS Staff

Independent Lens sat down with filmmaker Alison Klayman to talk about the joys and challenges of filming China’s most famous artist and dissident, Ai Weiwei. Her film, Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, premieres on Independent Lens February 25 at 10 PM (check local listings).

Ai Weiwei is arguably the most internationally celebrated Chinese artist of the modern era. At heart, he is a troublemaker with a serious agenda: to challenge the oppression of the Chinese people by their government with rebellious and irreverent gestures. His activism has cost him his freedom repeatedly, but he never seems to lose his childlike approach to serious dissidence executed with a wink. But what was it like to film such a celebrated and controversial figure? Filmmaker Alison Klayman gives us insider access to the one and only Ai Weiwei.

Filmmaker Alison Klayman with Ai Weiwei

What impact do you hope this film will have?

I believe there are several layers of impact to the film. The first is that people get to know Ai Weiwei as a person, going behind the headlines and the iconography. As a documentary film, Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry is able to provide a much more intimate understanding of Ai Weiwei’s character and motivations than a short news story can, and it hopefully means that audiences will follow his case as it continues to develop.

By watching the film people also get a window into many aspects of contemporary China they might not have seen before. I hope it shows China as a complex place, with lots of diversity of opinion and a rich community of artists, activists and young people who care about improving their country.

Most importantly, though, are the universal lessons contained in the film. It’s really a story about individual courage, about how creativity and finding your voice can lead to change, how social media is transforming our world, how rule of law and transparency and freedom of expression are important in any society.

What led you to make this film?

When I graduated from Brown University in 2006 I wanted to travel abroad to have adventures, learn new languages, and try to start a career as a journalist and documentary filmmaker. I started my journey by going on a five-month trip to China with a college classmate, and I unexpectedly ended up staying there for four years.

It wasn’t until 2008 that I first met Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. My first few weeks of filming were enough to convince me that he was a charismatic and fascinating character, and that I wanted to dig deeper into his story. I wanted to know more about who Ai Weiwei really was, what motivates his art and activism, and what would happen to him. I also thought that people around the world would learn something new about China by being introduced to him. Continue reading →

L.C. and Daisy Bates: The True Meaning of Unconditional Love

Posted on February 19, 2013 by ITVS Staff

By Sharon La Cruise
Director, Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock

As a black woman who was a feminist before the term was invented, Daisy Bates refused to accept her assigned place in society. Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock tells the story of her life and public support of nine black students to attend the all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, which culminated in a constitutional crisis—pitting a president against a governor and a community against itself. Filmmaker Sharon La Cruise shares a personal side to Daisy not covered in the documentary, which is currently streaming on PBS Video.

Daisy and L.C. at State Press

With another Valentine’s Day behind us, I’ve found myself thinking about Daisy and L.C. Bates and their unusual love story. The complexity of their relationship always fascinated me, ever since my first visit to Arkansas in 2004. I was there in search of a saint named Daisy Bates, whom I wanted to feature in my first documentary.

I had become enamored with Daisy and was on a mission to meet the people who knew her best. Much to my surprise, I found out there was no “Saint Daisy” and that, according to residents of Little Rock, her husband, L.C. Bates, was the true saint for putting up with her and the many unpardonable sins committed during the course of their marriage.

The couple had met when Daisy was fifteen and L.C. was twenty-seven years old. In photographs, L.C. never looked particularly young—he always gave the sense of being perpetually old. Daisy, however, was stunning and oozed sex like the 1950s movie stars Dorothy Dandridge and Lena Horne. In private, Daisy admitted to close friends that she didn’t always love L.C. As I pieced together their life stories, I realized Daisy had suffered a horrible childhood trauma while growing up in Arkansas. When they met, Daisy was an angry teenager trying to come to terms with the rape and murder of her mother and her father’s abandonment.

L.C. drove into the town selling life insurance and instantly became Daisy’s ticket out. But L.C. was married, which meant Daisy was stuck being his mistress for the next ten years. During that time Daisy made sure L.C. felt both her love and her wrath. When they fought it was not unusual for Daisy to throw plates at L.C.’s head. Continue reading →

Powerbroker Filmmaker Bonnie Boswell on How Her Youth Shaped Her Film

Posted on February 15, 2013 by ITVS Staff

Filmmaker Bonnie Boswell has an unusually close tie to her forthcoming film, The Powerbroker: Whitney Young’s Fight for Civil Rights. Whitney Young, Jr., was her uncle and his parents helped raise her. Independent Lens sat down with Boswell to learn more about how her early life influenced her film. The Powerbroker premieres February 18 at 10pm PST on PBS (check local listings).

Watch Spotlight on Civil Rights Leader Whitney Young, Jr. on PBS. See more from Independent Lens.

You didn’t just do a documentary on something that interested you. You did it on something you lived.

Yes, my early childhood was spent at Lincoln Institute, a black boarding high school in Kentucky where my grandfather was principal and my uncle was born. My grandparents raised me. If you came into their orbit, they raised you. My grandmom was supermom.

What was one of their main influences on you?

