A4 cover story Jonathan Demme Produces New Documentary
on New Orleans Tragedy with JBFC Media Lab By Jim Ormond
Leaning forward on a couch at the Jacob Burns Film Center (JBFC) in Pleasantville, Academy Award winning Director Jonathan Demme makes a somewhat surprising statement. “I would be happy spending the rest of my life making documentaries about New Orleans,” he says. “This is a gigantic American story.”
Demme is at the JBFC playing a new role: resident artist/ director/mentor in its new media arts lab. Currently, he and a JBFC team are editing his latest documentary.
"The most under-reported story of the New Orleans tragedy is the heroic struggles that people like Carolyn Parker are going through.“
“You might say that this project has a salon feel," says the JBFC’s Managing Director Dominick Balletta. “To have a Director of Jonathan’s caliber working here is one thing, but he really has made himself accessible to our students.”
It's a great opportunity for the students, when you realize Demme’s directing credits include major motion pictures such as The Silence of the Lambs, the Oscar-
My Favorite American tells the story of Carolyn Parker, a resident of New Orleans’ Ninth Ward neighborhood who has been struggling for five years to refurbish her home and return to it in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. My Favorite American will be broadcast on POV, a PBS program that presents independent films, and will later be presented at film festivals.
During a four-year period,
Demme traveled to New Orleans more than 20 times, filming Parker as she confronts a bureaucratic morass in her quest for assistance.
“The most under-reported story of the New Orleans tragedy is the heroic struggles that people like Carolyn Parker are going through, “ says Demme.
Despite the long hours to finish the film, the project has a casual and creative vibe. In the morning, you might find Demme and Israeli film maker Ido Haar, one of the JBFC’s former International Filmmakers in Residence, peering over footage in an editing suite. Later, during a break, Demme and his dogs Mimi and Biscuit may stroll through the JBFC’s mezzanine admiring student work.
Demme believes that advances in technology, as well as new platforms to distribute films, are making film education especially relevant to a 21st century education.
Director Jonathan Demme works with students at the Jacob Burns FIlm Center's Media Arts Lab. Photo by Lynda Shenkman Curtis
winning thriller featuring Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins, and Philadelphia, the acclaimed AIDS drama starring Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington.
“I still love doing fiction movies,” adds Demme, “but it is getting harder and harder to find a script that will justify me devoting a year and a half of my life to it.”
By contrast, he has been following a five-year muse with his latest project, a documentary entitled My Favorite American, a film he is co-producing with the Jacob Burns Film Center’s Media and Education Lab.
For example, of the ubiquitous video-sharing site YouTube, Demme concludes, “I think YouTube is one of the most exciting cinematic experiences to come around in a long time. Think about it…you have film- makers who are getting paid nothing, to make a film for nothing, and who are sharing it with people around the world who can view it for nothing. It is all very democratizing.”
In addition to its efforts to integrate film education into the K-12 curriculum, the JBFC’s Media and Education Lab offers a number of fee-based classes on all aspects of film production and animation for children and adults.
For more information on the Jacob Burns Film Center, including a list of upcoming winter/spring filmmaking classes, visit
www.burnsfilmcenter.org.
Producer Jill Peters Presents Art Through Time: A Global View for PBS
At the end of a movie or television program, numerous credits scroll to list all of the people involved with the production. The Executive Producer is typically the first (or last) person to be mentioned. And dur- ing the Oscars or Emmy Awards, when a television show or film receives top honors, it is normally the Executive Producer who accepts the award. So what exactly does an Executive Producer do?
Jill Peters, Producer from Croton
According to Croton resident Jill Peters, the Ex- ecutive Producer and Creative Director in THIR- TEEN’s Children’s and Educational Programming Unit, an Executive Producer needs to be equal parts bursar, hiring manager, editor, coach, and troubleshooter.
"
...an Executive Producer needs to be equal parts bursar, hiring manager, editor, coach, and troubleshooter."
For her most recent project, Art Through Time: A Global View, Peters brought together dozens of professionals, including writers, editors, designers and art historians to present art history in a fresh new way. Unlike many previous art series on tele- vision, which follow the history of art chronologi- cally, from cave paintings to 20th century art, Art Through Time takes a thematic approach to art.
Episode One, for example, is titled “Converging Cultures,” and viewers learn how trade routes resulted in African ivory carvings depicting Por- tugese traders, or how Turkish ceramics emulate Chinese porcelain. In Episode Six, titled “Death,” viewers are asked to consider how the Egyptian Book of the Dead and early American commemo- rative miniatures might express the same human need to come to terms with grief and mortality.
According to Peters, the need to distill three-thou- sand years of Art History into six and a-half-hours of television was the most daunting aspect of the project. “Somehow, when it all comes together it is very gratifying. It is a privilege to do what I do.”
Art Through Time: A Global View was made pos- sible with a grant from Annenberg Media. To watch the series online, visit
www.learner.org/ courses/globalart
Westchester County Business Journal • ARTSWNEWS
JANUARY 2011
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17