Both of my grandparents taught all of us on campus that despite the ills of segregation, never succumb to anger. “Don’t get mad, get smart,” they said. “Never let anyone drag you so low as to hate them.” These words of wisdom, I believe, helped Whitney Young become the great mediator of the 1960s civil rights movement. Continue reading →

Brad Lichtenstein on How BizVizz Can Help You Shop Smarter

Posted on February 5, 2013 by ITVS Staff

Filmmaker Brad Lichtenstein, the man behind the new app BizVizz

BizVizz is a brand-new free iPhone app that makes corporate behavior transparent and available to all. Just snap a picture of a brand’s logo or bar code, and presto: A simple, graphic screen tells you the financial truth about 300 of America’s largest corporations.

Independent Lens sat down with BizVizz co-founder Brad Lichtenstein, the filmmaker behind the award-winning PBS Independent Lens documentary, As Goes Janesville, to find out more about the app.

Congratulations on BizVizz going live! OK, so let’s set the scene for the app’s practical use. I’m shopping. I see my favorite cereal, and scan the logo on my smartphone using BizVizz. Up pops all kinds of information about the company: profits, donations, taxes paid, government subsidies, etc. What am I supposed to do with this information?

A lot of people these days are very conscious of how the products they use and consume are made. Fair trade, green, how a company treats its workforce — these are values people care about. We think BizVizz is another way for people to shop their values, especially when we are into our fifth year of economic recovery and asked to sacrifice.

We think people will care when they learn that one company pays their fair share of taxes vs. another that pays none at all. BizVizz is such an easy way for people to find out this information, plus it’s fun to take pictures of logos — though maybe not so fun to learn that all of the brands on the typical grocery shelf lead to just a couple of companies.

Could an app that easily reveals this kind of information be seen by some as anti-business?
BizVizz shows that this exerting influence is not a Republican or Democratic thing. It’s a power thing. Ordinary citizens don’t have the political muscle to write tax laws. We think of BizVizz as a tool to give people like you and me some power to point out how the system is unfair, and influence on the law-making process is something that money buys in America, which ultimately corrupts our democracy. Continue reading →

Introducing BizVizz: A Corporate Responsibility App Inspired by ‘As Goes Janesville’

Posted on February 4, 2013 by ITVS Staff

By Brad Lichtenstein
Director, As Goes Janesville

Inspired by the Independent Lens film As Goes Janesville, the BizVizz app serves as the transmedia component of the documentary, enlightening users how specific companies behave when it comes to corporate and social responsibility.

There’s a scene in As Goes Janesville (airing tonight on Independent Lens), towards the end, where the city council votes to approve a $9 million incentive package for Shine Medical Technologies. Shine is a startup looking for a town in which to set up their medical isotope operation and, like many companies, it is compelling cities to compete with offers. Though Janesville is desperate for jobs after losing their GM plant, $9 million is 20% of their budget. This is the scene that inspired BizVizz, our corporate accountability app.

I was aghast when filming this scene. There was no public hearing prior to the vote. There was no public disclosure of a third party audit of Shine Medical. While the City Manager of Janesville expressed some reservations to me on camera, there was barely an opportunity, through the media or otherwise, for those reservations to be discussed by the taxpayers who were footing the bill. What galled me was not so much the gamble with public money, but how the democratic process was subverted. A selected handful of business leaders working behind closed doors with the city council were deciding what to do with the public’s money.

One brave guy stood up just before the city council vote and said “ I feel like a pair of brown shoes in a room full of tuxedos….nine million dollars…maybe 125 jobs…no guarantees.” That’s what I felt like with my camera, observing this unfold: a pair of brown shoes in a room full of tuxedos. I badgered my subjects with questions about why this deal was never put before the public but none of them felt that democracy required the public to know or engage more, beyond the role city council played.

What happened in Janesville happens everyday in America.

BizVizz is an attempt to give the public more access to corporate behavior. Corporations spend millions on their image and message so that we don’t question what they do. We figured people might like to know how much a company pays in taxes, if they receive government subsidies, and who they support with campaign contributions. All the information found on BizVizz is shareable on Facebook and Twitter, helping to put a little power back into the hands of ordinary people. Continue reading →

ITVS Names Claire Aguilar as Executive Content Advisor

Posted on February 1, 2013 by ITVS Staff

ITVS is happy to announce that Vice President of Programming Claire Aguilar has been named Executive Content Advisor.

In this new consulting role, Claire will provide high-level, portfolio analysis and content feedback under the direction of Jim Sommers, Senior Vice President of Content and head of ITVS’ Content Strategy Team. With a focus on recommending content for ITVS International and selected public television series, Claire will also continue to co-curate programming for Independent Lens.

Previously, Claire served as head of ITVS’s programming department. She joined the organization in 2000 from public television station KCET/Los Angeles, where she programmed the station’s schedule and managed programming acquisitions. Earlier in her career, Claire worked as a film programmer at the UCLA Film and Television Archive, one of the leading exhibition venues for international documentary and classic Hollywood films. She has served as a programming consultant and panelist for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Rockefeller Foundation, the NEA, the Pew Fellowships in the Arts, and many other media and funding organizations. She has also led and participated in film juries for IDFA, Sheffield Doc/Fest, Silverdocs and Visions du Réel. Claire holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communications Studies and a Master of Arts in Film and Television Studies from UCLA. She serves on the board of Women Make Movies, STEPS International, and the EURODOC Steering Committee.

For more information, please click here.